It's Not Rocket Science

From the DUH department....

Scientists at NASA have found a correlation between solar activity cycles and the recent warming trends that the global-warbling greenieweenie alarmists have been telling us about - when they aren't talking about shutting down the skeptics by murder or enacting taxes of dubious repute. (Story from Science Daily here.)

Over the past century, Earth's average temperature has increased by approximately 0.6 degrees Celsius (1.1 degrees Fahrenheit). Solar heating accounts for about 0.15 C, or 25 percent, of this change, according to computer modeling results published by NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies researcher David Rind in 2004.

The sun is relatively calm compared to other stars. "We don't know what the sun is going to do a hundred years from now," said Doug Rabin, a solar physicist at Goddard. "It could be considerably more active and therefore have more influence on Earth's climate."

Or, it could be calmer, creating a cooler climate on Earth similar to what happened in the late 17th century. Almost no sunspots were observed on the sun's surface during the period from 1650 to 1715. This extended absence of solar activity may have been partly responsible for the Little Ice Age in Europe and may reflect cyclic or irregular changes in the sun's output over hundreds of years. During this period, winters in Europe were longer and colder by about 1 C than they are today.

I know that the man-as-the-measure-of-all-things ideology is comfortingly arrogant, but there are forces of nature that are beyond our control. And they have a much bigger impact on our planetary climate systems than does your choice between a Prius and an Land Rover. Heck...plankton probably have a bigger impact.

Since then, there seems to have been on average a slow increase in solar activity. Unless we find a way to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases we put into the atmosphere, such as carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning, the solar influence is not expected to dominate climate change. But the solar variations are expected to continue to modulate both warming and cooling trends at the level of 0.1 to 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.18 to 0.26 Fahrenheit) over many years.

Like many studies, this conclusion was based less on hard data and more on questionable correlations and inaccurate modeling techniques. (Not to mention that the political machine - both in national policy and academic policy - is shamelessly in the greenieweenie court.)

The inconvertible fact, here is that even NASA's own study acknowledges that solar variation has caused climate change in the past and is likely the main culprit for current trends. And even the study's members, mostly ardent supports of AGW theory, acknowledge that the sun may play a significant role in future climate changes.

More hard data at SORCE.

All I have to say is this: As Al Gore and other people who stand to make a lot of money from global warming scare tactics will tell you, “the science is settled.” Unless you drive a hybrid, stumble around in the dark at night, and only eat things you find in your yard, you’re killing the planet.

So I don’t see what a big fat ball of hot gas way up in the sky has to do with anything.

But enough about Al Gore in his private jet.

Global Lukewarming

Blind Man Walking

A man with brain damage that makes him clinically blind can navigate an obstacle course, seemingly by using a part of his brain other than the visual cortex to perceive the objects in his path. This remarkable ability, discovered through a chance observation, is shedding light on a curious phenomenon known as blindsight.

The man, known as patient TN, was studied by a multinational team led by Beatrice de Gelder at Tilburg University in The Netherlands and Alan Pegna of the Geneva University Hospitals in Switzerland.

The researchers tested TN extensively to confirm that he was completely blind. They used brain imaging to show that there was no activity in his visual cortex, the part of the brain that processes most of the information coming from the retina. They then persuaded TN to set his stick aside and walk down a corridor strewn with lab equipment.

"It's quite a distance to walk," says de Gelder. "He walked much faster than we had expected, without hesitation or any kind of exploration." She adds that he did it completely subconsciously, with no idea that he had been avoiding obstacles in his path.

The team think the visual signals from the retina were processed by neural pathways below the damaged cortex. "It's a major lesson that brain damage can release minor neurological pathways that had previously been suppressed, allowing them to play a more significant role," she says.

This discovery is fascinating for neurobiologists, evolutionary theorists, and medical practitioners for the ways it can advance their fields in treatment of pathology. It's fascinating to me, a practical theologian, because of the way it confirms the Scriptures and explains spiritual encounters in the world.

Humankind is blind because of the Fall. Our sin separates us from God, and that separation extends to all parts of human experience. Nowhere is it more evident than our ability to recognize God for who He is and ourselves for who we are. This affect of the mind is dubbed by theologians the noetic effects of sin. The Apostle Paul writes about it in Romans 1:18-23:

18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.

Echoing the sentiment of Job, Paul is describing the condition of non-Jewish peoples. But don't think that he excludes the Jewish people (to whom the Law was given and through whom came the promised Messiah) - just look at the next chapter (and ch. 11). For even Moses pointed out that God's redeemed people can be quite blind in their own right.

Deuteronomy 29:2 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: "You have seen all that the LORD did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, 3the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. 4But to this day the LORD has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear. (See also Ezekiel 12:1ƒƒ and Jeremiah 5:20ƒƒ)

God's reconsitituted redeemed - the Church - can face the same problem of blindness (cf. 1 John 2:9ƒƒ). It troubled Jesus then, and it troubles his people now.

So where do we go from here? If the people on the outside of the covenant are hopelessly blind, and many within the covenant are blinded, too, what's to become of the world?

Hear what Paul said to the people of Athens when he noticed that they were groping about for a deity they intuited was out there, but didn't know.

Acts 17:24 The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, 25nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 26And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, 27 that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,

We stumble and grope. We get it partially right, but mostly wrong. And yet still, there is an abiding, deep, and stubborn perception of the divine. Even secular and atheistic antagonists recognize the persistence of religious belief.Calvin called this phenomenon the sensus divinitatis.* As Francis Bacon wrote in Novum Organum Scientiarum,

For man by the Fall fell at the same time from his state of innocency and from his dominion over Creation. Both of these losses however can even in this life be in some part repaired; the former by religion and faith, the latter by arts and sciences.

The search for that latter dominion goes on, and I've related a small step in that direction above. The Church is largely responsible for making this search so successful (maybe even possible) in the West. But we've failed in our first calling, which was to help people who seek after God find him in the person and work of Jesus Christ.

When we preach or explain our faith and someone rebuffs us, we get offended instead of praying for Satan to be hampered. We argue, fuss and fight. But sometimes what blind people need the most is for someone to patiently be there, walking beside them to steady them when they wobble or stumble...someone who knows the way around those obstacles.

May the King Who opens our eyes grant you grace to do just that!

* I learned about this in Paul Helm's class taught in conjunction with the release of his book John Calvin's Ideas. Read his blog and you'll quickly see why I can't read Calvin without hearing it in a British accent. You don't have to spend $60 to get at his work on reformed epistemology. The outlines of the argument are present in an earlier article. Paul Helm, "John Calvin, the Sensus Divinitatis, and the noetic effects of sin" International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Springer, ISSN 0020-7047 Volume 43, Number 2, pg 82, April 1998

AU's Audacity of Dopes

The atheists [erm...] freedom-preserving faithful at Americans United (against Churches oops, I keep doing that!) have issued a call to SC to ban an "I Believe" license plate.

[A] retired United Methodist minister served as lead plaintiff in Americans United’s lawsuit, Summers v. Adams, which asked the court to halt South Carolina from producing an auto tag favoring one religious group over others.

This plate, unlike those requested by private groups and organizations, originated in the South Carolina legislature and was passed by statute. The plate features a cross, a stained-glass window and the words “I Believe.” No other faith group has been offered a similar plate, let alone those who want a plate stating, “I Do Not Believe.”

Let's take a look at this link to SC DMV plates.

Secular Humanists of the Low Country Plate

Although Secular Humanist of the Low Country is a membership based organization the “In Reason We Trust” plate is available to all SC residents. The fee for the plate is $30.00 every two years in additional to the regular registration fee. As a non-profit organization, the Secular Humanists of the Low Country do not receive any portion of the funds generated from the license plate sales.

Call me crazy, but for the life of me that looks just like an “I Do Not Believe” license plate.

Plates promoting Fishing, Wildlife Conservation, Golf, NASCAR, Education, Home Ownership and even [gasp] the national motto of In God We Trust - all of these are okay. Same with any number of voluntary organizations like colleges, schools, Freemasons, etc. Heck...they even have one for squardancing and the Carolina Shag, the states official dance. Just don't have anything to do with the church.

They're also up in a dander about the Choose Life plate. (Doesn't that go hand in hand with the shag plate anyway?)

If the DMV chooses to appeal the decision, AU will be ready. The state already failed in its appeal defending a law allowing a “Choose Life” plate back in 2006. It’s astonishing, and a waste of taxpayer funds, that state officials would want to continue pushing this when it is clearly a violation of church-state separation, Khan said.

Absolutely right. It's a horrendous waste of taxpayer money to present a plate that raises money from voluntary contributors. (Willikers! Obama is going to make sure you can use that money to fund more abortions...sounds like a win to you dweebs.)

Let's get something straight. THE RIGHT TO LIFE IS A PROTECTION GRANTED BY NATURAL LAW AND GUARANTEED BY THE CONSTITUTION. Civilized countries know this. It's not a church-state issue.

“I wish our legislators would read the Constitution as avidly as they read public opinion polls,” Jones, a Unitarian minister, wrote in a column for The State, South Carolina’s largest newspaper (See “Illicit License.”)

Yeah, me too. Vide supra!

Summers and Knight, both Christian leaders, also saw the legislators’ decision to approve this plate as demeaning to the faith they cherish.

“They are taking a Christian symbol and using it for marketing and advertising purposes,” Summers said. “This is an abuse and misuse of the Christian cross.”

Okay, Summers. What should we do with people that take the Christian ministry and use that for agitating and political purposes?

Truly wonderful the mind of a child is

Justin Barrett, Ph.D. (Cornell, Experimental Cognitive Psychology) was sponsored in a debate at Oxford's Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology's Centre for Anthropology and Mind (hosted by the Faraday Institute for Science and Religion) yesterday. The topic was religiosity in children.

Barrett argues that children are naturally inclined to have a belief in God by the deep structures of our brains. This is a subject of deep interest to those interested in the study of cognitive and evolutionary processes in religion.

Of course, the old saying is true: the scientists will climb the heights of knowledge, only to find the theologians and philosophers camped at the summit.

I think Jesus and Paul had something to say about that....

Still, I'm reminded of what Malachi 2:13-16 teaches about marriage:

1. that is should be life-long
2. that a primary intention is the propagation of faithful children

Is your church set up to evangelize those who are most ready and willing to receive the good news of the gospel?

Glacier Gladness for Global Madness

The BBC recently reported on some archaeological finds from the Alps indicating fluctuating temperatures over the last 7,000 years. Included were paleolithic artifacts, Roman coins, and Medieval clothing.

I really hope people will take time to listen to history before attempting to abandon a way of life that has produced some of the greatest humanitarian advances of all time.

It's like...you know...and stuff

Unfortunately, this is what most of the sidelined legacy denominations do every (other) summer.



So...like...does anybody want to, you know, talk about it?

Out-for-blood Drive

A little background: I'm still on the communitymail email list for LPTS. It's an email listserv where people can announce general interest items. I've had some "adventures" on there in the past, but things got ugly when folks wanted to paint me as the mouth-breathing conservative homophobic woman-beater instead of make an intelligent rebuttal. I generally leave it alone, but when the following came along...well...I couldn't hold back.

Let me set it up: LPTS hosts several blood drives throughout the year. There's always a handful of international students or folks who've gone on mission trips to parts of the world that disqualify them from giving blood. With some recent loosening of restrictions on foreign travel, the office staff person that coordinates these donations sent out a helpful email reminding people to reconsider whether or not they are newly eligible. In response to that information, an student demagogue wrote the following:*

I find it somewhat disturbing that we don't make some statement expressing our concern that (as far as I can see in this email) homosexuals are still summarily excluded from eligibility to donate.

To which I responded, as pastorally as I could:

I find it somewhat comforting that - when you graduate - you're "MD" will only stand for Master of Divinity, not Medical Doctor.

Do you seriously believe that this decision is based on homophobia, heterosexism, or anything other than rational medical science?

Stick to exegesis, and leave the epidemiology to competent critics.

(BTW, "homosexuals" aren't excluded - only men who've actually had sex with another man since 1977. That means a heterosexual who was raped in 1983 isn't eligible but a 20 yr old homosexual who has been chaste is eligible, as would be all lesbians - assuming no other risk factors.)

Abraham Maslow once said, "If the only tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail. " Mainline seminaries have sold out to the "oppression / patriarchy / issues" ticket, and are creating ordinands that are incapable of reflecting on ethical, theological, biblical, or political issues outside of that framework. And we're the poorer for it.

* Names have been changed to protect the willfully stupid.

PS - This is the kind of stuff that made my CPM say "CPE will cure him!"

Update! Touchy non-celibate gay male responds:

[Student demagogue] was referring to the fact that gay men are not allowed to donate blood. The list includes people who are now allowed to donate who previously were not allowed to do so. He was commenting on the fact that gay men SHOULD be on that list but ARE NOT on that list. I guess the tests they run on the blood doesn't work for queer blood, that is the only reason that I can figure out as to why gay men are still excluded.

Update part deux: I've been reported to the dean of students. shudder What is it about those Holston boys that makes'em so reportable? Anyway, it's not the first time it's happened. It will probably be the last, as I'm moving away (into my first home!) in about a month.

Raising a Glass to the Methuen Treaty

What in the world is the Methuen Treaty, you ask? Well, if you haven't googled it, let me tell you: It was a treaty between Great Britain and Portugal. Among its lasting effects were the political solvency of Portugal's colony, Brazil. However, I have precious little interest in that. Rather, I want to get to the meat of the matter...port wine.

You see, France and England were having a tiff and so Englishmen couldn't get French wines. (Remember that England hadn't grown many wine-grapes since the end of the Medieval Warming Period which our global warbling friends refuse to acknowledge.) The Portuguese started exporting their wine to Britain. Unfortunately, it would spoil while in transit. Thus, to reduce spoilage, they began "fortifying" it with brandy and other hard liquor. The result? Port, or course!

I admit that I'm an unrepentant Anglophile, and am particularly appreciative of the little rituals that have grown up around the enjoyment of port. So enjoy a glass and join me in toasting the second day of Christmas with a nice tawny port.

Certainty

Anybody else getting tired of the bloggers who like to pretend that persons with DOCTRINAL theological convictions are mouth-breathing morons? Well, rejoice...demotivational posters are coming to a blog near you.

Enlightened Democracys

I'm a big fan of participatory democracy. However, I don't think that democratic ideals can serve as the basis of political ideology (or even of good church government). Why? Because they assume too much to stand on their own.

Some people seem to think that if we just spread the values of the Enlightenment to other countries, that they will become freer by default. As Chuck Colson examines the discrimination against Dalits in India, he has some excellent thoughts about the necessary presuppositions that lay the substratum of true political liberalism (the good kind).

The situation in what’s called the “largest democracy in the world” reminds us that “democracy” and elections are not enough—there needs to be a commitment to the “first freedom”: freedom of religion. There needs to be a recognition that all freedoms grow out of what one of our founders James Madison called “the act of freedom by which each responds to the call of his Creator.”

Without an understanding that there is a Creator to whom we are accountable, and that that Creator made all people, freedom quickly loses any real meaning. Freedom from religion is impossible...we are homo adorans. We will worship ourselves or our ideals, our money or our power, sex or trees if we are not worshiping the true and living God. Freedom in its fullest sense cannot occur in unconverted lands...including our own.

Unmistakable Truths

Hmmm... dig up the corpse of Jesus and you get to claim that your faith is not beholden to fact because you can make it a metaphor or just dump the whole "realism" project. (Not to mention that everyone else who disagrees with your interpretation does so from intellectual dishonesty or, worse, moral bankruptcy.)

Dig up something an anthropologist claims is a human ancestor and you demand that everyone's faith claims have to change in accordance with that "fact."

Anyone else smell inconsistency? (Hint: it smells kind of lemony.)

Evolution and relativism = "unmistakable truth" over which only the mentally deficient can disagree.

orthodox Christianity = misogynistic powerplay for privileging a narrow "western" view.

A most fascinating hermeneutic....