The Rapture?

Incredibly Ignorant argument that Rick Warren is Apostate

There are silly arguments and then there are silly arguments. Here is a classic example of a false analogy:

With the passage of time, it seems that Rick Warren seems to grow
further and further into first heteroorthodoxy , then unorthodoxy, then
heresy and now rank compromise and apostasy, topping his actions up
with his appearance at the World Economic Forum Interfaith session at Davos, Switzerland.
Yet Warren apologists such as Richard Abanes have continued their
untenable position that Rick Warren is orthodox. It is to this effect
that it would be good to present one short logical deductive argument
which proves once and for all Warren's apostasy and denial of the
Gospel. Since this is a deductiveargument, it is irrefutable if the premises are true and the logical argumentation is valid. And therefore, this is a concrete case against Rick Warren. See Logical Deductive argument for Rick Warren's compromise and denial of the Gospel

Gender and Job Choice?

It would appear so.

clipped from www.boston.com WHEN IT COMES to the huge and persistent gender gap in science and technology jobs, the finger of blame has pointed in many directions: sexist companies, boy-friendly science and math classes, differences in aptitude. Now two new studies by economists and social scientists have reached a perhaps startling conclusion: An important part of the explanation for the gender gap, they are finding, are the preferences of women themselves. When it comes to certain math- and science-related jobs, substantial numbers of women - highly qualified for the work - stay out of those careers because they would simply rather do something else.

Barack Obama: The Great Redeemer

This article points out the hypocrisy of the Obamaites and their longing for a messianic savior.

Are Obama followers feelers or thinkers? You decide.

clipped from www.timesonline.co.uk Every decade or so the people who control the way we see the world anoint some American politician the Redeemer of a Troubled Planet. In the late 1960s the media placed the halo on Robert Kennedy, the tragic dynast whose antiwar and civil rights credentials made him in life - as he remains to this day in death - a kind of devotional figure for most political journalists. Kennedy at least had charisma and intelligence. But to prove that these were by no means necessary preconditions for the honour, it was conferred a few years later on Jimmy Carter, the plodding nonentity elevated by a willingly compliant press into Everyman, brandishing his steely sword of Truth against the Manichean mendacity of Richard Nixon's Republican legacy.

Scientists and Theologians Debate: Is God Obsolete?

Very interesting.

clipped from www.foxnews.com Scientists hate God. Or find God very disturbing. In fact, modern science has found no evidence of God, and so it's stupid to think God exists. The above statements are often presented as conventional wisdom, but are they true? A new collection of short essays, discussed here Thursday at an event at the American Enterprise Institute, responds to that question with a more diverse set of voices than is usually offered. Edited by Skeptic magazine publisher Michael Shermer and backed by the John Templeton Foundation, the booklet features replies by 13 scholars and thinkers to the question "Does science make belief in God obsolete?"

Maybe We Can't

This is a fascinating must read on Obama.

clipped from www.tnr.com Ninety percent of black Democrats support Barack Obama. So that might leave an observer wondering: What the hell is up with that other 10 percent? Are they stupid? Do they hate their own race? Do they not understand the historical import of the moment? I can shed some insight on this demographic anomaly. In gatherings of black people, I'm invariably the only one for the Dragon Lady. I'll do my best to explain how those of us in the ever-shrinking minority of a minority came to our position.

Obsolete Degrees?

This article touches on some things I have been thinking about for a while. Very interesting.

clipped from insidehighered.com Why don’t we declare the bachelor’s degree obsolete? No, not education, not colleges and universities, not professors or libraries or students, just the four-year bachelor’s degree. (You might turn on your iPod while you read. You’ll see why.) Western history traces this four-year package back to the University of Bologna, before Gutenberg, when the pedagogical constraint was the shortage of books. Students had to gather in large rooms while the professor read from one of the scarce books. Only Wikipedia, in my scrounging around, notes that the University of Al-Karaouine in Morocco and Al-Azhar University in Egypt preceded Bologna in their founding and in granting multi-year degrees. Before dismissing any questions, note that this academic year has not been kind to U.S. higher education.

Obama's Staff

Apparently it's difficult to find good help these days.

clipped from blogs.abcnews.com We started covering Sen. Barack Obama's inability to hire good staffers in June 2007, when he blamed staffers for some opposition research trying to link Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-NY, to outsourcing in India; for injecting some venom in the David Geffen/Hillary Clinton fight; and for missing an event with firefighters in New Hampshire. In December, we noted again that Obama was blaming the answers on a 1996 questionnaire on a staffer; and was blaming his touring with "cured" ex-gay gospel singer Donnie McClurkin (which antagonized gays and lesbians) on bad vetting by his staff. Those five buck-passing incidents were apparently not enough.

Young and Evangelical for Obama?

It won't stay this way, (many will turn from Obama) but it does show that being a Christian and automatically being a Republican is a thing of the past.

clipped from seattletimes.nwsource.com Michael Dudley is the son of a preacher man. He's a born-again Christian with two family members in the military. He grew up in the Bible Belt, where almost everyone he knew was Republican. But this fall, he's breaking a handful of stereotypes: He plans to vote for Democrat Barack Obama. "I think a lot of Christians are having trouble getting behind everything the Republicans stand for," said Dudley, 20, a sophomore at Seattle Pacific University. Dudley's disenchantment with the GOP isn't unique among young, devoutly Christian voters. According to a September 2007 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, 15 percent of white evangelicals between 18 and 29, a group traditionally a shoo-in for the GOP, say they no longer identify with the Republican Party. Older evangelicals are also questioning their traditional allegiance, but not at the same rate.

Obama's new flag lapel pin

Very fashionable for the Harvard educated!

clipped from latimesblogs.latimes.com

Summary of An Evangelical Manifesto

I believe that this will be a very important document. The politicization of Evangelicalism has not been healthy for the Church.

Make sure and click through to read the document.

clipped from theologica.blogspot.com This morning a document was released at the National Press Club entitled An Evangelical Manifesto: A Declaration of Evangelical Identity and Public Commitment, spearheaded by Os Guinness and signed by over 80 evangelical leaders. (You can read a brief interview I conducted this week with Dr. Guinness about the document.) The full document is over 7,400 words, and I encourage you to read the whole thing. It’s an imperfect but nevertheless (in my opinion) remarkable document that deserves serious attention. The press has latched on to the political dimension of the document, but the critique of theological liberalism is much more extensive and pointed. In order to summarize the document and the authors’ intentions, I’ve outlined it below, freely drawing on their wording. (Do not rely, however, on my shorthand. As I said above, be sure to read the whole thing.)

Racial Harassment

This is hard to believe...or may be not.

clipped from www.nypost.com IN November, I was found guilty of "racial harassment" for reading a public-li brary book on a university campus. The book was Todd Tucker's "Notre Dame vs. the Klan: How the Fighting Irish Defeated the Ku Klux Klan I was reading it on break from my campus job as a janitor. The same book is in the university library. Tucker recounts events of 1924, when the loathsome Klan was a dominant force in Indiana - until it went to South Bend to taunt the Irish Catholic students at the University of Notre Dame. When the KKK tried to rally, the students confronted them. They stole Klan robes and destroyed their crosses, driving the KKK out of town in a downpour. I read the historic encounter and imagined myself with these brave Irish Catholics, as they street-fought the Klan. (I'm part-Irish, and was raised Catholic.) But that didn't stop the Affirmative Action Office of Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis from branding me as a detestable Klansman.

I'll pass

clipped from www.photobasement.com

Before and after satellite pictures of Burma

clipped from www.popsci.com

The Elitist Party?

Looks to be the Democrats:

clipped from article.nationalreview.com Pundits have feasted on Barack Obama’s recent musing that Pennsylvania’s rural citizens “cling” to their religion and guns out of embittered economic desperation. Thus far, they have focused on whether Obama is an elitist who views religion as a crutch and whose copy of the Constitution somehow lacks the Second Amendment. More important, though, is whether Obama’s remarks reflect the emerging demographic transformation of the Democratic party from a bottom-up “party of the people” into a holding pen for all sorts of economic and educational elites. One way to test this is to look at who has been making presidential campaign contributions during the 2008 election cycle. Thanks to the way the Federal Election Commission collects this data, we can sort contributions according to a donor’s occupation or employer. The Democrats’ penetration of America’s elites is evident when we look at how the two parties fare among those at the very top rungs of corporate America.

Oil and the party of Obstruction?

If gas keeps going up in price this will be a HUGE election year issue. The Dems keep saying that ANWR will take 10 years to come on line, as Jay Leno pointed out, they said that 10 years ago...

clipped from gatewaypundit.blogspot.com Which party blocks the development of new sources of petroleum?-- Democrat Which party blocks drilling in ANWR?-- Democrat Which party blocks drilling off the coast of Florida?-- Democrat Which party blocks drilling off of the east coast?-- Democrat Which party blocks drilling off of the west coast?-- Democrat Which party blocks drilling off the Alaskan coast?-- Democrat Which party blocks building oil refineries?-- Democrat Which party blocks clean nuclear energy production?-- Democrat Which party blocks clean coal production?-- Democrat

Obama's Leadership Style?

Hmm...a closet autocrat? Who would have thought it.

clipped from justoneminute.typepad.com "It wasn't like 'Let's have a discussion.' It was 'One, two, three, four, here's what we're going to do,' " a staffer said. "When things don't go well, he doesn't yell and scream. He's very prescriptive. Everybody understands this isn't about having a discussion. He's got 99 percent of the voting shares. There's no point in taking a vote." What?  Sure, there is no point in taking a vote, but that hardly means that there is no point in having a discussion - presumably these strategists and advisers are intelligent adults with possibly-useful perspectives and an effective leader would draw them out and explore alternatives.

Peak oil Doom?

Good read on the oil hysteria gripping the world. Read the whole thing.

clipped from fabiusmaximus.wordpress.com Summary: a brief analysis of Matt Savinar’s Life After the Oil Crash. Are we doomed? Probably not. My title is, of course, fun but absurd. Peak oil is too vast a subject, the range of expert opinion too wide, for any blog post to pose as more than a introduction — showing one perspective of the many possible. Still, I believe this makes a good case for betting that peak oil will not result in depression and war. Please see the conclusion at the end for caveats, and the links at the end for more information.

Religious Extremism and the Left

This article show the hypocrisy of the left is insightful. Make sure and read the whole thing.

clipped from www.politico.com The lunatic remarks made by Wright in videotaped sermons released in March — which, lest there be any doubt that these pearls of wisdom were taken “out of context,” Wright reaffirmed at the National Press Club last week — are indefensible, and it is beyond pedantry to quibble over whether a spirited defense of Louis Farrakhan is more or less offensive than blaming abortion doctors and gays for Sept. 11, 2001, as Jerry Falwell infamously did two days after the terrorist attacks. But in the warped minds of some on the left, uttering such inanities is not only “understandable,” it’s laudable. That is, of course, if the person alleging that the government created AIDS to kill African-Americans is an aggrieved black man lashing out at the rapacious, capitalist and irredeemably racist United States. Wright, you see, is actually a “patriot” for speaking uncomfortable “truths” about his country.

60,000 Dead in Burma

This will only get worse as the military junta will be slow to let in outside helpers. Let's keep the country and it's people in our prayers, and maybe through this catastrophe light may yet spring forth.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com The number of dead and missing in the Burma cyclone soared past 60,000 Tuesday amid signs the toll will rise even higher, as much of the disaster zone remained flooded by seawater, threatened by disease and out of reach of an international relief operation that is taking shape.

Massive Obama Rally

Sort of...

clipped from townhall.com

The Obama Rally, from Two Angles

Posted by: Mary Katharine Ham at 11:00 PM

Reynolds Coliseum on N.C. State's campus seats 12,400 people. It did not seat that many tonight. Behold, the power of political staging: The Obama rally, as seen on TV: The Obama rally as seen from the other end of Reynolds:

Where are the children?

This is going to have a major impact as more people retire.

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Japan Steadily Becoming a Land Of Few Children Japan celebrated a national holiday on Monday in honor of its children. But Children's Day might just as easily have been a national day of mourning. For this is the land of disappearing children and a slow-motion demographic catastrophe that is without precedent in the developed world. The number of children has declined for 27 consecutive years, a government report said over the weekend. Japan now has fewer children who are 14 or younger than at any time since 1908.

Evangelicals say faith is now too political

Some very good points.

clipped from ap.google.com Conservative Christian leaders who believe the word "evangelical" has lost its religious meaning plan to release a starkly self-critical document saying the movement has become too political and has diminished the Gospel through its approach to the culture wars. The statement, called "An Evangelical Manifesto," condemns Christians on the right and left for "using faith" to express political views without regard to the truth of the Bible, according to a draft of the document obtained Friday by The Associated Press. "That way faith loses its independence, Christians become `useful idiots' for one political party or another, and the Christian faith becomes an ideology," according to the draft. Read the whole thing.

Christian Nonsense

ODM's (online discernment ministries) are spewing out this sort of froth. This is a classic case of how the internet is both a blessing and a curse.

clipped from christianresearchnetwork.com Apprising Ministries further alerting the Body of Christ to growing apostasy within the Southern Baptist Convention through the proliferation of Contemplative Spirituality/Mysticism. You’ll see that New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary is also promulgating The Cult of Guru Richard Foster as this SBC seminary uses the Quaker Swami’s Celebration of Discipline in one of their own courses on so-called “spiritual formation” as does Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary. The question is: Why does the "Protestant" SBC need to turn to a Quaker mystic for spiritual formation which is in direct counterpoint to the Reformation?