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John Cleese

April 17, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

This is a funny piece of work.  I think Cleese was really on to something here.  Why would he not be angry, sitting thru sermons by the guy dressed in the purple clown suit.  What an appalling face (farce?) many of the the UK churches have presented.

Filed Under: Comment, Theology, Youth

Quick update on the Arnold Fruchtenbaum meeting

April 11, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Arnold Fruchtenbaum is a Messianic Jewish scholar and expert on the life of the Messiah from a Jewish perspective (MP3s and DVDs are available — scholarly and popular books by that title may be on the way).  Arnold was born in Russia and escaped Hitler before landing in the USA.

Arnold is a Bible encyclopedia — rumor has it he even studies the Bible in the shower.  His scholarship is perhaps best evidenced during the Q and A times following each lecture.  Arnold appears to know the Bible off-by-heart including the ability to cite chapter and verse for almost everything.

Arnold’s lectures are highly structured and methodical, and delivered in an accented monotonic manner.  Notes are provided including lots of whitespace for you to add your own notes on them.  Every lecture section ends by a Rabbi joke.

Arnold Fruchtenbaum

Following the lecture given in the photo above, one questioner asserted that the Jews have a debt owing to the church.  Arnold replied correctly that the actual debt is the other way around.  The church is hugely in debt to the Jews, and part of that debt should be an apology for the disgraceful treatment the Jews have received at the hands of Christians during their diaspora. This disgraceful behavior continues in parts of the anti-Semitic church today.

Related:

Ariel Ministries blog

Filed Under: Bible, Books, Comment, Events/Conferences, Islam, Israel, Theology Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Each additional year of education, odds of attending religious services increased by 15%

April 7, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

From here (H/T to here).

Hardly a Christian friendly article, but interesting nevertheless.

‘PROTESTANT ETHIC’ 2.0: THE NEW WAYS RELIGION IS DRIVING ECONOMIC OUTPERFORMANCE

A few snippets:

Organized religion in particular may be losing its appeal, particularly among the young. According to recent surveys, religious affiliation in the United States appears to be declining somewhat and secularism is on the rise; over the past 40 years the percentage professing no religious affiliation has grown over 140 percent while the percentage of the deeply faithful dropped 15%. The share of the population who claim “no religion” has risen to 15% overall and 22% of those between 18 and 29, notes a 2009 study by researchers at Trinity College. If these trends continue, the non-affiliated could represent a larger part of our population than the largest denomination, the Catholic Church.

No surprises here. The USA is trending in the same direction as its forerunners, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

Many in the pundit class identify religion as something of a regressive tendency, embraced by the less enlightened, the less skilled, intelligent and educated. Yet some scholars, such as Charles Murray, point out that religious affiliation is weakening most not among the middle and upper classes but among the poorer and less educated who traditionally looked to churches for succor and moral instruction. Secularism may have not hurt the uber-rich or the academic overclass so far, but it appears to have helped expand our lumpenproleteriat.

Some might be surprised to learn that religious affiliation grows with education levels. A new University of Nebraska study finds that with each additional year of education, the odds of attending religious services increased by 15%. The educated, the study found, may not be eschewing religion, as social science has long maintained, even if their spiritual views tend to be less narrow, and less overtly tied to politics, than among the less schooled.

I guess this will be a surprise to the ‘Brights’ like Dawkins and his other ‘Religion for Dummies’ mates. No surprise in my circles however.

Religious people also tend to live longer and suffer less disabilities with old age, as author Murray notes. Researchers at Harvard, looking at dozens of countries over the past 40 years, demonstrated that religion reinforces the patterns of personal virtue, social trust and willingness to defer gratification long associated with business success.

But perhaps the most important difference over time may be the impact of religion on family formation, with weighty fiscal implications. In virtually every part of the world, religious people tend to have more children than those who are unaffiliated. In Europe, this often means Islamic families as opposed to increasingly post-Christian natives. Decline in religious affiliation — not just Christian but also Buddhist and Confucian — seems to correlate with the perilously low birthrates in both Europe and many East Asian countries.

How does the New Atheism fit into this?  From the above observations, I think we can understand at least two facets of the current New Atheist secularist shrill.

First is possible underpopulation of New Atheists as the new world order shakes out. A reasonable fear for the New Atheists secularists is that their highly evolved selves are not passing on their genes in competitive numbers.   Thus instead of genes, they attempt to force their memes onto the rest of us by preaching, and by making converts and disciples through the university, media, and book publishing arenas.

The second is overpopulation of religious people. As populations continue to grow toward the theoretical 9 billion asymptote, religious people are not going away. What better way to halt religious growth than to decrease religious breeding using the guise of Earth overpopulation. FWIW, I’m partly with the secularists on the second point given the Biblical mandate to look after the planet; I just don’t share their panic of overpopulation or their global warming hysteria, I mean climate change hysteria, scare tactics.   Given the intellectual bankruptcy of the New Atheists, there may not be too many Brights left in years to come anyway.

Interestingly, Africa is not mentioned at all in the article.

Filed Under: Comment, Islam, Politics, Worldviews, Youth Tagged With: , , ,

Israel and Turkey — Evil abounds…

September 3, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Those behind the Turkish flotilla evidently see justice through different eyes than mine. Consider for example the Turkish method for helping solve the “Palestinian problem”. 1. repeatedly lobby the press with the terribleness of the Palestinian plight. 2. Load boats full with activists and set sail for Gaza. 3. Provoke the Israelis at every step. 4. Bash Israeli soldiers with metal bars and throw them off the upper decks of the ships. 5. If the Israelis use force to defend themselves against the “peace” activists, then condemn the Israeli soldiers as violent warmongers.

How stupid are people — that they gullibly fall for these sorts of tactics.

The “Palestinian problem” could be solved overnight if the oil-rich Muslim nations (with ~400 times the land area of tiny Israel) dug deep and assisted their brothers in arms. But these the Islamic nations (including Turkey) prefer to use and abuse the lives of people made in God’s image, as political and military pawns. Yes, these Muslims care little about the lives of their fellow Muslims, so long as they can be used to provoke and antagonize the Israelis, and fulfill their hate-filled demonic agenda.

Now the Turks are going to have another go at being jerks. They realize of course that Israel is effectively in a no-win. If “peace activists” again set out for Gaza, but this time with bigger ships, what are the Israelis to do? Back down and appear weak? Or just let these scoundrels run amok, ultimately letting future ships move weapons and rockets into Gaza so Palestinian thugs can rains rockets down upon Israeli civilians?

In the Palmer report, New Zealand’s Geoffrey Palmer says the Israelis used excessive force. No, this is false: the truth is that Palmer’s conclusion is an excessive farce. The Israelis did what they had to do, and if anything should have defended themselves more vigorously against the “peaceful” (do words mean anything?) flotilla.

Here are some reminder videos of the “peaceful” thugs, some wielding metal pipes and knives.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Comment, Islam, Israel, Politics, Worldviews Tagged With: , , ,

“Passing away” makes me really mad…

July 27, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Perhaps I am missing something, but why do Christians so often use the phrase “passed away…” of someone who dies?  Are these Christians annihilationists?  For example, on this Crossway Books page we find:

Recognized internationally for his work in Christianity and culture, Francis A. Schaeffer authored more than twenty books, which have been translated into a score of languages and sold millions worldwide. He and his wife, Edith, founded L’Abri Fellowship international study and discipleship centers. Schaeffer passed away in 1984, but his influence and legacy continue worldwide.

So did Schaeffer pass away, disappearing with the ether, until he was no more?

Or did he pass on in to the next life to be with the God he believed in?

Do words mean anything?

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New Zealand Mobile Phone Companies

May 6, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

So the pricing has finally changed, but who knows when or if lower prices will trickle down to the consumers…?

Here are the mobile phone companies in New Zealand:

Any others?

Here is a page listing the cheapest mobile prepaid prices in NZ.

Related

Filed Under: Comment

Julian Assange and Facebook privacy

May 4, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

I have no desire to endorse Julian Assange, but that does not mean his claims below are not true or at least partially true:

Source: rt.com/news/wikileaks-revelations-assange-interview/

Facebook in particular is the most appalling spying machine that has ever been invented. Here we have the world’s most comprehensive database about people, their relationships, their names, their addresses, their locations and the communications with each other, their relatives, all sitting within the United States, all accessible to US intelligence. Facebook, Google, Yahoo – all these major US organizations have built-in interfaces for US intelligence. It’s not a matter of serving a subpoena. They have an interface that they have developed for US intelligence to use.

Now, is it the case that Facebook is actually run by US intelligence? No, it’s not like that. It’s simply that US intelligence is able to bring to bear legal and political pressure on them. And it’s costly for them to hand out records one by one, so they have automated the process. Everyone should understand that when they add their friends to Facebook, they are doing free work for United States intelligence agencies in building this database for them.

I would agree with his concerns about Facebook (and Google) and privacy, and would add that it is quite astonishing how quickly people have lumped large quantities of information into the FB database. If an evil dictator was to rise to power now, or in the distant future (yes, computer hard drives have long memories), this source of information would provide a great way to get rid of certain distasteful groups of people.

Regarding Assange’s claims about US intelligence — the truth or falsity of this claim obviously requires solid evidence which presumably is would be rather hard to find.

Filed Under: Comment Tagged With: , ,

Logos versus Amazon pricing

May 3, 2011 by · 2 Comments

I have Logos on my Mac. It is a nice App and there is talk of integrating an export to Kindle feature. It is thus tempting to buy “Logos” books rather than “Amazon” books since Logos books could (potentially) be moved to the Kindle for the express purpose of reading on the highly portable Amazon device.

But … it is reasonable to pay $27 to Logos for an RC Sproul book on the Gospel of John when you could buy the identical book for Kindle for $7.99? Further, why is secular pricing so much lower than pricing set by Christians for Christians? I would prefer that my money went into the hands of Logos and RC Sproul than Amazon so that the Kingdom of God may be financially enlarged, but instead I feel ashamed…

Here are the links to the items:
t.co/sO6a6sp
t.co/cFTuLwN

Filed Under: Books, Comment Tagged With: , , ,

Kindle versus Nook

April 14, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Nook sounds closer to book, but I personally prefer Kindle.  What about the book munching Albert Mohler?

These reviews are a bit old but still interesting from a heavy reader’s perspective.

Kindle review here: www.albertmohler.com/…/the-kindle-experience-a-personal-report/

Nook review here: www.albertmohler.com/…/giving-the-nook-a-good-look/

By the way, Amazon have dropped the price of the bottom end Kindle to $114 USD — the catch? It comes with minor advertising. I find Amazon’s targeted advertising pretty good so it seems like a no-brainer.

Filed Under: Comment

The 25 Most Influential Living Christians

March 13, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Dr. William Dembski tweeted this page listing the 25 most influential living atheists.

(I found this page much funnier: www.superscholar.org/features/10-dos-10-donts-for-college/)

Who then are the 25 most influential living Christians?

Perhaps this is a harder question, not because of lack of names to choose from, but rather due to too many choices? Or perhaps because I am more familiar with influential Christians.

I wondered which categories the Christians would fit in to and whether the categories differed significantly from those of the 25 influential atheists.

The 25 atheists listed can be roughly categorized as follows:

  • Scientists
    • Richard Dawkins
    • Sam Harris
    • Stephen Hawking
    • Steven Pinker
    • Steven Weinberg
    • Lawrence Krauss
    • Edward O. Wilson
    • P. Z. Meyers
    • Peter Atkins
    • David Sloan Wilson
    • William B. Provine
  • Technologists, futurists
    • Ray Kurzweil
  • Philosophers and historians
    • Daniel Dennett
    • Peter Singer
    • Paul Kurtz
    • Jennifer Michael Hecht
    • Barbara Forrest
    • Kai Nielsen
    • Richard Carrier
  • Journalists, writers, magicians, skeptics, activists, literary agents, psychologists
    • Christopher Hitchens
    • Michael Shermer
    • James Randi
    • Philip Pullman
    • John Brockman
    • Susan Blackmore

So what would a list of 25 Christians look like and what categories would they fit in to?

  • Scientists, mathematicians
    • William Dembski
    • Michael Behe
  • Theologians, pastors
    • Albert Mohler
    • Mark Driscoll
    • John Piper
    • John MacArthur
    • Timothy Keller
    • Don Carson
  • Philosophers and apologists
    • William Lane Craig
    • Stephen Meyer
    • Ravi Zacharias

Send us some of your suggestions.

Filed Under: Comment

5 Ways to Maximize Your Audio Listening

March 11, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

For the Christian apologist, learning and study is crucial. The challenge is this: you don’t have enough time in the day to read it all, listen to it all, or process it all. You must be discerning in what you choose, and then be able to work through it in a way that is not going to kill your productivity. For this reason, the following methods are quick tips for making the most of the overwhelming amount of resources available to Christian apologists today.

The five methods are here.

COMMENT: Well said Brian! It is time Christians rid themselves of TV addiction and other trash that fills their lives and put their hands to the plough.

Filed Under: Comment

Muslim silence is again deafening

March 10, 2011 by · Leave a Comment

Where, oh where, have the Israel-haters gone?
Where, oh where, could they be?

When a Turkish ship loaded with international Israel-hating activists was sent to invade Israeli waters, Israel responded, and the media world went berserk. What a setup!  Israeli soldiers were attacked with knives and metal bars and few people were even killed in the action.  The gullible media, hearing what they wanted to hear, swallowed the activist’s propaganda hook, line and sinker, and were later embarrassed as Israel released video footage of the “peaceful” activists at work.

Today, doctors in Libya are reporting a bloodbath as government backed tanks and planes bomb rebel fighters.  The mad Libyan leader says the rebels are backed by al-Qaeda.  Three men from a BBC news team were captured, beaten, and finally released by the government forces.  All believed they were going to be killed.  The worst treated of the three was a Palestinian. Others captured by the government forces fared much worse. Some were witnessed post-torture, screaming in pain with broken ribs.  Where are the peaceful Israel-hating activists now we wonder?

Son of Hamas Mosab Hassan Yousef speaks of these sorts of atrocities committed by Hamas leaders on fellow Palestinians. I wonder if the activists have read his book, or would doing so upset their irrational Israel-hating agenda.

Islam had a barbaric founder, spread through North Africa by the sword, and continues to be the source of atrocities in 2011 in numerous countries around the world. While Muslims build mosques all over Britain, and even attempted to insult Americans by building a Mosque near ground zero, Christians continue to be persecuted (Pakistan) at hands of many Islamic tyrants. Silently. Every day. And the activists say and do nothing. Hypocrites.

See the conditions in Libya for examples and others from around the world.

Filed Under: Comment