Sunspots 651

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

The Arts: Here's a web page explaining many of the features of The Garden of Earthly Delights, a really strange painting by Hieronymus Bosch. (His first name is also spelled with a J.)

Listverse tells us where some movies were actually shot.

Christianity: Christianity Today discusses how information appliance use changes the way we read the Bible.

Christianity Today also reflects on the 500th anniversary of Luther's theses.

Ken Schenck has posted 95 theses for today's church.


Computing: National Public Radio reports on Facebook's questions about whether it's doing more harm than good.

Gizmo's Freeware reports on a free Optical Character Recognition web site.

Food: Listverse discusses 10 food plants that have been drastically genetically modified (all prior to the discovery of DNA).


Politics: FiveThirtyEight analyzes tweeting, and finds that those who self-report that they are very conservative, or very liberal, are much more likely to tweet about politics.

Economic columnist Robert Samuelson says that there's no hard evidence that cutting taxes leads to economic growth.

FiveThirtyEight also says that we don't really know how many people are in gangs in the US.

A Wired writer discusses how the Trump administration has stopped collecting all sorts of potentially useful data.

Science: Nature reports that there are actually two species of orangutan, and one of these is in danger of extinction.

A US Government report clearly blames human activity for global climate change.

A poem, "Why I Love Being Married to a Chemist," was featured in The Writer's Almanac for November 7.

Thanks for looking!



Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 633

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

The Arts: On The Writer's Almanac, Garrison Keillor reads a fine short poem, and discusses the beginning of National Parks in the U. S., and other things.

Christianity: Andy Crouch discusses the Creation in a thought-provoking and stimulating post from BioLogos.


Computing: Wired considers the possibility of having a simpler smartphone.

A Wired writer asked a cybersecurity company to send him phishing e-mails. He almost got caught.

Ethics: Wired has an essay on the ethics of the lies told by President Trump, and other people. The article references what some church fathers had to say on the subject of lying.

Food: National Public Radio reports that India is having political, religious, and economic disagreements over the use of cows as meat.

Humor: Relevant warns us of serious theological problems with fidget spinners.

(or something) Wired shows us a photo of an amazing "bicycle graveyard" in China.
 

Politics: Relevant on the danger of Christians entertaining conspiracy theories.

Image source (public domain)

Sunspots 608

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

The Arts: From "The Writer's Almanac," a fine poem on fish.

Christianity: Benjamin L. Corey wishes that atheists would stop talking about Christians in some ways that aren't really valid.


Computing: Gizmo's Freeware evaluates some free video editing software.

Christianity Today warns against using "Jesus," "john316," and the like as passwords. They're too easy to guess.

And Christianity Today reports that Amazon's Alexa will read the Bible, or from a variety of daily devotionals, on command.

Food: Scientific American reports that eating certain foods makes men more attractive to women.

Health: Scientific American, and many more outlets, report that scientists are now recommending that all babies be exposed to peanuts.

History: Listverse reports on 10 interesting things found below present-day cities.

Science: Listverse reports on "10 fascinating wonders of Antarctica."

The BBC reports on research which may lead to growing our own dental fillings, rather than having them made of foreign materials, and put in by dentists.

Sports: Relevant reports on a 105-year-old cyclist.


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 505

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

The Arts: Relevant has an opinion piece that says that Christians should care more about design -- in music, and in other arts, including book covers. There's a link to a compiled list of the worst Christian book covers of 2014, and yes, most of them are really awful.
Christianity: Relevant on "4 Ways the Modern Church Looks Nothing Like the Early Church." Pretty important ways, too.
Computing: Gizmo's Freeware reports on a free Windows program to list all your drivers, and their properties.
Health: National Public Radio reports on how difficult it is for veterans to get benefits. Shameful.
Politics: National Public Radio reports that the South Carolina Poet Laureate's poem was not read at the inauguration of Governor Nikki Haley, last week. The poem is included in the report.
Science: National Public Radio reports on the question of how humans come to like foods (like hot spices and coffee) that they didn't like when they were small children.
Wired tells us why squinting helps us see better.


Image source (public domain)

Does the Bible really say that? Excerpt from my book, part 3

Here is an example of Biblical writing:

Psalm 114:1 When Israel went out of Egypt,
the house of Jacob from a people of foreign language;
2 Judah became his sanctuary,
Israel his dominion.
3 The sea saw it, and fled.
The Jordan was driven back.
4 The mountains skipped like rams,
the little hills like lambs.
5 What was it, you sea, that you fled?
You Jordan, that you turned back?
6 You mountains, that you skipped like rams;
you little hills, like lambs?

The above is a poetic description of the passage through the Red Sea, in Exodus, and also of the passage across the Jordan River, decades later. Are we to suppose, from this, that the mountains and hills skipped like rams and lambs?  No. This is poetic exaggeration.

Apocalyptic literature is literature about end times, and/or that has an obscure meaning.

Ezekiel 1:26 Above the expanse that was over their heads was the likeness of a throne, as the appearance of a sapphire stone; and on the likeness of the throne was a likeness as the appearance of a man on it above. 27 I saw as it were glowing metal, as the appearance of fire within it all around, from the appearance of his waist and upward; and from the appearance of his waist and downward I saw as it were the appearance of fire, and there was brightness around him. 28 As the appearance of the rainbow that is in the cloud in the day of rain, so was the appearance of the brightness all around. This was the appearance of the likeness of Yahweh’s glory. When I saw it, I fell on my face, and I heard a voice of one that spoke.

Ezekiel doesn’t seem to be able to find words to give a good description. “Likeness,” “appearance of,” and “as it were” occur a dozen times in these three verses of apocalyptic literature. It seems that Ezekiel saw things that he really couldn’t describe well, and he did his best to let us know that he had seen some wonderful things. These included something like a man (God the Son, perhaps? An angel?), and that’s about all we can say for sure.

The excerpt above shows two examples, perhaps extreme, but examples, nonetheless, illustrating that at least some of the poetic literature in the Bible was not meant to be taken literally, and that at least some of the apocalyptic literature in the Bible cannot be taken literally, because God is trying to obscure some aspect of it, because the person who wrote it doesn't grasp it fully, because the reader can't grasp it fully, or some combination of these three.

Thanks for reading! Here's the previous post in this series.

A Christmas Prayer by George MacDonald

A CHRISTMAS PRAYER.

Loving looks the large-eyed cow,
Loving stares the long-eared ass
At Heaven's glory in the grass!
Child, with added human birth
Come to bring the child of earth
Glad repentance, tearful mirth,
And a seat beside the hearth
At the Father's knee—
Make us peaceful as thy cow;
Make us patient as thine ass;
Make us quiet as thou art now;
Make us strong as thou wilt be.
Make us always know and see
We are his as well as thou.

-George MacDonald, The Poetical Works of George MacDonald, volume 2, from Project Gutenberg (public domain).

The Christmas Child, by George MacDonald

THE CHRISTMAS CHILD.

"Little one, who straight hast come
Down the heavenly stair,
Tell us all about your home,
And the father there."

"He is such a one as I,
Like as like can be.
Do his will, and, by and by,
Home and him you'll see."

- George MacDonald, from Poetical Works of George MacDonald, volume 2, from Project Gutenberg (public domain).

Glory be to God for dappled things, by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The Biologos Foundation has posted a brief discussion of a poem, "Pied Beauty," by Gerard Manley Hopkins, which includes the words of the poem, and a reading of it, to a background of appropriate images. The poem, itself, is brief -- two stanzas. Hopkins was a noted poet, and a Catholic priest.

Enjoy, if you care to explore this for yourself.