hughbiquitous

Newton’s Ideas, Mule Dung: What’s The Difference?
Joe Carter invokes the French philosopher Voltaire in arguing that intelligent design is obvious to anyone willing to be intellectually honest. “…there is certainly some difference between the ideas of Newton and the dung of a mule. Newton’s intelligence, therefore, came from another intelligence. When we see a beautiful machine, we say that there is a good engineer… The world is assuredly an admirable machine; therefore there is in the world an admirable intelligence,” Voltaire wrote.

It’s The Ecclesiology, Stupid
Scot McKnight of Jesus Creed gave me the first real traction I’ve enjoyed in thinking about the Emergent Church phenomenon: I’ve known for a long time that I was troubled by Emergent epistemology, but there was a baby in there that ought not be tossed out with the bath water–I just never could quite figure out what it was. McKnight’s The Future or Fad? A Look at the Emerging Church Movement helped me begin to put my finger on it. The value I’m attracted to is in some aspects of Emergent ecclesiology (though I’m quick to say I find it very immature so far): it expresses the concerns I have about A) stagnating as an ivory-tower intellectual, and B) the church becoming a consumer-driven enterprise.

Warning: Satirical Content
Tim Challies does a fantastic job of illustrating absurdity by being absurd.

The Cure That Kills the Patient
George Barna apparently thinks he has the answer to the failure of the modern church: “who needs the church, anyway?”

Darwinian Meltdown Over Intelligent Design
An e-mail exchange between some of the Darwinist elites is delightful reading. The way they are talking to themselves, it sounds like they are becoming ill at ease with their own dogmatic approach to Darwinism as a faith-based initiative. Said one Darwinist to the other:

I think that you and Richard [Dawkins] are absolute disasters in the fight against intelligent design – we are losing this battle… what we need is not knee-jerk atheism but serious grappling with the issues – neither of you are willing to study Christianity seriously and to engage with the ideas – it is just plain silly and grotesquely immoral to claim that Christianity is simply a force for evil, as Richard claims – more than this, we are in a fight, and we need to make allies in the fight, not simply alienate everyone of good will.

(HT: Tim Challies, Rick Pearcey)

A Graceful Take on “Total Depravity”
Someone once succinctly said that “Total Depravity” is about the scope, not necessarily the degree, of one’s tendency toward evil. Here’s some more good perspective on what “Total Depravity” doesn’t mean: David Wayne writes, “all men are created in the image of God and… God pours out His common grace on all of creation and you have a situation where we are all a pretty much mixed bag and where in most cases no one is as good as we think or as bad as we fear.” But the burning question is: what does this have to do with Ann Coulter? Read the article and find out.

Work More, Accomplish Less
(Note to self: don’t forget to come back and write a blurb about how we always start stuff and never finish it.)

Stuck with nothing to read? The guys at 9 Marks posted a couple of reading lists worth attacking.

NPR reports:

…the hospital’s seventh-floor LifeCare patients were critical and not expected to be evacuated with the rest of the hospital. According to statements given to an investigator in the attorney general’s office, LifeCare’s pharmacy director, the director of physical medicine and an assistant administrator say they were told that the evacuation plan for the seventh floor was to “not leave any living patients behind,” and that “a lethal dose would be administered,” according to their statements in court documents.

NPR again:

The office has witness accounts suggesting patients at Memorial Hospital may have died from lethal doses of painkillers administered by medical staff in the days following Hurricane Katrina.

LifeSiteNews quotes the disability rights organization Not Dead Yet:

In other words, the only way the staff could evacuate was if they could report there were no more living patients to take care of. This was not about compassion or mercy. It was about throwing someone else over the side of the lifeboat in order to save themselves.

HT: Gene Edward Veith

PBS is airing some “best of” specials on Monty Python’s Flying Circus. Here in Atlanta, it’s airing tonight.

A Six-Pack of Christian Cop-Outs
Doug Groothuis takes up “…six factors that illegitimately inhibit apologetic engagement today. If these barriers are removed, our apologetic witness may grow into what it should be in Christ.” It’s a quick read that’s worth some long thought.

Who’s Who
The Evangelical Outpost has a very brief list of Christians who turn up in the media from time to time. I was talking to somebody recently about the need for something like this… one of my Wednesday lunch guys, I think. Anyway, there’s clearly a need for a resource that cuts through the labels that get thrown around and really assesses what people are all about. Maybe this is a step in that direction.

Funny, They Don’t Look Jewish
News flash: Native Americans are not Jews. Besides the devastating effect this news has on your average Tatonka Goldstein (a.k.a. “Dances With Wolfowitz”), it’s also raising questions among Mormons for whom that’s foundational to their faith. “…[R]eligion ultimately does not rest on scientific evidence, but on mystical experiences. There are different ways of looking at truth,” says a professor quoted in the article. I wonder if she meant there are right ways and wrong ways of looking at truth… (HT: Gene Edward Veith)

Are You Sitting Down?
Ask Yahoo! tackles the question of toilet seats: “…scientists found that phone receivers had 25,000 bacteria per square inch, while toilet seats had only 49 bacteria per square inch.” So what about people who talk on the phone while they’re… nevermind.