Isn't evolution wonderful? — 3

(I posted this vid earlier. Then I oopsed it into oblivion. What you have here is a recreation.)

What's remarkable is to listen to the narrative, and hear about the obvious design and intent and mind behind the layout of the tunnels and chambers. But no acknowledgment is made of the Designer of the designers.

My pastor is supposed to send me the citation for this, but John Owen's contemporary John Howe remarked that men will look at a painting of a man and acknowledge an artist, yet refuse to make the same connection regarding the man himself.

If you're just too darned happy today and need some serious depression, read some of the YouTube comments on this video. Experts at missing the point. Anyone who dares to say anything about God's design is shouted down, and his post hidden from immediate view. It certainly calls to mind —

For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For 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. 21 For 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, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. (Romans 1:19-23)

(For explanation of the series title, see here.)

rats

I just learned something about Blogger.

I just killed the "Isn't Evolution Wonderful — 3" post, making another post to save in draft form. Rats.

Sigh. I'll try to get it back... maybe later today.

Meanwhile, the good news is I've already learned my one new thing for the day. So I'm done. I can go back to bed.

Meanwhile... look at these!

I'm sorry, the week has had me too busy to make a contentful post. Bad timing, I know, and again, I'm sorry. Various immediate family needs, working overtime, plus I find I've a sermon to preach Sunday. Which, yay, but it does take the time.

So, for now... these, from the nutty artists at Worth1000!




See the rest HERE.

Forgiveness, abortion, and other sins

Craig said this in a recent post:

But what if you've had an abortion? You've done a terrible thing. But healing and restoration can be found in Christ. Don't justify your own actions, look to Christ for justification.

I agree, and think it merits a word of expansion.

God forgives the sins of repentant believers.

It was God who said this:

He who conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
But he who confesses and forsakes them will find compassion
(Proverbs 28:13)

And this:

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace
(Ephesians 1:7)

And this:

...and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem
(Luke 24:47)

God forgives sins, there is forgiveness for sins; it is sinners who are declared righteous in and because of Christ.

God doesn't forgive mistakes, errors in judgment, bad choices, regrettable decisions, regrets. Genuine confession of sin doesn't include a "but" or "if" or "because" — as in "I did this, but I had no choice," or "if that was wrong, I'm sorry," or "I did that because my lover / partner / parent...."

Confession of sin is specific and unqualified. If it was a sin, you didn't have to do it. If it was a sin, you shouldn't have done it. If it was a sin, there is no excuse for it. If it was a sin, you would not do it again, offered the opportunity, God helping you.

If you imagine that you had to do it, that there was an excuse for it, that it wasn't really all that bad, then you don't see it as God sees it yet.

If your sin leaves you with a wrong that you should right, but you are unwilling to right it, then you don't see it as God sees it yet.

In those cases, your action isn't really a sin, to you. It is, at worst, an "oops." But Christ died for sins, not "oopses," since "oopses" don't really require forgiveness.

And the truth is, you don't really think it was even an "oops," do you? You still think you had a good reason to do it. It wasn't really bad, like what bad people do. You just have this guilt-feeling, and you'd like it to go away. So you run to the "forgiveness" button.

Or worse still, some Christian is talking to you, and trying to bring you to see it God's way (which is really a very loving thing to do), and you want him to stop bugging you about it.

So you tell him you're forgiven and he should forgive you too. That should shut him up.

Yet you really aren't forgiven.

Because you don't think you've really sinned.

And God only forgives the sins of repentant believers.

Logos Scholars' edition Gold for sale

Some poor soul (Triablogue's Bernabe Belvedere) has fallen away to Apple, and thus can't use most of the software that's available.

One of which is Logos Gold, which I've reviewed for my beloved readers.

So his sad, sad defection can be your gain!

Lookie here.

(c;

Where I Am Right Now (presidential campaign)

Rush Limbaugh reportedly said, "it's gonna come down to which guy do we dislike the least." I've said virtually the exact same, and that's where I find myself now that Thompson has bailed.

In the primary, I can't conceive of voting for John McMeMeMe, him of countless backstabbings and lurches left, the man who actually looks at things through the perspective of the New York Times. Global warming, McCain-Feingold, senate "compromises" (i.e. cave-ins). No thank you.

Rudy Giuliani? No way. There are reasons I "used to be" a Democrat (rather than "am"). He rolls too many of them together. Besides, I cannot for the life of me understand why character counted when Clinton was the nominee (and it did), but it doesn't anymore.

Ron Paul? Duh. No. I read where Norma McCorvey endorsed Paul as the best pro-life candidate. I've never viewed her as a particularly perceptive political thinker, but that aside: if electability is a quality of "best," then Paul's disqualified. And thank God. In other words, to be the "best" candidate on an issue, one must stand a snowball's chance in Hades of actually having the power to do something for the issue, in which case he must actually have that same frosty globe's odds of winning the office. Which Paul doesn't — and, again, I say "Thank God."

Otherwise, I am actually the better candidate. Or Justin Taylor. Or John Piper.

Meanwhile, back in the real world:

Mike Huckabee. Well, if I voted the same way many women and blacks (reportedly) are, he'd be my man, wouldn't he? He's a pastor, I'm a pastor. He's an evangelical, I'm an evangelical. He's a Baptist, I'm a Baptist member of a Presbyterian church, but that's another story.

So why can't I vote for him?

Because I don't trust him, because there are too many substantial and creditable reports of his liberal record and big-government positions, and because the Clinton machine would slaughter him like a paschal lamb. They would find every sermon he ever preached, every bulletin or newsletter note he ever wrote, every disgruntled person who even so much as drove by his church or knew someone who had — and those would dominate every news cycle until the election.

One day it would be "Huckabee said non-Christians would go to Hell." Two days later: "Huckabee said sex outside of marriage is a 'sin.'" Two days after that: "Huckabee said money 'belongs to the Lord.'" Two days after that: "Huckabee said 'women cannot be pastors.'"

Every day of the campaign would have him on the defensive.

And then he'd lose.

So, even if I thought I could trust him, no.

And now, with sinking heart....

Mitt Romney. Oh, crud. So, what's his main qualification, at this point? That he's not one of the others. Sure sure, he's supposed to be smart, and he is a successful businessman, and like most in his cult he's a family-man, and blah blah blah.

Whatever.

Don't try to make me like it. I just will have to do it, for the reasons stated above and elsewhere. As a Christian, I cannot for the life of me see the rational/Biblical excuse for voting for a doctrinaire and extreme representative of a party that works hard and dedicatedly against almost everything I value as a Christian. Nor will I sit out the primary.

But here's where I find myself now: in the same place as four years ago, yet opposite.

Four years ago, one candidate was an opportunistic pandering flip-flopper, and the other had a fairly consistent record of pursuing a set of convictions. I voted for the latter and, thank God, he won.

Now I'm in the same place, but flipped on its head: one candidate sure looks like an opportunistic flip-flopper, and the other had a very consistent record of pursuing a set of convictions (albeit convictions that I, as a Christian, deplore and oppose).

But this time I have to vote for the opportunistic pandering flip-flopper and, at least, comfort myself that he panders unconvincingly for many of my convictions instead of against them.

Not a ringing endorsement, is it? Well, so much "No" that I won't even call this an endorsement, and I'd thank you for not characterizing it as such. It's more of a "what I probably will have to do because I don't see the sense of doing anything else."

Whee. Isn't politics fun?

Yep. Not so much.

Cloverfield, in brief and largely unspoilt

Yes, that's right: two posts in one day!

SPOILER-FREE

I liked Cloverfield a lot. Just saw it for the second time, and it held up well.

I thought the premise creative and fresh, and developed very nicely. It isn't a deep movie, I discern no message or subtext. It's just a straight-up whopping good monster movie, as from my childhood except with a unique approach and killer special effects.

Hang with it, it takes a little bit to set the stage, but that portion matters. Then, when it gets going, it goes.

Not too many laughs, quite a few legitimate gasps and yells and some honest tension.

I'd give it ~3.75 stars out of 5.

LIGHTLY SPOILT

When the movie ended, the lady behind us loudly said, "That was the worst movie I ever saw!" Several times. Whereupon I remarked, "Clearly she never saw The Hired Hand."

I'd like to respond to a few common complaints:

"The photography was terrible! I got so dizzy!" Um, yeah, hello, that's kind of the premise? Doofy guy pressed into filming a party, when all heck breaks loose? And so you're expecting him to, what — carefully frame each shot, and carry a tripod with him as he runs for his life? That would be a different movie.

To me, this complaint is on a level with faulting "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" because some of the characters looked cartoonish.

I wonder how many people who mouth this complaint are the same exact people who complain that Hollywood can never come up with anything new.

"They never explain what the thing was, or where it came from!" Uh, again, hello? The premise? Maybe you'd have liked it better if the guy holding the camera were Pat Robertson, so God could just whisper things into his ear just for him, then he could tell you? Or if he were a xenobiologist / marine biologist / astrophysicist / psychic? Or if they "just happened" to run into one as they ran through the streets, screaming? (But then the criticism would be that this was an unrealistic plot development.)

But then, that would be a different movie, wouldn't it?

Is it fair to criticize an apple because it doesn't taste much like a strawberry? I've never thought so.

"I think the 9-11 visual references were just in poor taste!" Oh, my. Now we're going have to go back over every movie and TV show since 1948 that makes any reference to Nazi's, "holocaust," racial purity, racial superiority, "Final Solution" — or anything that seems analogous or metaphorically referential — and censor them. Right?

If Thompson drops out now

He will have entered the race too late...

...and left it too early.

Pretty sad legacy.

And I'd just be left with who I dislike voting for least.

Though, of course, from this Christian's perspective, any one of them is better than any of the Democrats. (Remembering that 0.001% better is still better.)

I say something positive about Huckabee

It doesn't happen often, so mark your calendars.

In this thoughtful (but over-parenthetical) article, John Mark Reynolds discusses something Huckabee said about the Constitution. In the course of it, he quotes Huckabee on the idea of reversing Rowe and returning the abortion issue to the states:

...if Roe v. Wade is overturned, we haven’t won the battle. All we’ve done is now we’ve created the logic of the Civil War, which says that the right to the human life is geographical, not moral. I think that’s very problematic. That’s why I think that people like Fred Thompson are dead wrong when he says just leave that up to the states. Well, that’s again the logic of the Civil War – that slavery could be okay in Georgia but not okay in Massachusetts. Obviously we’d today say, “Well, that’s nonsense. Slavery is wrong, period.” It can’t be right somewhere and wrong somewhere else. Same with abortion.

Good point and well-put; and I hadn't thought of it that way.

No "but" follows.

Do "real men" cry?

PREFATORY UPDATE: it looks as if the site referenced below may have shut down direct access to the pictures. In case they are not showing on your browser, simply view the whole gallery starting here. The ones I linked to were images 18 and 16.

If one can look at this picture and not at least tear up — it isn't my idea of masculinity.


Here's the caption:

The night before the burial of her husband's body, Katherine Cathey refused to leave the casket, asking to sleep next to his body for the last time. The Marines made a bed for her, tucking in the sheets below the flag. Before she fell asleep, she opened her laptop computer and played songs that reminded her of "Cat," and one of the Marines asked if she wanted them to continue standing watch as she slept. "I think it would be kind of nice if you kept doing it," she said. "I think that's what he would have wanted."

A man who can read that dry-eyed and unmoved.... Well, not the sort of man I want to be.

UPDATE: Maritus Imperfectus pointed me to another:


View the whole gallery of very moving photos in sequence, starting here, thank God for your freedom and the warriors who purchased and protect it, and pray for our troops.

End the suspense

Find out who you should vote for here.

(For ABC, the questions are actually decent. I'd have included a few others, though.)

Ending frivolous lawsuits: my proposal

Which isn't actually mine:

If a malicious witness arises to accuse a person of wrongdoing, 17 then both parties to the dispute shall appear before the LORD, before the priests and the judges who are in office in those days. 18 The judges shall inquire diligently, and if the witness is a false witness and has accused his brother falsely, 19 then you shall do to him as he had meant to do to his brother. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 20 And the rest shall hear and fear, and shall never again commit any such evil among you. 21 Your eye shall not pity. It shall be life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.
(Deuteronomy 19:16-21)

Interesting, isn't it, that here the lex talionis is applied — not to actual harm, but — to intended harm?

Contrast this with the state of affairs in America, where literally anyone can sue literally anyone for literally anything. Win or not, those thousands of dollars, and hundreds of hours, are gone, gone, gone.

So my proposal is that failed lawsuits result in penalties for the false suit-bringer. Bring back the concept of frivolous lawsuits. At the very least the loser must pay attorney's fees plus some sort of compensatory damages. A little in-kind restitution wouldn't hurt.

Unethical lawyers, living as they do on human misery — on the exacerbation and exploitation of which they make their tidy little living — wouldn't much like it. Anyone who's ever lost part of his life to some itchy suer and his vicious attack-dog lawyer would think it was pretty cool... and pretty just.

Family DVD recommendation: "Meet the Robinsons"

When this movie came out last year, reviews were mixed. I saw some that were negative, at the time. The very-critical IMDB reviewers, though, have given it a favorable 7/10; Rotten Tomatoes' critic survey gave it 65%.

I shrugged off the initial negative responses I'd read, and went to a theater with my younger boys, then 7 and 11. We all enjoyed it. In fact, I was surprised it wasn't a bigger deal. We found it funny, fast-moving, and had a couple of nice little "messages" (keep trying, family matters).

Last Saturday, the family watched it for Burger Night; this audience included my wife and daughter, who are much tougher critics. They both liked it, too. We all laughed, and both the ladies stayed for the whole thing. (If they don't like it, they don't stay; or they get something to read.)

It's a movie that works hard, in the best sense of the phrase, to be engaging and funny. It doesn't assume the viewer will be happy just because of the CGI animation, the eye-candy, and the occasion sight-gag. The voice actors are nuanced, the expressions and gestures of the characters sometimes very complex; there are some deftly subtle jokes adults will appreciate more than the kids will, yet plenty to have the kids roaring. A lot to like... unless you're a sourpuss. (You know who you are.)

Knowing that my readers include folks who are always looking for things they can watch with their kids, and that this movie was more under the radar than the (to me) disappointing "Cars" and "Ratatouille," I thought I'd pass along the recommendation.

And now... I have!

On the passing of Ann Coulter's father

Ann Coulter has written a eulogy in praise of her father, who just passed away.

Coulter clearly adored her father, which is always nice to see; and she has my genuine sympathy. My father passed away 1/1/1993, leaving a hole in the way things should be, and I miss him all the time. Like Coulter's father, Dad was a representative of a different generation and a different culture, and a remarkable man.

I'm sure some of you will part with me in this, but I like Ann Coulter quite a lot, in general and most of the time. At least in writing and in person, she demonstrates an unapologetic, convicted fierceness of which I wish "our" "leaders" would show even 25%. (Some of you will assume I mean "our" = GOP; others perhaps "our" = "evangelical," and to both groups I return a predictable "Yes!")

Coulter has said some things I think have needed to be said, and said them effectively and well. And she doesn't back down.

At the same time, I also have thought the opposite of other of her sayings. (And there's the disturbing possibility that, as with Rush Limbaugh and others, it could all or partly be an act.)

Having said that, some of her remarks troubled me. For instance, she lauds her father thus:

John Vincent Coulter was of the old school, a man of few words, the un-Oprah, no crying or wearing your heart on your sleeve, and reacting to moments of great sentiment with a joke. Or as we used to call them: men.

Hm. Well, Ann's often called herself a Christian, and I won't dispute that. But she isn't getting her definition of masculinity from Scripture here. Not if Ezra, Jeremiah, David, Paul, and the Lord Jesus are illustrative of godly men. They "cried." They openly revealed deep feelings about matters of great depth. I daresay many of the best men ever to live "cried." And personally, I don't think much of anyone who characteristically reacts to moments of great sentiment with a joke. Cheapening or trivializations never impress me favorably.

Family jokes often cannot survive being ripped from their context, and I'm sure my own children will have a too-rich store of (apparently or really) horrid things I've said. But Coulter speaks fondly of her mother quoting something her father said on every wedding anniversary: "54 years, married to the wrong woman." Hm. Not exactly Proverbs 31:28-31, is it? But then her father was a lifelong Romanist, so he literally may never have opened a Bible.

In spite of that, Ann pronounces him to be in Heaven "with Joe McCarthy and Ronald Reagan" — and she hopes that they will "stop laughing about the Reds long enough to talk to God about smiting some liberals for me."

"Smiting" — not convicting and converting, nor opening their eyes or softening their hearts.

This is the saddest Coulter column I've read, and not merely because it's about her father's passing. It sheds some light on a fair bit about her. It tells me I should pray for her.

And certainly not that God would "smite" her.

Number(s) of the Beast

Not at all what I was expecting.

(h-t m'mate CraigS)

Who knew? I'm a sci-fi geek

	I received 93 credits on The Sci Fi Sounds Quiz How much of a Sci-Fi geek are you?
Take the Sci-Fi Movie Quiz cheapest digital camera

If this doesn't give you a chuckle...

... seek help.

You're kidding me (coffee)

Some bonus money went to a fancy coffeemaker that grinds its own beans. Since then, I've tried a lot of fancy beans to get just the right taste. I'm a coffee-lover, but I have to admit: there hasn't been a huge difference to me from bean to bean.

But I just finished about the best cup I've had so far. Maybe it's my palate, mood, whatever. It's hard to believe it's the bean. Yet... it really is the best, yummiest, most robustly-flavorful I've had. But I never would have bought it for myself. I wouldn't even have considered it. Someone gave it to me. Frankly, I used it mainly because, well, it was next. But it was great.

Brand?

Don't laugh.

Dunkin' Donuts.

LATER: Update.

And now, for a chuckle

Just posted something pretty heavy over at Pyro.

This isn't.

Merry Tossmas (little late, sorry)

I like it.