Bill Nye, ‘The Science Guy’ upset some people when he spoke at a community college in Waco

The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: “God made two great lights — the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.”

He pointed out that the sun, the “greater light,” is but one of countless stars and that the “lesser light” is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.

A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.

“We believe in a God!” exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children.

Nye also was critical of what he said was governmental agencies’ lack of action, even lack of understanding, in protecting the Earth from global warming and wasted resources.

They were “angered by his irreverence?” What were they expecting from a combination scientist/comedian?

Of course, I wasn’t there, so I can’t say for certain what was said, or the tone used to say it. But from what little I know of the guy, I think he was just pointing out what he sees as bad science, regardless of the source. I doubt this was a concerted attack on the moral fabric of Waco.

Some who read this might be tempted to say that I’m being hypocritical, and that if he had found fault with the Qur’an I would have been livid. To some extent, you’d probably be right about my reaction, though I don’t see it as hypocritical.

Science is all about critical thinking. In order to be effective, Mr. Nye needs to choose topics which are well known to his audience. I’m certain that he could have found scientific flaws in the Qur’an, and talked about them. But given that most of the audience has probably never read anything from the Qur’an, it wouldn’t be a case of countering well-known things, and could only be taken as an attempt to discredit Islam.

Aside from that, there’s the question of majority vs minority status. Nobody would argue with the statement that there are a lot more Christians and Jews in Waco than there are Muslims. Like it or not, the majority has a responsibility to ensure extra protection to the minority. Otherwise, we’re reduced the the old joke definition of democracy:

Two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for supper.

Wendy and I have been talking about the immigration controversy that’s been raging recently. We both agree that the debate over guest workers vs border security really misses the point. By and large, people don’t come here because they want to have their lives uprooted and their families split apart. They come because they have no choice. Addressing the root causes of economic disparity is a permanent solution, rather than the temporary patches represented in most debates.

I’ve been trying to come up with some coherent thoughts on this, but the people at CrossLeft have beat me to it, at least in part. I may still write something up, but this article is worth a read in the meantime.

I haven’t made many changes to BlogWatcher recently. Well, not changes that would be visible to a user, anway. So I was thinking about directions that I could go, and I wanted to get some feedback.

Here are some of the things I’m thinking about

• A “preview” pane. That is, instead of the way the interface is today, with the contents of the articles (or as much as is available) all shown on one page, I could reduce it to a simple author/title type display. Clicking on the article would pull the actual page into a preview area on the screen. Those of you who use “Outlook” for email should be familiar with the concept I’m talking about. Of course, I know some people wouldn’t like that, so I’d probably need some sort of method for switching between the two “looks”
• Related to the above, Marking posts read/unread. Along with that, there would probably be a new “subscription” showing just unread posts.
• More feedback. BlogWatcher is doing a lot “behind the scenes” as you read and delete your posts. I’ve put some rather sparse status messages in to give some idea of what it’s doing, but perhaps more would be useful. In particular, I’m thinking about what happens when you delete/undelete a post. It looks immediate to you, but it actually takes some time to exchange the messages with the server, especially if it’s busy. Closing your browser or leaving the page while one of those messages is “pending” could cause the action to be effectively cancelled.
• Saving old posts. Currently, posts are available as long as they’re still in the feed provided by the original server. Typically most feeds have the most recent 10-20 posts. Older posts are removed from the feed, and so removed from BlogWatcher. Does that older, historical data sound useful to anybody?
• Post categories. Many posts are categorized by the authors. Would exposing that information be valuable? I could put it into the body of the post (fairly easy) or make new “subscriptions” based on the categories (harder, but do-able).
• User-assigned categories. Would it be useful for you to be able to tag a post by your own categories, instead of (in addition to?) the ones assigned by the post’s author?

Your thoughts and suggestions are welcome. Some of these things are fairly involved to develop, so I don’t want to spend a ton of effort if there’s no interest.

One Year Bible Blog: April 11th readings

The passage that struck me today was Luke 14:7-11, where Jesus uses the illustration of places at a dinner party to encourage his followers to humble themselves. I’m familiar with the passage, of course, but it always bothered me. It seemed to me that Jesus was advocating a false modesty, for the purpose of being manipulative. Being modest for the specific purpose of being exalted.

I read it differently today.

Instead of reading it as advocating humility as a means to an end, I’m now seeing it as an honest acknowledgement of who is actually in charge. Go to the “end of the line,” not with the expectation of being raised up, but with the attitute that the “host of the dinner” may have other, more important uses for those “better” positions. Going to the back gives control to the host. Jumping to the front is an attempt to usurp the authority of the host.

I’ve just finished reading the newly released translation of The Gospel of Judas

(HT to edmund at Becoming for the link)

I’m not going to speak to the authenticity of this document, because I have far too little information (or scholarly background) to put forth any sort of informed opinion on the matter. Instead, I want to write about something that bothered me about the translation itself.

The document is very difficult to read, because there are many gaps, presumably because the source material is fragmentary. But the portions that you can follow have, for lack of a better word, a very “modern” feel. (I mean “modern” in the usual sense, as in “current,” rather than it’s use in the modern vs post-modern discussions). That is to say, most of the dialog that goes on wouldn’t seem out of place today. My first reaction to that realization was to think to myself that this couldn’t possibly be authentic. However, I rejected that, as I have no other reason to doubt the dating procedures that were done, placing this as a 4th century document.

more…

Thanks to Bald Man Blogging for finding this

One Year Bible Blog: April 5th readings

(This is actually false advertising, as this post is only tangentially related to today’s readings)

The thing that really stood out to me in Deutoronmy 28 is the “curse” section. Of course, most of the curses are mirrors of the blessings from the first part of the chapter. But what really interested me is the section where Moses tells the Israelites that if they don’t obey God’s word to them, then they’ll be reduced to all sorts of behaviors that God has earlier said were abhorrant. He specifically mentions “… serve other gods, of wood and stone” (Deu 28:36, Deu 28:64), “… you will eat the fruit of your womb,  the flesh of your own sons and daughters whom the LORD your God has given you.” (Deu 28:53)

So, in other words, if Israel disobeys God’s will, then among the consequences will be that they’ll disobey even more! If you try to look at this logically and rationally, it doesn’t make any sense. God, quite frankly, sounds a bit schitzophrenic. While leads me to the real point of this post.

As I’ve said before, I think it’s a mistake to treat the Bible as a science or history text. That the actual events recorded there aren’t as important as the meaning behind the narrative. I this is a prime example of that. This is a literary device, if you will, to show to future generations the choices faced by their ancestors, to act as a guide in making their own choices. Those future generations (us) aren’t faced with the exact same choices, because the world has changed. After all, I don’t know too many people who would give serious credance to someone who called for the wholesale destruction of an entire nation, including non-combatant women, children, and animals, as Israel was told to do. But we are faced with choices of how to live our lives in the presence of those who reject everything that we hold dear. (I leave it to you to decide who those others are in your case. It might even be me, for some who read this.)

I don’t believe that we are called to rigidly (religiously?) follow a proscribed set of rules and regulations, but to use our minds and hearts to see beyond the rules. It’s not a “safe” thing to do. After all, I have no guarantee that I’m understanding the intent at all. In that sense, rules are much easier. As an amateur actor, I find I much prefer working from a pre-written script rather than doing improv. I feel very uncomfortable with improv. A script sets nice clear delimiters on what’s expected of me. And it clearly has it’s place. But improv allows for a process of discovery, for the actor(s) and the audience, that’s simply not possible in any other form.

I believe we’re called to improv.

I believe that, at this point in history, that improv nature of our relationship with God dictates that it is our duty to act as healers for creation. Ministers in the original sense of the word: one who cares for (ministers to) the needs of others. Others look at the same world, and see a very different response is in order. Am I right? Are they? I think that the answer to both is probably “Yes, in part.” That’s the wonderful and terrible thing about working without a script.

I am very excited. I just got an offer letter for a new job. It will mean

• More money
• Paid vacation
• Fully paid heath/disability insurance

And, most important of all, I’ll be working from home! That’s two hours of commuting saved per day. Not to mention gas, etc. Plus I can set my own schedule, so I can take care of little things during the day that I could never do before.

I start the new job April 17^th