1. Like... could you just say it?
Slam poet Taylor Mali on our "aggressively inarticulate generation." (HT: PyroManiacs)
2. Seven topics to avoid if you don't want to risk being a bore
3. Corporations are not capitalism
One of the most widely believed myths in America today is the belief that corporations are an inherent part of capitalism. Concomitant with this is the idea that big corporations and big government have an intrinsically hostile relationship and that the stock market is a free market.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
4. To determine election outcomes, study says snap judgments are sufficient:
A split-second glance at two candidates' faces is often enough to determine which one will win an election, according to a Princeton University study.
Princeton psychologist Alexander Todorov has demonstrated that quick facial judgments can accurately predict real-world election returns. Todorov has taken some of his previous research that showed that people unconsciously judge the competence of an unfamiliar face within a tenth of a second, and he has moved it to the political arena. His lab tests show that a rapid appraisal of the relative competence of two candidates' faces was sufficient to predict the winner in about 70 percent of the races for U.S. senator and state governor in the 2006 elections.
(HT: Andrew Sullivan)
5. The Washington Times notes we may have reached an infamous milestone this year:
The Guttmacher Institute, which compiles detailed statistics, reported last year that more than 42 million legal abortions "occurred" between 1973 (when the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade) and 2002 (when slightly more than 1.25 million abortions were performed). If the 2002 rate were to continue over the next five years, then 2007 would mark the year in which the 50 millionth abortion "occurred" in the United States since 1973.
6. The Linked Word Project (HT: SmartChristian)
7. "Hanging Out" to the Glory of God
8. Watching Sports to the Glory of God
9. Zogby Poll: The Internet and God
Most Americans don’t think the Internet has had an effect on their spirituality. Ten percent said it made them closer to God, while 6% percent said it made them more distant. Those who call themselves “Born Again” were the most likely to feel it affected them spiritually. Twenty percent of Born Agains said it made them closer while 11% said it made them more distant from God.
…is not to cram and over-learn but rather to periodically review what you’ve studied. That’s according to Doug Rohrer and Harold Pashler who have identified an intriguing relationship between how long to leave it before returning to previously studied material, and the ultimate duration for which you want to remember it for.
11. How to properly hug a baby (HT: The Presurfer)
12. Alexham from RedState on the GOP and the "Culture of Life" :
Somewhere along the line, we lost our way. I think most Republicans instinctively know this, but have trouble articulating exactly when things began to unravel for our party. What we do know is that the Republican Party is at crossroads. We are a party in search of an identity, and the path we choose will have long-term ramifications not only for the GOP, but for these United States.
On a related note, last week I made a comment implying that RedState was one of the blogs that was out of touch with social conservatives. That was unfair. RedState has a number of great social conservative bloggers, including Alexham, Ben Domenech, Leon Wolf, and Erick Erickson.
13. Eliminate Common Writing Mistakes
14. Though I've never been much of a podcast listener, I'm getting hooked on Middlebrow, the audio show of The Scriptorium. Biola professors John Mark Reynolds and Fred Sanders, two of my favorite thinkers, are as engaging, intelligent, and as polished as talk radio hosts. Their latest show (Why Heart Huckabee?) discusses Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney in a thought-provoking manner and addresses many of the questions real voters—as opposed to political junkies—have about these candidates.
15. Can Religion Offset the Effects of Child Poverty?
Overall, we find strong evidence that youth with religiously active parents are less affected later in life by childhood disadvantage than youth whose parents did not frequently attend religious services. These buffering effects of religious organizations are most pronounced when outcomes are measured by high school graduation or non-smoking and when disadvantage is measured by family resources or maternal education, but we also find buffering effects for a number of other outcome-disadvantage pairs. We generally find much weaker buffering effects for other social organizations.
16. James Surowicki calls supply side economics "the great lie":
In American politics, supply-side economics is the monster that will not die. The supply-side argument that, in the United States, tax-rate cuts pay for themselves—that, after cutting taxes, the government actually ends up with more revenue—has little or no support within the mainstream economic profession, and no hard empirical data to back it up.
17. Video of the Week: 2 Seconds, 13 Laterals, 1 Touchdown
This is the last play of the SCAC title game between Trinity University and Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi on October 27, 2007. One of the most amazing plays ever. (HT: Between Two Worlds)
18. Poll of Afghans: More occupation, please
According to the survey, conducted in person across the country between Sept. 17 and 24 with a representative sample of 1,578 men and women, 60 per cent said that the presence of foreigners in the country was a good thing. Only 16 per cent said it was a bad thing, while 22 per cent said it was equally good and bad…
(HT: New Covenant)
19. Charles Moore in the UK Telgraph ponders the question, "How Will Future Historians Treat Abortion?"
I found myself wondering how abortion will be viewed by museum curators, teachers, historians and moralists 200 years from now.
As the slavery exhibition shows, something that one generation accepts readily enough is often seen as abhorrent by its descendants – so abhorrent, in fact, that people find it almost impossible to understand how it could have been countenanced in a supposedly civilized society.
How could people not see that Africans should not be bought and sold for the convenience of our trade or our domestic life? We reserve particular scorn for those who sought to justify slavery on moral grounds. We look at the moral blindness of the past, and tut-tut, rather complacently.
It is not hard to imagine how a future Museum of London exhibition about abortion could go. It could buy up a 20th-century hospital building as its space, and take visitors round, showing them how, in one ward, staff were trying to save the lives of premature babies while, in the next, they were killing them.
(HT: Holy Coast)
20. LeftyBlogs vs. RightyBlogs
Unmitigated by taxes, zoning, or other restrictions, church development can pose a delicate quandary for municipal leaders who want to balance neighbors' concerns with the valuable services churches provide.
In some places, a concentration of churches—because of their tax-exempt status—strains the economy.
22. Most Americans Take Well-Known Bible Stories at Face Value
A new nationwide survey conducted by The Barna Group shows that 6 well-known Bible stories are accepted as literal truth by an average of 2 out of 3 adults. Surprisingly, the most significant Bible story of all -- "the story of Jesus Christ rising from the dead, after being crucified and buried" -- is also the most widely embraced. 3 out of 4 adults (75%) say they interpret that narrative literally, while only 1 out of 5 (19%) say they don't take that story literally.
23. The atheist indoctrination project
Philosopher Richard Rorty argued that secular professors in the universities ought “to arrange things so that students who enter as bigoted, homophobic religious fundamentalists will leave college with views more like our own.” Rorty noted that students are fortunate to find themselves under the control “of people like me, and to have escaped the grip of their frightening, vicious, dangerous parents.” Indeed, parents who send their children to college should recognize that as professors “we are going to go right on trying to discredit you in the eyes of your children, trying to strip your fundamentalist religious community of dignity, trying to make your views seem silly rather than discussable.”
(HT: Stand to Reason)
24. Denny Burk on the distinctions among Bible translations:
When a Bible is rendered from one language into another, we call it translation. Translation happens anytime a scholar or a group of scholars reads the Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew originals and then translates them into a receptor language (like English in our case). There are two basic philosophies of Bible translation: (1) Formal Equivalence, which is a word-for-word approach to translating, and (2) Dynamic Equivalence, which is a thought-for-thought approach. All translations of the Scriptures fall somewhere on the spectrum between Formal Equivalence and Dynamic Equivalence.
But not all Bible versions are translations like the ones in the diagram above. Some versions are paraphrases, and they are off of the spectrum because they are not rendering the Bible from the original tongues into a receptor language. The Living Bible, for instance, is a paraphrase of another English version—the American Standard Version. Other paraphrases, like The Message, are so interpretive that the result sits very loose from the Greek and Hebrew that it renders. [more]
(HT: One Eternal Day)
25. LOLCat Re4mation TheoLOLgian of the Week
Fred Sanders has more.
26. Macht's Thesis : "Every good thing said by emerg(ing)/(ant)-(ish) folks has already been said by neo-calvinists, only better."
27. Foot-Tapping as Protected Speech (Part I) -- From the AP: "Idaho Sen. Larry Craig will argue before an appeals court that Minnesota's disorderly conduct law is unconstitutional as it applies to his conviction in a bathroom sex sting, according to a new court filing. This is the first time Craig's attorneys have raised that issue. However, an earlier friend-of-the-court filing by the American Civil Liberties Union argued that Craig's foot-tapping and hand gesture under a stall divider at the Minneapolis airport are protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech."
28. Foot-Tapping as Protected Speech (Part I) -- Rick Moore comments, " Can you imagine sitting down with Thomas Jefferson and the other founders and telling them that someday a U.S. Senator will use the hard work and intellect they put into the Constitution to defend soliciting gay sex in an airport restroom?"
29. Six Rules of Cultural Engagement (HT: Between Two Worlds)
30. Quote of the Week: "There is no Christian in his wits who will dare to adventure the everlasting safety of his soul upon the leaking vessels of his own holiness or services." -- Thomas Brooks, A Cabinet of Choice Jewels (HT: Of First Importance)
31. From Jennie Bristow's Abortion: stop hiding behind The Science":
This is likely to have an impact on policy. When prime minister Gordon Brown was asked about his thoughts on abortion as the committee hearings began, his spokesperson replied that ‘his general view was that these were matters that should be guided by scientific evidence’.
But while scientific and medical developments are crucial to the practice of abortion, informing such decisions as how the abortion is performed and who is able to perform it, it remains the case that the principle of abortion is a moral and political question, which cannot be resolved by science….
The question of abortion cannot be resolved at a scientific level, according to what is more or less bad for the fetus – it is a political issue about women’s need for abortion in a society committed to women’s equality and individual autonomy.
Hear that? It's the sound of the goalposts moving on the abortion debate in the UK. When they were losing the moral argument the pro-abortion crowd tried to argue their position based on science. Now that has become untenable they are trying to argue the case on a radical libertarian view. Good luck with that.
32. Religion And Healthcare Should Mix, Study Says -- Research shows that religion and spirituality are linked to positive physical and mental health; however, most studies have focused on people with life-threatening diseases. A new study shows that religion helps many individuals with disabilities adjust to their impairments and gives new meaning to their lives.
33. Information R/evolution
(HT: TechCrunch)
Well, Todorov, who do you like for 2008? Predictions, please.
As for #21, sorry the churches are eating into the tax base, but between the crimes we prevent and the charity we exercise, I'd say it's a net positive for the neighbors. Honestly. Sorry you have some traffic when you go out for your Sunday bagel.
The Guttmacher Institute, which compiles detailed statistics, reported last year that more than 42 million legal abortions "occurred" between 1973 (when the Supreme Court ruled on Roe v. Wade) and 2002 (when slightly more than 1.25 million abortions were performed). If the 2002 rate were to continue over the next five years, then 2007 would mark the year in which the 50 millionth abortion "occurred" in the United States since 1973.
What is the purpose of putting the word "occurred" in quotation marks here?
27. Foot-Tapping as Protected Speech (Part I) -- From the AP: "Idaho Sen. Larry Craig will argue before an appeals court that Minnesota's disorderly conduct law is unconstitutional as it applies to his conviction in a bathroom sex sting, according to a new court filing. This is the first time Craig's attorneys have raised that issue. However, an earlier friend-of-the-court filing by the American Civil Liberties Union argued that Craig's foot-tapping and hand gesture under a stall divider at the Minneapolis airport are protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees freedom of speech."
I think he has a good argument. Whenever I've seen prostitution stings on TV they always make it a point of getting the preliminary conversation to the point where there is an explicit deal to exchange money for sex. Craig, though, was arrested before he explicitly asked to do anything illegal.
28. Foot-Tapping as Protected Speech (Part I) -- Rick Moore comments, " Can you imagine sitting down with Thomas Jefferson and the other founders and telling them that someday a U.S. Senator will use the hard work and intellect they put into the Constitution to defend soliciting gay sex in an airport restroom?"
Probably not but I think Jefferson would agree that the state has to prove a crime was committed before it should be able to get a conviction. Craig probably did intend to solicit sex in a restroom but he was arrested before he actually did any such thing.
Marie
As for #21, sorry the churches are eating into the tax base, but between the crimes we prevent and the charity we exercise, I'd say it's a net positive for the neighbors.
Sometimes, I think the larger problem is using property taxes as a community's tax base. Here in NJ many churches sit at the historic centers of town where real estate prices are through the roof. It shouldn't be surprising that some start resenting having to pay high taxes while a megachurch at the center of town pays nothing...especially if that megachurch starts running what start to look like businesses like private schools, meeting halls, nursing homes etc. Since merchants and others cannot do anything about established churches, this makes it harder for new ones who must get zoning variances to open up in an area near their members. If the tax base is consumption and income, though, then property is no longer doing anything to drive up the tax rates on people nearby.
Reg #22
this is a very usefull find by the barna group...it show just how much work there is still left to be done in brigning people out of bronze age childish folklore beliefs. But to be fair,this disintoxication really only began in the mid '60's after centuries of violent indoctrination by the christian cult all over Europe and America...my guess is we re still decades away from getting these percentages in the low 30's
@#26
Macht's Thesis is whacked, sad to say.
If living it matters more than saying it, then neo-Calvinists (both then and now) aren't making a difference. A quick look at what they contended was completely rejected within the greater Calvinist body. In fact, on a local church level today, you'd be hard pressed to make any distinctions between neo-Calvinists and Old School Calvinists. To quote non-Calvinist David Byrne of The Talking Heads: "Same as it ever was, same as it ever was, same as it ever was..."
As much as i don't like a lot of what I see in Emerging/Emergent circles, at least they're living what they're saying.
10 tabs open from these links...not bad
Hi Joe,
Actually, the lie that supply side economics is a lie, is the lie that will not die.
The Laffer curve is widely accepted by economists everywhere, except of course, The New Yorker and Then New York Times.
DLE,
I'm sorry you don't know any neo-calvinists that practice what they preach, but I'm afraid that says more about who you know than about neo-calvinists in general. It certainly isn't true in my experience. (Although, the fact that you contrasted neo-calvinism with "old school calvinism" suggests to me that you don't mean the same thing by "neo-calvinist" as I do. By neo-calvinist, I mean people like Kuyper, Dooyeweerd, and people who followed after them (like Goudzwaard).)
The churches run "private schools, meeting halls, nursing homes etc." - wow, real profit centers.
The private schools benefit the community immensely, on so many levels. The meeting halls keep all the non-profit and social organizations going by providing them with a place to meet. And nursing homes? Praise God for a Christian nursing home in the community. I will assume based on my knowledge of Christian practice that there are poor people in the school and in the nursing home who would be in far worse places should the church not be there.
It is probably the fact that a good church has been sitting there for ten, twenty, or fifty years that has made the neighborhood "good" and raised the property values.
People want all the benefits of Christianity, just not the Christianity part.
11 tabs out of 33 links equals a pretty darn good 33 Things Post. Bonus points for getting me to tab 33% of the links.
Shouldn't you be asking the author of the Washington Times editorial article instead? Anyway, I would have thought you would be happy to see the quotation marks since it seems to suggest that the abortions were only alleged to have happened. One of the big claims abortion proponents keep trying to make is that the rate of abortions is dropping. Therefore, the Washington Times supports this legerdemain of talking points by casting doubt on any institutional data that might indicate otherwise.
Anyway, I would have thought you would be happy to see the quotation marks since it seems to suggest that the abortions were only alleged to have happened.
At best the quotation marks would only make sense if there was some confusion or debate over whether or not something counted as an abortion. For example, suppose the number includes miscarriages believed to be caused by eating junk food. Some people may consider this a type of abortion, many wouldn't. I could see using quotation marks around the word "occured" then....even then I think it woudl make more sense to use them around the word "abortion".
If there's doubt over the number then they should qualify it with 'estimated'.
One of the big claims abortion proponents keep trying to make is that the rate of abortions is dropping. Therefore, the Washington Times supports this legerdemain of talking points by casting doubt on any institutional data that might indicate otherwise.
If this is the point then why talk about an estimate of total abortions since 1973? Since the abortion rate can never be negative the cummulative total of abortion is always going to be increasing over time. That figure has nothing to do with abortion rates which can indeed fall.
It is probably the fact that a good church has been sitting there for ten, twenty, or fifty years that has made the neighborhood "good" and raised the property values.
Sadly there are plenty of places that have gone straight to hell where the only thing left standing amid urban decay is a huge cathederal or church that was built decades or even centuries ago. Large churches have a hard time going anywhere. If they are historic you can't just bulldoze them and put up office buildings and there's not a lot you can do with a giant church-like building other than using it as a church. So you can quite easily end up with a mega-church sitting on prime real estate that no one goes too except a very tiny number of people.
The private schools benefit the community immensely, on so many levels. The meeting halls keep all the non-profit and social organizations going by providing them with a place to meet. And nursing homes? Praise God for a Christian nursing home in the community. I will assume based on my knowledge of Christian practice that there are poor people in the school and in the nursing home who would be in far worse places should the church not be there.
Ahhh but should they be located on 'prime' real estate? Maybe maybe not? That's kind of what you're doing when you 1. use property taxes as a major source of tax revenue and 2. exempt religious institutions. There's no magic there where church property causes property values to rise. You've created a huge incentive for churchs to hold onto property that is appreciating in value because there's no cost to holding it. The downside, IMO, is that newer Churches will bear the brunt of the resentment this creates as they will get blocked from opening new buildings by zoning laws. If property taxes were not a major source of revenue churches would still enjoy an exemption but the actual real estate market may be more dynamic and it may be easier for a neighborhood's churches to change with the religous habits of the neighborhoods.
What is the purpose of putting the word "occurred" in quotation marks here?
You said you were a pin(prick) in a bubble factory, but sometimes I think you're just dense. It's pretty obvious to anyone with normal intelligence and a conscience why they put "occurred" in quotes. Why do you think they did?
No, you first.
#31 - Stop hiding behind the science.
Goal post moving indeed! There is a scientific view and a view of blind belief.
With the scientific view, there is no argument for abortion if there is no argument for killing a child or an adult.
With the blind belief point of view, the fetus is magically not human and has no rights.
Somehow I was taught the opposite as were most people I know.
Watch the rats run from their positions as the light shines on them.
Alan
jd
It's pretty obvious to anyone with normal intelligence and a conscience why they put "occurred" in quotes.
Errr because they do not know the proper use of quotation marks. Really this has nothing to do with where you stand on abortion. Now you go!
jd
It's pretty obvious to anyone with normal intelligence and a conscience why they put "occurred" in quotes.
Errr because they do not know the proper use of quotation marks. Really this has nothing to do with where you stand on abortion. Now you go!
OK, maybe things should go like this:
A group of believers comes together, worships, prays, gives, sacrifices, and among other things eventually builds a big building. Real estate gets more expensive over the years, and as more and more wealthy folks move in, they find themselves less and less inclined to go to church. After a couple of decades the church has a nice big property and ten member families. Shut it down! This is not a good use for that prime piece of real estate, obviously.
Maybe we could have a government bureaucracy that assesses the churches yearly. If they are "too small" or "not helping the community enough" or are sitting on too fat of a property, they could get shut down.
Or maybe the community could vote every five years, deciding whether to allow the church to continue there or if they'd prefer to exercise "eminent domain" and put in a strip mall, thereby increasing the tax base.
That so typifies the abortion proponent narrative... "nothing to see here folks, move along, move along."
Or just have an even playing field. If ten member families want to fund a giant building in the center of town then they can do it with their own money as they please with neither incentives or penalties from the gov't.
Don't whine about gov't bureaucracy. You're the one that proposed that some churches have positive spill over effects that therefore merit special consideration by the community. You're hardly the first person to argue along those lines. Just about every major stadium built has a small army of backers who are claiming the same thing. I'm simply proposing avoiding the use of property taxes. I don't see what your beef is. Since churches are largely exempt that won't be any skin off their noses and it would silence the critics who don't like churches inflating the property tax rates for everyone else.
That so typifies the abortion proponent narrative... "nothing to see here folks, move along, move along."
It's sad to see political correctness has so infected the right that you cannot even question the use of dubious quotation marks.
Boonton,
My beef is, our country was set up with tax exemption for churches for a reason, and I don't like to see it challenged. The basic reason was not the obvious good churches do for the nation. Rather, it is to avoid state control of the church.
Our forefathers, having learned their history so they aren't doomed to repeat it, kept the church as an organization out of state control. As individual Christians (or Buddhists, or Hindus, or whatever), we are subject to the state control of taxation. But as an organization, the church can't be controlled by anyone who wishes to destroy it by assessing it high taxes.
My annoyance comes from the cavalier tone of, oh, let them just be taxed like the rest of us. Think it out. I am taxed just like the rest of us. So is everyone who attends my church. We don't pay taxes as if we were some sort of business or corporation, because we AREN'T.
Businesses run by a church, once they leave the field of ministry (non-profit nursing home) and enter the field of money making (no example comes to mind - suppose we bought a 7-11 or something) ARE subject to taxation.
People who complain about this issue need to think about how the church/state situation is in other countries where the government treats a church like any other business. Thank God we live in America. Churches, if allowed to operate at all (not in North Korea) can only be one type (welcome to Iran) or are used as government control places (hello former Eastern bloc) or infiltrated by pro-government propaganda (China) or persecuted by the favored church (try starting a Protestant church in southern Mexico) and I'm sure you get the idea.
Marie
My beef is, our country was set up with tax exemption for churches for a reason, and I don't like to see it challenged. The basic reason was not the obvious good churches do for the nation. Rather, it is to avoid state control of the church.
Actually our country was not set up with a tax exemption for churches. Feel free to actually read the Constitution if you don't think so.
As individual Christians (or Buddhists, or Hindus, or whatever), we are subject to the state control of taxation. But as an organization, the church can't be controlled by anyone who wishes to destroy it by assessing it high taxes.
Businesses are assessed taxes yet we have plenty of them...more of them than Churches in fact. Taxes that are discriminatory that target specific religions or religion in general would be illegal under the 1st Amendment.
Businesses run by a church, once they leave the field of ministry (non-profit nursing home) and enter the field of money making (no example comes to mind - suppose we bought a 7-11 or something) ARE subject to taxation.
Which makes the tax exemption rather dicey business. Some political group decides to call themselves a church and all in the sudden the gov't has to decide who is or isn't a real religion. Taxes based on, say income, make things rather easy. If a Christian group wants to run a nursing home as a charity they can simply charge a low enough price that they don't make a profit....presto no income no income taxes. If the Jim Baker Bible Theme Park wants to run itself as a charity it can as well...if it wants to make as much money as Disney World then it can pay taxes like Disney World and the gov't never has to get involved deciding whether or not a park is a 'proper' thing for a Church to run.
marie:
Don't encourage Boonton by engaging him. He'll fool you into thinking he's thinking, but in reality he's channeling Yoda. I'm convinced he's three feet tall and tries to move his genuine C3PO Star Wars toy using the force.
The only thing dubious is your use of questioning the use of scare quotes as a springboard for advertising your ridiculous notions about abortion.
Not to ignore smmtheory's advice, but just a quick note, Boonton, I never said tax exemption was in the Constitution. I refer to our tax code, go ahead, read it, get back to me in ten years!
Businesses that succeed proliferate because they are in business making money. Despite cynical claims to the contrary the vast majority of religious groups are not in it to make money - they are in it to disciple and evangelize (not just the Christians, either).
Businesses and religious organizations are almost always entirely different things, (there are always exceptions - Amway got religious, so I heard, some use religion to do business but lose their exemption when found out, ok) which you seem determined not to see.
Marie,
You said the tax exemption was "set up" with our Country. In my book that means Constitution. Maybe you can say it means our early laws but 'set up' hardly means our current tax code which is much, much younger.
I recognize the difference between businesses and religions but both need to 'make money' in the sense that they need supporters to survive. If they lack supporters then gov't should not be giving them artificial support.
I disagree that tax exemption is really all that important for religion's survival. If a church has passionate support of its members not having a tax exemption will not kill it. Also while I agree there's a difference I don't think it is always a great idea for gov't to be called upon to decide what the difference is. In the best world I don't think, for example, the gov't should be judging whether a Church that is running an amusement park is becoming more business than church.