Bah

Windows is such a pain in the ***. Glad I don't use it.

A Good Point About the Ancient World

N. T. Wright says this in his book Jesus and the Victory of God (p. 186, footnote 160):

It is naive to suppose that first-century Galilean villagers were ready to believe in "miracles" because they did not understand the laws of nature, or did not realize that the space-time universe was a closed continuum.... As has often been pointed out, in Mt. 1.18f. Joseph was worried about Mary's unexpected pregnancy not because he did not know where babies came from but because he did.

Who's against the Big Bang? And why?

You can get some hints here.

From this so-called "cosmology statement":

The big bang today relies on a growing number of hypothetical entities, things that we have never observed-- inflation, dark matter and dark energy are the most prominent examples. Without them, there would be a fatal contradiction between the observations made by astronomers and the predictions of the big bang theory. In no other field of physics would this continual recourse to new hypothetical objects be accepted as a way of bridging the gap between theory and observation. It would, at the least, raise serious questions about the validity of the underlying theory.

Unfortunately, they don't bother pointing out that several independent lines of evidence lead to the conclusions about dark matter, dark energy, and inflation. The underlying motivation of many of the signers is subtle, but it pokes out momentarily:

Yet the big bang is not the only framework available for understanding the history of the universe. Plasma cosmology and the steady-state model both hypothesize an evolving universe without beginning or end.

Oh yes, that troublesome beginning of the universe that comes with that big bang. Philosophy and theology (or lack thereof) drive most objections to the big bang. However, objections to the big bang often make odd bedfellows. Take, for example, this set of names of signers to the statement:

Harlton Arp
Hermann Bondi
Thomas Gold
Eric J. Lerner
Jayant Narlikar
Anthony L. Peratt

Those are just some of the physicists and astronomers' names I recognize. They all don't like the big bang because they have philosophical objections to the universe having a beginning (especially Lerner). However, there are another couple of names on this list that I find interesting:

John Hartnett
Charles Creager Jr.

These guys are both young-earth creationists. The big bang bothers both atheists who want an eternal universe and young-earth Christians who want a young one.

And of course both groups are claiming that they don't get a fair hearing and that the research is skewed. This isn't really fair either. Some of the astronomers on that list were prominent scientists who made valuable and important contributions to the field, and without their poking and prodding at cosmology we would have never refined the big bang theory. And, of course, young-earth creationists have no shortage of money and attention.

Anyone is free to put forward any model of the universe they choose to be subjected to testing. The facts, however, seem to again and again point in the direction of a big bang universe.

Sts. Peter and Paul

Almighty God,
whose blessed apostles Peter and Paul
glorified you in their death as in their life:
grant that your Church,
inspired by their teaching and example,
and made one by your Spirit,
may ever stand firm upon the one foundation,
Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

from Common Worship

Jesus Paid It All

I hear the Savior say,
“Thy strength indeed is small;
Child of weakness, watch and pray,
Find in Me thine all in all.”

Refrain

Jesus paid it all,
All to Him I owe;
Sin had left a crimson stain,
He washed it white as snow.

For nothing good have I
Whereby Thy grace to claim,
I’ll wash my garments white
In the blood of Calv’ry’s Lamb.

Refrain

And now complete in Him
My robe His righteousness,
Close sheltered ’neath His side,
I am divinely blest.

Refrain

Lord, now indeed I find
Thy power and Thine alone,
Can change the leper’s spots
And melt the heart of stone.

Refrain

When from my dying bed
My ransomed soul shall rise,
“Jesus died my soul to save,”
Shall rend the vaulted skies.

Refrain

And when before the throne
I stand in Him complete,
I’ll lay my trophies down
All down at Jesus’ feet.

Refrain

St. John the Baptist

Almighty God,
by whose providence your servant John the Baptist
was wonderfully born,
and sent to prepare the way of your Son our Saviour
by the preaching of repentance:
lead us to repent according to his preaching
and, after his example,
constantly to speak the truth, boldly to rebuke vice,
and patiently to suffer for the truth's sake;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

from Common Worship

Cognitive Dissonance at the Washington National Cathedral

While in Washington DC this past week I paid a visit to the Washington National Cathedral, a beautiful and enormous church that functions as both an Episcopal church and a "national house of prayer." I of course wanted to stroll through the catherdal's gift shop and look at what they had there. It turns out that they had one of my biggest weaknesses: lots of books.

As I walked around the store, I noticed lots of Anglican-esque symbols, like crosses and icons, and materials, like the Book of Common Prayer and some other writings. There was an entire section devoted to the writings of N.T. Wright (a good move), an Anglican bishop over on the other side of the pond.

However, there were a lot of other things in the store, things that felt sort of out of place. There were aids for Buddhist meditation. There were books written by prominent "Gnostic Christianity" proponents, and prominent atheists. However, on the other hand, the conservative Catholic publisher Ignatius Press had quite a few books in there, and there was a whole freaking section with Lutheran books, most of them by Missouri-Synod authors.

It was difficult to put all of that together in my head as I walked around. I suppose this is the purpose of a "national house of prayer" for a pluralistic country such as the USA? To get literally everything, running the spectrum from Eastern mysticism to Gnostic Christianity to Roman Catholicism to fundamentalism and conservative Lutheranism all in one place? If so, it's too bad that we have to use a Christian church for that. I'd rather just stay out of that.

In any case, my head a splode.

Vista vs. Ubuntu

I'm a big Mac guy, but I do have a PC at home with Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux installed. I have to say that as far as eye candy goes, Linux is starting to beat Windows pretty hard.



And it doesn't hog near as much memory. Microsoft needs to get its act together.

Gotta love nerd comics

Click on it to actually read it.... unfortunately it doesn't work otherwise.



This and more at xkcd.

N.T. Wright on Comedy Central

Promoting the book Surprised By Hope on "The Colbert Report"



I thought he did very well considering the show (but perhaps Colbert is sympathetic due to his Catholicism).

Understatement of the Year

Chemical Engineer: So what do you think happened "before" the Big Bang?

Me: I have my own answers to that, but they don't come from science.

St. Barnabas

Bountiful God, giver of all gifts,
who poured your Spirit upon your servant Barnabas
and gave him grace to encourage others:
help us, by his example,
to be generous in our judgements
and unselfish in our service;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

from Common Worship

How great?

When Christ shall come....
With shout of acclamation....
And heal this world....
What joy shall fill my heart....
Then I shall bow....
In humble adoration....
And there proclaim....
"My God, how great Thou art!"

Tripping, Tripping, Everywhere

My posting has been sporadic due to the large volume of traveling I have been doing lately. I was in Boston last week, and I'm in St. Louis this week.

I drove by the "purple palace" today. Some of you who are Lutherans (and some others) know what that means.