Consideration Overload

Avoidance behaviors fine tuned with final tax preparation and a new biofeedback blog, weather instabilities or ecocommunity backlash triggered by Easter Sunday sugars , but everything seems to have more layers to peel back today.

This was supposed to be a light read:

Divine irony

5 March 2009

Musing on the often acrimonious debate between atheists and believers, Simon Blackburn takes as his inspiration David Hume, who approached the issue not with hatred but with humour.

...the further in I got, the deeper the concentration needed. Got to the comments and thought - Salvation! Wrong, deeper still:

Quoting from Newsblaze: "Using a synthesis of scriptural materials from the Old and New Testaments, the Apocrypha ,the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi Library, it describes and teaches a single moral command, a single moral principle offering the 'promise' of its own proof; one in which the reality and power of God responds to an act of perfect faith with a direct, individual intervention into the natural world; correcting human nature by a change in natural law, altering biology, consciousness and human ethical perception beyond all natural evolutionary boundaries. Intended to be understood metaphorically, where 'death' is ignorance and 'Life' is knowledge, this experience, personal encounter and liberation by transcendent power and moral purpose is the 'Resurrection', the justification of faith and foundation of righteousness." For the first time in known history, a religious teaching and moral tenet exists bearing the name of Christ, offering access by faith, to absolute proof for its belief and that changes the very basis of all theistic religious assumption. In fact the whole intellectual paradigm under which we exist as a humanity. History may be about to judge both our human conception of what God and religion are and those who have chosen to believe in nothing but themselves. It should be most interesting to watch both sides respond as this new development plays out? http://www.energon.org.uk

...and that is just the second comment, attraction to mockery by Christians being the subject of the first comment. I haven't yet followed the link above, that is part of the reason this stuff finds its way here - I hope to get to it later.

Well, my creating you own universe post is still has Multiverse readings to follow and along comes Smart Mobs with this lead - Encarta will soon be euthanized by Microsoft. As six memories parade, starting with the salesman showing my mother the chicken hatching from the egg picture in World Book and ending with the fantasy of my biofeedback book bloated with Wikipedia entries and converted to PDF for distribution, pervasive media invades an equally pervasive reality.

Wonder what's on the radio....

Creationist Beliefs Examination

Considering the season, http://www.scientificblogging.com/terminus_post_quem/its_time_put_shroud_turin_back_its_box seemed like a good subject. A discussion of carbon dating doesn't draw many and history cuts a little deep into too well remembered wounds around relics.

When evolution gets whittled down, most of the alternative universe seemed mysteriously unprofessed until browsing this opinion and position rich site. After a look at several pages and articles this is my pick for the ideal source for those times when a creative discussion on evolutionary theory is unavoidable. The volume and depth available have nearly convinced me that it isn't some Onion-like satire piece.

Faith challenged? Here's reason:

http://objectiveministries.org/creation/sciencefair.html

From the High School Creation Science Fair section:

"2nd Place: "Maximal Packing Of Rodentia Kinds: A Feasibility Study"

"Jason Spinter's (grade 12) project was to show the feasibility of Noah's Ark using a Rodentia research model (made of a mixture of hamsters and gerbils) as a representative of diluvian life forms. The Rodentia were placed in a cage with dimensions proportional to a section of the Ark. The number of Rodentia used (58) was calculated using available Creation Science research and was based on the median animal size and their volumetric distribution in the Ark. The cage was also fitted with wooden dowels inserted at regular intervals through the cage walls, forming platforms which provided support for the Rodentia. Although there was little room left in the cage, all Rodentia were able to move just enough to ward off muscle atrophy. Food pellets and water were delivered to sub-surface Rodentia via plastic drinking straws inserted into the Rodentia-mass, which also served to allow internal air flow. Once a day, the cage was sprayed with water to cleanse any built-up waste. Additionally, the cage was suspended on bungee cords to simulate the rocking motion of a ship. The study lasted 30 days and 30 nights, with all Rodentia surviving at least long enough afterwards to allow for reproduction. These findings strongly suggest that Noah's Ark could hold and support representatives of all antediluvian animal kinds for the duration of the Flood and subsequent repopulation of the Earth."

Back in Old Time Religion Days...

Newspapers will be missed. Trend spotting is hard to Google. The following article is in my pile because there are links I haven't read, but each one, along with the article, delivered revelations.

From rumors of next Popes to Palin's power base with an audio program from This American Life, there are too many links, of very high quality, to let slip from my desktop.

The article:

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/religiousright/1275/the_new_christianity%3A_what_the_mainstream_media_has_missed_/

Create Your Own Universe

I drifted into a Black Hole while listening to this broadcast of WNYC's Radio Lab. Give it a listen while you clean your kitchen. Let me know how creation works out for you.

"Can you make your own universe? We usually think of the universe as “everything that exists,” so how could you make another one? Well, physicists have been speculating about the existence of multiple universes for some time now. And for Robert, the obvious next question was: “Can we make one?” So he invited physicist Brian Greene to his kitchen to speculate about just that. And it turns out, it’s not such a far-fetched idea. There are scientists right now trying to figure out whether it’s possible and what it would take. According to Brian, it would require a tiny black hole, a dash of reverse-gravity, and a lot of luck. But the laws of physics don’t rule it out."

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