Lots of interesting things I came across this week. I’m going to try a little different format this time.
Reformation Day. Yesterday was Reformation Day. On October 31, 1517, Martin Luther posted his 95 Theses to the door of Castle Church in Wittenburg. This event would have been pretty insignificant in and of itself if it had not been for the printing press, the ongoing and gross corruption of the church and its doctrine, and the way the Roman church then sought to suppress these ideas. All Protestants should remember this day and the reasons why the Reformers are important to this day.
Homeschooling. I’m still not certain we will homeschool our children, but if we do, it will be partly due to examples like this one. Homeschooling is nothing more than directly discipling your children and must be done with utmost care. Unfortunately, while I have the greatest respect for some of the professional educators out there, I don’t think most educators take it quite so seriously day-to-day. (John 10:12)
God’s Will. As you might know, one of my pet peeves is hearing someone say, “God is leading me to do X.” It’s not so much that I don’t believe God could be leading you to do X, but that making God the author of your personal decisions is pretty tenacious. Are you really sure about that? Or are you just making a decision based upon your personal preferences and forging God’s signature at the bottom? I think the latter is much, much more common. Dan Phillips has some clarifying words on the subject that I commend to all Christians.
Presuppositionalism. Here is a good summary of what Presuppositionalism is. I have recently decided I have preferred this apologetic for some time rather than the more popular classical form, though I did not know it had a name until recently. Van Til is quoted at the end and sums up the issue like this, “Historical apologetics is absolutely necessary and indispensable to point out that Christ arose from the grave etc. But as long as historical apologetics works on a supposedly neutral basis, it defeats its own purpose. For in that case it virtually grants the validity of the metaphysical assumptions of the unbeliever.”
Creationism. Al Mohler, Jerry Coyne, and now Karl Giberson are all discussing the merits of Creationism versus Theistic Evolutionism versus Scientific Evolutionism. Dr. Mohler’s latest comments shows how Theistic Evolutionists, like Giberson, are “throwing the Bible under the scientific bus” and destroying Christianity in the process. In Giberson’s own words, “Empirical science does indeed trump revealed truth [the Bible].” Theistic Evolution is only an acceptable position if you hold to this fact, which is a danger to the salvation of any professing Christian taking that stance and especially to anyone who might follow after that professor.
Science. From the “facts-about-learning-that-don’t-make-sense-to-me” department: Hard to Read Fonts Improve Learning. If true, it’s an interesting finding under the heading of Unintended Consequences.
Science. And did you know you have taste receptors in your lungs. Apparently, your lungs can taste bitter things and when that happens your lungs open up more. Very interesting.
Politics. This is just the sort of reason why I don’t listen to NPR. It’s one thing for a privately owned news-related organization like FOX News or CNN or MSNBC or Bill Maher or Rush Limbaugh to express opinions and another for a publicly funded one. I’m with Bill O’Reilly on this one: Let NPR earn their pay honestly and without relying on tax payers who may not agree with them. Let’s defund NPR.
Politics. Speaker Nancy Pelosi is simply a liar. There’s no way around it.
Phones. I hope this is true. I really want to see a device really win the battle against the carriers. The lock in to a specific carrier with extended plans depending on the phone you buy is lame. It would be far better to pay for your device up front and pay for your plan as you go instead of getting tied into extended carrier contracts based upon the phone you have. In theory, the iPhone has avoided this, though in practice you’re generally tied to AT&T at the moment (there’s a rumor that might change too soon). The Nexus One attempted to take a swipe at the issue, but wasn’t really successful. The other Android phones are locked in to specific carriers. We’d all be better off if there was real competition between the carriers.
Perl. In Perl programs, you can use many common statements in two ways. (1) In the way most other languages use them, e.g.:
if ($something ~~ 'true') { say "true" } # condition
unless ($something ~~ 'true') { say "false" } # negative condition
while ($something ~~ 'true') { say "still true" } # while loop
given ($something) { when ('true') { say "true" } } # switch statement Perl 5 v10
for (@somethings) { when ('true') { say "true too" } } # for-switch Perl v10
(2) And as a modifier. In Perl 5 v12, you can now use when from the switch statement as that sort of modifier:
say "true" if $something ~~ 'true';
say "false" unless $something ~~ 'true';
say "still true" while $something ~~ 'true';
for (@somethings) { say "true too" when 'true' } # for-switch Perl 5 v12
For those that may not know, the ~~ is the smart match operator that matches the first thing against the second using the obvious matching test (here it would be equivalent to ‘eq’ to test for equality). The when-statement runs its block whenever the context variable $_ (which is set to whatever is placed in given() or to each element of the array in for()) smart matches against whatever is in the condition.
Humor. Here’s a funny story about naval aviation that one of my friends shared with me this week. It’s an old one, but a good one. (HT: Kyle)
Finally, some other funnies…
This is just the right way to play with a cat.
