Wacky Wednesday Klum and Seal

http://shine.yahoo.com/love-sex/could-heidi-klum-seal-reportedly-back-together-202700107.html

 

A Kiss From A Rose is a classic.
Is seems like Seal's range is elastic.
I hope that's it's true:
This picture's a view
Of runways re-latching. Fantastic!

Ender's Game Part I

I read Ender's Game, the 1985 science fiction novel by Orson Scott Card, in a book club a few years ago. The Ender's Game movie, like many movies-from-books, took out many necessary items and added some political jabs (if something is repeated enough, it must be true).

This post is about one of the political jabs in the movie.



Despite the lack of communication from the aliens in the movie (who were not excessively referred to as "bugs" in the movie as they were in the book; more on this in Part II), the humans knew that they were being attacked/annihilated for more land. The additional land for the bugs was necessary since they over-bred on their own planet (they sort-of looked like a cross between an ant and a bee in the movie, at a human scale).

That was the first instance of the so-called over-population meme in the movie. Watch out! or the Earth may turn out like the bug planet.

Second, Ender was the third child of his family. Normally, in the movie universe, a family was permitted to have only two children. Hmm, a two-child policy was the second instance of the over-population meme.

Why do many Christians care about the proliferation of the so-called over-population movement? First, it is not true. We usually don't like falsehood, being one part of the Decalogue n' at.

Second, it treats a family as a ward of the state. The family is pre-state and each particular one determines how that family is constituted within the natural-law framework (man-woman; open to life). Jesus, in the Gospel of Matthew said, "no man must separate" the couple, including in the process of procreation (one-flesh union).

Communist China's one-child policy treats each family as a unit of the state that must follow state laws above all else. However, natural law, which is to regulate state law, takes precedence. The number one natural law is that people are rational creatures who are due respect and dignity of the state, not for the state to claim them as commodity units for its own means or ends.

Many Christians have reported on the brutality and immorality of population control programs, especially in China.

The producers and/or writers of Ender's Game have just jabbed another fictional example of the Malthusian lie of over-population that quite often looks up to China as an ideal for population control.

If it's portrayed enough, it must be true. (sarcasm)

The Big Bang Theory Theme Song Part V

Here are Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

So, the Ham-Nye debate on creationism-scientism revealed something noteworthy about The Big Bang Theory theme song. It is dead wrong in one stanza.

It all started with the big BANG!

It's expanding ever outward but one day
It will pause and start to go the other way.
Collapsing ever inward, we won't be here, it won't be heard
Our best and brightest figure that it'll make an even bigger bang!

According to Bill Nye in the debate, in 2004, observations were conducted to show that the universe is actually expanding at a greater rate (accelerating) and not going "the other way. / Collapsing ever inward".

It was indeed theorized that the universe was sort-of like a yo-yo that continually expanded asymptotically to a "pause" and then collapsed into another big bang. This idea supposedly helped show that the universe was infinite in age (helped an Atheist argument against God).

Well, without going into philosophical problems about this infinite-universe-from-the-yo-yo idea (how did yo-yo start?), science has further supported the Christian assertion that the universe has a creator, whom Christians call God.

Happy Saint Valentine's Day

Happy Saint Valentine's Day!

From Catholic Online:

Valentine was a holy priest in Rome, who, with St. Marius and his family, assisted the martyrs in the persecution under Claudius II. He was apprehended, and sent by the emperor to the prefect of Rome, who, on finding all his promises to make him renounce his faith ineffectual, commanded him to be beaten with clubs, and afterwards, to be beheaded, which was executed on February 14, about the year 270.

 

My Valentine

 

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The Lone Ranger Part III

Here's Part I of The Lone Ranger.
Here's Part II of The Lone Ranger.

I was wondering about the possibility that The Lone Ranger movie helps to prove Dr. Craig's knock-down point about Atheist Sam Harris and his Moral Landscape (see the video below at 8:44 for the knock-down argument to Harris' definition of "good").



Perhaps the flourishing of the Cavendish brothers ("conscious creatures"), and really the flourishing of the rest of the country for the "progress" they provided, over the destruction of the tribes they massacred would prove Dr. Craig's point that the definition of the "good" Harris provides is a deal-breaker for his moral landscape argument.

Nye-Ham Debate Wacky Wednesday

So, I thought I would do something different. It is called Wacky Wednesday.

For this installment, I composed a limerick about the Nye-Ham (Bill Nye and Bill Ham) debate between scientism and creationism.

Here's the debate:



Here's the limerick:

Ham and Nye are so very suspicious.
Ham on rye: it is oh so delicious.
Is it God who they seek?
Both their posits are weak.
Without God nothing could be nutritious.

(BTW, this article can shed some light on my limerick: "Creationism Is Materialism's Creation")

The Big Bang Theory Theme Song Part IV

Here are Part I, Part II, and Part III.

Have you noticed that The Big Bang Theory theme song lyrics are mostly descriptive of how the universe and humans came to be?



There are four ways to describe things that Aristotle wrote about, called Aristotle's Four Causes. They are:

1. The material cause; What is the thing made out of?
2. The formal cause; What is the essential structure of the thing?
3. The final cause; Where it the thing headed? What is its purpose or ultimate orientation (telos)?
4. The efficient cause; How did the thing get where it is? How did it come to be?

It seems as if The Big Bang Theory theme song really relays the material and efficient causes but doesn't address the formal and final causes, especially on the portion that is shown on TV.

The only lines that minimally address the formal and final causes are:

Math, science, history, unraveling the mysteries,
That all started with the big bang!
...
Australopithecus would really have been sick of us
Debating how we're here they're catching deer (we're catching viruses)
Religion or astronomy, Descartes or Deuteronomy
It all started with the big bang!

Music and mythology, Einstein and astrology
It all started with the big bang!
It all started with the big BANG!!!

Why does this matter? Many young people think that all one needs to learn about are the material and efficient causes, especially in school.

I was asked once by a middle school student why they needed to learn about formal and final causes (I didn't present the labels formally, but was teaching them nonetheless). The student thought that school was solely about learning what they needed to get a good job, mainly with science and math. I couldn't blame her assessment since public education (in government schools), especially now with Common Core, stresses only material and efficient causes in the classroom.

There are schools which teach the entire range of causes called classical schools (here's a link to an institute on the subject; here's a school list), but they are few in number.

From the link above:

[1] But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets; because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom.... – Socrates, The Apology

[2] Hence it is that his education is called "Liberal." A habit of mind is formed which lasts through life, of which the attributes are, freedom, equitableness, calmness, moderation, and wisdom.

[3] But education is a higher word [than instruction]; it implies an action upon our mental nature, and the formation of a character; it is something individual and permanent, and is commonly spoken of in connexion with religion and virtue. When, then, we speak of the communication of Knowledge as being Education, we thereby really imply that that Knowledge is a state or condition of mind.... Newman, Idea of a University

May we return to learning about the fullness of God's creation with all its causes.