My brain usage profile: insights into how I blog

Your left-hemisphere dominance implies that your learning style is organized and structured, detail oriented and logical. Your visual preference, though, has you seeking stimulation and multiple data. Such an outlook can overwhelm structure and logic and create an almost continuous state of uncertainty and agitation. You may well suffer a feeling of continually trying to “catch up” with yourself.

…you can “size up” situations and take in information rapidly. However, you must then subject that data to being classified and organized which causes you to “lose touch” with the immediacy of the problem.

Finally, someone understands me! You know, one of the reasons I don’t write more is because, just like this snippet of my brain usage profile indicates, I will rapidly take in a bunch of information, but when I go to organize it and classify it (this usually happens when I begin formulating a blog post), I grow agitated and uncertain–like the part of my brain that’s thinking is light-years beyond the part of my brain that’s typing, and it’s too late to catch up.

I’ve considered rambling into a cassette recorder and then transcribing and editing, but that seems like an awful lot of work. I dunno; I guess now that I’ve mentioned it here I’ll have to do it.

And hey, set aside a few minutes to take the test and see how your own brain works. It’s fun! Well, okay, it got a bit tedious toward the end. But it’s fun reading the results.

NASA Exists for the Glory of God

What if, when Jesus spoke of “the world,” he really meant exactly what it says in the Greek: that is, the kosmos (universe)? How would it change our approach to the various fruits of the Gospel?

“For God so loved the [universe], that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the [universe] to condemn the [universe], but in order that the [universe] might be saved through him.” — John 3:16-17 (ESV)

And no, I’m not talking about universalism–that’s a whole different beast. What I’m talking about is this idea that’s grabbed me—that maybe John 3:16 has less to do with God loving “each individual person” and more with loving his entire creation and seeking its redemption. Like Paul told the believers in Corinth:

For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. — 1 Corinthians 8:19-24 (ESV)

The entire universe was “subjected to futility,” “its bondage to corruption”–that is, entropy–along with us, so that it will also be restored along with us! It is an unbiblical notion that God only sent Jesus to redeem people. When man sinned, the universe cracked under the weight of our guilt. Jesus has come, and is coming again to make all things new!

And he said to them, “Go into all the [universe] and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” — Mark 16:15 (ESV)

And what has NASA done with the Hubble telescope? And what of all the many television and radio signals shooting off into the ether? Whether they intended to or not is beside the point; the gospel is being proclaimed by the whole creation and to the whole creation.

“And then the end will come.” The end where he says,

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.

Just think about that for a minute: a day is coming when living a life apart from God… and tears… and death… and mourning… and crying… and pain will all be “former things.”

That’s a Sabbath rest worth getting excited about! :)

The Great Dinosaur Mystery

The Great Dinosaur Mystery: Dragons in China

“Did dinosaurs really become extinct millions of years before the existence of humans?”

Jordan had the “companion book” to this film years ago—in fact, he may still have it today. (I never realized it was “just” a companion book, though!) I remember being rather surprised that no one else seemed to consider that there might be more than a kernel of truth within the plethora of “dragon myths” around the world. Check out the 20-minute video presentation they’ve got online before you write ‘em off.

Perhaps, as that great philosopher Weird Al once said, “everything you know is wrong!”

How to Debunk (Macro-)Evolution

“If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.” — Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species.

Shall we start with, say, the complex organ known as the cell? (Scientists had not reached beyond the cellular level at the time of Darwin’s writing, so he could not have known how utterly complex cells are.)

ID isn’t Science?

A “theory” that violates the most basic requirement of anything pretending to be science — that it be empirically disprovable. How does one empirically disprove the proposition that God was behind the lemur, or evolution — or behind the motion of the tides or the “strong force” that holds the atom together?

I’m willing to concede the point, but I have a question: just how is the theory of evolution empirically disprovable?

EDIT: Also check out critiques by Tom Gilson and Lawrence Selden.