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Weekly Meanderings, 1 November 2014

Weekly Meanderings, 1 November 2014

Last updated on: March 13, 2015 at 10:24 pm by Scot McKnight

Weekly Meanderings, 1 November 2014 2015-03-13T22:24:28-05:00 Scot McKnight

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Fantastic piece by Mark Taylor:

Fast-forward 100 years. During the latter half of the 20th century, information, communications, and networking technologies expanded rapidly, and transmission speed increased exponentially. But more than data and information were moving faster. Moore’s Law, according to which the speed of computer chips doubles every two years, now seems to apply to life itself. Plugged in 24/7/365, we are constantly struggling to keep up but are always falling further behind. The faster we go, the less time we seem to have. As our lives speed up, stress increases, and anxiety trickles down from managers to workers, and parents to children.

There is a profound irony in these developments. With the emergence of personal computers and other digital devices in the late 1960s and early 1970s, many analysts predicted a new age in which people would be drawn together in a “global village,” where they would be freed from many of the burdens of work and would have ample leisure time to pursue their interests. That was not merely the dream of misty-eyed idealists but was also the prognosis of sober scientists and policy makers. In 1956, Richard Nixon predicted a four-day workweek, and almost a decade later a Senate subcommittee heard expert testimony that by 2000, Americans would be working only 14 hours a week.

Obviously, things have not turned out that way. Contrary to expectation, the technologies that were supposed to liberate us now enslave us, networks that were supposed to unite us now divide us, and technologies that were supposed to save time leave us no time for ourselves. Henry Ford’s adoption of the policy of eight hours of work, eight hours of leisure, eight hours of rest seems a quaint memory of a bygone era. For individuals as well as societies, these developments reflect a significant change in the value and social status of leisure. During the era Thorstein Veblen so vividly described in The Theory of the Leisure Class, social status was measured by how little a person worked; today it is often measured by how much a person works. If you are not constantly connected, you are unimportant; if you willingly unplug to recuperate, play, or even do nothing, you become an expendable slacker. (HT: JS)

One of my students @nseminary, Ray Miller, tells the story of their twins. Our prayers continue for them.

Nice story about Dan and Megan Mullen:

STARKVILLE, Miss. — Dan Mullen can’t make it to his 5-year-old son’s soccer game. It’s a busy time at work.

This is what Mullen’s wife Megan tells their son Canon on Tuesday, and he is bummed. Megan assures him that she, Canon’s 2-year-old sister Breelyn, and grandparents Boppy and Glammy would be there though.

Later, as Canon warms up with his team, Megan gets a call from Dan. The Mississippi State head coach informs her he can break away from the office. And Canon is in for a surprise.

Right before the whistle blows, Dan walks over a small bridge, through some trees separating the parking lot from the soccer complex, and up to the sideline. Canon sprints off the field and jumps into his dad’s arms. As Canon runs back on the field for the start of the game, Breelyn steals her daddy’s eye. He throws his little girl over his shoulder and kisses Megan.

With countless hours spent on football every week — No. 1 college football team in the nation or not — family time can get cut short. But its importance is never diminished. Megan and Dan work together to make sure of it, whether it’s taking the kids to practice several days a week, or the two of them watching House of Cards on Netflix late at night. For The Win exclusively spent two days with the Mullen family to see how they put the “fun in dysfunction,” as Megan says.

The Pope enters into the creation-evolution debate with clarity, leading to a question:

Why have Roman Catholics, in general, not had the creation-evolution debate the way evangelical and fundamentalist Protestants have?

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis has waded into the controversial debate over the origins of human life, saying the big bang theory did not contradict the role of a divine creator, but even required it.

The pope was addressing the plenary assembly of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which gathered Monday at the Vatican to discuss “Evolving Concepts of Nature.”

“When we read about Creation in Genesis, we run the risk of imagining God was a magician, with a magic wand able to do everything. But that is not so,” Francis said.

“He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment.”

Francis said the beginning of the world was not “a work of chaos” but created from a principle of love. He said sometimes competing beliefs in creation and evolution could co-exist.

Speaking of Roman Catholics and theology, Jerry Walls … who is not Catholic:

Why are many Catholics now dismissing purgatory while an increasing number of Protestants are rethinking it? Is it about the importance of sanctification?

(RNS) This Sunday (Nov. 2), on what is known as All Souls’ Day, Roman Catholics around the world will be praying for loved ones who have died and for all those who have passed from this life to the next. They will be joined by Jerry Walls.

“I got no problem praying for the dead,” Walls says without hesitation — which is unusual for a United Methodist who attends an Anglican church and teaches Christian philosophy at Houston Baptist University.

Most Protestant traditions forcefully rejected the “Romish doctrine” of purgatory after the Reformation nearly 500 years ago. The Protestant discomfort with purgatory hasn’t eased much since: You still can’t find the word in the Bible, critics say, and the idea that you can pray anyone who has died into paradise smacks of salvation by good works.

The dead are either in heaven or hell, they say. There’s no middle ground, and certainly nothing the living can do to change it.

Italian Catholic churches converted into non-sacred space:

With the Italian economy crippled by recession, more and more churches are being deconsecrated and sold to private buyers, who repurpose these former houses of God into banks, theaters, night clubs and even car repair shops.

Several thousand churches have recently found new owners, indicating the hard times experienced by the Catholic Church and Italy’s general switch towards secularity.

“I loved all of them. I like places, which have irony in them. And that was the feeling I experienced in all of those churches,” says local photographer, Andrea Di Martino, who visited and took pictures of 70 former churches.

Madonna della Neve church in Como was among the first such churches he visited, inspiring the whole project.

It was deconsecrated in the late 1950s and turned into a successful car repair shop by the building’s new owners.

“When I left it, I realized that I want to learn what’s happened to the rest of those churches,” the photographer said.

Churches in Italy are deconsecrated when the condition of the building makes it dangerous, or when attendance drastically decreases.

They sell pretty well due to being solid structures, with high ceilings, usually located in the centers of towns and villages.

What Jim Wallis learned from Nelson Mandela about political leadership.

Renteria gone, Joe Maddon now manager of the Cubs:

Last Thursday, we learned that Joe Maddon – who may be as well suited as anyone in the industry to manage the challenges that lie ahead of us – had become a free agent,” Theo Epstein, Cubs President of Baseball Operations, said in a statement. “We confirmed the news with Major League Baseball, and it became public knowledge the next day. We saw it as a unique opportunity and faced a clear dilemma: be loyal to Rick or be loyal to the organization. In this business of trying to win a world championship for the first time in 107 years, the organization has priority over any one individual. We decided to pursue Joe.

Elizabeth Stoker Bruenig on John Kasich, who takes a position that many of my European Christian friends think is entirely reasonable but which many American Christians think is socialism or something worse:

Could Republican Gov. John Kasich run for president? According to the Washington Post, he’s poised to, and he certainly seems to be among the better options out there, with the other obvious choices either clearly deranged (Ted Cruz) or totally uninterested (Mitt Romney). But conservatives have not been roundly pleased with Kasich, in part because he is evidently something of a committed Christian.

Last year, Kasich fought doggedly to expand Medicaid coverage in Ohio, extending healthcare to some 275,000 poor people. When queried as to why a conservative would push for expanded coverage, Kasich explained his reasoning thus:

“I had a conversation with one of the members of the legislature the other day. I said, ‘I respect the fact that you believe in small government. I do, too. I also know that you’re a person of faith. Now, when you die and get to the meeting with St. Peter, he’s probably not going to ask you much about what you did about keeping government small. But he is going to ask you what you did for the poor. You better have a good answer.’ ”

Conservative critics did not have a good answer. If Kasich’s challenge required a faith-based, well-reasoned critique of Medicaid to defend Republican animus, that wasn’t what it received. Instead, Kasich’s right-wing opponents produced a series of attacks that seemed straight out of the Richard Dawkins school of rhetoric. At RedState, for instance, Jason Hart complained that “Kasich leaned heavily on his Christian faith to push the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act,” and glossed over Kasich’s explanation of his Christian reasoning as: “anyone who opposes Medicaid expansion will have to answer for their opposition when they die.”

Very, very, very sad but I’m glad:

Divers from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) removed 57 tonnes of fishing nets and plastic waste from the waters surrounding Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in Hawaii, a World Heritage Site and one of the world’s largest marine conservation areas.

During the 33-day mission, the team of 17 divers worked from small boats launched from the NOAA ship Oscar Elton Sette, surveying coral reefs at Maro Reef, Pearl and Hermes Atoll and Miday Atoll. Using maps marked with GIS locations based on 15 years of data on net accumulation hot spots and weather trends, the team were able to establish which areas to focus on.

At Pearl and Hermes Atoll, divers rescued three sea turtles tangled in different nets, and spent days removing a 28-foot by 7-foot super net that extended 16 feet deep, and weighed 11 and a half tonnes. The net had destroyed coral in the atoll and posed a big risk to the marine life that could easily become entangled.

On the shore of Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, the team recovered almost six and a quarter tonnes of plastic. In total, they removed 7,436 hard plastic fragments, 3,758 bottle caps, 1,469 plastic bottles, 477 lighters.

Does itching help? No.

It’s something you know is true if you’ve ever had an itch: Scratching provides blissful relief for a moment, but then the itch comes back with a vengeance. A new study in Neuron reports that serotonin — one of the chemicals that help transmit signals throughout nerve cells — might be to blame.

Here’s the theory: When we scratch an itch, it causes a small amount of pain to the affected skin. That pain serves as a distraction, numbing us to the itch itself.

But the pain also triggers the release of serotonin in the brain. Serotonin dulls pain, but it also reacts with neurons that carry itch signals to the brain. So as the pain of the scratch dies away, the itch roars back even stronger. That causes the itching-scratching cycle that leaves us with raw, itchy skin.

San Diego’s superheroes:

It’s late Saturday night on the streets of San Diego. People dressed head-to-toe in superhero outfits are patrolling the streets. With names like “Midnight Highwayman,” “Freedom Fighter” and “Vigilante Spider,” members of this citizen patrol group hope to make the streets safer.

The group calls itself the “Xtreme Justice League” and was founded in 2006. Made up of students, security officers and former service members, the assemblage looks strange and comic. But the group takes itself quite seriously. According to its Web site, members are trained in “citizen’s arrest, martial arts, basic first aid, conflict resolution and scenario training.” While the group does allow its members to carry some weapons for self-defense, it prohibits firearms. When coming across a serious crime, such as a rape, robbery, or murder, the group’s Web site says: “We would physically intervene, protect the victim from further harm, make a citizen’s arrest if it’s safe to do so, and call 9-1-1.”

Got arachnophobia? This guy lost his.

But for one man, researchers recently reported in Neurocase, giving up a bit of brain meant the difference between arachnophobia — an intense fear of spiders — and a pleasant fascination with the arachnids.

The amygdala is deep inside the brain, and there’s no way of messing with it without invasive surgery. So no, this patient didn’t go under the knife just to get rid of his manageable fear of spiders. NewScientist reports that the 44-year-old businessman was suffering from sudden seizures caused by sarcoidosis. This rare condition can cause damage to the brain, and it was messing with the left portion of his amygdala.

Once it was removed, the man’s fear of spiders was gone. In fact, he went from being afraid to kill spiders by hand to actually wanting to touch and observe them close-up.

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