Jonathan's blog

Here are some photos from Christmas.  More are on Picasa web albums and on Facebook (Facebook me!):

Obama has recently come under attack from folks like Stephen Schlesinger and Paul Krugman.  I take it as a sign that Hillary is scared.  From Schlesinger's "The Problem with Obama":

There are a number of weaknesses in the Obama candidacy that make his effort seem both inadequate and even perilous for the Democratic Party and ultimately for the country.

First is the effort by the candidate to portray himself foremost as a conciliator. What Democrats want today is a fighter, not simply a mediator. They have suffered enough from the vicious blows of President Bush and the Republicans. What the party needs is a nominee who will take the battle directly to the opposition. Come the fall contest, a candidacy of "friendly persuasion" will be swiftboated into oblivion.

My hope and prayer is that the politics advocated by Schlesinger will be rejected.

Last week my six-year-old asked me if there was ever a negative year.  I wasn't sure what he was asking.  He was wondering when the earth was made and if that was a negative year.  I explained that there were no negative years.  As you go back in time, you go from 1 A.D. to 1 B.C. and then keep counting upwards.  "So when was the world made?" he asked.  I had to wiggle a little but responded that we don't know exactly when the world was made.

Then today he asked, "Were Adam and Eve and the dinosaurs alive at the same time?"  I said that we don't really know because the Bible doesn't talk about dinosaurs.  Without any hesitation he suggested a solution to this lack of knowledge: "Just look it up on the internet."  I explained that scientists who study dinosaur fossils, etc. think that they lived millions of years ago.  "So that would be before Adam and Eve," he said.  I agreed and again emphasized the problem that the scientists who study dinosaurs can't really study anything about Adam and Eve and the Bible that tells us about Adam and Eve doesn't really address dinosaurs.  Then he said, "Wouldn't it be funny if they found Adam and Eve's bones?!?"

Both of those questions (year the earth was made and did dinosaurs live with Adam and Eve) were actually asked of Lisa, but her response is "Go ask you dad."

There's an interesting interview on Salon with John Haught, author of the forthcoming book "God and the New Atheism: A Critical Response to Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens".  He uses the metaphor of a boiling pot of tea to explain how he reconciles faith and science:

...I approach these issues by making a case for what I call "layered explanation." For example, if a pot of tea is boiling on the stove, and someone asks you why it's boiling, one answer is to say it's boiling because H2O molecules are moving around excitedly, making a transition from the liquid state to the gaseous state. And that's a very good answer. But you could also say it's boiling because my wife turned the gas on. Or you could say it's boiling because I want tea. Here you have three levels of explanation which are approaching phenomena from different points of view. This is how I see the relationship of theology to science. Of course I think theology is relevant to discussing the question, what is nature? What is the world? It would talk about it in terms of being a gift from the Creator, and having a promise built into it for the future. Science should not touch upon that level of understanding. But it doesn't contradict what evolutionary biology and the other sciences are telling us about nature. They're just different levels of understanding.

At the end of Haught's interview, he's asked whether or not as a Christian he believes the resurrection actually happened.  He doesn't give a straight answer.  Instead, he argues that science is not adequate for addressing questions of such importance.  When pushed, he admitted that he does not believe that a camera would have captured anything when Jesus visited his disciples after the resurrection.  That answer seems like one that would be unsatisfying to most Christians and atheists alike.

Haught is a big fan of Jesuit paleontologist named Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.  Coincidentally, I recently listened to a Science Friday segment featuring the author of a recent biography about Teilhard de Chardin.

This afternoon we went to visit Santa.  Here are some photos (more on Picasa and Facebook):

A couple of the TV picks from The Week magazine for next week:

Hard as Nails
Justin Fatica, an unordained Catholic preacher in upstate New York, has drawn attention and aroused controversy with his Hard as Nails youth ministry. This lively profile captures the 28-year-old firebrand as he employs his attention-grabbing techniques, which include haranguing troubled teenagers and having them haul wooden crosses. Monday, Dec. 17, at 8 p.m., HBO

 

In God’s Name
French filmmakers Jules and Gedeon Naudet survived the collapse of the World Trade Center, an experience they chronicled in the Emmy- and Peabody-winning film 9/11. Since then, the two brothers have traveled the world seeking perspective from spiritual leaders on such issues as intolerance, terrorism, and war. This documentary features interviews with an array of religious leaders, including Pope Benedict XVI, the Dalai Lama, and the Archbishop of Canterbury, as well as their counterparts among Jews, Hindus, Muslims both Shiite and Sunni, Sikhs, Shintoists, Lutherans, Baptists, and Russian Orthodox—faiths whose combined followers number more than 4 billion. The film presents a unique opportunity to meet 12 people of extraordinary influence and hear their insights into the very meaning of life. Sunday, Dec. 23, at 9 p.m., CBS