Jonathan's blog

The Sunday before last was "Evolution Sunday." From this link:

On 12 February 2006 hundreds of Christian churches from all portions of the country and a host of denominations will come together to discuss the compatibility of religion and science. For far too long, strident voices, in the name of Christianity, have been claiming that people must choose between religion and modern science. More than 10,000 Christian clergy have already signed The Clergy Letter demonstrating that this is a false dichotomy. Now, on the 197th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin, many of these leaders will bring this message to their congregations through sermons and/or discussion groups. Together, participating religious leaders will be making the statement that religion and science are not adversaries. And, together, they will be elevating the quality of the national debate on this topic.

I've got to agree that people shouldn't have to choose between religion and modern science. To pose the situation as an either/or is a false dichotomy. I certainly haven't fully resolved in my own mind the apparent contradictions between what the Bible says and what modern science says about the origins of the universe.

On the one hand, it doesn't seem reasonable to believe the universe in all its glory, that my child's body and all its wonder, is simply the result of random processes and natural selection, no matter how many billions of years that Mr. Random has been wreaking his randomness. To me, if you choose to believe in a God or if you choose to believe in 13 billion years of random processes, either way you're placing your faith in something you can't possibly fathom.

On the other hand, I don't think the scientific observations underlying modern science's view should be lightly dismissed.

The task of reconciling the two is not a trivial one.

The open letter associated with Evolution Sunday makes the statement "While virtually all Christians take the Bible seriously and hold it to be authoritative in matters of faith and practice, the overwhelming majority do not read the Bible literally, as they would a science textbook." In a sense I agree with it. In a sense I don't. I "...don't read the Bible [as I] would a science textbook." It's not a science textbook and was not intended to be. I don't read everything in the Bible literally because, like any means of communication, it includes content that wasn't intended to be taken literally. However, in general I do read the Bible literally.

Here's a link to a transcript of Bono's remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast that I mentioned before. It's an interesting read. Some excerpts:

Look, whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists, most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place for the poor. In fact, the poor are where God lives. Check Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone. I mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the hill - I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of controversial stuff - maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can all agree, all faiths and ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and poor. ...6,500 Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug store. This is not about charity, this is about Justice and Equality. Because there's no way we can look at what's happening in Africa and, if we're honest, conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are equal to us. Anywhere else in the world, we wouldn't accept it. Look at what happened in South East Asia with the Tsunami. 150, 000 lives lost to that misnomer of all misnomers, "mother nature". In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every month. And it's a completely avoidable catastrophe. ...I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age will be remembered for three things: the war on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did-or did not to-to put the fire out in Africa. History, like God, is watching what we do. Thank you. Thank you, America, and God bless you all.

From an AP article by Jim Krane on abcnews.com:

DAMMAM, Saudi Arabia Feb 20, 2006 (AP) A minor revolution has spread to this sprawling oil town, with six women running this week for seats on the local chamber of commerce in this deeply conservative country where Islam dictates strict segregation of the sexes. Al-Edrisi and her colleagues in the Eastern Province, home to the world's richest oil fields, have climbed aboard a very small bandwagon. In an unprecedented November chamber of commerce election in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia's second-largest city, a pair of businesswomen became Saudi Arabia's first female elected officials. Women are still banned from running or voting in municipal government elections, Saudi Arabia's first democratic experiment, which started last year. Electoral officials have said women might gain the right to cast ballots in political elections in 2009. Saudi women lack many rights taken for granted in most of the rest of the world. They are not allowed to drive or to work in the same offices as men. Their ownership of businesses has, until recently, been restricted to ventures like hair salons, boutiques and spas. Al-Edrisi, a clothing importer, says the kingdom's future depends on women joining public life. But she also believes Saudis won't tolerate rapid change, noting the chaos in Iraq after U.S. forces ousted Saddam Hussein. "Iraq is horrifying for all of us," Al-Edrisi said. "We don't want upheaval no matter how much we want democracy. Stability is not overrated, especially in the Middle East." But pressure for change is everywhere, including from the Bush administration, which Al-Edrisi says harms their cause by identifying it with America.

From an entry in land+living, about an interesting "art project," the DDD project:

Detroit is one of the most spectacular examples of boom and bust in the United States - once opulent and then blighted - this capital of the Rust Belt is one of the nation's fastest shrinking cities and prime example of the phenomenon of "white flight" and, subsequently, sprawl. Large numbers of buildings and homes have been abandoned and many have been torn down or have fallen down and cleared away. Yet many vacant buildings remain in various states of decay. Preceding the recent Super Bowl held in Detroit, an anonymous group calling themselves the DDD Project (Detroit. Demolition. Disneyland.) began targeting highly visible abandoned structures for intervention. Marked with a circled "D" in chalk by the city for demolition by the city years prior, the DDD Project transformed the houses, creating highlights within a context of depression, with a coat of bright orange paint, covering every surface of the facade: "Every detail is accentuated through the unification of color. Broken windows become jagged lines. Peeling paint becomes texture."

From an article in The Midland Daily News:

Consumers said it finished restoring power Monday to more than 252,000 customers who lost electricity last week due to severe weather. The company said more than 340 crews worked to restore power, including 84 from Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin. Some 5,800 customers, including 700 in the Midland area, were still without power as of Monday morning. Here's basically how the power system works. Electricity comes from the generating plant over high-voltage lines to a substation, where voltage is reduced but still remains high. The power is distributed over a series of circuits, then goes through a transformer where voltage is reduced to household levels. Crews had to deal with a variety of problems: a small number of broken poles, broken cross arms atop the poles, high-voltage lines and distribution circuits that failed, and wires that came down with ice-laden trees. For each broken wire, someone had to climb the pole, splice the broken pieces together and get them high enough in the air so they wouldn't tangle with trees. One crew member working in mid-Michigan fell and suffered a broken leg, Ebelt said.