Something is Missing
- Jonathan
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Elliot Archives
April 28, 2008
March 15, 2008
Elliot's 7th Birthday
Friday night Elliot had a few friends from school over to celebrate his 7th birthday. The main events were folding and flying some high-performance paper airplanes and "Webkinz football" which quickly devolved into 7-year-olds running wildly around the basement while throwing Webkinz at each other.
Here are some photos (more on Facebook and Picasa):
- Jonathan
December 22, 2007
A Pot of Tea is Boiling
Technorati Tags: John Haught,God and the New Atheism
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.
- Jonathan
October 06, 2007
Soccer and TKD
Elliot had a big day today. He spent three hours this morning testing for his green belt. Lisa said the board-breaking was a bit of a challenge for him...but so it was for the adult who was testing for the same belt too. He made it to the soccer field just as the game started. He played really well despite being tired and having almost nothing for lunch...running all over the field, scoring a goal and also playing some great defense. Hardly any balls made it past mid-field on his watch. Here are some photos:
- Jonathan
October 04, 2007
Fall Soccer
The boys are playing soccer again this fall. Last Saturday Finn scored his team's only goal, and Elliot scored 2 of his team's 3. Here are some photos of Finn in action:
Being chased by Goliaths, Finn actually fought them off and scored in the above series of photos...
- Jonathan
October 03, 2007
Fall Harvest Festival
The weekend before last we spent a few hours at the Fall Harvest Festival at the Chippewa Nature Center. Some of the more memorable observations were of the guy scraping and preparing the skin of a bear that had been killed in the UP a few days before, Prairie Pete and Miss Sarah portraying early Michigan settlers, and the folks plowing the field with plows pulled by oxen. We learned that the difference between cows and oxen is that oxen have been trained to pull the plow.
Here are a couple photos of the boys helping to back apple butter.
- Jonathan
First Day of School
Here are some photos of the boys from last month on the first day of school.
- Jonathan
August 18, 2007
I Want to Give Him Ten Dollars
Yesterday we were sitting at a stoplight at the end of a highway exit ramp where a guy was holding a sign saying he was stranded and needed some money. My first urge was to look away from him. Lisa, who was driving, asked if I wanted to give him something. I said sure. I pulled out a $5 bill and Lisa handed it to him. Usually, I don't just hand out money but instead try to buy a person some food or whatever, but this occasion handing the money seemed to be the best option. As we sat longer at the stoplight, I noticed that Elliot was watching the man. We went on to Burger King. While in the restaurant, Elliot said something like "When we pass that man again, I want to give him $10." (Elliot had brought his wallet with him including the ~$100 of several years of birthday money that he has been saving and wants to spend on a Gameboy). Both Lisa and Elliot teared up at the time (and I am doing so right now). I'm really glad that we chose to give to that man and that Elliot got to see us do it.
- Jonathan
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Comments on I Want to Give Him Ten Dollars
Very touching. Thanks for sharing.
June 25, 2007
June 14, 2007
Not Quite Right
There's something not quite in these three photos...plus some backyard wildlife in the fourth.
not quite right
not quite right
not quite right
backyard wildlife
- Jonathan