Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Gloria Steinem, defining symbol of women’s movement and eloquent advocate for equality, dies at 92 (September 4)

2. Flock cameras draw opposition from across the political spectrum (September 5) "Every month, Flock cameras capture billions of license plates, along with other vehicle data. Police say this tool helps them find stolen vehicles and missing people. But the technology has been abused. Officers have used it to stalk ex-partners, for instance."

3. If you weren't on Cohost, you don't have to miss it (September 5, via) "This post is a response to those whose impression of Cohost has been based off the glowing retrospectives by its biggest fans."

4. The U.N. backs a new world map showing Africa in its true relative size (September 4) I don't get why the UN is doing this, seems like not really the best use of their time, but you should definitely go take a look at this map.

5. Wales Gender Clinic In The UK Pauses Surgeries Over Accusations That They Help Too Many Trans Patients (September 2) "However, the impacts on patients have been devastating. Existing gender-affirming surgeries on the books were cancelled for the foreseeable future. Some patients were informed of this mere hours before they, themselves, were scheduled to go under the knife. Some had already been admitted to the hospital when news broke. People who had waited years for this care, rearranged their lives, took time off work, and traveled to the clinic from all over the country are now stuck in a medical purgatory."

Also from Erin in the Morning: 21 States Sue Federal Government To Block Anti-Trans Under-19 Medicaid Ban (September 4) "The lawsuit targets a rule published on Aug. 13 that bars federal reimbursement for puberty blockers, hormone therapy, and surgery for anyone under 18 on Medicaid or under 19 on CHIP, and which could do significant harm to transgender youth in these states, who currently have that care covered."

And: The Guide To Anti-Trans Democrats In The 2026 Elections, By State (September 8)

6. Seth Moulton lost. Good. (September 3) 

7. The widow of Zarephath and the extra mile (September 9) "But what would it mean for us to have told him that this is what he was obliged to do? What would it mean for us to have insisted to him that this self-sacrifice was compulsory and something commanded of him? That would seem to put us in the same category as the corrupt white cops and klansmen who were also telling Lewis that his duty — his role in life — was to take a beating, turn the other cheek, and then be beaten again. Instead of the world being changed by his radical heroism, we would be locking that world into place, with all of its grievous injustice protected and enshrined."

The question of how much self-sacrifice we are morally obligated to do is something I've been thinking about for my entire life. Maybe the approach in this blog post is reasonable.

8. Dolly Parton Was Political, But Not Partisan (August 31) "Parton’s achievement, then, wasn’t in pursuing nonpartisan politics over partisan politics; simply refusing to be partisan is not a virtue in itself. Rather, the reason she did so much good is that she identified areas where her resources and her carefully cultivated position as a nonpartisan figure would allow her to advance particular causes—LGBT acceptance, children’s literacy, vaccine development, vaccine uptake—in a way few others could. That took decades of unwavering commitment, careful strategy, and moral commitment. Everyone can’t be Dolly, and I don’t think everyone should be Dolly. But everyone can be inspired by a public figure who figured out her path and used it to do so much good."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. climate.us (via) Site where US climate data is now being hosted without political interference, after what happened with climate.gov.

2. MapQuest app reaches No 1 on US Apple list after defying Trump’s Lake Ontario order (September 1)

3. CBS Just Putting It Out There That Maybe Abdul El-Sayed Secretly Loves Terrorism And 9/11 (September 2) "What kind of questions? What kind of duck? A communist duck? A terrorism-loving duck? A Muslim duck? What sort of quacking and in what direction? This seems like a very weird thing to say if you have a concrete criticism of someone that isn’t 'Well, I don’t like his religion.'"

4. Supreme Court allows Trump to continue building White House ballroom (September 1)

5. Speaking (and singing) of the dead (August 31) "Yes, poor Sisera’s Mama — waiting for her son to return in his fancy chariot and dreaming of all the loot and new slaves he’ll be bringing back for her. Except oops — sorry Mom! — your son isn’t coming home because he’s dead! One of those women he planned to enslave put a tent peg through his skull! [shrug emoji, cry-laughing emoji]"

6. Trump’s 9/11 Lies Are A Moral Failure, Not A Cognitive One (September 9) "In a telephone interview just after the attack, Trump boasted that his property at 40 Wall Street was the tallest building still standing in Manhattan. That was a lie; it was the second tallest. And it was an incredibly fucked up thing to say while the bodies were still being counted."

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Dolly Parton, Queen of Country Music, Dies at 80 (August 25, via) 

2. Tim Curry, ‘Rocky Horror Picture Show’ Star, Dies at 80 (August 26, via) 

3. Catastrophic floods kill over 390 in Nepal and Tibet, with more than 1,400 missing (August 28)

4. Peter Cullen, Voice of Optimus Prime in ‘Transformers,’ Dies at 85 (August 27, via)

5.  Lil Nas X - Jolene (Dolly Parton Cover) in the Live Lounge (2021) 

6. Bruce Banner and (Not) Being the Hulk (August 29) "What frustrates me in all this is not that a bunch of superheroes like having another superhero around. It’s that none of them seems willing to put themselves in Bruce’s shoes and think about how horrible being the Hulk must actually be. Every time Bruce Hulks out, he loses consciousness. When he comes to, he’s often miles from where he was, alone, and half-naked."

7. The bridges of Rwanda open up new worlds (August 29) "'Before, I would have to wait for my grandkids to bring me food every day. Some days I would be very hungry' she says. Now, the children can easily get food to her, and she can cross the river herself to visit them."

8. Celebrities who left (August 29) "So what is a celebrity to do? If they came out as asexual, but no longer identify as asexual, do they just quietly drop the subject and hope it gets memory-holed?"

9. Tracing the Route of ‘Cathay’ (August 25) There's an airline based in Hong Kong called Cathay Pacific. Here's an article about where the term "Cathay" comes from.

Also from Sixth Tone: Behind China’s Unlikely Box-Office Hit, Indie Filmmakers Struggle to Be Seen (September 1) "After grossing just 5,500 yuan ($815) in its first week, the animated film, reportedly made by 34-year-old amateur filmmaker Xin Yumeng using secondhand equipment, experienced an extraordinary box-office turnaround, taking in 50 million yuan ($7.44 million) by Aug. 26. It has since been dubbed China’s answer to “The Room,” Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 drama that began as a box-office bomb before achieving cult status for its notoriously crude production."

And: Remembering Gyirong: The Bustling Port That Vanished in a Flash (September 3) "Frequent visitors to the China-Nepal border crossing wait anxiously for signs of life as rescuers search for those missing in the Aug. 26 mudslide."

And: Two Filmmakers, 1,100 Villages, and a Race to Record Rural China (September 4) "Many of the projects were built more than 60 years ago, and Zhao said it is increasingly hard to find surviving workers who can still tell their stories."

10. How Evangelical Sex Teachings Obscured the Red Flags in Death of a Pastor’s Wife (August 31) "But what this book did was it turned men talking about their struggles with lust into something that we should applaud, not judge."

I think there's a lot to be said here about the evangelical view of "sin", ie, there's so much talk about how we're all horrible sinners, we're all just totally the worst, we shouldn't ever think we're any good, the best we can do is to honestly confess our sins. So then when a man says he "struggles with lust" and teenage girls need to not wear "immodest" clothes (whatever that means), one way this could be interpreted is like, oh it's good that he's being honest, we're all horrible sinners so this is normal. There's not really a concept of your sin having a victim- like when a man says he "struggles with lust" why does the church not take that to mean it's not safe for girls to be around him because he's a creep?

Kinda seems like overall, it's a very flexible view of sin, where any kind of sin can be excused like it doesn't even matter, because "we're all sinners so we can't judge", but also, any kind of sin can be treated like it's such a big deal and that person is disgusting and should be ostracized because don't you know that every sin is an infinite offense against a holy God? Could go either way, depending on *who* the "sinner" is and what kind of hierarchies and power dynamics exist around them.

11. ‘Don’t panic’: How two men were rescued from a flood-stricken Nepali power plant (September 4)

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. In candid interviews, National Guard members speak out about D.C. deployment (August 24) "The guard member from West Virginia said it was the first time he'd ever not had the community in a domestic deployment welcome the help, since the guard usually shows up after floods or natural disasters."

2. Trump directs federal government to rename Lake Ontario to Lake America (August 27) 

And Lake Ontario now called Lake America on Google Maps for US users after Trump ordered name change (August 31) Oh come on.

3. Immigration arrests soar, hitting 50,000 in July (August 26)

4. Trump administration deports relative of Afghans who helped US military to Central African Republic (August 30) "The deportation flight which landed in Central African Republic's capital Bangui on Saturday, included 12 Afghans and eight Iranians, as well as several people from Nepal and Nicaragua, said Savi Arvey, director of policy, refugee and immigrant rights at Human Rights First."

5. Milo Yiannopoulos, far-right critic of U.S. immigration, is deported from U.S. (August 29)

"The Language of God" (surprisingly I like this book!)

Book cover for "The Language of God"

I recently read The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief by Francis S. Collins (published in 2006) and surprisingly, I really liked it! This is a really good book! It gives Collins's perspective, as a scientist and Christian, and it's just very reasonable. It doesn't come across as "let's fight those atheists" or fearful of science. It's about his own reasons for leaving behind atheism and converting to Christianity, and it's about how evolution is just true and Christians should accept that, and creationism and intelligent design just ain't it, and how science and faith are compatible. 

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Francis Collins

Collins was the director of the Human Genome Project. This was a team that sequenced the entire human genome, billions of DNA base pairs, which is pretty amazing. (The title, "The Language of God" refers to the idea that the DNA base pairs are the "language" that God used to create life.)

I've seen Christians make a big deal about how Collins is a Christian. The argument goes, see, Francis Collins is a Christian, and he's a famous scientist! So, our beliefs *are* legit and compatible with science! The assumption is that Collins holds all the same beliefs that the Christians who claim him as a symbol do. Turns out, this assumption is very wrong! All throughout this book, Collins comes across as thoughtful and reasonable, rather than holding on to dogmatic beliefs that we can't question and we just have to keep saying louder.

Case in point: evolution. A big chunk of this book is about how evolution is true and Christians should accept that. Collins discusses creationism, and talks about why it's wrong. He discusses intelligent design, and why it's wrong. And then he talks about theistic evolution, which is the position he holds.

I was totally surprised. I really had no idea what this book was about; I had no idea that Collins accepts evolution and I had no idea that he was openly advocating for Christians to accept evolution. Really, no idea. All those times that I've heard Christians say "look, Francis Collins" as if that proves that their beliefs are reasonable- wow, I really had no idea that he was out here telling Christians to accept evolution. In the Christian subculture I grew up in, we all knew that of course Christians do not believe in evolution.

Airplane Evangelism

People on an airplane. Image source.

Apparently there have been some recent tiktok videos where Christians preach on airplanes. See these links:

Christian preachers are turning airplanes into unwanted worship services

‘Airplane evangelists’ vs. ‘Sweet Caroline’

Preach the Gospel, but Not on a Plane

My first reaction to this is ugh, I don't like it. 

But, in the first link above, Hemant Mehta says, 

Other Christians have an especially important role here, too. If they believe faith shouldn’t be imposed like this, they should be the loudest people condemning this behavior—in real time if they’re fellow passengers and later if they hear about it.

And I feel like, it's not that easy. I don't know if I would do that- tell these people "hey I'm also a Christian and I don't think you should preach like this."

Oof. I've done this kind of "go up to random strangers and tell them about Jesus" style of evangelism before. Among my Christian friends in college, most of us who did this were really uncomfortable, but we believed we had to. People are going to hell! They need someone to tell them about Jesus! How can you care more about social awkwardness than about people going to hell????

So that's the logic. And I believed the "people are going to hell" part, so there was always that guilt, like, I should do more, I should tell more people about Jesus, but oh goodness it's so awkward and I'm an introvert.

So yeah, I sometimes did what we call "conversational evangelism" (or, one of my friends called it, "evangelism to the randos"). Usually we went in groups of 2, but also there were times I did this by myself. Go up to someone who's just sitting there by themself, ask them if they're okay with talking about religion- we ask first and we leave if they say no- and then ask them what they believe, and try to find a way to "share the gospel" and convince them to believe in Jesus.

It was, oh man, it was a mixed bag of emotions. So terrifying and awkward to go talk to someone who's not expecting it, to say "excuse me" to get their attention, and then draw them into a conversation where they share their personal beliefs- a weird level of emotional intimacy. But it was exciting, to hear about what these random people thought about God, and to have a chance to "share the gospel"- we felt like "God is working" and it was so exciting to be part of that.

It's the kind of thing that you don't want to do, and you psych yourself up by thinking about how God wants you to do it, and all these people are at risk of going to hell, and Jesus did so much for you so can't you do this for him?

The airplane thing, it's more like what my friends called "street preaching," where you just stand up in a public place and talk loudly about God to any passersby, rather than having a one-on-one conversation. (The difference is that on the airplane, people can't walk away.) I never did street preaching. I remember I had a friend who was interested in doing it, and was checking into the rules at our university to see if it was allowed. I don't know if he ever ended up doing it or not.

But anyway, Mehta's suggestion that other Christians should tell this airplane preacher to stop. I have a few things to say about that:

First of all, even though my initial emotional reaction is "I don't like this", can I actually give a logical argument, consistent with my religious beliefs, about why it's a bad idea? I think I could do that now, now that I don't believe in hell, but in the past I couldn't. I always felt guilty... all the people around me are at risk of going to hell, and I'm too scared to say anything about it? What's wrong with me? And now here's someone who's actually taking action and doing something about it. I don't like it, but I'm the one in the wrong. She's doing what I should be doing.

We always *said* we should do more evangelism, but we were too scared to actually do it. Now here's someone who's actually doing it. How can we oppose that?

I guess the best you can do- if you're in that ideology- is argue that this kind of loud public evangelism is not an *effective* way to convert people. You don't believe that respecting people is a good thing *in and of itself* but it's a strategy that will win you more converts in the long run.

And second, oh man, I know how it is, when you finally get up the courage to violate social norms and just go for it. You just focus on your goal, and what God wants you to do, and you block out everything around you that tells you how wrong your behavior is. Imagine if someone interrupts you right then and says "I'm a Christian and I don't think you should do that." You're not in a state where you can reason about it. You've already decided you're doing it, and if anything gets in your way, it's an obstacle that you need to fight back against. (Obviously this naysayer is a fake Christian who cares more about social awkwardness than about people going to hell!) This other Christian who interrupts you to point out that you're violating social norms- you already know all that. You already know all those reasons, you know them very well, and they have held you back, but finally at this moment you've gotten up the courage to push past them, and it's terrifying. And then someone comes and reminds you of all those reasons that you've been working so hard to ignore. You're not in a state where you can be receptive to that feedback at all.

I'm very hesitant to criticize people for how they do evangelism. It's extremely uncomfortable, and they don't want to be doing it, but they're forcing themselves to, out of obedience to God. I empathize with them, and I wish I could tell them the good news that there is no hell and they don't need to tell random strangers about Jesus, but they're not in a place where they can accept that.

It would be a different thing, if the evangelist is totally fine with what they're doing, if they're not hating it internally and forcing themselves to do it despite how wrong it feels. I feel better about criticizing them, if that's the case. And maybe the people who are posting videos of themselves on tiktok, saying "I just love a captive audience," maybe they're different from me, and they actually *like* doing that. 

It's just very hard for me to imagine *liking* to do this kind of evangelism. You stand up on the plane and make an announcement about Jesus, and then you have to wait around at the baggage claim with all these same people, oh so embarrassing. And what if you need to ask someone for help, like "oh that's my suitcase there", they're all gonna try not to make eye contact with you... You've broken the social norms, and now you're you're trying to just slip back into the world of social norms again.

And then posting it on tiktok... I feel like this is the kind of thing that one would share with one's Christian friends, and they'll admire your faith and say "that's so hard, but you did it." Not something that you would post publicly. I wouldn't think you'd want everyone to know you're the kind of person who preaches on airplanes.

But anyway. What I would say now- now that I don't believe in hell- is that as Christians, we want to be known for our kindness and love for others. People don't like being preached at nonconsensually, so we shouldn't do that. If we really want to show Jesus' love, that means getting to know people, valuing them for who they are, respecting that they have their own beliefs and can make their own choices, and they don't need you to convince them to believe in Jesus or whatever. Don't treat them like your personal mission project, like the only thing that matters is whether they're "saved" or not.

But again, this only works if you don't believe in hell. How can you "value people for who they are" if you believe in a God who isn't going to do that on Judgment Day, but will just sort them into "saved" and "unsaved" and send them to hell? Like the only thing that matters is whether they're "saved" or not.

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Related

The things I've never let myself say about evangelism

When Christians Say "We're Sorry"

"My Evangelism Isn't Working" is a Very Creepy Thing to Say

Yep, I Totally Did This Creepy Evangelism Strategy

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Q&A: Pangram CEO (June 23, via) "There is a social contract between the writer and the reader. If I believe there is an idea worth sharing, I pay a cost by writing a piece of text, and the reader pays a cost by taking the time to read it. In a future where AI content lets you bypass the cost of writing your idea and formulating it, we get into a situation with perverse incentives, where people are posting total slop, and the reader is taking more time to read than the writer put into the text in the first place."

2. The Mystery in the Medicine Cabinet (April) "So, for many years, if I needed a painkiller, I’d try to take ibuprofen rather than acetaminophen. My logic was that if eight grams of acetaminophen could kill my liver, then one gram was probably still hard on it. I’m fond of my liver and didn't want to cause it any unnecessary inconvenience. But guess what? My logic was wrong and what I was doing was stupid."

3. This video of New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani speaking Mandarin Chinese. (August 16) Wow, this is really good! I can understand all of it- it's not like a lot of other videos of actors/beginners trying to say things in Chinese, where they don't even come close to nailing the pronunciation, and I'm like "... I can't even figure out what they were trying to say." He's got the pronunciation totally right- even difficult ones like "ri" and "yu." The way he talks is slow and careful, like he memorized a script and he's trying to get it perfect, rather than just naturally being able to speak the language. So my guess is he has spent time studying Chinese before, especially the pronunciation, but maybe not good enough to just have a conversation whenever. (See also, the blooper reel.) Anyway I'm very impressed, and as a politician you *should* do stuff like this, to connect with the people you represent.

4.  Total Eclipse of the Heart in the Original Klingon - Strange New Worlds (August 8)

5. She Faced a Life-Threatening Miscarriage. Under Arkansas’ Abortion Ban, Even Calls to the Governor’s Office Didn’t Help. (May 26, via) "'This is basic obstetrics,' said Dr. Alison Goulding, a maternal-fetal-medicine specialist in Texas. 'Everyone should know that you have to provide an abortion in these settings or women can die.'"

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. DHS's abuse of power in Minnesota was even worse than we knew (August 18) "What we didn’t know at the time, though, was that the administration had engaged in utterly unprecedented surveillance in service of its theory that somehow everyone in Minnesota was engaged in a vast criminal conspiracy to make ICE thugs feel sad."

2. They grew up with disability rights. Now, they're fighting to keep them (August 20) "'I can't really overstate how significant this change in position is,' said Alison Barkoff, a health law and policy professor at George Washington University who worked on Olmstead enforcement in the Justice Department during the Obama administration. 'It is now the position of the United States government that people with disabilities don't have a right to be part of their communities.'"

3. The system meant to protect ICE detainees has collapsed (August 20) "'I even told them in English: I have a Stage 4 brain tumor. I have to take 1,000 mg of Keppra at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. I'm supposed to start chemotherapy this week,' he said."

4. “The ICE Agent Behind Me Grabbed the Back of My Shirt and Just Threw Me Like a Sack of Trash” (August 1, via) "Bowe was in shock. “I thought of Alex Pretti, because he was also a nurse, and he was also helping someone who’d been knocked down.” Bowe was treated for a concussion, and for a kneecap fracture. She’s now suing ICE for $500,000."

5. Kings are creepy and weird (August 19) "I’ve been thinking about poor Abishag lately due to the recent attention being given to our own very old, doddering would-be king’s constant companion and non-sexual female attendant."

Chinese Shopping Apps: Giraffe Toy Edition

My son had a giraffe toy, and then I let my daughter play with it and she chewed the legs, so now I owe my son a new one. Let's go to Taobao (a Chinese shopping app) and find one.

Okay, so, first of all, I'm not sure how to search for this. I'm trying to buy the exact same toy that my son had, but like, how to describe it? It's a giraffe with legs that you can extend and they have suction cups at the ends.

Giraffe is 长颈鹿 [cháng jǐng lù] and toy is 玩具 [wán jù] so I guess I'll just search 长颈鹿玩具 and see what we get.

Oh, it's the first result. Huh. Apparently this toy is *the* giraffe toy as far as Taobao is concerned. Okay.

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. On ‘James Talarico and the [white] religious left’ (August 10) "Where the “religious right” is always presumed to be acting out of genuine religious conviction, the “religious left” is always presumed to be just a bunch of Democrats fumbling to close the “God gap” in electoral campaigning."

2. ‘Black Mirror’ and ‘Loki’ Directors Say They Rejected HBO’s ‘Harry Potter’ Due to J.K. Rowling’s Transphobia: ‘Absolutely F—ing Not’ (August 14, via) 

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. More Than 20,000 Unaccompanied Children at Risk of Losing Legal Representation in Immigration Court (August 5) "On Friday, July 31st, the Trump administration ended a critical federal contract with the Acacia Center for Justice providing legal services and representation to children who entered the United States without a parent or guardian. The decision dismantled a network of nearly 100 legal service providers, including Church World Service, and leaves over 20,000 unaccompanied children across the country, many of whom are victims of trafficking or other abuse, without legal representation."

2. El-Sayed blasts Trump over ‘Two VERY DIFFERENT America’s’ post (August 9, via) "'Yeah, he’s right,' El-Sayed said. 'One in which your overlords are two people who don’t like each other but joint in the interest of making billions of dollars off of you, or two people who genuinely love each other, enjoyed some pancakes together, want to come together to build the kind of America where they can raise a family, and know that that family is going to have the good things.'"

3. ICE plans to outfit officers with electric shock gloves (August 12) "'My immediate reaction was, why would you give this kind of novel dangerous technology that's hard to train people on to agency personnel who have a track record of abuse and even cruelty?' Shah says."

4. 'What are we going to do?' The mom of a trans teen grapples with Trump's Medicaid move (August 16) "She says the narrative advanced by the Trump administration — that families are being tricked into gender-affirming care by doctors and hospitals driven by greed — is completely off base."

5. They fought for the U.S. in Afghanistan. Now they worry about losing their green cards (August 15) "'We are trying to work, study, raise our children and build a normal life in the U.S,' said M., who asked NPR to refer to him by his first initial because he's concerned that speaking to the media could affect his green card. 'But now we are also trying to find lawyers, contact congressional offices and understand what may happen to our green cards. It is very stressful because even immigration lawyers give different opinions.'"

6. Families of USS Lincoln crew say Trump should be 'ashamed' of conditions on board (August 15) "His comments come amid reports of food shortages, plumbing problems and declining mental health among crew members."

7. Suing Stephen Miller (July 20, via) "You shouldn’t be able to order the military to carry out extrajudicial executions of fishermen and/or low-level drug runners that violate both domestic and international law, and then simply return to your job as a weekend cable news host once the other party retakes the White House. You should not be able to lie to the courts about sending immigrants to an overseas torture prison with zero due process and then live out your days with the lifelong job security of a federal judge. You should not be able to write a bullshit, meritless, bad faith legal memo while working at the Office of Legal Counsel that authorizes immigration officers to ignore the Fourth Amendment and batter down the doors of private homes without a warrant, then go on to make millions as partner at a white shoe law firm."

Inspiration and Incarnation: Wisdom Literature

Image text: Ecclesiastes 1:2 "Meaningless! Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless." Image source.

I've been reading "Inspiration and Incarnation" by Peter Enns. Chapter 3 is called "The Old Testament and Theological Diversity." There are diverse viewpoints within the Old Testament- one passage says one thing, and another passage says another thing which is inconsistent with the first passage. 

There's a lot of fascinating stuff in this chapter, so I'm breaking it down into several blog posts. This post will cover the part about the wisdom literature in the bible. Specifically, the books of Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Job.

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Proverbs

Proverbs is a book of wise sayings. These are useful guidelines for how to live your life, but it doesn't mean you're *guaranteed* to have good results if you follow them. That's why I never really liked the book of Proverbs when I was evangelical- it's a bunch of generalizations, all of which have exceptions so you can't take them too seriously. Unlike the rest of the bible, which was Absolute Truth [so I thought].

Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. They're Made Out of Weights (June 3, via) "Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of weights."

2. Your Book Review: Breakdown In Pakistan (July 24) This is about the phenomenon of foreign NGOs coming in and transforming local community-led organizations, giving them money but making them no longer able to connect with and raise support from their community.

3. Antiques Roadshow (August 5) From xkcd. 

4. Furiosa’s Cat Feeder (2016, via) About a cat who keeps finding ways to get extra food out of the cat feeder, and the owner's continued attempts to prevent it. "Her next move was to lie on her back in the bowl, and stick her paw up the chute. She could paw the conveyor belt itself, getting it to move. This was very effective, netting an extra meal or more." 

5. Jonathan Haidt is wrong about age-gating the internet (July 13) "I wish everyone giving this parenting advice were first required to actually try, for an hour, to configure a computer such that it gives a user the ability to meaningfully interact with the web without bombarding them with content selected to make them hooked and miserable. It can’t be done. I have tried a wide range of parental control tools, and none of them even seem to comprehend it as an aspiration."

6. Sheep and Goats and ‘Hell’ (August 4) "So they need the Sheep and the Goats to support the claim of a 'literal' Heaven and Hell, but cannot acknowledge or accept what that parable has to say about who is going to 'Heaven' and who is going to 'Hell' and why. That parable, like the parable of Lazarus and the rich man, is explicit, emphatic, and categorical. 'Heaven' is for the poor and for those who feed the poor. 'Hell' is for rich people who neglect the poor. Full stop."

Also from the Slacktivist: No sign will be given except the sign of Jonah (August 7) "And then it struck me that I was sitting there earnestly asking myself one of the most pernicious, corrosive, damnable questions one can ever wind up asking oneself: Who does and does not count as 'our' people?"

7. Why Rachel Held Evans Still Reads Like a Prophet (August 10) There's a new book called "Braving the Truth" which is a collection of Rachel Held Evans's writings. Definitely worth reading. See also, this link roundup I posted in 2019: Link Roundup of Posts Honoring Rachel Held Evans

8. Niagara Falls and the Limits of the Design Inference (July 25) "In its cosmology, then, [intelligent design] finds design in the very law-structure of the universe. In its biology, it finds design in the failure of that law-structure to account for some feature. These are opposite arguments."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Justice department moves to dismiss its charges against Olympian over reflecting pool (July 31, via) "The documents 'indicated a rushed and flawed installation process, with repeated failures of the lining during the installation process, and extensive peeling of the lining throughout the Reflecting Pool,' the motion said."

2. The Assault On Science Funding Continues (July 23, via) "But I mean what I say and I am trying my best to say what I mean: The Trump administration hates academic science funding, full stop. They hate where that money goes, and they hate who it goes to. They want to keep all that money for themselves, to hand out to favored cronies who can help them get elected and to steer yet more money and more power back into their hands."

3. Truth Social’s Audacious Plan to Sell Banks Early Access to Trump’s Posts Goes Live (August 3, via) "This story has captured our attention because it compounds the corruption that has become endemic throughout the executive branch with a new, ridiculous feature of our economy — Trump manipulating the markets through his bespoke social media platform, prompting sell-offs and rallies with his statements about the status of such things as tariffs or the Iran war, regardless of those statements’ grounding in fact."

4. They lost their work permits and their legal status. Returning to Haiti is still 'unimaginable' (August 5) "Approximately 350,000 Haitians and Syrians who have remade their lives in the United States are now at a crossroads. Their work permits and legal status have expired, yet their home countries haven't recovered from the crises that drove them to seek Temporary Protected Status protections."

5. Trump signs new orders targeting birthright citizenship, weeks after Supreme Court ruling (August 7) The wording of this one is different than the previous one- I would be interested in reading an article explaining those differences and to what extent they matter.

6. Federal funds can't be used to give test strips to drug users, raising overdose fears (August 8)

"The Strangest Thing in the Sea" (kids' book review)

Book cover for "The Strangest Thing in the Sea."

Here's a book that my son loves, because it's about weird sea creatures: The Strangest Thing in the Sea by Rachel Poliquin, illustrated by Byron Eggenschwiler.

On every page, it has a little hint on the left side, about what kind of creature it is, plus part of a picture of it. And then the right side page has an artistic representation of what kind of thing it might be. Like what you might imagine it is, just hearing a partial description. And then you flip open the right page and it shows the rest of the picture of what it really looks like, and it has all the information about what it is, what it eats, what kind of ocean environment it lives in, special abilities, etc.

Here's an example. On this page we see part of the creature, and we're told it's like a moon, so the right side page shows an artistic representation of a moon face:

And then you flip it open and you see it's actually an ocean sunfish!

This is really cool- every page is like this. It has an artistic image of what you might imagine it looks like, and then you flip open the page and see what it really is. (Apparently this is called a gatefold.) And there's a good variety of weird sea creatures. My son loves this because he loves weird animals.

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Reviews of Kids' Books