This BBC article discusses whether internet activity is adversely affecting the health of children.
Posted in General Conversation | 4 Comments »A number of reports have recently linked online networking and computer games to a host of health risks.
Susan Greenfield, the eminent neuroscientist and head of the Royal Institution, is the latest to weigh into the debate, warning that young people’s brains may be fundamentally altered by internet activity.
While concerns about children and computers have usually focused on their forging inappropriate relationships online, or failing to get enough exercise as a result of being glued to a screen, the baroness suggested the consequences may be more profound.
She told peers in the House of Lords it would be worth considering whether the rise in autism – a condition marked by difficulties forming attachments – was linked to the increasing prevalence of screen relationships.
Last week’s Time featured an article on The Biology of Belief. One of the points made in it was that faith can heal:
Posted in General Conversation | 3 Comments »The Biology of Belief
[...] a growing body of scientific evidence suggests that faith may indeed bring us health. People who attend religious services do have a lower risk of dying in any one year than people who don’t attend. People who believe in a loving God fare better after a diagnosis of illness than people who believe in a punitive God. No less a killer than AIDS will back off at least a bit when it’s hit with a double-barreled blast of belief. “Even accounting for medications,” says Dr. Gail Ironson, a professor of psychiatry and psychology at the University of Miami who studies HIV and religious belief, “spirituality predicts for better disease control.”
Go check out Off The Map’s new blog – The Practicing Church.
(Update – the link was wrong but I just fixed it – thanks for telling me, Elaine!)
Posted in An atheist (Eliza) in Lutheran class, General Conversation | Comments OffLast Friday my daughter had an extra credit assignment to watch Children of the Mountains, a 20/20 special on ABC. Here’s some of the description of the program from ABC’s website
Read the rest of this news item »
So many things were said about Bristol Palin during Sarah Palin’s campaign – I was pleased to discover she got to speak for herself in a Fox News Interview this week.
Towards the end Sarah Palin showed up (apparently surprising the interviewer) and said a few words too.
Read the rest of this news item »
I found this Economist article interesting.
Posted in General Conversation | 6 Comments »Motivating minds: People procrastinate when asked to think in the abstract
TO SOME there is nothing so urgent that it cannot be postponed in favour of a cup of tea. Such procrastination is a mystery to psychologists, who wonder why people would sabotage themselves in this way. A team of researchers led by Sean McCrea of the University of Konstanz, in Germany, reckon they have found a piece of the puzzle. People act in a timely way when given concrete tasks but dawdle when they view them in abstract terms.
Last week David Kinnaman was speaking at Moody Bible Institute’s annual Bible conference (Founder’s Week).
One of the neat things about Founder’s Week, if you like conservative Christian Bible conferences, is that the sessions are open to anyone who wants to attend, free of charge, no tickets or registration required.
On the whole I’m not interested in conservative Christian Bible conferences any more but when I heard David was speaking in my hometown I decided to drive downtown to hear him. I very much enjoyed meeting David at Off The Map Live last year and I thought it would be fun to see him again. Also, I didn’t hear his whole talk at OTM Live because I was leading the Green Apron Team so I was in and out of sessions rather than sitting and listening. So even though he had told me in email that it would be a similar talk, it wasn’t as if I’d heard it from start to finish already.
David’s talk was based around the book he co-authored, UnChristian. Here’s some of it:
Read the rest of this news item »
I liked this ABC news story (h/t Keep Believing blog)
Posted in General Conversation | 2 Comments »Man Asks Entire Town for Forgiveness for Racism
Nearly half a century ago, in a very different America, Elwin Wilson and John Lewis met under a veil of violence and race-inspired hate.
Wilson, a young, white, Southern man, attacked Lewis, a freedom rider for Martin Luther King, in the “white” waiting room of a South Carolina bus station. The men had not seen each other again until Tuesday when, with “Good Morning America’s” help, Wilson approached Lewis again — this time offering an apology and a chance to relieve a burden he’d carried for more than four decades.
“I’m so sorry about what happened back then,” Wilson said breathlessly.
“It’s OK. I forgive you,” Lewis responded before a long-awaited hug.
Three Christian groups are posting their own bus ads in London in response to the atheist ads. (Doreen thanks for the link to the TIME article about this)
I was disappointed to read that London’s Trinitarian Bible Society will be displaying posters which say “The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God.” (a quote from Psalm 14 and Psalm 53). I can’t imagine that quote doing anything except persuading atheists that Christians are jerks.
I read this in the Trinitarian Bible Society’s quarterly magazine (page 4), regarding the ads:
Prayer is [...] sought for the wise and gracious handling by the Society of the responses that may be received.
If they truly cared about being gracious why would they post an ad with those words in the first place?
Read the rest of this news item »
Christine Wicker was recently interviewed by Michael Spencer, aka InternetMonk. Here’s the beginning of the interview:
Posted in General Conversation | Comments OffThank you, Christine, for doing this interview. You made it clear in your book that you grew up among evangelicals, but are no longer an evangelical or part of the Christian community. Can you tell us a little bit about your own faith journey and what were the significant contributing experiences to where you are now?
I wrote a book called “God Knows My Heart” in which I tried to figure all that out while covering religion for The Dallas Morning News. I was pretty devout as a kid and even in college.
Why did I leave? I once replied off the cuff that I wanted a world bigger than the Baptist Student Union. That might sum it up.
But leaving church and leaving Jesus are quite different. The first is easier. I sometimes suspect Jesus is not all that impressed with my belief or lack of belief, which fluctuates.
I say that because he continues to be a daily influence in how I conduct my life, the most important guide for how to behave. Sometimes he is also a presence. He shows up in all of my books, no matter the subject and whether or not I’m looking for him.