Not everything is going downhill in our society. For instance, I don't think you will see this product sponsoring The Flintstones again any time soon: HT: Cruchy Con Grace and Peace
Nature is good for you
From LiveScience.com: Got Nature? Why You Need to Get Out. We do better physically and mentally when we are regularly exposed to nature, even if it is the somewhat artificial surroundings of a city park. It is true for adults as well as for children. As Christians, we know something of the value of taking …
Hawaiian Star Trails
Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day has a short video showing the lengthening of star trails as the Earth rotates on its axis. It's pretty cool, especially as the moon rises. Go to APOD for the movie. Grace and Peace
Hristos a înviat
Hristos a înviat. Adevărat a înviat. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! This is the resurrection greeting and response in Romanian. To say "Christ is risen" beats "Happy Easter" any day. Grace and Peace P.S. On the Orthodox calendar, Easter is next Sunday, and Protestants in Romania conform to the eastern church calendar rather …
Cleaning the Alps
When walking through the forests and meadows of the Austrian and German Alps, we've joked about how they must come out with vacuum cleaners to keep everything so neat and orderly. Here's how the Swiss keep their part of the Alps clean: From MySwitzerland.com
LIDAR image of Mima mounds
Mima mounds are small hills (about 2 m tall, about 10 m across) of unknown origin that occur in groups of hundreds or thousands in Washington State and other places. The most famous group of these mounds are at Mima Prairie near Olympia, Washington. I haven't been at this site, but I have been at …
The foolishness of our own atheism
"The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'" -- Psalm 14:1 (NIV) I believe that atheism is foolish. I read statements by the prominent "new atheists" like Hitchens and Dawkins and think, "how silly." Whether their arguments are philosophical, historical, or ethical, I find them to be far from sufficient to explain away …
NASA Earth Observatory turns 10 — vote for your favorites
The NASA Earth Observatory is ten years old (this is where I get many of the images I show on The GeoChristian). For most of that time, EO has featured a new image every day, for a total of over 3,000 fantastic images of the Earth (mostly). EO is asking for its viewers to vote …
Continue reading NASA Earth Observatory turns 10 — vote for your favorites
Thundersnow!
We're having a very rare thundersnow storm (or is it a snunderstorm?). Really cool. It is snowing very hard (close to a whiteout), the wind is blowing, and the the entire sky gets bright when lightning strikes. From Wikipedia: One unique aspect of thundersnow is that the snowfall acts as an acoustic suppressor of the …
Reading — March 2009
Here are the books I finished in March: The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, by Mark Noll. Noll examines Evangelical thinking (or the lack thereof), and comes down really hard on two specific realms of Evangelical intellectual activity: politics and science. The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. Would the world really be better off …
Snow — finally
Denver has had a warm, dry winter. This past week, we finally got our first good snowfall of the year (up to 17 inches or 43 cm). Most of the snow came on Thursday, with sub-zero wind chill factors. Friday was bright and sunny, and NASA's Terra satellite was kind enough to take this picture …
Spurgeon distorted
Apparently, the young-Earth organization Answers in Genesis doesn't want its readers to know that 19th century preacher Charles Spurgeon had no problem with an Earth that is millions of years old. AiG is posting Spurgeon sermons on its web site, but has edited at least one sermon to remove references to an old Earth. A …
What is a day?
The blog Tough Questions Answered has a good five-part series addressing the question "What is the meaning of the word 'day' in Genesis?" The posts take a look at reasons why the six days of Genesis 1 are not necessarily six literal consecutive 24-hours days. Young-Earth creationists have much of the Evangelical world convinced that …
Dolphin Bubble Rings
Gandalf can blow smoke rings. Dolphins can blow bubble rings! HT: The Dynamic Earth, who has a brief discussion of the fluid dynamics involved. Grace and Peace
Eruption of underwater volcano, Tonga
Here's a video of an eruption of an underwater volcano near the South Pacific island of Tonga on March 19, 2009: News articles: London Times: Underwater volcano sends huge columns of ash into Pacific sky Honolulu Advertiser: 7.9 quake off Tonga could intensify volcano's eruption From NASA's Earth Observatory: Submarine Eruption in the Tonga Islands: …
Fundamentalism and creationism
Young-Earth creationism isn't a necessary part of Christianity, even to those of us who have a very high view of the truthfulness and authority of the Bible. Here's another quote from The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind, by Mark Noll: Despite widespread impressions to the contrary, [young-Earth] creationism was not a traditional belief of nineteenth-century …
The abyss of atheism?
From Christianity Today: Staring into the Abyss by Dinesh D'Souza. The subtitle for the article is, "Why Peter Singer makes the New Atheists nervous." Atheists like Richard Dawkins argue that we can have morality without God. And I acknowledge that many atheists are very moral people. But is their morality based on their atheism, or …
Church death
We have books and seminars on church growth. Christianity is growing rapidly in places like China and parts of Africa. Christ has given us a commission to take the gospel to all nations, and we expect the fulfilment of this Great Commission. But churches also die. Local churches die. In church history, we see entire …
Augustine: The Literal Meaning of Genesis
I recently finished The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind by Mark Noll, and will be sharing a few insights and quotes from this important book. The first quote is a long one from St. Augustine of Hippo, from his work The Literal Meaning of Genesis, written in about AD 415. Usually, even a non-Christian knows …
Looking for a hydrologist or environmental scientist?
In the midst of economic hard times, there are still some employment bright spots. Being that I am looking for a job in the Earth sciences, it is encouraging to me that there are openings out there in hydrology and environmental science: HYDROLOGISTS From the New York Times: Hiring in Hydrology Resists the Slump: "Demand …
Continue reading Looking for a hydrologist or environmental scientist?
GeoChristian 