Ancient Truth | Modern Sound

I always hope those of you who read this (we few, we happy few, we band of brothers ……. ) enjoy these articles and excerpts as much as I do.  Here are a few that have caught my attention in the last week or so.

200 years after the birth of Darwin the BBC (I can watch the BBC here in The Netherlands) has been giving the great scientist a heck of a lot of air time.  Sir David Attenborough among others has been presenting again Darwin’s findings with a reverence that seems a bit, frankly, unscientific.  It all seems pretty well cut and dried according to Sir David and the implication is that like Darwin in later years we should all just stop going to church and do …… well, actually, watch the BBC I suppose.  Not so fast.  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/20/AR2009032001779.html?nav=hcmoduletmv  Here is an interesting article from the Washington Post where it is confidently predicted that within the next 10 years “the hard sciences” will have concrete evidence on how the behaviours of religious people and their social practices like marriage, child rearing, and socializing of young adults are deeply aligned with genetic level predispositions of human beings.

I don’t know how Darwin would have explained the mess the world is in today.  It would seem to me that original sin and the fall of man look like a better explanation than natural selection.  And, in this context, world governments fighting against the natural selection process of the markets seems like a fools errand costing trillions.  On the other hand, the sheer stupidity of it all deserves some attempt at humor - try this.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzJmTCYmo9g

The President doesn’t seem to be making a great deal of progress on anything and even with my own “Obama tendencies” (as my wife calls any thinking that is not staunchly republican)  he is starting to look out of his depth.  I truly hope not.  It can’t be a show of strength when the leader of the free world shows up on “The Tonight Show”.  And, to make matters worse, a stupid reference to the special Olympics was incredible from the President of the United States.  I felt embarrassed for the guy when I saw it.  The bottom line is that the President does not go on talk shows - they demean the office.  And, to rub salt in the wound, here is Governor Sarah Palin’s short message on the special Olympics.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izn63SHXPMw  Just a wee bit of a contrast.

Finally, I have been reading Tim Keller’s “The Reason for God” on my Kindle (which is so good it should, and may well, get a post all to itself).  http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525950494  It is an excellent book, well written, with a warm pastoral sense of purpose without being preachy.  The best thing about the book is the balance it strikes when talking about the clues which point towards God.  Getting back to Darwin I cant help thinking the whole debate amongst believing Christians about the significance of his work misses several points that Keller takes up.  Natural selection does not explain beauty, goodness, faith, the sense we have or right and wrong.  Something else must explain these fundamentally human experiences.  Keller’s contention is that the best explanation of what these clues point to is our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  It seems just as reasonable as pointing to chance and timeless ages of adaptation.