The Power Of Introverts

In a culture where being social and outgoing are prized above all else, it can be difficult, even shameful, to be an introvert. But, as Susan Cain argues in this passionate talk, introverts bring extraordinary talents and abilities to the world, and should be encouraged and celebrated.

The Need for the Christian to Journey Beyond Scripture, Creed and Church

by John Shelby Spong
http://johnshelbyspong.com/

Theology is a rational, deeply human, attempt to explain our experience with God. Theology is, therefore, never primary; it is always secondary to experience. Theological explanations can thus never be eternal. All explanations not only will change, but must change when knowledge grows and by so doing will always invalidate previous conclusions. Theology can never be infallible, unchanging or ultimately real. This, however, is a reality that quite frequently cannot be embraced by religious institutions and religious leaders.

This means that there never has been an “inerrant Bible” or an “infallible pope.” The books of the Bible are always human attempts to explain a primary life experience, while every church hierarchy, including the papacy, is engaged in the task of trying to determine ultimate truth in a subjective, culturally relativized world. All scriptures and all theological pronouncements are inevitably time-bound and time-warped. A couple of illustrations might help us to see that no human explanation of any experience can ever be inerrant or infallible.

Since the dawn of self-conscious life, we human beings have had the experience of watching the sun rise in the east and set in the west That is a phenomenon well documented all over the world, an objective reality. Look, however, at the various ways that this experience has been explained throughout history. The explanations range from the ancient Egyptians, who interpreted this pattern of the sun to be caused by the Sun God riding a chariot across the sky each day surveying the world, all the way to the modern scientist, who asserts that the phenomenon of the sun’s rising and setting is the result of the planet earth turning on its axis every 24 hours, as it makes its elliptical journey around the sun. These explanations obviously vary widely, but note that the experience itself is identical.

In a similar fashion an epileptic seizure is another human phenomenon that has been observed from the dawn of time. In the New Testament an epileptic seizure was explained as having been caused by an invisible, demonic spirit suddenly taking over its victim, shaking him or her violently, hurling the victim to the ground and forcing the victim into an unconscious, trembling state until the spirit finally departed as suddenly as it arrived. Modern medicine, however, explains this same experience as a malfunction of the brain, resulting in a cascade of misfiring electrical impulses, which jump the track, so to speak, and thus create the resulting sense of seizure. The explanations are widely divergent, but once again the experience is identical.

It is the constant temptation and the regular pitfall of religious institutions and religious spokespersons to confuse their explanations with the experience itself. The gospels, we need to state clearly, are not the dictated word or words of God, but are rather the time-bound and time-warped explanations of the Jesus experience, couched in the language and understandings of the first century. At the time the New Testament was written, no one knew that women had an egg cell, so the story of Jesus’ birth to a virgin could be used to explain the experience, which was that in Jesus they believed they had encountered something, which human life by itself was not capable of producing. In that time, we need to understand that no one quite understood what happens to the body at death. They could, therefore, reasonably assume that the death process could be reversed, if the reversal occurred within three days, after which the decaying of the body became obvious.

When the New Testament was written, no one knew about germs, viruses, tumors or cardiovascular disease and so sickness was interpreted as divine punishment for sins committed. That was why it made sense to treat sickness by offering prayers and sacrifices. If we assume, as fundamentalist Protestants and conservative Roman Catholics still seem to do, that the gospel narratives are in fact literal renditions of what actually happened in time or in history, then religion has become idolatrous. It has invested the perfection of God in something that is in fact a human creation. By literalizing the Bible, religious people have also unknowingly literalized the world view of the first century that assumed that anything that could not be understood by first century minds must be a miracle, explained only by an appeal to the presence of a supernatural power.

So the presumably “inerrant” Bible of Protestant fundamentalism and the presumably “infallible” theological doctrines of Roman Catholicism, become nonsensical in the 21st century. A Christianity based on those outdated ideas can never be compelling to 21st century people unless they are willing and able to close their minds to modern knowledge. Biblical inerrancy is therefore not just ignorance, it is a distortion of both truth and humanity. To quote the Bible to oppose equality for women or justice and dignity for homosexual people is to confuse the cultural fears of yesterday with ultimate truth. It is also to be pathetically and profoundly uninformed.

What then about the creeds? They are fourth century attempts to codify religious beliefs that had been drawn primarily from the Bible. To insist that creeds are unchanging truth or to make creedal faith the hallmark of Orthodoxy is to state something that is absurd. It is to pretend that a quite limited fourth century, Greek-oriented worldview is the same as “the mind of God.” So, when we learn that there is no all-seeing God, who lives above the sky of a three-tiered universe, who is always looking down to record our deeds in the record book of life, by which our eternal destiny will be determined, is not to say that there is no God, but it is to say that truth is always relative. Heaven as a place of reward and hell as a place of punishment have become nonsensical dated ideas.

So is a Bible that contains the story of the Tower of Babel, the raining of heavenly bread, called manna, from the sky to feed the starving Hebrew people and the story of Jesus’ ascension into heaven. If the story of Jesus’ ascension literally means that he went up into the sky then we need to embrace the modern reality that Jesus did not get to heaven, he got into orbit or else he escaped the force of gravity and wandered into the infinity of space. Yet, on the basis of those limited, time bound fourth century creeds religious wars have been fought, religious persecution has been carried out, “heretics” have been burned at the stake and “witches” have been hanged to keep alive the myth that human words can capture, in some unchanging form, eternal truth. So often the business of religion has ceased to be the search for truth and has become the activity of mind control.

Christians who claim inerrancy for the first century words of the gospels or infallibility for their doctrinal understanding of the fourth century words of the creeds are quite simply delusional people, and in the name of both God and truth, they need to be resisted mightily. Yet the facts of history reveal that Galileo was condemned by the church for suggesting that first century cosmology was inaccurate and Darwin is still being roundly criticized and politically resisted for suggesting that pre-modern biology is simply incorrect. I was both startled and amazed when I read recently a widely reported poll taken in Georgia, which revealed that 73% of the registered Republicans and 53% of registered Democrats in that state still believe literally the creation story in the Bible. This is not a commentary on faith, it is a commentary on how an uninformed faith can impede and distort the educational system of one of the states of this union. To think that an electorate this deeply uninformed can still choose political leaders, who will make laws for this entire nation is frightening!

Yet, having now said all of these things, and quite clearly I hope, I still want to tell the world that there is a difference between an experience and the culturally bound explanation of that experience. I still plumb the meaning of the Bible on a daily basis. I still gather in my parish church every Sunday and recite the creed. I do these things joyfully and self-consciously. Am I simply schizophrenic, living simultaneously in two different worlds? Am I being delusional by intention and pretending to participate in rituals in which I do not really believe? No, neither is the case. I am rather a believer, not in a literal Bible, but in the experience to which the words of that Bible point. I am a believer, not in the literal creeds, but in the reality to which those creedal words point.

I view the creeds as a love song that my ancestors in faith created to help them process their God experience. I do not mind joining in the singing of their love song. I recognize my kinship with them in the history of my faith’s development over the centuries. The creeds are not for me an imposed girdle into which I have to force my flabby faith. They are not a straitjacket designed to force me to live within the theological boundaries and understandings of fourth century people. They are the dated explanations of an experience that I still believe and acknowledge as real.

Yes, let there be no mistake, I am convinced that there is a reality to the experience of God, but I do not interpret this reality as if God is a supernatural being who does miracles. I rather see this reality as a transcendent presence that is beyond human boundaries and that calls me and compels me not to allow those boundaries to bind my humanity into less than it is capable of being. I view God as the Source of life and love, and as the Ground of Being calling me to live, to love and to be.

My Christian life is thus a journey for which there is no literal roadmap. I am convinced that if I walk this journey deeply enough and faithfully enough, I will be led beyond all religious forms – beyond scripture, creeds, doctrine and dogma and into the wordless wonder of the true meaning of worship. The Christian Church exists, I believe, to point all of us beyond the boundaries of our own humanity. It is a pity that institutional religion in all its forms does not understand its own message!

Why Do We Sleep?

Russell Foster is a circadian neuroscientist: He studies the sleep cycles of the brain. And he asks: What do we know about sleep? Not a lot, it turns out, for something we do with one-third of our lives. In this talk, Foster shares three popular theories about why we sleep, busts some myths about how much sleep we need at different ages -- and hints at some bold new uses of sleep as a predictor of mental health.

The Great Partnership (book)

The Great Partnership: God, Science and the Search for Meaning by Jonathan Sacks
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Book description: Writing with his usual grace and fluency, Jonathan Sacks moves beyond the tired arguments of militant atheists such as Dawkins and Hitchens, to explore how religion has always played a valuable part in human culture and far from being dismissed as redundant, must be allowed to temper and develop scientific understanding in order for us to be fully human. Ranging around the world to draw comparisons from different cultures, and delving deep into the history of language and of western civilisation, Jonathan Sacks shows how the predominance of science-oriented thinking is embedded deeply even in our religious understanding, and calls on us to recognise the centrality of relationship to true religion, and thus to see how this core value of relationship is essential if we are to avoid the natural tendency for science to rule our lives rather than fulfilling its promise to set us free.

My review: This is a brilliant discourse on the relationship between science, faith, and religion. It should be read by three groups of people: 1) religious fundamentalists who have rejected science; 2) secular fundamentalists who have rejected religion; and 3) everyone in between.

The author, Jonathan Sacks, Baron Sacks, Kt is the Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth. His Hebrew name is Yaakov Zvi.

In THE GREAT PARTNERSHIP Sacks rejects the extremism of both religious and secular fundamentalists who wish to but an unbreachable barrier between religion and science. And unlike Stephen J Gould's suggestion that religion and science should be kept separate, Sacks argues for a complementarity (a partnership) between them.

This book is one of the most clearly articulated discussions on why both science and religion are necessary to maintain a full humanity and the way in which both need each other to avoid extremism. My finger was almost worn out with all the highlighting I was song on my Kindle. Sacks is very, very widely read, a deep thinker, and yet writes in a beautiful, easy-to-read narrative style making profound and memorable statements simply.

His essential point is that science takes things apart to see how they work. Religion puts things together to see what they mean. The idea is simple but extremists on both ends of the alleged science vs religion divide have burdened this idea with some very destructive unhealthy nonsense. Sacks is gently critical of both religious and secular fundamentalists appealing for a respectful conversation which, all too often, neither side are willing to engage in.

I can't speak highly enough of this book. It's one of the best I've read for ages. In fact, I nearly didn't read it, thinking that there can't be much more to say on the topic given the myriad books and debates on the topic. But I took the plunge and was incredibly rewarded. If you have any issues regarding the relationship between religion and science - whether you are an atheist or a “believer” - don't miss this brilliant, thought provoking read. It's easily digested meat for the mind!

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Learning from dirty jobs

Mike Rowe, the host of "Dirty Jobs," tells some compelling (and horrifying) real-life job stories. Listen for his insights and observations about the nature of hard work, and how it’s been unjustifiably degraded in society today. Mike Rowe is the host of "Dirty Jobs" -- an incredibly entertaining and heartfelt tribute to hard labor.

Introducing the Gospel of Matthew. Part I: The Gospels are Jewish Books

by John Shelby Spong
http://johnshelbyspong.com/

The Bible is the Christian Church’s sacred text. We read from it at every worship service in almost every Christian tradition. It is apparently a rather popular volume for every year since the invention of the printing press it has been the world’s best-selling book. It might well be, however, the world’s least understood and probably is history’s most misused book.

From the earliest Church fathers in the 2nd century of the Christian era to the Holocaust in Nazi Germany in the 20th century, the Bible was quoted to justify a cruel anti-Semitism.

In the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, the Bible was quoted to justify the Crusades and the relentless Christian attempt to kill “infidels,” who just happened to be the Muslims who occupied Christian holy places in the Middle East. In those Vatican-led Crusades, Western Christians, armed with quotations from what they called “the Word of God,” poured a hatred of Islam into the world’s bloodstream, the harvest of which we are reaping today in terror attacks, in 9/11, in the Boston Marathon bombing and in the political chaos that still marks the Middle East. The hostility of the Muslim world toward the West is so deep that we have been politically incapable of helping to direct into positive channels the human yearning for freedom manifested in what we once called “the Arab Spring.”

In 1215 this book, the Bible, was quoted to justify the divine right of kings and to oppose the Magna Carta and the rise of democracy. That was one more time that the literally understood Bible was placed on the losing side of history.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, this book was used to justify the enslavement of African people and when this slavery was ended on the battlefields of Antietam, Gettysburg and Appomattox, this book was then used to legitimize a dehumanizing segregation. Do not fail to notice that the part of this country in which slavery was practiced the longest and segregation was defended the most fiercely with the use of police dogs, fire hoses and church bombings was then and is still today known as “The Bible Belt.” I know it well; it is my home.

This book, the Bible, was also used to deny women university educations, doorways into the professions, including the priesthood, and even the right to vote until the 20th century.

Most recently, this book has been quoted to justify a culturally rampant homophobia, to deny gay and lesbian people justice under the law and equality in the recognition of their sacred commitments and solemn vows. Quotations, reflecting profound biblical ignorance, nonetheless ring out publicly as people try to make the Sodom and Gomorrah story in Genesis, some verses from Leviticus and even Paul’s convoluted argument in Romans 1 justify their visceral prejudices. With all of these documented examples of cruelty and abuse based on the Bible, we nonetheless still solemnly proclaim at the end of readings from this book in public worship: “This is the Word of the Lord!” How can a book we call “The Word of God” be responsible for so much hurt, pain and oppression? How can a book that purports to be about the love of God create such carnage? I begin this series on Matthew’s Gospel today by addressing that question.

First, some biblical facts. In the standard text of the Bible there are 66 books plus the Apocrypha. Thirty-nine of them are in what Christians call “The Old Testament,” twenty-seven of them form what Christians call “The New Testament.” These books were written between about 1000 BCE and about 140 CE. The oldest written part of the Old Testament appears to be that part of the Torah known as the Yahwist document, and the last part of the New Testament to be written appears to be II Peter. The original language of the Old Testament is Hebrew, while the original language of the New Testament is Greek. Of note is that Jesus spoke Aramaic, a language related to but not identical with Hebrew. He probably could read Hebrew, but there is no evidence that Jesus either spoke or read Greek, beyond the few phrases that were required to do rudimentary business with a few Greek-speaking merchants.

If we are to understand the Bible on any level, the first thing we need to embrace is that it is to its core a Jewish book. Every writer of every book in the Bible was a Jew. There is only debate about one of them. Most scholars now believe that Luke, the name assigned to the author of the gospel that bears his name and the book of Acts, which is literally volume two of that gospel, was a Gentile by birth. He later appears to have converted to Judaism as a “Gentile proselyte” and, through that doorway, he came into the Christian movement, possibly through the influence of Paul. So all of the writers of the books of the Bible were Jewish by birth, save for Luke and he was Jewish by conversion. We must embrace this seminal fact if we are to understand this holy book. The Bible needs to be viewed and read as a Jewish book, a deeply penetrating, profound piece of Jewish writing.

This means that the entire Bible, Old and New Testaments alike, will inevitably reflect the worldview of the Jewish mind. It is written in the vocabulary of Jewish people. It is steeped in the history of the Jewish nation. It espouses Jewish values. It is shaped by the experience of worship in the synagogue. The audiences for which the various books of the Bible were written were also predominantly Jewish. The authors of the books in the Bible could assume a common Jewish cultural knowledge that was present in their audiences, which they did not have to explain. These authors could thus use the familiar and recognizable Jewish story-telling techniques to communicate their message. They could describe the events in their current history by relating them to familiar Jewish events in their earlier history.

When we look specifically at the gospels we discover that this Jewishness served the Christian community well so long as the church was made up primarily of Jewish people, which indeed the early church was. By the middle of the second century, however, the make-up of the Christian Church had changed dramatically. People of Jewish origin had all but disappeared from what had become an almost exclusively Gentile body. Christian congregations were made up almost entirely of people who not only did not know this Jewish background, but were taught by the prevailing culture to view anything Jewish with suspicion and distrust. Thus they were not able to recognize in their own Christian scriptures the Jewish symbols, the Jewish references or even the Jewish story-telling tradition. They could not make the assumptions that a Jewish audience would make when they heard the gospels being read. They did not understand how the gospel writers employed the Jewish Scriptures in their narratives. They did not understand its source when a gospel writer wrapped a tale out of the Jewish Scriptures around the memory of Jesus of Nazareth. So these Gentile readers began to make some assumptions about the gospels that the original Jewish audience would never have made. They assumed that the gospels were history or biography. They began to literalize individual verses in the gospels, and to use those verses in debate as if they were the court of last appeal.

Next they began to defend the literal accuracy of the entire Bible. They did not recognize, for example, that the story of the wise men was based on a text from Isaiah 60 in which we are told that kings would come to the brightness of God’s rising, that they would come on camels, that they would come from Sheba and that they would bring gold and frankincense. They did not understand that the earthly father of Jesus, known to us as Joseph, was drawn on the pattern of Joseph, the patriarch from the book of Genesis (37-50). Note that both Josephs have fathers named Jacob. Both Josephs are identified with dreams. The patriarch Joseph was called “the dreamer.” He became famous as an interpreter of dreams, even rising into political power in Egypt as the interpreter of the Pharaoh’s dreams. They could not see the connection when in Matthew’s gospel God never spoke to Joseph except in a dream. This Joseph received the annunciation of Jesus’ birth in a dream. He fled Herod’s wrath in Bethlehem after being warned by God in a dream. He left Bethlehem for Galilee and settled in the town of Nazareth in response to a dream. Both were identified with dreams because Matthew patterned Jesus’ father after the patriarch by the same name. Finally, both Josephs played a primary role in preserving the covenant.

The patriarch Joseph saved the chosen people from death by starvation in a time of famine by taking them down to Egypt. The earthly father of Jesus saved the messianic child from death at the hands of King Herod by taking him down to Egypt. The New Testament’s portrait of Jesus’ earthly father was a typical Jewish story-telling tradition on display. As long as the gospels were understood as Jewish books and were read primarily by Jewish audiences, these points were clear. When, however, the Christian Church became primarily Gentile by 150 CE, this interpretive key to the gospels was lost. So it was that Christians began to believe that the only proper way to read the gospels was to assume that the narratives were literally true and they began to defend a literal reading of these texts as the only way to read them. Fundamentalism is thus a Gentile heresy.

Until the Christian Church can develop Jewish eyes or can begin to read the gospels through Jewish lenses, the wonder of our gospels will continue to be lost to us. Biblical fundamentalism, if not countered, will finally destroy Christianity. That will be the price we Christians pay for our ignorance and our anti-Semitism. The power of our own gospels will be lost to us. They are Jewish books and they must be read with Jewish eyes.

The most Jewish of all the gospels is Matthew. Today, I am beginning a new series that will take you, my readers, deeply into the Gospel of Matthew. When this series is complete my hope is that both Matthew and the Bible will for you never be the same.

What makes us feel good about our work?

What motivates us to work? Contrary to conventional wisdom, it isn't just money. But it's not exactly joy either. It seems that most of us thrive by making constant progress and feeling a sense of purpose. Behavioral economist Dan Ariely presents two eye-opening experiments that reveal our unexpected and nuanced attitudes toward meaning in our work.

Teach Every Child About Food

Sharing powerful stories from his anti-obesity project in Huntington, W. Va., TED Prize winner Jamie Oliver makes the case for an all-out assault on our ignorance of food.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Fritz Haber?

How do you square the idea of a bad person who does great good? Or a good person who does terrible harm? Sam Kean introduces us to the confusing life story of Fritz Haber. Around 1900, Haber was a young chemist in Germany, intent on solving the biggest problem facing his country: how to feed a growing population. At the time, everyone was starting to worry that  we'd maxed out how much food the Earth could produce. But as Latif Nasser, Daniel Charles, and Fred Kaufman explain, Haber was intent on finding a solution. So he started experimenting...and pretty soon, he made arguably the most significant scientific break through in human history--he figured out a way to pull nitrogen out of the atmosphere, to make bread from the air, and feed the world. His discovery earned him a Nobel Prize. Around the same time, US officials were calling him a war criminal. Fritz Stern, a historian (and Fritz Haber's god son), tells us about the dark side of Haber's legacy, and helps us wrestle with how to take the measure of a man who both saved and destroyed an enormous number of lives.

http://www.radiolab.org/2012/jan/09/how-do-you-solve-problem-fritz-haber/

The Killer American Diet That's Sweeping The Planet

Stop wringing your hands over AIDS, cancer and the avian flu. Cardiovascular disease kills more people than everything else combined -- and it’s mostly preventable. Dr. Dean Ornish explains how changing our eating habits will save lives.

Joshuanism (book)

Joshuanism: A Path Beyond Christianity by Michael Vito Tosto
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Book description: In this conversational, theological book, Tosto details a new spiritual approach for knowing God in the 21st century. This new approach is called Joshuanism, an evolved expression of Christianity (though it draws from other sources as well, such as Buddhism, existentialism, psychology, and science), rooted in the same son of God Christianity worships: Jesus. Yet in this case, we are approaching him with a fresh, unencumbered perspective, preferring to call on him by his Hebrew name: Joshua. Thus, Joshuanism.

My review: Michael Vito Tosto wants to start a new movement. By writing this book he has made a start. The new movement is Joshuanism - based on the Hebrew transliteration of the name for Jesus. Joshuanism is intended to be an alternative to Christianity which he considers to have lost its way in fulfilling the teachings of Joshua (Jesus). The author's new movement is intended to appeal to those who are disaffected by Christianity or who perhaps have previously had nothing to do with Christianity, but are attracted by the teachings of Joshua. The reason for using Jesus’ Hebrew name is to avoid all the various negative connotations that are associated with the name “Jesus”.

Joshuanism is structured around some carefully articulated elements: The Ten Tenets of Joshuanism; The Eight Immovables of Joshuanism; and The Joshuanism Creed. There's nothing new in this “new” version of Christianity (for that is essentially what it is). There is nothing offered that has not been suggested in other writings or theologies that have, in some form or other, critiqued some of the negative features of some forms of Christianity. Even the suggestion that Zen meditation be practiced by Joshuans is hardly innovative. What is new is the way the author has synthesised it into his own system. Tosto writes in a conversational style and he is articulate and provocative - particularly for those who haven't heard these ideas before. He has also come up with some contemporary terminology (eg the Extraction for the church; the Table for the gathering together of beleivers) which often make more sense than some of the ancient terminology some Christians stick to. The book is engaging reading and does provide the opportunity for reflection on one’s own beliefs and values in relation to Christianity.

There is, however, some cause for concern. I do not want to review the whole system of thought that makes up Joshuanism. But I would like to reproduce the list of the Eight Immovables of Joshuanism. Here they are:

1. A belief in God
2. A belief in the Singular Relationship (The Father, The Son, and the Soul of Godliness)
3. A decision to view God’s Son as Joshua rather than as Jesus
4. Acceptance of the Ten Tenets of Joshuanism
5. Acceptance of the Joshuanism Creed
6. A decision to gather together with other Joshuans in a definitely Joshuan way
7. A decision to practice the Five Elements
8. A decision to read primarily The Joshuan Pages version of the New Testament [a paraphrases Tosto is currently working on]

Notice that these are called the “immovables”. In this context, I assume immovable means non-negotiable. In other words, a belief in the doctrine of the Trinity is non-negotiable. You must decide to view Jesus as Joshua - that's non-negotiable. There is a creed that is non-negotiable. You must decide to practice the Five Elements (spiritual disciplines) - non-negotiable. And you must decide to primarily read Tosto’s paraphrased New Testament - that's non-negotiable.
It always bothers me when people start telling me I must believe certain things and do certain things in order to be included in a group. The irony of this in regard to Joshuanism is that Tosto has taken great and repeated pains to affirm what he calls Diversified Uniformity. This is defined as “a proviso within Joshuanism stating that aside from the Eight Immovables, the Joshuan can hold any theological or zoêological view and still be considered a Joshuan.”

The moment any group starts setting up non-negotiables that determine when you're in or out then, however you might say it, it's no different to any other denomination of Christianity that has existed. Creeds haven't had a good history within Christianity. They've always been used to make judgments on others - despite plans not to use them as such.
Perhaps of most concern is the non-negotiable decision required to primarily read Tosto’s paraphrase of the New Testament. Why this? Why would anyone wish to make what someone reads non-negotiable? Providing even implicit primacy to any one version (or paraphrase in this case) seems to imbue it with an inappropriate authority - particularly when it is the product of one person’s interpretation.

Enough said. There are some elements of Joshuanism that are attractive and reasonable. In fact, the majority of the book is probably a very positive representation of the best of Christianity. It is naive, however, to think that producing yet another system with its own creeds, disciplines and doctrines is going to solve the problems of other similar attempts.
So ... worth a read but, like all ideas, think critically before jumping on board any new bandwagon. Adopt what is good and realise that anything good can also be distorted when human fallibility is part of the equation.

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On Guard (book)

On Guard: Defending Your Faith with Reason and Precision by William Lane Craig
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book Description: This concise guide is filled with illustrations, sidebars, and memorizable steps to help Christians stand their ground and defend their faith with reason and precision. In his engaging style, Dr. Craig offers four arguments for God’s existence, defends the historicity of Jesus’ personal claims and resurrection, addresses the problem of suffering, and shows why religious relativism doesn’t work. Along the way, he shares his story of following God’s call in his own life.

 

My Review: William Lane Craig is a very sophisticated apologist for Christianity and this book is a very sophisticated argument first, for the existence of God and, second, for the historicity of Jesus Christ and his resurrection.

The philosophical arguments for the existence of “God” were the most interesting and compelling in the book. Craig is a professional philosopher who studied under John Hick. The topic of his PhD was Liebniz's cosmological argument for the existence of “God”. And his careful and articulate presentation of the argument and refutation of major criticisms is very persuasive and logically coherent. In addition to these arguments, Craig also presents a moral argument for God's existence.

Craig also studied under the NT scholar Wolfhart Pannenberg and he draws on Pannenberg's scholarship in mounting an argument for the historicity of Jesus Christ.

For me, the philosophical arguments were excellent. I didn't enjoy the arguments for Christ's historicity as much - I have more questions about those than the philosophical arguments. And I thought his justification of Christian claims to exclusivity of salvation through Christ could have been better.
William Lane Craig is a frequent target of atheists and there are times I agree with some of the those criticisms. I can't help believing, however, that some of those criticisms are based on a misunderstanding of Craig's arguments.

If you are looking for a clear, articulate defence of (specifically) Christian belief in the existence of God and the historicity of Christ then this book is a good place to start - for believers and non-believers alike.

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Why Is 'X' The Unknown?

Terry Moore directs the Radius Foundation in New York, which, as its website says, "seeks new ways of exploring and understanding dissimilar conceptual systems or paradigms -- scientific, religious, philosophical, and aesthetic -- with the aim to find a world view of more complete insight and innovation. The Radius Foundation is a forum for different views."

HENRIETTA LACKS FORMALLY RECOGNIZED AS SOURCE OF HeLa RESEARCH CELLS: Descendants of woman whose cells were the first cultivated in a laboratory welcome National Institutes of Health announcement

Tom McCarthy
The Guardian.com

Henrietta Lacks died of cancer in 1951 – her tumor cells have been an invaluable resource for researchers. Photo: Courtesy of the Henrietta Lacks Foundation

For decades, scientists have used the cells of a woman who died young to conduct research that has prolonged innumerable lives. Now, for the first time, her contribution is to be formally recognized.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced on Wednesday that genetic research based on cells taken from Henrietta Lacks, known as HeLa cells, would include acknowledgement in published form of the woman and her life. The change in protocol, which strictly applies only to NIH grant recipients but which all researchers are encouraged to adopt, was welcomed by descendants of Lacks, who died in 1951. The move could also lead the way to better privacy measures for research participants and better data-sharing among scientists.

"We are happy, we are very happy, that from this point on, publications involving the HeLa genome will recognize Henrietta Lacks," granddaughter Jeri Lacks-Whye said, on a conference call arranged by the NIH to make the announcement. "For more than 60 years our family has been pulled into science without our consent … We are happy to be part of that conversation now, and we see this as an important step."

Cancer cells taken from Lacks as part of a biopsy in February 1951 were the first human cells to be successfully cultivated in a laboratory. The cells were – and are – unusually resilient, for reasons scientists still don't fully understand. HeLa cells became instrumental to such medical breakthroughs as the development of a polio vaccine and figure in tens of thousands of scientific papers.

Long missing from the dramatic story of HeLa cells was the story of the woman who provided them. Lacks, an African-American native of Virginia, died eight months after her biopsy, at age 31 and leaving five children. She was not informed that her cells were to be used in research. She was not identified publicly as the source of the cells until 1971, by which point her genetic material had been distributed to labs worldwide. Her story was not widely known until the publication in 2010 of a book about the case, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, the product of 10 years' work by the author Rebecca Skloot. Then, suddenly, Lacks was famous. The book spent 125 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and is being adapted for a movie that will be co-produced by Oprah Winfrey.

Lacks family members collaborated with the book, describing both their pride in the legacy of HeLa cells and their anger that Lacks' genetic material – and by extension their genetic material – had been taken and shared without her knowledge. Some wondered whether the family shouldn't have benefited financially from the advancements enabled by HeLa research, which coincided with the rise of the biomedical industry.

"We should all count Henrietta Lacks and her family among the greatest philanthropists of our time, when you consider how they have contributed to the advancement of science and human health," said the NIH director, Francis S Collins, on Wednesday.

The agreement between the NIH and the Lacks family was reached through an informal mediation process that began in March, when German researchers published the first whole-genome sequence of a HeLa cell line – without consulting members of the Lacks family, to their dismay. Skloot, the author, described the episode in an op-ed in the New York Times. The research was removed from public databases, but Collins saw the need for a broader solution.

"This was truly a unique moment, when we all said, 'Hey, let's hold up a minute and take a stock of where we are,'" Collins said.

Coincidentally, NIH-funded researchers were about to publish a second whole-genome sequence of a different HeLa cell line. Collins asked the researchers and the publisher, Nature magazine, to wait until an agreement could be reached with the Lacks family. They complied. Collins and his staff then began meeting with the family.

The deal that resulted not only provides for official acknowledgment of Lacks but also restricts the dissemination of her and her family's genetic information. Before any new NIH-funded genetic research on HeLa cells can published, it will have to receive approval by a board that includes two Lacks family members.

"This was an historic and really exciting and emotional day for everyone involved, this kind of moment is what [the Lacks family has] been hoping for," Skloot told the Guardian. "It's the third generation. One of the things they've said many times is, 'Our grandmother didn't get to have a voice in this. Our parents didn't get to have a voice either. We want that to stop with us."

Lacks-Whye called the agreement "a historic, game-changing event".
"We are proud of everything the HeLa cells have done for science and society," she said. "And we are excited to be part of the important, ongoing HeLa research to come".

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