Under The Sun

David Heddle finds God in the Details of at least one area of scientific knowledge:

The cosmological ID arguments are not “God in the gaps.” Quite the opposite: they are God in the details. Perhaps in biology one can claim that it is our ignorance that unreasonably opens the door to ID, but in cosmology it is our knowledge, not our lack thereof, that points to design. It is not the immaturity of cosmology (and physics) but its achievements that pave the way for ID.

Let me give an example…

Wired News: Backlash Brews Over Blue LEDs

“They sure looked cool when they were first out,” wrote Norman Li, a technology enthusiast from Chicago, in an e-mail. After buying a PC case in May 2004, Li recalled, “I was actually impressed…. The blue light lit up the entire room.” But by the time he bought his third product with an intense blue indicator, he’d had enough, and taped a piece of cardboard over it.

Blue is just about the worst possible colour for an indicator light. Another triumph of style over usability.

Organisms are disappearing at something like 100 to 1,000 times the “background levels” seen in the fossil record. Scientists warn that removing so many species puts our own existence at risk. It will certainly make it much harder to lift the world’s poor out of hardship given that these people are often the most vulnerable to ecosystem degradation, the researchers say.

Earth’s species feel the squeeze — These are scary statistics.

Sims creator takes on evolution

The creator of the hugely popular Sims game is working on an ambitious title in which you can truly be God. Called Spore, the game allows players to determine the evolution of a species, from an amoeba to an inter-stellar race.

While I can’t see this game wowing the Answers In Genesis crew, a game that promotes the idea that a universe actually needs a designer can’t be all bad.

Wired News: The Beeb Shall Inherit the Earth

America’s entertainment industry is committing slow, spectacular suicide, while one of Europe’s biggest broadcasters — the BBC — is rushing headlong to the future, embracing innovation rather than fighting it.

Melanie Phillips’s Diary: More honoured in the breach than the observance?

It’s no use arguing that the Uzbek regime is a key ally in the war against terror. The whole point of the Bush doctrine is that relying on a psychopath to control other psychopaths is a Faustian pact which almost inevitably results in complicity in the slaughter of innocents and the perpetuation of the very global terror that such an alliance was intended to combat.

A doctrine that is only selectively applied is not a doctrine at all. It is humbug.

A report of a post-hurricane baby boom leads Dead Man Blogging to write that Sometimes Technology Keeps us from Beauty:

How many good things do we miss because we turn on the lights, we close the windows, we run the air conditioner? I wonder, how often does God send a cool, refreshing breeze, which we miss, because we are inside with the windows closed and the a/c running? How much pleasure do we miss because our environment is regulated at precisely 76 degrees? How many wonderful times with friends have we missed, because we send them email or chat on the phone? What interactions with our neighbors do we miss because we are inside, or driving to and fro? How many times do we miss some little mom-and-pop restaurant because we drive through at McDonald’s?

Earlier this week the Bluewater shopping mall banned the wearing of hooded tops (”hoodies”) and baseball caps on the grounds that youths with their faces obscured were intimidating shoppers. The Prime Minister and his deputy added their approval to that of the tabloid press; the Daily Express leader excelled itself with the demand that anyone wearing a hooded top should be treated in the same way as a person carrying an offensive weapon.

This is a ridiculous case of attacking the symptom rather than the cause, particularly since it brands a whole section of society as dangerous thugs simply based on their appearance. Banning hoodies would just make that clothing even more de rigueur for the seriously anti-social, without doing anything to modify anyone’s behaviour.

In the Queen’s Speech today the government promised to restore a “culture of respect” in British society, but the actual measures proposed smack of government by focus group and tabloid leader column rather than any real understanding of the causes of antisocial behaviour.

Too many children are brought up in vast housing developments with no public leisure facilities, conditioned from an early age to see every stranger as a threat. Town centres have ceased to be public spaces and have become soul-destroying private temples to consumerism. We poison our children with junk food, and their minds with junk entertainment. Welfare without obligations destroys responsibility, and unrestrained capitalism has destroyed the fabric of social cohesion (it was Margaret Thatcher who said that “there is no such thing as society”).

The real, root causes of anti-social behaviour and a dysfunctional society are deeper still. They are spiritual. No amount of government legislation will cure this. The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom; only when we recognise the love and authority of God do we truly love and respect ourselves and our neighbours.