Our family doesn’t always visit a brick and mortar church, but when we do, my wife and I have a system to handle the parking conundrum. You see, we typically go to one of the many megachurches in the area and parking is predictably a nightmare. So what we generally do is ride around the parking lot scowling at people who are walking slowly back to their cars. We do this for a few minutes before we give up and agree to have my wife take the kids into the nursery while I finish the task of hunting down a parking space. ...

Have you ever wondered exactly how many churches are in an area? I have often wondered that so recently I undertook the task of collecting a record of churches in Georgia (Data collected from Yahoo’s local search service via YQL. So blame data discrepancies on them.), about 10,000 total, and plotting them out in a heat map. Click here to see the result. (Site uses a lot of experimental technology and is known to work best in Google Chrome. If you experience any difficulties please let me know.) ...

[HT Matthew Rathbun] One of the current cultural Pastors that I most admire and listen to is Matt Chandler out of Village Church in Texas. He’s insight and delivery are outstanding. In October he did a sermon on “God and Sex”. I’m sharing this on this site, because I think it’s one of the most powerful discussions I’ve ever heard on the topic. It’s also one of the most down-to-earth and frank conversations. I would recommend that your children not be in the room when this is playing. He addresses a lot about healthy relationships and hurt then takes text-messaged questions from his congregation. ...

Recently, the BBC cited a study which estimated the total amount of data stored by humans to be 295 exabytes The study, published in the journal Science, calculates the amount of data stored in the world by 2007 as 295 exabytes. That is the equivalent of 1.2 billion average hard drives. As impressive as this sounds, nature is more impressive still. The report continues These numbers may sound large, but they are still dwarfed by the information processing and storage capacity of nature. ...

From Pensées 40: If we wished to prove the examples which we take to prove other things, we should have to take those other things to be examples; for, as we always believe the difficulty is in what we wish to prove, we find the examples clearer and a help to demonstration. Thus, when we wish to demonstrate a general theorem, we must give the rule as applied to a particular case; but if we wish to demonstrate a particular case, we must begin with the general rule. For we always find the thing obscure which we wish to prove and that clear which we use for the proof; for, when a thing is put forward to be proved, we first fill ourselves with the imagination that it is, therefore, obscure and, on the contrary, that what is to prove it is clear, and so we understand it easily. ...

In late March, 2007, a spate of articles and news releases were released from Drs. Paul and Kirk Cameron purporting to demonstrate that the life expectancy of homosexuals is 20 to 30 years lower than that of straights. Behind this flurry of activity was a poster session presented at the March, 2007 Eastern Psychological Association convention in Philadelphia. This is part of the introduction of “An exchange between Warren Throckmorton, Morten Frisch, Paul Cameron and Kirk Cameron regarding the lifespan of homosexuals.” ...

Ayn Rand is famous for arguing for a political stance wherein men were seen as sovereign beings. While this view has merits, one of its pitfalls comes when discussing man’s relationship to other men. It seems that any appeal to community is lampooned by her and her followers as “collectivist”. Rand centered her philosophy in the rationality of the mind. However, I believe that it is precisely the mind where we find the strongest reason we have to believe that man is made for community. ...

In a recent CATO podcast regarding marriage, Jason Kuznicki made the comment that a CBO study showed that legalizing same sex marriage would save the state lots of money. After some digging I found the CBO study Jason referred to. After examining it, however, I believe there are a few key flaws with the assertion that the legalization of same sex marriage would save the public money. As the report points out, the estimation of the homosexual population is problematic. It is actually uncertain how we could even get an accurate count of the numbers of homosexuals in the US today given the trouble inherent in defining homosexuality. Another issue related to the previous point is how we define monogamy. Believe it or not, these are two fluid terms in the homosexual community. The report assumes additional tax revenue will come from income tax returns, from couples filing jointly. This both exposes the much loathed marriage tax and it calls into question why a community of people who, themselves, denounce the institution of marriage would voluntarily submit themselves to such an additional tax. Hard data from countries where homosexuality is legal shows that they won’t. And why should they? The only gain homosexuals can get from the legalization of marriage, and this is from their own writings, is cultural acceptance. And that is through the enforcement of laws and new regulations. The analysis fails to take into account the added costs that would be involved with enforcement and proper regulation. In Canada, shortly after the legalization of same sex marriage, birth certificates were changed to “Parent A” and “Parent B” instead of “Mother” and “Father”. As trivial as this sounds, it does incur a cost. And these costs add up. So why aren’t they counted and factored in? The report does not take into account the fact that the legalization of same sex marriage has a profound impact on traditional marriage. That Jason doesn’t deal with this fact surprises me since libertarians are often known for closely scrutinizing the unintended consequences of policies. The truth is that the legalization of same sex marriage carries with it a price tag that few are willing to acknowledge. That price tag includes social costs in terms of further weakening the already stumbling institution of marriage, the building block of society. Costs in terms of health care resources spent in an effort to alleviate the effects of promoting a lifestyle that runs afoul of our biological design. And a price tag in terms of decreased liberties and increased public scrutiny enacted in an effort to make same sex marriage publicly acceptable. ...

Materialists are fond of claiming that all of our knowledge comes to us through our 5 senses. Supernatural is above or beyond nature. Any belief in a realm that isn’t knowable though our 5 senses. Or al least able to use a provable method of advanced conceptualizing that ties back to our senses and is consistent with everything else that is known to exist in the natural universe. Mysticism is the opposite. It claims that our 5 senses are inadequate to no truth or reality. this effectively removes responsibility from the individuals and places it in the hands of the elite. Who have some secret magical method of understanding truth. It is a winning strategy for those who desire power, who feel small in stature and intentionally or not, foster the powerlessness of their flock. ...

Our goal should not to merely win arguments, but to gain a more clear understanding of what is true so that we can orient our lives accordingly. An exclusive interest in winning arguments would only serve to reinforce a sort of intellectual inbreeding (I am indebted to Matthew DeLockery for this phrase.) and, as such, serve no real productive purpose. I am sure I hold false beliefs, given that I am a finite being who is not endowed with omniscience. The trouble is that I do not know what of my beliefs are false. In order to know that I must be confronted with evidence and arguements. ...