“Fake” List of Global Warming Skeptic Scientists

yikes…

Curious about the Heartland Institute’s list of “500 Prominent Scientists” who deny global warming, Kevin decided to contact some of the folks on the list. He put together a list of 150 email addresses…simply the addresses he found it most easy to acquire. After only 24 hours, he’d received 45 emails from angry scientists saying that they, in no way, denied anthropogenic global warming.

Read the whole thing here, including some very angry quotes from those 45 emails, like this:

“I am horrified to find my name on such a list. I have spent the last 20 years arguing the opposite.”

(HT:EcoGeek -> DeSmogBlog)

seriously, He’s not angry…

Just go get this and watch it…

Better yet, go get this, invite everyone you know over, and watch it together.

Rob Bell on Suffering

Here’s a neat video clip of Rob Bell, speaking at something called Seeds of Compassion InterSpiritual Day, in which different leaders from different religious backgrounds came together to discuss important issues.

I can’t actually embed the video here on this page, so you’ll have to go over to the original poster’s blog and check it out there:

“Rob Bell on Suffering” - by Mike L.

Here’s a quote from the end of it, to spark your interest, but I would really recommending watching the whole thing; it’s only a couple minutes long. Rob is speaking about revenge and forgiveness when he says this:

…when people choose not to hand it back, but to bear it, it will always lead to suffering. And you will unavoidibly become a better person on the other side. …that is what changes the world when somebody chooses not to hand it back.

we are the Pharisees

“The church in North America is not like the Pharisees—we are the Pharisees, and Jesus does not like Pharisees.” -Reggie McNeal

( HT: Emergent Village -> The M Blog )

Homelessnes in Troy, NY: “It Should be Zero”

I just found out about this site called It Should be Zero. Here’s some info from the main site:

So far in March, 39 homeless men, women, and children have been turned away from services. They aren’t asking for much — a simple meal and a warm place to stay for the night.

While some may disagree, the homeless situation isn’t getting any better. Individuals and families are routinely being turned away from much-needed help because of a lack of resources.

While there are many organizations and agencies in place to assist our citizens, more is needed.

The number shouldn’t be 39 — it should be zero.

Innerrancy or Truth

What provides “home run power” - is it the bat, or the batter’s swing? Both, of course.

Vanhoozer likens Scripture, the written Word of God, as the bat, and the triune God speaking through it as the batter. So the statements “Scripture is true” and “the living God speaks truly through Scripture” are not necessarily equivalent statements. The first focuses on the bat, whereas the second focuses on the batter.

…

…I personally think it’s better to simply say that Scripture is true and to let truth be the guiding understanding of Scripture. Especially since “inerrant” isn’t a biblical word. We can be fully biblical in describing Scripture with terms that Scripture itself uses, like “God-breathed” or “living and active” or “cannot be broken” and the like. But “inerrant” seems to claim something about Scripture that Scripture does not necessarily claim about itself, especially in how folks tend to use it or perceive the term today.

…Yes, Scripture is “inerrant,” if you still want to use the term - but it’s so much more. It’s a gracious, truthful, sanctifying Word of the triune Father, Son and Spirit.

-Al Hsu

Read the entire post over at The Suburban Christian

Life after college for Twenty-somethings

Here’s a really insightful post from The Suburban Christian, that I think rings pretty true for people in their 20’s.

A few choice quotes here, but follow the link above and check out the whole thing:

“The evidence suggests overwhelmingly that young adulthood is a time when other social institutions fail to be of much help. . . . [As a culture] we provide day care centers, schools, welfare programs, and even detention centers as a kind of institutional surround-sound until young adults reach age 21, and then we provide nothing. Schooling stops for the vast majority, parents provide some financial assistance and babysitting but largely keep their distance, and even the best congregation-based youth groups or campus ministries no longer apply. Yet nearly all . . . decisions a person has to make about marriage, child-rearing, and work happen after these support systems have ceased to function.” - Robert Wuthnow

“Perceptive observations, and I think they ring true. This is part of the reason I went on to grad school after graduating from college - I couldn’t imagine life outside an educational setting! And I was shellshocked to discover that grad school was completely different from college life, that it lacked the kind of community and relationships that I had experienced in college. It wasn’t until I got plugged in to a church singles group in the spring of that first school year that I really started adjusting to life after college. And I fear that too many of our peers never find that kind of community.” - Al Hsu

coffee

This is so awesome:

(HT: Bob Hyatt)

“May God bless us with discomfort…”

A Franciscan BenedictionMay God bless us with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that we may live from deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of God’s creations
So that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless us with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
So that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with just enough foolishness
To believe that we can make a difference in the world,
So that we can do what others claim cannot be done:
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and all our neighbors who are poor.

Amen.

(HT: Brian McLaren)

NT Wright: “there is life after life after death”

Another fantastic article, as usual, from NT Wright (or Jedi Master NT Wright, as Matt Ritchie has been known to call him).

This interview was conducted with pastors/teachers as the primary audience, but I think that there is a lot in it that is useful regardless of your vocation. Here are a few choice quotes to whet your appetite:

For me, therefore, there’s no disjunction between preaching about the salvation which is ours in God’s new age—the new heavens and new earth—and preaching about what that means for the present. The two go very closely together. If you have an eschatology that is nonmaterial, why bother with this present world? But if God intends to renew the world, then what we do in the present matters. That’s 1 Corinthians 15:58! This understanding has made my preaching more challenging to me, and hopefully to my hearers, to actually get off our backsides and do something in the local community—things that are signs of new creation.

…

Some people are always going to be offended when you actually teach them what’s in the Bible as opposed to what they assume is in the Bible. The preacher can try to say it a number of ways, and sometimes people just won’t get it. They will continue to hear what they want to hear. But if you soft-pedal matters, they will think, Oh, he’s taking us down the old familiar paths. There is a time for walking in and just saying what needs to be said.

…

A person goes to heaven first and then to the new heavens and new earth. People stare at you like you’ve just invented some odd heresy, but sorry—this is what the New Testament teaches. The New Testament doesn’t have much to say about what happens to people immediately after they die. It’s much more interested in the anticipation of the ultimate new world within this one. If you concentrate on preaching life after death, you devalue the present world. Life after life after death, however, reaffirms the value of this present world.

And since all followers of Jesus are called to announce/demonstrate/preach the Gospel at all times, I think this last quote is especially applicable to us all:

…To preach the Resurrection is to announce the fact that the world is a different place, and that we have to live in that “different-ness.” The Resurrection is not just God doing a wacky miracle at one time. We have to preach it in a way that says this was the turning point in world history.

See, now you’re not laughing anymore about that “Jedi Master” nickname… ha ha.

Read the whole thing here.

(HT: Out of Ur)