C.S. Lewis and Evolution

Seems like C.S. Lewis never had a whole lot to say on the evolution topic. I found this article interesting nonetheless.

… It was sometime in this period when, at a dinner party where the guests included Helen Gardner, the topic was raised as to whom one would like to meet in heaven. One guest suggested Shakespeare while another suggested the apostle Paul, but Lewis said that he would like to meet Adam. He gave as his reasons:

Adam was, from the first, a man in knowledge as well as in stature. He alone of all men ‘had been in Eden, in the garden of God, he had walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire’. He was endowed, says Athanasius, with ‘a vision of God so far-reaching that he could contemplate the eternity of the Divine Essence and the coming operation of His Word’. He was ‘a heavenly being’ according to St. Ambrose, who breathed the aether and was accustomed to converse with God ‘face to face’.

Helen Gardner, a church-goer with a deep interest in the seventeenth century English metaphysical poets, ventured to suggest that Adam, if he existed, would be a Neanderthal ape-like figure whose conversation would hardly be interesting. Apparently, Lewis responded in a gruff voice: ‘I see we have a Darwinian in our midst.’

Advanced Bash Scripting Guide

Looks good at first blush, the following link may be to an out-of-date version. Convert something to lowercase in a bash script.

Squishosaur scepticism squashed

Scary. Soft segments sourced in saurian skeleton!

It’s this sort of special pleading that is the hallmark of evolutionary thinking. Not only do evolutionists have to appeal to unknown ‘special conditions’ to save the proteins, but they must remain in that condition for 68 million years! Let the reader observe the desperation in these comments to save the millions of years in the light of the blindingly obvious: these soft tissues remain because these bones are not millions of years old.

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By Fear and Fallacy

Michael L Drake has some good things to say on the smacking debate in here.

How well do you know your bible?

No need to guess, find out!

In a vivid display of our Lord’s tender care for our marriage, both myself AND my wife scored 73%.

Combine output of two unix commands

We need to use ().

(ls t*; ls a*) | sort -f

I also found Dan Robbins bash articles on developer works useful.

Intelligent Design vs. Evolution Board Game

Evangelistic, educational, entertaining.
At last, a board game that reveals the insanity of perhaps the greatest hoax of our times — the unscientific “theory of evolution.”
“Intelligent Design vs Evolution” is unique in that the playing pieces are small rubber brains and each team plays for “brain” cards. Each player uses his or her brains to get more brains, and the team with the most brains wins. It has been designed to make people think . . . and that’s exactly what it does.

I want one! Ray Comfort is almost as funny as Gary McCormick! Buy the game here.

Our doctrinal position

My wife just made this classic comment. We happen to fellowship at an (atypical, thank God) Anglican church. She notes that we are:

…a few articles short of 39

Will the real church please stand up?

There was an interesting forum on TV3’s Campbell Live on Monday. The topic du jour was of course, Sue Bradford’s anti-smacking bill. The most disappointing aspect for me was the unfortunately titled Reverend Glynn Cardy who was aligned with the bill’s misguided supporters.

Glynn borders on the blasphemous as he says:

Holy scripture contains a lot of wisdom and insight, but also a lot of predjudice and bigotry, and things like slavery, ethnic cleansing and those things.

He is right in one sense that scripture does contain the historical record of much that is sinful coming from the heart of man. But I have this feeling that Glynn was referring to some of those just acts attributed to God, such as the destruction of the Canaanites by Israel.

His main reason for supporting the bill was that Jesus said “let the little children come to me and don’t hinder them”, treating them as equals with adults. So children are adults, which presumably is why parents shouldn’t smack them. Thanks Glynn!

Glynn may be an Anglican, cloistered at St Matthews in the City in Auckland, but I seriously doubt he is actually a Christian. I submit his blog, exhibit A. In his theistically flavoured double-speak the Nicene Creed is “dubious” and perhaps the heretic Arius would be preferable to the trinitarian Athanasius.

In time Athanasius won, and we have the dubious legacy of the Nicene Creed. Unfortunately however the potential of Athanasius’s theology to bring down the mighty from their thrones, to relativize their power, and to lift up the lowly and meek was not realized. If the proof of the theological pudding is in how effectively it feeds the poor, we may have been better off with Arius.

As bad as Glynn’s theology is, a terrible question arises. Where is the real church witness on this issue?

Go ahead, vote

Submit your opinion on Sue’s anti-smacking bill. or just check out the current results