Flotsam and jetsam (1/21)

 

Stark Trek Enterprise pizza cutter

 

 

• Listverse offers a list of the Top 10 Outdated Christian Beliefs.

• James McGrath offers a very nice review of Science, Creation and the Bible: Reconciling Rival Theories of Origins by Richard F. Carlson and Tremper Longman III

• Moody Publishers has launched a new blog focused on “faith, publishing, and literary culture.” (HT)

• Mark Goodacre points out a BBC 4 series on the King James Bible that looks like it could be interesting.

• Matt Flannagan begins a series called “Fallacy Friday” with a post on What Is an Argument?

• According to one recent study, even thinking that you’ve had alcohol can impair memory and judgment. I wonder if that means that thinking you haven’t had alcohol even when you have would lead to improved memory and judgment?

• And, here’s a list of 17 Things You Didn’t Know about Seinfeld.

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The irrefutable logic of the pre-schooler

My daughters have been a true font of impeccable logic lately. Yesterday, my oldest daughter startled me with the revelation that she was a compatibilist. Today, my youngest daughter (4 year-old) demonstrated her own reasoning skills.

At breakfast this morning, she proudly showed me the  painting she’d made at pre-school the day before. I told her that is was absolutely wonderful, of course, even though I had no idea what I was looking at, and I asked her to tell me about it.

“Oh, those are deciduous trees,” she said.

Now, I love it when little kids throw down words like “deciduous.” When I was four, I think I was still working on “bus.” So, wanting to see how much she actually knew about deciduous trees, I asked her if she knew what the other kind of trees are called.

“Evergreen trees,” she said quickly.

Okay, she’s got that one covered. And at this point she had just about taxed my grasp of tree lore. But, I had one question left.

“What makes deciduous trees different from evergreen trees?”

Looking at me with all the pity that four-year-old eyes can muster, she said, “Um, they’re called deciduous.”

I know when I’m beaten.

Logical Fallacies

In arguing for a doctrine of resurrection in the OT, I find that I must disagree with other previous scholars. I found this great page which describes in detail the different logical fallacies. I have been trying to use the proper terminology to be precise in how I disagree with someone’s argument, and am trying not to commit the same errors myself!
http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

Flotsam and jetsam (5/25)

• Experimental Theology has a nice review of Tony Jones’ The Teaching of the Twelve: Believing & Practicing the Primitive Christianity of the Ancient Didache Community. This one’s been on my to read list for a while now, and I just haven’t gotten around to it yet.
• Kyle Strobel has begun what looks like it will be a very interesting series on choosing a theology text. He will be reviewing a series of introductory theology texts for classroom use and offering his thoughts/comments on each. I’d encourage you to follow along.
• Brian has uploaded a number of papers over at NearEmmaus that look very interesting
• First Thoughts has a fun little post on logical fallacies in the news.
• There’s an interesting interaction between Kevin DeYoung and David Platt on Platt’s new book Radical: Taking Back Your Faith from the American Dream. Justin Taylor has also offered a few comments on the subject.
• Apparently there is now a new Facebook campaign to have Slavoj Žižek host Saturday Night Live.
• And, don’t forget to celebrate Towel Day!