2009-02-10

Challies points to this: "The average UK teenager spends 87 hours a year viewing online porn, according to new research conducted by OnePoll in the UK." Realize that the research did not distinguish between girls and boys and you'll probably have do double that 87 hours for the boys. Allow for the fact that many of them undoubtedly lied and you could put it higher still. http://www.techradar.com/news/internet/uk-teens-view-87-hrs-of-porn-per-year-525990

Islam: "A beautiful religion" - "An Egyptian Muslim cleric has instructed that husbands should not beat their wives to the point that their beauty is scarred or bones are broken, but that it should be clear that: "A word would be enough for any wife with lofty morals, but with you, words do not help." ... "The Prophet Muhammad said that the beatings should be light, and that one should avoid the face, or the sensitive areas, which might lead to broken bones, or might leave a mark that would spoil her beauty, whether on her face or anywhere on her body," the cleric advises." He can, of course, beat her if banishment (the cold shoulder) doesn't work. (And he can still have sex with her, of course). http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=88088

Here's an undercover report from Walmart. The reporter is very positive about Walmart. One interesting note: "In our free-enterprise system, employees are valued largely in terms of what they can do. This is why teenagers fresh out of high school often go to vocational training institutes to become auto mechanics or electricians. They understand a basic principle that seems to elude social commentators, politicians and union organizers. If you want better pay, you need to learn skills that are in demand. The blunt tools of legislation or union power can force a corporation to pay higher wages, but if employees don't create an equal amount of additional value, there's no net gain. All other factors remaining equal, the store will have to charge higher prices for its merchandise, and its competitive position will suffer. This is Economics 101, but no one wants to believe it, because it tells us that a legislative or unionized quick-fix is not going to work in the long term. If you want people to be wealthier, they have to create additional wealth. To my mind, the real scandal is not that a large corporation doesn't pay people more. The scandal is that so many people have so little economic value. Despite (or because of) a free public school system, millions of teenagers enter the work force without marketable skills."  http://www.nypost.com/seven/02072009/postopinion/opedcolumnists/fly_on_the_wal_154007.htm?page=0

Lots of free audio from Michael Haykin. Listen to Dr. Haykin on SermonAudio.com

The Bible indicates in Leviticus 11:21 that the hind jumping legs on the insects are not included in the four "walking" or "creeping" feet. The feet are the four front limbs used for walking and look the same. The back two limbs are primarily for long hops. So it isn't saying that these insects have 'four legs' by today's convention. http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/2009/01/26/contradictions-two-missing-legs

An atheist asks how faith could be a gift. Swan replies, "When people construct "god," they typically create an angry all consuming powerful omnipotence. For Luther, God appears where you would least likely find Him: hanging and dying on a cross in weakness, being punished as a criminal. "Reason" would never construct a god like this. This God requires faith to believe in, and that faith is a gift." Which God Requires faith-

Bird has some thoughts on the LXX, noting that it was THE Bible of the early church and it should be taken seriously. "Paul's midrashic exegesis of Gen. 15.6 and Ps. 32 in Romans 4 is contingent upon them sharing the word logizomai whereas the corresponding words are not shared in Hebrew versions." The term 'Septuagint' can be used in two senses as well; (1) The creation and transmission of Old Greek texts of the Hebrew Scriptures; and (2) The books eventually collected and made standardized as the Greek Bible. Happy Septuagint Day

Harris quotes this: "Repentance means turning from as much as you know of your sin to give as much as you know of yourself to as much as you know of your God, and as our knowledge grows at these three points so our practice of repentance has to be enlarged."—J.I. Packer, A Definition of Repentance

Indulgences make a comeback in the Roman Catholic Church! Indulgences Make a Comeback

Lee Irons has reviewed Seyoon Kim's book Christ and Caesar. Christ and Caesar Reviewed