Archive for July, 2010
Forgiveness by any other name is still liberating
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
One reason that I don’t understand why some Christians fear open-ended scientific investigation is that there is only one source of truth – God. Every path that leads in the direction of truth leads in the direction of God. Any open-minded researcher who does not contort his particular path to point in a philosophically preferred direction will inch closer to that one source, even if that source is itself supernatural and therefore beyond the reach of science.
So I would expect (and have seen countless times) that observations in the secular world often confirm truths revealed in the Bible. Paul Graham is a computer scientist/entrepreneur who has provided examples – very likely unintended – in his essay “The Top Idea in Your Mind". He says of forgiveness (“it doesn’t deserve space in my head”),
Turning the other cheek turns out to have selfish advantages. Someone who does you an injury hurts you twice: first by the injury itself, and second by taking up your time afterward thinking about it. If you learn to ignore injuries you can at least avoid the second half. I’ve found I can to some extent avoid thinking about nasty things people have done to me by telling myself: this doesn’t deserve space in my head. I’m always delighted to find I’ve forgotten the details of disputes, because that means I hadn’t been thinking about them.
As both an entrepreneur and professional problem-solver, Graham appreciates the utility of free-floating thought – “what you think about when you take a shower in the morning”. These thoughts are driven by our “top idea”, i.e. the most pressing or interesting problem we are confronting. His experience matches my own exactly, so I assume it’s fairly common (although the setting may differ). As he observes,
You can’t directly control where your thoughts drift. If you’re controlling them, they’re not drifting. But you can control them indirectly, by controlling what situations you let yourself get into. That has been the lesson for me: be careful what you let become critical to you. Try to get yourself into situations where the most urgent problems are ones you want think about.
Graham points to money and disputes as especially destructive “top ideas” – a short list that ought to resonate loudly with Christians. Money and disputes (relationships and forgiveness) are important topics in the Bible generally and in Jesus’ teaching in particular. Graham’s observations provide practical guidance to Christians: Don’t focus on money and attend to our relationships; this will make room for a better “top idea”. Pursue God’s will for our lives and let him pick the problem that our drifting thoughts will attend to.
Tags: disputes, forgiveness, God, money, relationships, top idea, truth
Posted in Christianity, Culture | No Comments »
Featured post
Thursday, July 22nd, 2010
April 24, 2014
Featured post from the past: Worship interrupted
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Senator Schumer strong-arms Apple
Friday, July 16th, 2010
I’ve always had the impression that New York Senator Charles Schumer is little more than a publicity hound, and most of what he does just confirms my suspicions. Yesterday (Thursday), for example, he boldly and courageously demanded – well, requested – that Apple do something about the iPhone 4’s “death grip” problem. He also want to know what Apple was going to do about the iPhone’s habit of inflating signal strength by showing too many bars on its display
Apple announced on Wednesday – the day before Schumer wrote his letter – that they would hold a press conference today (Friday). Most of the world seemed to understand that Apple would address both issues. It seems the Senator from New York either didn’t know that the most anticipated public utterance since King James’ hour-long preen on ESPN was going to happen today, or he couldn’t figure out what King Jobs would want to talk about.
Or maybe he’s just patting himself on the back for getting such a speedy reply from Apple.
Tags: antenna, Apple, death grip, iPhone, iPhone 4, press conference, publicity, Schumer
Posted in Politics | No Comments »
Is the World Cup over yet?
Monday, July 5th, 2010
I know; it still drags on for a few more days. What little interest I had evaporated when the U.S. team lost to Ghana. I watched about 15 minutes of that match, an experience that only confirmed my dislike of watching soccer in general and the World Cup in particular
What I hated about watching this World Cup
- Soccer.
- Vuvuzelas. Not only were they obnoxious, the noise was constant; if there were crowd reactions to the play on the field, they could rarely be heard over the cacophony.
- Diego Maradona. What a doofus.
- Officiating. What a joke.
- Overexposure. It’s not enough that the Disney/ABC/ESPN empire have shown so many games, they’ve had to have talking heads chatter endlessly about them as well.
Why I think soccer is a lousy spectator sport
I know that ESPN and millions of soccer moms have done all they can to make us want to watch soccer, but they have failed. Yes, I’ll watch my grandson play, but I’ll watch him play Go Fish too. The appeal is the kids, not the game; the experience does not translate into a desire to watch grown men who are not my grandson. Soccer is mostly just boring to watch – scoring is rare, teams are often content to play to a tie, and the game consists mostly of watching people running up and down a very large field chasing and kicking a ball. Leaving aside auto racing (which may not be a sport at all), I find at least four sports much more interesting to watch:
- Football (not futbol or soccer or whatever the rest of the world wants to call FIFA’s game), consists of discrete plays, each of which nearly always matters. Most plays don’t yield a score, but they move the team with the ball incrementally toward – or away from – a scoring opportunity. Within soccer’s vaunted flow, there is little measurable progress as the ball flies back and forth. It’s only when the ball finally turns up in the vicinity of a goal that the threat of a score raises its ugly head.
- Basketball, of course, lacks football’s incremental progress, but makes up for it with speed and the fact that a score from the opposite end is never more than a pass and a shot away.
- Baseball is nothing like soccer, of course, but every pitch holds the potential for an opponent’s score. And there’s always time to go to the bathroom or get a beer from the fridge without missing anything.
- Tennis offers both shot-making and an ebb and flow that is many-layered – sets, games, and points, always points.
Things I dislike about soccer in general
- Fans. American fans of other sports – especially youth baseball parents – can be pretty unruly. But the international soccer fans’ record for hooliganism, brawling, rioting, stampeding, and killing people is unmatched by anything in American sport.
- Pratfalls. It’s not hard to find an NBA player who can be knocked flat on his back, arms flailing, by the slightest brush of an opponent’s forearm. But nothing can match the flops of professional soccer players. The sight of an obviously strong, well-conditioned, and downright manly soccer player dissolving into paroxysms of agony at the touch (or near miss) of finger goes beyond laughable to pathetic and, well, downright sissified.
- Overtime. Sorry, “extra time”; is just silly. Why would I believe that the referee is any better at keeping track of time than he is at spotting goals?
- Nil. American sports announcers seem to believe that soccer is immune to the slang they apply to other sports. In every sport but soccer, a team that has not recorded any points (or runs) has scored zip, zero, nothing, nada, squat, a bagel, or a goose egg; they have been blanked, shut out, silenced, or held scoreless. Anything but “nil”. [While I’m at it, why do Grand Slam tennis tournaments in Australia, France, and the U.S. take two weeks while Wimbledon takes a “fortnight”? Sports announcers are so fond of phony erudition.]
At least this foolishness only happens every four years. ESPN will continue to promote soccer, with off-year tournaments, English soccer leagues, and America’s own irrelevant MLS, but it should be less intrusive. Until 2014 of course.
Tags: FIFA, officiating, scores, scoring, slang, soccer, spectator sports, Sports, vuvuzelas, world cup
Posted in Culture, Sports | 1 Comment »