IFWE

It stands for the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.  Their mission is based on the foundational principle that God created humanity to be like Him (imago dei) and thus people must have the freedom to creatively pursue their gifting in order to flourish.

New to the 1%

Harold Hamm (yesterday's post) loves it that more entrepreneurs pop up with riches:  "To him America is still a place where anyone can be born with nothing and become a billionaire. “I see these people who spring out of nowhere with a new app that they’re selling for a billion dollars,” he marvels. “How good is that! That’s fantastic!"

Well, the newest billionaire techies are Australian partners who started a business software company on a $10,000 line of credit.  

Fracking & wealth

Fortunes are being made in the fracking of oil and natural gas.  Wealth is being created, and it's not staying only in the hands of a few.  The industry has created more than a million jobs since 2010.

Natural gas prices are are only half of what they were in 2008.  The oil and gas surge is contributing about $300 billion per year to America's gross domestic product.

All of this means many families are doing better because of the energy boom.

The guy who is making the most of this most-dynamic sector is Harold Hamm.  Far from being a child of elite privilege, his parents were sharecroppers in Oklahoma.  As a teenager he worked at mucking out oil tanks, then started a truck company to haul water.  Like most entrepreneurs, he had the guts to keep going when things were bad:  in the 1980's he drilled 17 times in a row without hitting oil and nearly went bankrupt.  Get the rest of his story here.

Scientism claim

As an example of a scientism (see yesterday's post) kind of claim, here is a statement from a 2012 article in Huffington Post:

" . . a prominent group of scientists has declared that humans are not unique in ways that matter." The author is PETA co-founder Ingrid Newkirk who goes on to list similarities between various animals and humans to justify equating them in a moral sense.

But morality is just the kind of thing that really separates people and animals.  We can and must condemn humans who treat animals inhumanely, but we can't condemn animals who treat other animals unkindly.  It's inappropriate.

  A so-called "prominent group of scientists" is just not enough authority to convince me that humans are no more special than animals.  They can make whatever measurements they wish, but morality and a person's spirit are not subject to material measurement.  

Scientists are out of their depth in saying that humanity's uniqueness does not "matter."

Science isn't

Science is "a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe."  

So . . Science collects empirical data, makes hypotheses, and tests predictions.

Don't mix up science with Scientism which is "the dogmatic endorsement of scientific methodology and the reduction of all knowledge to only that which is measurable." 

 So . . Scientism makes dogmatic claims about things they can't measure.

www.fidedubitandum.wordpress.com

A claim of scientism might be that humans are just another animal since we have bodies made of the same proteins.  The idea that humans are not special is an in-valid conclusion based only on the material we're made from.  More on this tomorrow.

Fuel gratitude

In tongue-in-cheek mode, this author thanks "Mother Earth" for oil and gas and all the ways they benefit the life of earthlings.

Aronofsky on stewardship

Darren Aronofsky, director of "Noah" and self-described atheist, had a surprising article in Huff Post.  Here he talks about God assigning responsibility for the natural world to Adam:

"Like it or not, we do preside over this world [God gave dominion to humankind].  The question is simply how we will choose to exercise that power ...God breathes the soul into Adam and places him in the Garden “to tend and to keep it.”... we are asked to hold the planet and its inhabitants in our safekeeping. It is our first responsibility. Made in God’s image as we are, possessing the power to create and destroy worlds, holding dominion over the globe and its inhabitants, we are asked to be good stewards. We have taken the dominion that was offered us. Have we taken the responsibility of stewardship?"

 A Christian could have written this.  He's not a believer, but he has described fairly the stewardship mission that God gave to humanity in Genesis.

Resurrection myths

Stories abound that claim to deconstruct the Christian teaching that Jesus Christ rose again after death.  What is a person supposed to believe?

You may have heard that the resurrection was just a legend, that Jesus only appeared to die but didn't, that the early leaders lied about it, and more.

There's lots of information on this Christian truth claim because it is so important.  To find out what scholarly, informed Christians say about the resurrection, you could start here at the website of Dr. Mike Licona.

Easter scripture

If you haven't been to a performance (over two hours) of George F. Handel's oratorio (1741), "The Messiah," you may not be aware that the words to all of it are scripture taken from the King James version of the Bible (translation finished in 1611 under the reign of King James in England).

It traces the story of the Messiah from prophecy to Christ's life/death/resurrection, and thence to our destiny with Him in eternity.  Here are some of the most famous quotes from "Messiah":

"For the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together!"

"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and she shall call his name Emmanuel: God with us!"

"We have turned, everyone, to his own way.  The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all."

"Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, and hath redeemed us to God!"

"The trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible!  And we shall be changed!"

Easter

One of the primary themes of the Bible is that there is hope for humanity.  All through the Bible runs a theme of "redemption", that is, God working out a plan to save individuals and nations.

In fact, this weekend we celebrate the key piece of that plan, Easter - Jesus Christ dying to reconcile us to God, and in His resurrection giving us a future and a hope.  
Tomorrow - one of the most famous pieces of music in the world, all about the mission of this Messiah.

Redeemable

David Attenborough (see Monday's post) and others who think like him have a low opinion of humankind.  They look at the evil that people do in spoiling our planet and in so many other ways, and they have no hope.  This is not the Christian view.

People are qualitatively different from the rest of this material world.  Animals are not held morally accountable for their actions, but humans are.  People constantly judge others and themselves by whether they live up to a moral code or not. They - we - can make right choices.  We can choose good rather than evil, life rather than death.

Humanity can be redeemed.  This is God's opinion, and this week is a specially good time to think about it.  More on that tomorrow.

Creation Care

To morally and responsibly care for our planet is part of the mission that God gave to humanity.  The National Association of Evangelicals has put it pretty well in this excerpt from the statement on their website: Creation Care

Laboring to protect God's creation As we embrace our responsibility to care for God's earth, we reaffirm the important truth that we worship only the Creator and not the creation. God gave the care of his earth and its species to our first parents. That responsibility has passed into our hands.  We affirm that God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part. We are not the owners of creation, but its stewards, summoned by God to "watch over and care for it" (Gen. 2:15). This implies the principle of sustainability: our uses of the Earth must be designed to conserve and renew the Earth rather than to deplete or destroy it.

Stewardship

Environmentalism means, for most of us, to take care of our natural world.  There is no other planet for us except this one, and there is only mankind to protect and sustain it.  This is the common ground for all people everywhere, of every persuasion.

For Christians, this concept originated at the beginning - the very beginning, when God created the cosmos (Genesis 1). He then created life and made humankind responsible for managing this beautiful world like a garden.

A garden is an apt metaphor.  A resource for the maintenance of life, a garden has beauty and fragrance, an appropriate place to set humanity. It's also the source of good and meaningful work because it must be carefully tended.

This is the Christian view.  But it's not held by everybody.  Example:  Sir David Attenborough (you may have seen him on public tv) says that humanity is a plague on the earth.  He's only one of a number of celebrities and academics of like mind.  They are opposed to the idea that people have a God-given mission to care for the earth and develop it like a garden.

To be continued this week.

The Winter Soldier

Chris Evans is terrific in the part of Captain America:  genuine, sincere, well-meaning, not cynical.  That is the best thing (for me) about the movie.

Judging from the reviews, critics like it for other reasons including a lot (a lot) of fighting that they seem to think was well done.  I don't deny the quality of the action scenes; I just can't vouch for that, not being a huge fan.  WSJonline says it has good "emotional bandwidth."

It's boxoffice is doing very well so far.

Self-interest channeled

Capitalism is the most productive economic system in human history, even according to Marx and Engel.  No other system works so well to provide for people.  But most of us can't say why this is.

Here is George Gilder explaining why, in less than four minutes:

Public places

Arguments about the natural environment abound, usually relating to public policy disagreement.  But there's no disputing that the natural environment should be managed for the common good.

What sort of things make public places located in cities into a place that people can love to be in?  Amanda Burden knows something about that.  As Planning Commissioner of NY City under Mayor Bloomberg, she's played a big part in promoting city parks that people enjoy.  She shares some answers in her TED Talk, entitled "How public spaces make cities work."

 

Scientist Lovelock

British scientist James Lovelock has made headlines again.  An outspoken environmentalist, his "gaia" theory described the earth as a living organism which will "cull" the herd (people) of millions somehow this century to preserve itself from the bad effects of humans.

He now questions whether the dire predictions of global warming alarmists were ever warranted.  It could be that they "made a mistake in claiming to know with such certainty what will happen to the climate."

Different dying

"Getting it over with" is one way of approaching death, and it's what motivates euthanasia.  John Stonestreet tells a couple of stories that don't reflect that outlook.  

Can the dying process be redeemed, even inspiring?  As Christians, we want to redeem every part of life (even the universal dying part) for God and for good in some way.  Read these stories.  We're going to have to figure out how to have a conversation about euthanasia with the people of the culture we live in.

He built this

Harry Stine has leveraged his own distinct abilities to build the largest private seed company in the world (see last week's posts, "Feed the world" and "More corn").  

He says he does't understand people - that's a big disadvantage for anyone. So are the learning disabilities he struggled with as a student. But he has other abilities that he used to his advantage: he does understand and can process large amounts of data. That ability is manifest in his business today by the fact that his company is testing 150,000 varieties of soybean seeds. "His 'disabilities' were actually advantages that let him see things in ways others did not."  

There are rewards waiting for you, too, when you concentrate on your strengths (an idea of John Maxwell, Marcus Buckingham, and probably many others . . including Harry Stine).

Stine continued

Iowa's richest individual is Harry Stine of Stine Seed Company.  He started trying to improve soybeans after coming home from college to help his dad on the farm, raising hogs and growing soybeans.  In 2003 he was inducted into the Iowa Business Hall of Fame.

A numbers kind of guy, he really seems enthusiastic about STEM education (science - technology - engineering - math).  He is interviewed at STEMblog:

"STEM education/workforce development is critical to our nation’s future because it is what drives advancement. Where there is a strong focus on STEM, there is a focus on innovation. Every issue faced by modern society – from hunger, to medicine, to energy and conservation – will require the application of STEM principles to be effectively managed."

STEM is a buzz word in education, worldwide.  I'm going to look for some serious writing/reporting on the subject.

Noah lessons

Dennis Prager is a practicing/believing Jew who has taught the Bible (Old Testament) for years.  He has some good insights about the Noah story as told in the Bible, Genesis chapters 5 through 8.

Christians will appreciate his points.  He says that the story illustrates the fact that the human conscience is just not enough to produce a good world:

"God created man without giving him a Ten Commandments or any other revealed moral instruction. The only moral code was the one God built in to the human being: the conscience. Clearly this was not enough to make a good world. The world sank into evil. This is another biblical lesson that runs entirely counter to a dominant belief of the modern age. The secular world holds that religion and God are morally unnecessary; the individual’s conscience is sufficient to guide moral behavior. The Bible, as usual, knew better."

More vegetables

Five servings of fruits/veggies per day has been the standard for some time, but according to University College London it would be a lot better to double that.

"People who ate at least seven portions of fruit and vegetables each day were 42 per cent less likely to die from any cause over the course of the study."

thenutritionpost.com

Other significant points from the study:

• "vegetables are four times healthier [more nutritious?] than fruit"
• fruit juice is pretty much useless