Abolition

A giant figure among English evangelicals at the end of the 18th century went to sea to serve on his first ship at the tender age of 11.  He later became captain of slave ships that hauled hundreds of slaves in hideous conditions from the west coast of Africa across the Atlantic, to plantations where they were sold and often worked to death.

But this man, John Newton, deeply repented of that life and changed course by the grace of God.  He became a parson and probably influenced the course of civilization - by becoming a father figure/friend to William Wilberforce.

Wilberforce was the leader in parliament who took on the cause of abolition (of the slave trade) while still in his twenties and never let go throughout years and years of parliamentary battle.  If you wonder, as I did, who could oppose abolition?  Eric Metaxas in his book, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery, explains that the answer to that question is, lots of people.

Listen to Newton's song, "Amazing Grace," and his gratitude to God for radical change.  The song is more than 200 years old and it still moves us.

Seemingly impossible

Hans Rosling is a Swedish statistician.  We don't expect to be hugely entertained by a Swedish statistician!  But you will believe after watching this.

You saw his work earlier if you accessed www.gapminder.org.  You saw a beautiful chart of the nations developing over the years in longevity and wealth.

In this video, he does a talk called "The Seemingly Impossible is Possible" in which he includes such original concepts as "Grandma-verified statistics."

He makes a good point about the progress of Africa over just fifty years.

Cat lover market

Here's a story I bet you haven't heard (unless you've already read Money, Greed, and God by Jay Richards).

Ed Lowe had a $45/week job delivering sand and sawdust for his dad in 1947.  The company added a new absorbent clay called fuller's earth, so Ed offered it to chicken farmers as nesting material, calling it chicken litter.  They didn't like it.

Looked like a failed idea, but then a friend asked him for something to allow her cat to relieve itself inside the house. He gave her a bag of what he called that chicken litter and she came back for more. He offered it to the owner of the Davenport Pet Shop, who thought it was just dirt in a bag but agreed to give free samples away.  He changed his mind - and Kitty Litter was eventually sold all over the U.S. in pet stores.

Cat litter became a billion-dollar industry.  Nobody saw that coming, not even Ed.  What did he actually do?  He used his imagination.  When his first attempts didn't produce anything, he made more attempts.

Author Jay Richards says, "At the base of the capitalist system is not greed or consumption, but intuition, imagination, and creation."

Correction

If you were not able to access Jacqueline's story in the post below, "Good Wealth", you will be able to do so this time because I've corrected it  (sorry for the inconvenience)

Gapminder

Since we human beings are actually able to create wealth that didn't exist before, has the aggregate wealth of the nations of the world really grown over the last couple centuries?    Yes it has.

For an absolutely stunning visual of how wealth has grown since about 1800, go to "Gapminder, for a fact-based worldview".  Click on the button "Load Gapminder World" and you'll see a chart of colored circles, each representing a nation with its color indicating which part of the world it's in.  Click on the play button.

The circles move to the right indicating a rise in wealth, while also rising toward the top to indicate the rise in life expectancy.  Makes sense that one benefit of rising wealth would be an ability to increase health and longevity.

Pick a country, keep your eye on it as you play the chart again, and watch how its well-being changed over the years.  For example:   China stayed at the low end of income per person until around 1990.  It begs the question, what happened around 1990 in China?

What do you find in this chart?

Good wealth

Millions of dollars of inherited wealth spent recklessly ("Millionaire Image"):  maybe you would say this is bad wealth.  Millions of dollars earned, but through unethical behavior like lying to or cheating other people:   almost everyone would call this bad wealth (the perpetrator would just call it survival of the fittest).

But that is not the common kind of wealth.  It's much more common that good wealth is earned by well-meaning people who are trying to build something ("Creating . . Wealth") for their family and their employees.

It's good wealth when it's earned by providing a service or a product that others need/want at a price that they figure is a good deal for them (it's also good when you make your wealth by working for such a business).

"What we now know is that market economies work because they allow wealth to be created", says Jay Richards in his book Money, Greed, and God.

People all over the world use their abilities and resources to support their families by creating wealth with the help of "micro loans" that help them start or grow their businesses.  They are well-meaning people who are trying to provide material wealth for their families.

One of their stories:

"Jacqueline became the sole provider for her family after her husband, a soldier, was killed. " (See the rest of her story, and several others, here)

Numbers beyond grasping

In the last post, I said there are millions of cells in the brain.  To be really sure that was accurate, I checked out some websites.  I was a bit inaccurate.  There are actually about 100 billion neurons (a billion equals a thousand millions) in the brain, and each has thousands of connections to other neurons, so there's trillions of connections!

Lots of comparisons to a computer are out there too.  There are plans (hopes) to map those neural connections like the human genome project did for DNA, but the sheer number of connections (synapses) is staggering.

You can actually choose to strengthen the connections where thought takes place between your brain cells, primarily through clean living - avoid drugs/alcohol, stay healthy, get physical exercise (same old advice - still important).  

Oh, and continue to exercise your brain - which you're kind of doing when you read this blog and try to think things through.

Mind over brain

When you think about what a brain looks like, it's so different from bone or skin or even muscle.  How can it contain all the memories of your life, and all the things you thought today and every day, and all your preferences and passions?

It's made up of millions of electrical connections between brain cells and it's a material thing.  And "Materialists" claim that that is all you are, just a highly evolved animal brain with a body.

But the Christian position on humans goes further.  Agreed, you have a wondrous material brain.  But you are more than that.  "Image of God" claims that you have a mind and/or a soul and a spirit that are not produced by your body at all.  You have all the intellectual functions of rationality and appreciation for beauty.  You also have a desire to live for something higher than yourself, to create a meaningful life.

Atheists/Materialists have a hard time explaining this non-material side of people.

Here is an article from Eric Metaxas (read about him in the post before this one) on the mystery of the mind.

He changed Western Civilization

Eric Metaxas spoke at the National Prayer Breakfast in Washington D.C. last spring and made quite an impression.  Barack and Michelle Obama, at his table, are laughing at his dry wit (which shows up whenever he speaks) in this photo.

Having written for Veggie Tales, Chuck Colson, The New York Times, and more, his background is eclectic. He became a Christian believer after graduating from Yale as a confirmed unbeliever (conversion video here).

That's all great, but what interests me are his biographies of a couple of Christians who lived in difficult times and tried to make the world better.  One of them was more clearly successful than the other.  That man was William Wilberforce.  He actually changed Western Civilization after something like 30 years of effort by getting the slave trade stopped in England.

Here's a video of Eric telling the story to a live audience.  His book is entitled, Amazing Grace: William Wilberforce and the Heroic Campaign to End Slavery.

Correcting the millionaire image

The Millionaire Next Door authors Stanley and Danko say that their research (1995-6) "is the most comprehensive ever conducted on who the wealthy are in America - and how they got that way."

If the millionaires of your imagination started out with a huge inheritance, your imagination describes just a very small percentage of them.   Of the millionaires they researched:

• More than half never received as much as $1 in inheritance
• Ninety-one percent never received . . as much as $1 of the ownership of a family business
• Nearly half never received any college tuition from their parents or other relatives

Chapter 2's title describes these people as:  "FRUGAL FRUGAL FRUGAL."  They have detailed annual budgets and the authors' advice is, "Whatever your income, always live below your means."

Stanley & Danko describe this concept with this story:

"Big Hat No Cattle" - we first heard this expression from a thirty-five-year-old Texan.  He owned a very successful business that rebuilt large diesel engines.  But he drove a ten-year-old car and wore jeans and a buckskin shirt.  He lived in a modest house in a lower-middle-class area.  His neighbors were postal clerks, firemen, and mechanics.  After he substantiated his financial success with actual numbers, this Texan told us:

"'My business does not look pretty.  I don't play the part .  . don't act it . . . When my British partners

first met me, they thought I was one of our truck drivers . . . They looked all over my office, looked at everyone but me.  Then the senior guy of the group said, "Oh, we forgot we were in Texas."

"'I don't own big hats, but I have a lot of cattle."

  

Business & ethics

So what does it look like when an ethical person does business?  Here's one example.

Michael Hyatt gives advice on how to conduct a meeting in such a way that all parties will benefit (win).

"at the end of the day, everyone is a volunteer. People will only go so far in the performance of a duty. If you want their very best, you have to have their hearts. You can’t demand this or even buy it with a paycheck. You have to earn it  [by treating them as you would like to be treated].

"In my experience, there are five ways to do this:

1. Assume others are smart and working hard.
2. Listen intently and ask thoughtful questions.
3. Acknowledge the sacrifices others have made on your behalf.
4. Express gratitude for their effort and their results.
5. Remind them why their work is so important and the difference they are making."

If you had to do business with someone, you'd want it to be someone like Michael . . . because he uses the Golden Rule. (This is from his blog.)

Business Image

Just listening to some voices in media and politics, you might think that business people are all manipulators, cheaters, or at least impure in that they're "just trying to make money."  Some say that business is unworthy of the effort of good, decent people who should be working for a non-profit where the motives are pure.

But making money is a good motive.  It must just be conducted ethically.  I remember hearing speaker John Maxwell say, "There's no such thing as 'business ethics' - there's only ethics."  Ethics applies to all of life, including business.  He says that means to treat people by the Golden Rule - treat people as you would like to be treated.

Ethics rightly applied to business should result in a win/win situation:  a win for both parties, the seller and the customer.

In a free economy, both parties have the freedom to decide for themselves what constitutes a win for them.  A seller can decide what price would both cover her costs and give her the profit she wants as a condition for staying in that business.  A customer can go elsewhere if that price is not worth it to her.

So there's nothing inherently impure about making money.  Every worker should hope her for-profit employer is making money (or her job will go away).  And, by the way, every non-profit should be hoping their contributors make money!

Millionaire image

Public opinion probably considers Paris Hilton a bad example of wealth, notorious for gluttonous consumption and reckless waste of resources.  She leveraged her multi-million dollar inheritance into notoriety, then used her name to sell stuff.  Thousands may lay down good money to buy her celebrity fragrance, still it rankles people that her pampered position in life was unearned in the first place: unearned, undeserved, and managed badly.

But does this description apply to most wealthy Americans?  Not at all, as reported in The Millionaire Next Door: Surprising Secrets of America's Wealthy, by Thomas Stanley and William Danko.  The surprise is that, movie and tv fiction to the contrary, those secrets are so humdrum -  apparently, most of them live below their means and invest the rest!

They live in average homes valued at around $320k and don't drive the newest cars.

Here's an excerpt from the introduction:

"Why do I continue to write about rich people?  It is not for the benefit of rich people!  What I write is designed to enlighten those who are confused and misinformed about what it means to be rich.  Most Americans have no idea about the true inner workings of a wealthy household.  The advertising industry and Hollywood have done a wonderful job conditioning us to believe that wealth and hyper consumption go hand in hand.  

"Yet . . . the large majority of the rich live well below their means.  As one millionaire woman trained as an engineer told me, "After college my husband and I both got good jobs.  We lived on one income and saved the other."

Looks like most millionaires earned their financial security.

Crop circles and Intelligent Design

You've probably seen pictures of "crop circles" which pop up overnight in farmers' fields.  The perennial question is, "But who - or what - is making them?"

There are lots of suggestions for the phenomenon in this article at Live Science.  It could be natural causes, like wind or animals or crop disease.  Or it could be the intentional design of aliens or prankster humans.  This author looks at  the evidence and makes a conclusion that fits most of it.

" Having found chance and natural causes highly improbable, he landed on the only remaining explanation: intelligent activity."  (www.evolutionnews.org)

Image of God?

Many people say that traditional Western Civilization is on the decline, some say it is really dead.

But what is "Western Civilization?"  In very general terms, it's a kind of culture typified by certain values, beliefs, and social norms that developed in Europe during the Middle Ages, largely inspired by Christianity,  influenced by some ancient Greek/Roman contributions.

Western Civilization (called Christendom for centuries) spread outside of Europe during the building of empires so it was established in colonies like America, Australia, Canada, etc.

One of the Western beliefs founded in the Christian scripture is that human life is special, on a higher level than animal life, sacred and to be respected.  It's based on that verse in Genesis which says God created humanity in His own likeness.  It led to concepts like human rights and liberty.

While most people probably still believe in human exceptionalism, within the West there is now a very substantial challenge to this foundational value.

An article came out this week reporting environmentalist "Sir" David Attenborough's charge that "We [humans] are a plague on the Earth."  A plague?

Also this week there's an article at Salon.com by a woman strongly in favor of abortion called "So what if abortion ends life?"  She agrees human life begins at conception, she just doesn't care about it.

So I'm wondering where you tend to come down on this question:  are humans created in the image of God?

Ideas have consequences.

Creating . . music

If you haven't yet seen the video of the "Landfill Harmonic", do find it on youtube or go to the link below.  

"This is a wonderful example of what we call the development ethic from Genesis: people using what they have, the resources in their own community, to add value to their world.

"At the core of this vision is the heart and soul of people made in God’s image, acting creatively.

"Poverty is solved not by outside money, but by awakening the incredible creativity and innovation of people, even in the midst of their poverty."

Taken from: http://darrowmillerandfriends.com/2013/01/17/classical-music-from-garbage/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=classical-music-from-garbage

Read the whole blog posting, and for goodness' sake watch the videos!

Creating . . wealth

We know art is creative.  But have you ever thought about the creation of wealth?  Wealth not just for one individual, but wealth as life-improvement spread throughout a community or nation of people.

"Think about oil for a minute.  For thousands of years, oil was a nuisance - an insoluble mess to be scrubbed from your feet if you were unlucky enough to step in it.  Then one day someone had the bright idea of burning it to provide energy.  Suddenly oil was a resource, not a nuisance.  Soon dark streets could be lit, homes heated, cars driven.  The oil hadn't changed.  But [human] ingenuity had made this formerly useless substance into something we call "black gold."  Can you imagine the world without it?

"Now let's examine sand.  Sand is everywhere.  Like oil, it's sometimes hard to get rid of!  A grain of sand by itself has no value.  But a man can take that grain and transform it into a silicon chip, and suddenly it has value.  Another man can then take that chip and impregnate it with data, making it worth even more.  And when someone else connects that chip to a computer, it is worth quite a lot.  Multibillion-dollar companies like Intel have been built on grains of sand.  The sand, of course, remains basically worthless.  It must wait for people to give it its value."  Darrow Miller, Discipling Nations

Like Michelangelo's chunk of marble, oil and sand had no value to people - until people applied their imagination, effort, resources, aesthetic sensibility, engineering, craftsmanship, cooperation, and problem-solving skills to them.  And then there was value, worth.

People create wealth for themselves and their community!

Creating . . art

"It began as part of a mountain in Italy.  Then one day a workman came along and began chiseling out a block of marble.  Using his discerning eye and powerful hands and arms, he worked for weeks.  When the block was finally hewn from the mountain, another man with a horse-drawn wagon hauled it to Florence.  A third fellow bought the stone and had it put on a pedestal in his studio.  That man was Michelangelo.  As he went about his other work, the artist would often pause to gaze at the immense, flawed block.  Perhaps months later, Michelangelo saw what lay hidden in the stone.  Finally, he picked up his hammer and chisel and began to reveal it.  Today we call what was once a buried chunk of marble a priceless masterpiece -The David."  Darrow Miller, Discipling Nations

That buried chunk of stone was worthless to people.  Then three individuals (in this story) applied their effort and intelligence and genius to the stone, and the original material (it was always in there) now had huge value, huge worth to people.  That value, that wealth of beauty, was created by people.

Author J.R.R. Tolkien says, ". . we make in our measure and in our derivative mode, because we are made: and not only made, but made in the image and likeness of a Maker."  J. R. R. TOLKIEN, On Fairy-Stories

(http://www.notable-quotes.com/t/tolkien_j_r_r.html)

So we are able to create . . because we are created . . by our Creator . . to be like Him.

Living cells function like computers

When scientists first started actually seeing living cells, they looked like little specks of simple jelly.  Science has come a long, long way from there.  They've identified all the components of cells, right down to the atoms in the molecules in the chemicals.   And all the discoveries of overwhelming complexity have really changed the narrative.

Here's how Dr. Stephen C. Meyer explains it:

"During the last half of the twentieth century, advances in molecular biology and biochemistry have revolutionized our understanding of the miniature world within the cell.

"Research has revealed that cells--the fundamental units of life--store, transmit, and edit information and use that information to regulate their most fundamental metabolic processes.

"Far from characterizing cells as simple "homogeneous globules of plasm" as did Ernst Haeckel and other nineteenth-century biologists, biologists now describe cells as, among other things, "distributive real time computers" or complex information processing systems."

http://www.discovery.org/a/200

Not junk

Here's a New York Times article from last September that reports the new research results about "Junk DNA" - which turned out to be not junk at all but, on the contrary, to be vitally important to human life:

Thanks for sending it to me, Bethany!

Understand more about DNA

Most of us have a very simple, not to say completely inadequate, concept of what DNA does in our cells.  Of course!  Because we haven't taken biochemistry, nor does anyone talk about it on tv news.  And we have enough going on in our lives already, so who has time to look up the subject in a science textbook.

In the outside chance that you reading this would like to understand it much better, I have a link for you.  It's full of pictures and diagrams.  Depending on how much of it you can patiently watch, you will be astonished and inspired (like I am) at the incredible elegance of what goes on in our cells.

http://www.reasons.org/videos/encoded-by-design

Disappointment for evolutionists?

You probably know that your genes are found in the super big and complicated molecule called DNA in the nucleus of all your cells.  You may know that those genes are coded with instructions for making all the types of proteins (there are hundreds) which your cells need in order to operate.

You may not know that only about 1% of your DNA actually carries those protein-building instructions.  There are long stretches of DNA segments that do not code for proteins.  For years biologists have called these segments "Junk DNA", thinking they were useless.

The teaching of evolutionists goes like this:  If God created DNA, he would certainly not have included  worthless junk in his design.  It can only be that "Junk DNA" developed during millions of years of evolution, their usefulness eventually ended, and they became retained residue of the evolutionary process.

Big surprise!  A huge research effort has found that about 80% of our DNA is not junk but instead has important, even vital function.

Are scientists upset?  No, not if they hold their assumptions lightly and are willing to go wherever the evidence leads.  Yes, if this new information threatens their assumptions and their convenience.

Watch this two-minute summary by biochemist Fazale Rana:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqcgM9cGxik

Obvious, but that's ok

Bill Zipp’s Law of Scheduling:

Unscheduled events will conform to scheduled events.

Obvious, yes - but sometimes the obvious should be said in so many words!  If you want to get something done, even if it's minor, put it on your schedule/calendar.

We don't completely buy it

"Seventy-eight percent of Americans today believe God played some role in how people came to exist, while only 15% attribute it to evolution alone"

Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/americans-reject-evolution-creationism-poll-article-1.1090596#ixzz2HFm4Z1t0

What! Most people think God had a hand in the origin of humanity?  If you think evolution (chance mutations acted upon by natural selection) is sufficient to explain human life, with no interference from God, you are in the small minority.  Surprising, because . . .

Public schools K-12 and beyond have taught for decades and decades that evolution is the total answer to how we got here.  But somehow most people are not buying it.  How can that be?

It's frustrating to evolutionary scientists and profs and teachers.  They think they just need to improve their teaching methods.

Maybe it's something else.  Everyone knows that the Bible teaches that mankind is made in God's image. Maybe there's an intuition built into the human mind that can discern God's involvement in creation.

Check out Romans 1 verse 19: “For that which is known about God is evident to them and made plain in their inner consciousness, because God [Himself] has shown it to them.”  (Amplified Version)

Here's the article where this idea is developed:

http://www.reasons.org/articles/articles/intuitive-knowledge-and-the-image-of-god-part-4-of-4

NY Times reports bogus science claims

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/25/opinion/sunday/neuroscience-under-attack.html?_r=3&

The New York Times article cited above reports that some books and articles about the human brain have gone overboard trying to explain things by brain chemistry, and that some scientists are blogging to correct this inaccuracy.

As an example of an inaccurate, misleading book, they mention The Republican Brain which was published earlier this year:

"which claims that Republicans are genetically different from — and, many readers deduced, lesser to — Democrats. “If [this] argument sounds familiar to you, it should,” scoffed two science writers. “It’s called ‘eugenics,’ and it was based on the belief that some humans are genetically inferior.”

(Just FYI, eugenics was the theory that inferior people should be stopped from reproducing. Eugenics has been completely discredited and is considered dishonorable.)

The lesson here is to not blindly swallow everything somebody writes or says!  Even if it sounds scientific.

This article from the NYT says it very well, " bogus science gives vague, undisciplined thinking the look of seriousness and truth."

So you will still have to think things through, even when it looks like an expert said it.

New LOWER Class

This book, Coming Apart, says that there is a New Lower Class (NLC) in America at the same time as the New Upper Class described in my earlier posts.  This is the reason that America is "coming apart" - greatly  increasing distance between the two new classes is pulling our country apart in a number of ways according to this author.

How are they different?  In education and affluence of course.  But in addition to that, there are some differences that you might not expect.   Sociologist and author of Coming Apart, Charles Murray, references studies to show the following:

• The core of religious believers is less influential in the NLC
• Marriages overall are fewer in number and less happy in the NLC
• People generally, but especially men, are less industrious in the NLC 

And in the New Upper Class?

• Religion is still important
• Marriage is more common and happier 
• Men in particular as well as women work longer hours

SuperZips: "Overeducated Elite Snobs"

That New Upper Class we were talking about, they carry with them "an unmistakable whiff of a 'we're better than the rabble' mentality."  Some people call them "Overeducated Elite Snobs" (OES).

"The daily yoga and jogging that keep them whippet-thin are not just healthy things for them to do; people who are overweight are less admirable as people.  Deciding not to recycle does not reflect just an alternative opinion about whether recycling makes sense; it is inherently irresponsible.  Smokers are not to be worried about, but to be held in contempt.

"They just quietly believe that they and their peers are superior to the rest of the population, intellectually and in their nuanced moral sensibility."

Where do they get this opinion of themselves?  Well, from their education at HPY (Harvard, Princeton, Yale) or another elite university, and from their super high income that is higher than 95% of all Americans.

Where in the U.S. are these SuperZips where the OES live?   More to come.

Pres. Abraham Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God. . . .

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

[Signed]
A. Lincoln

SuperZips: Home of the New UPPER Class

You've never heard of SuperZips?  Charles Murray created the term in his book Coming Apart, published 2012.

A social scientist, he uses studies and statistics to demonstrate the rise since about 1990 of a New American Upper Class.  These people have extremely high levels of education/intelligence and wealth,  They are segregated into homogeneous zip codes.

SuperZips are habitat of the New American Upper Class.

By his definition, SuperZips are the 882 zip codes in which resident adults have educations better or more elite than 95% of all Americans and incomes higher than 95%.  They are "substantially whiter and more Asian than the rest of America" and they enjoy a culture something like you would have seen in the tv series "thirtysomething."  They may "obsess about how smart their baby is, how to make the baby smarter, where the baby should go to preschool, and where the baby should go to law school."

"Members of the new upper class don't watch much television", but maybe PBS NewsHour.  They don't go much to "bars with pool tables in them, bars that allow smoking, or bars with many wide screens showing professional sports."

More to come about the New Upper Class.

Perspective reversed

The word "bigot" is defined by dictionary.com as:

"a person who is intolerant of any ideas other than his or her own, esp on religion, politics, or race"

Professor Rorty's quotation below is so provocative.  Was the highly credentialed professor intolerant of his students' parents' religious ideas?  Was he a bigot by this definition?  Does he sound a bit vicious?  Just saying.