Asides

I have not looked in the method­ol­o­gy they used to con­duct their research, but their con­clu­sions res­onate with my instincts. If I ever name a church, there is a rea­son­able chance I will work “Assem­bly” into its name.

Should Your Church’s Name Include Its Denom­i­na­tion?

(UPDATED) New research says both church­go­ers and the unchurched agree deci­sion is a ‘two-edged sword.’

Wow. Con­sid­er my mind bog­gled. How does a uni­ver­si­ty think that this is a good idea?
 
“In a state­ment, City Uni­ver­si­ty said the room used was nev­er a ded­i­cat­ed space specif­i­cal­ly for Fri­day prayers and was instead an area that stu­dents could use for var­i­ous activ­i­ties rang­ing from meet­ings to pilates class­es. Last year the Uni­ver­si­ty asked those organ­is­ing the prayers to sub­mit their ser­mons in advance and keep them online after­wards for peo­ple to view.

“Fri­day prayers were deemed Uni­ver­si­ty events open to all stu­dents and staff, and are not sole­ly a stu­dent or stu­dent soci­ety event,” the state­ment read. “As such the Uni­ver­si­ty needs to be assured of the qual­i­ty and appro­pri­ate­ness of what is being deliv­ered and that all stu­dents eli­gi­ble to deliv­er prayers and ser­mons are con­sid­ered equal­ly and giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do so.”

Cen­sor­ship row erupts after City Uni­ver­si­ty shuts down Mus­lim stu­dents’ Fri­day prayer meet­ing

Mus­lim stu­dents at a Lon­don uni­ver­si­ty have had their week­ly Fri­day prayer meet­ing on cam­pus shut down because they refused to allow staff mem­bers to view and pre-autho­rise their ser­mons before delive…

I rate the zinger at the end as wor­thy of a British Prime Min­is­ter. Such clev­er­ness is rare.

Facts about Britain and France and Bel­gium

Britain’s Roy­al Air Force now has just a quar­ter of the num­ber of com­bat air­craft it had in the 1970s. The Roy­al Navy has 19 destroy­ers and frigates, com­pared with 69 in 1977. The British army is sche…

I am pleased by this find­ing, although I would not have pre­dict­ed it.

Amer­i­cans Far More Con­nect­ed to Local Church than Any Oth­er Insti­tu­tion

Ras­mussen finds local reli­gious insti­tu­tions rank first (54%), mak­ing local char­i­ties and recre­ation­al groups (12%) a dis­tant sec­ond.

This is crazy awe­some rambling/musing. I could read Scott Adams all day.

Scott Adams Blog: Mar­ket Manip­u­la­tors — Clar­i­fi­ca­tion 03/04/2013

The Offi­cial Dil­bert Web­site fea­tur­ing Scott Adams Dil­bert strips, ani­ma­tion, mashups and more star­ring Dil­bert, Dog­bert, Wal­ly, The Pointy Haired Boss, Alice, Asok, Dog­bert’s New Rul­ing Class and mor…

Unex­pect­ed (at least by me).

Sen­tences to pon­der

Loca­tion mat­ters for online edu­ca­tion: most stu­dents enroll in insti­tu­tions with­in 100 miles from home. The link is here, the source is here.

How have I not heard of this? This seems like a basic fact to know.

Jef­frey Sachs on Oba­ma and dis­cre­tionary spend­ing

…the sur­pris­ing truth is that from the start of his pres­i­den­cy Mr Oba­ma has planned a steep decrease in dis­cre­tionary spend­ing as a share of nation­al income. Each year he has put a bud­get on the table…

The lev­el to which oppo­nents of same-sex mar­riage are mis­un­der­stood (and there­by mis­rep­re­sent­ed) on this issue (and a host of oth­ers) is stag­ger­ing. 

WPost: Yes, we fear and loathe reli­gious tra­di­tion­al­istsW­Post: Yes, we fear and loathe reli­gious tra­di­tion­al­ists

mol­lie | Catholi­cism, Evan­gel­i­cals, Mar­riage & fam­i­ly, Pol­i­tics, Reli­gion, Same-sex mar­riage, Social Issues, Uncat­e­go­rized

I love Brust’s nov­els, but I usu­al­ly find his phi­los­o­phiz­ing to be unper­sua­sive. Every once in a while, though, he drops a gem. I think his point here is indeed dis­putable (there is a dif­fer­ence between fal­si­fi­able in prin­ci­ple and fal­si­fi­able at the moment), but I also think that there is more phi­los­o­phy in sci­ence than some would like to think. We still call them Ph.D.s for a rea­son.

So, What IS Sci­ence, Any­way?

I know science–both the dis­cov­er­ies and method of–are impor­tant to me. I know that I believe we ought to deduce nat­ur­al laws from the facts, as opposed to impos­ing them on the facts. I know tha.…..

Huh. Neat obser­va­tion.

Jesus did what he taught his dis­ci­ples to do.

Here is a great post by Steve Addi­sion, the author of a great new book “What Jesus Start­ed”. Check out his blog, It is awe­some! Find­ing “per­sons of peace” is an impor­tant ele­ment in most dis­ci­ple m.…..