{"id":4739,"date":"2017-10-27T19:09:23","date_gmt":"2017-10-28T03:09:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=4739"},"modified":"2017-10-27T19:09:23","modified_gmt":"2017-10-28T03:09:23","slug":"things-glen-found-interesting-volume-124","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2017\/10\/27\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-124","title":{"rendered":"Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 124"},"content":{"rendered":"

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On Fridays I share articles\/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.<\/p>\n

Things Glen Found Interesting<\/h3>\n
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  1. Nepal Criminalizes Christian Conversion and Evangelism<\/a> (Kate Shellnut, Christianity Today): \u201cLast week, Nepal enacted a law to curb evangelism by criminalizing religious conversion, joining neighboring countries like India and Pakistan, where the region\u2019s small-but-growing Christian minority faces government threats to their faith.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. Police Cameras Had No Effect. Why<\/span><\/a>? (Megan McArdle, Bloomberg View): \u201c<\/span>That data is now in, and it shows that [police body cameras] did\u2026 basically nothing.\u2026 This is flabbergasting.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Who Wrote Ecclesiastes and What Does It Mean?<\/span><\/a> (John Walton, Zondervan Academic): A good essay overall, but one of his arguments really annoyed me, \u201c<\/span>The claim in 1:16 and 2:9 that he surpassed all who were before him in Jerusalem would mean little if his father were his only predecessor.\u201d Umm\u2026 no. There were pre-Israelite kings who reigned in Jerusalem (see Joshua 10, for example) and the author of Ecclesiastes is comparing himself to them as well<\/span>. <\/span><\/li>\n
  4. The Age of Consent And Its Discontents<\/a> (Ross Douthat, New York Times): Consent is an inadequate foundation for sexual ethics. \u201c\u2026the most self-consciously progressive schools \u2014 [tell] us more about the inherent problems with \u2018consent alone\u2019 than does the mess in Hollywood, because it\u2019s a case where there\u2019s more social equality, less boss-on-minion pressure, and a generally sex-positive culture of experimentation \u2026 and yet young people still clearly desire and need a system of rules stronger than consent alone to protect them from feeling unexpected rage or shame over how a particular encounter happened.\u201d<\/li>\n
  5. Shrews Shrink Their Heads to Survive Winter<\/span><\/a> (Jake Buehler, Gizmodo): I sometimes forget how amazing the world is. \u201c<\/span>The shrews experienced some rather incredible changes, losing as much as 20 percent of their skulls in the winter months, and regaining 15 percent later in the year\u2026. Alongside the shrinking skulls, shrew brains lose a hefty portion of their mass, and there is also winter reduction in organ size and spine length. In this study, the shrews managed to lose about a fifth of their body mass <\/span>overall<\/span><\/i>.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n
  6.  Pence: US Will Bypass UN and Aid Persecuted Iraqi Christians Directly<\/a> (Kate Shellnut, Christianity Today): this is encouraging. Christians in the Middle East are suffering greatly.<\/li>\n
  7. Is the Modern Mass Extinction Overrated?<\/span><\/a> (Kevin Berger, Nautilus): Apparently new species are forming faster than old species are becoming extinct. <\/span>\u201cYes, we\u2019ve wiped out woolly mammoths and ground sloths, and are finishing off black rhinos and Siberian tigers, but the doom is not all gloom. Myriad species, thanks in large part to humans who inadvertently transport them around the world, have blossomed in new regions, mated with like species and formed new hybrids that have themselves gone forth and prospered. We\u2019re talking mammals, birds, trees, insects, microbes\u2014all your flora and fauna.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Things Glen Found Amusing<\/h3>\n