{"id":7579,"date":"2024-12-13T17:55:28","date_gmt":"2024-12-14T01:55:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=7579"},"modified":"2024-12-13T17:55:28","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T01:55:28","slug":"things-glen-found-interesting-volume-482","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2024\/12\/13\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-482","title":{"rendered":"Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 482"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/a>\n\n 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\n\n\n

Things Glen Found Interesting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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  1. Why Christians Oppose Euthanasia<\/a> (Brad East, Christianity Today): \u201cUnlike many topics in theology and ethics, this is not an issue on which the church has ever been ambiguous. There were no early church councils to debate the taking of innocent life. It didn\u2019t take centuries of conflict to adjudicate. On the contrary, Christians were known from the start for their adamant rejection of pagan disrespect for those unwanted by their families or deemed socially useless\u2014the unborn and newborn, disabled and elderly.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. When Was Jesus Born? Italian Researcher Puts Christ\u2019s Birth in December, 1 BC<\/a> (Edward Pentin, National Catholic Register): \u201c[Herod was alive when Jesus was born, and we know Herod died after a lunar eclipse.] Ultimately, based on the most accurate analysis possible today of the visibility to the naked eye of the lunar eclipses, the search for one of it really visible in Judea 2,000 years ago, placed in relation to other chronological and historical elements deduced from the writings of Josephus Flavius and Roman history, leads to a single possible solution \u2014 namely, a dating of the death of Herod the Great occurring in AD 2\u20133, compatible with the conventional beginning of the Christian era \u2014 i.e., the Nativity occurred at the end of the year 1 BC.\u201d<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Science and Religious Dogmatism<\/a> (Mat\u00edas Cabello, SSRN): \u201cBut why were nonbelievers and other freethinkers particularly creative? Not because of lack of mysticism. Deists, with their mystical belief in some sort of deity, have been as productive in science as outright atheists (if not more). One possible explanation for their joint abnormally high productivity is that freethinking and atheism opened up a whole path of ideas disconnected from the prevailing thought system.\u2026 By the same token, however, it follows that, in a world overwhelmingly populated by atheists, the most ingenious ideas should instead come from the few religiously minded (as long as their theology offers a sufficiently stimulating thought system to discover the secrets of nature). A result consistent with this interpretation is the decline of the atheism coefficient among 20th-century born scientists of table 1. By then, atheism had gone from being a dangerous and unconventional worldview to become widespread among the scientific elite.\u201d