Arctic Ice Update 2016

Chiefy has the 2016 update on Arctic ice. View it and comment.

Clear Thinking in Four Easy Steps

I ran across this graphic from a paper called Character and Leadership: Situating Servant Leadership in A Proposed Virtues Framework, co-authored by Jim Lanctot and Dr. Justin Irving. Something about it immediately tingled my “clear thinking sense” (like Spidey sense, but more cerebral), so of course I had to investigate. The paper itself, I discovered, wasn’t badly done. It presents a reasonable layout of what may be considered basic virtues, not necessarily the ones I consider most important, but definitely virtues. It also provides reasonable definitions for those virtues. What bothered me about it was the chart of “The Virtue Continuum.”

Here is the figure:

 

Some problems stand out. It is hard to see how one could have an excess of integrity, or how such an excess would lead to legalism. Wouldn’t legalism be the result of an overly enthusiastic respect of the rules, in other words, an insufficient respect for persons? The last item, courage, may indeed lead to foolhardiness, but if temperance is the practice of moderation, how is strictness due to too much temperance?
[Continue reading at Chiefy's Word.]

Can a Church be Harmless?

The New Testament Christian Church of Graham

In my new post at Chiefy's Word, I explore what it means to be a cult. Leave a comment; I could use the input.

Everyone Should Get Their Own Bathroom

We need to keep women like this out of the men's room.

Is that the solution to the pressing problem of transsexuals using public bathrooms? Perhaps first we should ask whether there is a problem. Many of the “religious freedom” bills being pushed through in several states address this very issue, whether needed or not. Mississippi’s HB 1523 does indeed preserve the right of religious organizations and most private businesses to discriminate against classes of people, based on the organization’s “sincerely held religious belief or moral conviction.” For instance, an organization could try to prevent a transgender person from using the restroom that the person feels comfortable in.

So why not just provide everybody their own bathroom? In more practical terms, why not provide unisex bathrooms: one toilet per bathroom and a door that locks?
(To continue reading, got to Chiefy's Word.)

Immeasurable Heaven

From my post at Chiefy's Word:

I don't normally comment on anything written by young Earth creationists. I have learned from experience that there is no arguing with them; their position is rock solid and will not be moved. It has to be so, because their arguments are so weak that if they actually considered alternatives they would be easily swayed. Any attempt at dialogue becomes a matter of each side repeating their standard responses.

Nonetheless, a short article I ran across at the Institute for Creation Research, "The Universe Has a Center," is so stunningly wrong that I just couldn't resist mentioning it. The article states that it is "obvious" that we are near the center of the universe, since space and galaxies look the same in all directions. That is just as wrong as saying the Sun must revolve around the Earth, since the Sun obviously rises in the east and moves across the sky. [Read More...]