Eye on Faith

Sunday, July 7, 2013

Brain scans: Big Brother is watching

(George Orwell in 1933)

That somewhat private sanctuary known as the human brain is now being invaded – not only by a benevolent omniscient God, but also by fellow humans with their own agendas.

Megan Gannon of Live Science reports that functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is able to reveal "what people are thinking and feeling." This is made possible through brain scans that indicate "patterns of neural activity."

For example, "anger, disgust, envy, fear, happiness, lust, pride, sadness and shame" (got those Seven Deadlies covered pretty well here) are associated with specific areas of the brain. Therefore, brain scans could indicate which emotions were at play at a given time.

This is currently far from an exact science (and the wayward among us might be praying that it never will be). Some of the scanned emotions, such as envy, have been confused with others. However, scanned lust "was rarely mistaken for any other emotion…"

The silver lining of all this may be the realization" that thoughts and emotions are sorely in need of self-control. Otherwise, they may eventually be controlled by outside Orwellian influences.

"1984" may have chronologically passed, but its unsettling essence may be yet to come.

Resources

http://news.yahoo.com/feeling-envious-lustful-brain-scans-tell-123807651.html

Saturday, July 6, 2013

Salvation from asteroids: Let the bids begin

951 Gaspra (NASA enhanced-color photo)

In the bad old days, salvation was on sale via Roman

Catholic Church indulgences.

Nowadays salvation is still being auctioned off, but this time around in a very scientific manner. Robert Z. Perlman from Space.com tells us that astronauts Rusty Schweickart ("Apollo 9 spacewalker") and Ed Lu ("International Space Station flight engineer") will be selling their "flown-in-space mission patches, flags, medals and pins" to the highest eBay bidders. By doing so, they hope to raise funds to "support the launch of the private Sentinel space telescope."

This telescope has been designed to "discover, map, and track asteroids with orbits that approach Earth…" In other words, it could find asteroids that might otherwise hasten many - if not all - humans to their just (or hopefully merciful) desserts...

Schweickart and Lu are determined to "get" those space rocks before they smash us to smithereens. As Lu (humbly?) put it: We want to literally save the world. He then explained: Both Rusty and I were privileged to see the Earth as few others have, and that experience has convinced us that… there is no more important mission than protecting our home planet.

Resources

http://www.nbcnews.com/science/astronauts-auction-own-artifacts-save-world-asteroids-6C10547244#science/astronauts-auction-own-artifacts-help-save-earth-asteroids-6C10547244

Friday, July 5, 2013

Superman Jewish? His 'ancestors' were

Jerry Siegel (Photo by Alan Light)

As much as superheroes (or anyone else for that matter) can be created by mere mortals, Superman was created by two Jewish "parents."

His "fathers" were Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two children of Jewish immigrants to North America. Wikipedia tells us that Siegel's parents were from Lithuania and Shuster's were from Rotterdam and Kiev. Siegel grew up in Cleveland, Ohio and Shuster in Toronto, Canada. After Shuster's family moved to Cleveland, Superman's "parents-to-be" met in high school there.

Larry Tye, writing for The Miami Herald, describes Clark Kent, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster in this manner: All were classic

nebbishes. What better way for Siegel and Shuster to outshine the dominant culture than to have their counterpart Kent morph into the quintessential Anglo-Saxon ("perfect pug nose, electric blue eyes" and all) superhero.

Although as Tye points out, "Who ever heard of a Jewish strongman?" – evidence of Superman's true heritage begins with his original Kryptonian name: Kal-El. "El" in Judaism means "God." Tye reports that "Kal" is similar to the Hebrew words for voice and vessel. Put that together, and what have you got: "Voice of God." Downright prophetic…

Next there are the parallels between Moses being rescued and raised by Egyptians and Kal-El being rescued and raised by Americans. Tye goes so far as to say that "Kal-El's escape to Earth was the story of Exodus." He also explains that the language of Kal-El's birth story was very much the language of Genesis.

Who knew? Apparently the Third Reich did. A 1940 SS article accused Jerry Siegel of working in cahoots with Superman to sow "hate, suspicion, evil, laziness and criminality" in American youth.

Resources

http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/06/14/3452014/supermans-jewish-roots-inspire.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Shuster

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Siegel

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Independence Day: Freedom of or from?

As I was saying... (Public Domain)

As the years go by, it's getting tougher and tougher to decipher whether Americans are celebrating freedom of or from religion.

This Fourth of July there's a debate going on that threatens to be every bit as intense as the ones that preceded the Declaration of Independence. Luckily, this is just a war of words – at least for now.

Many who claim to be on the "freedom of" side have been welcoming the full-page newspaper ads that Hobby Lobby (an arts and crafts company) has been running since 2006. According to Jeff Shapiro of The Christian Post, its 2013 ads feature religion-friendly quotes from "former U.S. presidents, founding fathers, a Supreme Court justice, the

Bible and other sources." At the bottom of each ad is a hotline number "for those who 'would like to know Jesus as Lord and Savior.'"

The Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) is attempting to respond in kind (although they certainly can't afford the widespread coverage that Hobby Lobby has been able to purchase). The FFRF ad is titled "In Reason We Trust" (Hobby Lobby's is titled "In God We Trust"). FFRF also includes quotes from founding fathers such as George Washington.

It's a matter of pick-and-choose your quotes carefully. FFRF chose this one from Washington: Religious controversies are always productive of more acrimony and irreconcilable hatreds than those which spring from any other cause… Hobby Lobby chose this other one from the very same Father of our Country: It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor.

Resources

http://wwrn.org/articles/40154/

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Judge flexible on yoga in school district

(Photo by LocalFitness)

The many proponents of yoga in the schools were concerned that San Diego Superior Court Judge John Meyer might do a backward bend on the issue.

However, the forward-thinking judge instead ruled that because yoga - as it's being taught in the Encinitas Union School District - has been

stripped of its religious significance, including it within the curriculum is not "in violation of the constitutional separation of church and state."

Dean Broyles - the attorney for parents who had sued the school district concerning this matter - begs to differ. He thought (out loud) that the judge "got some of his facts wrong." Although District Superintendent Timothy Baird had described this curriculum as simply "a very mainstream physical fitness program that happens to incorporate yoga into it," Broyles argued that yoga is "inherently religious."

Candy Gunther Brown, a Harvard-educated religious studies professor, seems to agree with Broyles. According to MSN News, she found this yoga program to be "pervasively religious" – with "roots in Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, and metaphysical beliefs and practices."

Perhaps she and Broyles see this yoga program as being the philosophical equivalent of having a school aerobics program that would be based on repetitive speedy genuflecting…

Resources

http://news.msn.com/pop-culture/yoga-in-public-schools-is-not-religious-says-calif-judge?ocid=ansnews11

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

Stutzman's flower power fading fast

Crateva religiosa (Photo by Marshman)

The times they certainly are a changing – and changing fast. When a flower shop becomes rife with controversy about whether to provide wedding displays for a same-sex couple, it's a sure sign

that Dylan's words were downright prophetic.

The shop in question is Arlene's Flowers of Richland, Washington. Its proprietress, Barronelle Stutzman, has "refused to provide

wedding flowers for a longtime customer [Robert Ingersoll] who was marrying his [same-sex] partner." Daniel Burke of CNN

reports that Stutzman's refusal stems from her evangelical Christian beliefs.

This controversy has garnered intense responses from both sides of the issue. The ACLU sued Arlene's Flowers on behalf of Ingersoll - and Washington State Attorney General Bob Ferguson filed a lawsuit against the shop. With conservative Christians, "Stutzman has become a byword – part cautionary tale and part cause célèbre."

Stutzman herself stated: I was not discriminating at all. I never told him he couldn't get married…

Meanwhile, an online campaign is being waged against her. Burke explains that she "has been called a bigot, and worse."

Stutzman's response, as she "gets ready to face a judge," is this: Don't give in. If you have to go down for Christ, what better person to go down for?

Resources

http://wwrn.org/articles/40137/?&place=north-america

Monday, July 1, 2013

Martian genealogy: Little green microbes

(Granddaddy Mars)

Sounds a bit sci fi? Perhaps.

However, the idea actually came from a recent article titled "We Might Be Martians." Nope, not from The National Enquirer, but from The Atlantic… Writer J. J. Gould points out that the findings of astronomy have been pretty much of a down-hill run for human-centered cosmology. Ditto for Earth-centered cosmology…

Not only are there billions (upon billions) of stars other than our own sun, but there are also untold numbers of orbiting planets. The possibility of life (either carbon-based or otherwise) on other planets (within or beyond our solar system) seems therefore quite real.

Gould reports on evidence-based indications that "billions of years ago, Mars had water and atmospheric conditions that could, theoretically, have supported life." Since meteor strikes "have meanwhile caused serial ejections of material from Earth to Mars and from Mars to Earth," it's possible that microbial life from Mars may have found its way to Earth.

Given eons of evolution, these Martian microbes might have eventually morphed into human Earthlings. If that is correct, then Ancestry.com would have to expand its investigations way beyond Ellis Island.

And the all-too-human (so we thought) expression "green with envy"? Well, it's finally beginning to make a lot more sense…

Resources

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/might-martians-232936489.html