Virtual Fret Noise

This is so cool:

via Bill's Words

My cousin, Tommy Barnes, passed away last night. He fought bravely against cancer and faced the end with faith and courage. He was a Baptist minister and a powerful influence for good in many peoples' lives. His loss is grieved by many tonight and he will be dearly missed.

The problem of evil is one that causes many to doubt God's existence. If He is all-powerful, He must not be all-good if He allows suffering in the world, the atheistic argument goes. This argument is not nearly as dispositive as the atheist imagines and is in fact quite weak. However, as Tim Keller points out in his book The Reason for God, when people are suffering or are witnessing suffering in those they love, logical arguments for theodicy fall flat.

The pat answer is the classical theodicy that points to the Fall in Genesis 3. The argument is that God created a perfect world without suffering and this perfection was spoiled by sin. Unfortunately, this argument pretty much assumes a literal 6-day creation and a complete lack of death and suffering in the pre-Fall, Edenic Earth. If you do not interpret Genesis 1-11 as literal history, this argument loses its appeal. The fossilized record of millions of years of suffering and death before the appearance of human life weakens this approach considerably.

Better, more durable answers can be found elsewhere. As Keller argues, in order to complain about God allowing suffering in the world, one must establish that the suffering is unjustified and/or serves no higher purpose. To do so requires God-like knowledge on the part of the complainer. Eventually, Keller powerfully argues that in order to have a God that is transcendent enough to be held responsible for all suffering, He must be transcendent enough to have reasons for allowing it to which we do not have access.

In addition, though we can not know why suffering exists we can at least know that God has participated in it himself. From his incarnation to his crucifixion, God the Son fully participated in the suffering of this world. In this podcast (MP3 link), Keller provides a good summary of this argument.

It basically comes down to God's answer to Job: I'm God and you're not. God has either not chosen to tell us why suffering exists, or we are anyways incapable of understanding it. God asserts that his purposes are just and lays himself on the line to prove that He's serious about it. What He expects from us is that we trust him.

Tommy did not face death cursing his bad luck, but rather with praise on his lips. Didn't he want to watch his little children grow up? Didn't he want many more years with his wife? Didn't he want to stay and lead his church?

I think he took his model from the Lord. When He face the cross, He asked God one last time if there was some other way. Dying an agonizing, undeserved death was not what He wanted to do, but He trusted the Father.

A theodicy is an argument for the goodness of God in spite of the presence of suffering and evil.

I think we've seen one.

Kansas, of course, has a spotless record. Not. Not that it excuses UK's violations, but this twit's premise is that KU is somehow "honorable" in a way that UK is not. UNC isn't really important. Actually, KU isn't either.

As we all know, there are countless, indelible KU-UK-UNC connections. It’s regrettable that KU grad Adolph Rupp factored so heavily in a shady Kentucky march to glory. Kentucky may have hit 2,000 first but KU and UNC will do so more honorably. The Wildcats got there with considerable assistance from cheating and NCAA criminal indifference and oversight. [From Kentucky basketball victories tainted | KUsports.com]

Latest example, Chris Dodd:

Senator Dodd’s career should provide a cautionary tale about the dark side of the seniority system and senatorial longevity. Though he was knee-deep in dubious doings, his influence was at its peak: As chairman of the banking committee, Senator Dodd was a key player in the bailouts and in shaping the major pieces of financial-reform legislation currently working their way through Congress. If Congress ends up reshaping the banking and credit-card industries, it will very likely to do so along lines drawn up by Senator Dodd. He was a key legislative architect of the impotent stimulus bill and an important influence on the Senate health-care legislation. The breadth and depth of his influence has been exceeded only by its destructiveness. No doubt a lucrative post-Senate lobbying career, performing essentially the same misdeeds for better money, awaits Senator Dodd, who embodies much of what is wrong with Washington. We’ll miss him on Election Day, but not a minute afterward. [From Exit Dodd -- By: The Editors]

Go read this. Now:

[H]ere we are, on the brink of economy crippling legislation to tackle a problem we don’t fully understand and the science is most certainly not settled on.

Bobby Knight. Whenever I see him, it always reminds me of that idiot football coach I had in high school that would hit me on the helmet with his whistle. The other day, the red sweatered jerk did drop his pants and open his mind:

Bob Knight said integrity is lacking in college basketball and cited Kentucky coach John Calipari as an example.

During a fundraiser for the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame, Knight said he doesn't understand why Calipari is still coaching.

"We've gotten into this situation where integrity is really lacking and that's why I'm glad I'm not coaching," he said. "You see we've got a coach at Kentucky who put two schools on probation and he's still coaching. I really don't understand that.

[From Ex-Hoosiers coach Bob Knight speaks at the Indiana Basketball Hall of Fame - ESPN]

His conclusions about coaching ethics may well be well-founded, but this a cheap shot. Calipari did not "put two schools on probation." The first incident, involving Marcus Camby, was one of those sadly typical incidents where a school is punished for actions of a player that it could not have prevented. The other case, involving Derrick Rose, was also not Calipari's fault. The NCAA certified Rose as eligible, then after Rose had played a season at Memphis, changed its mind and then punished Memphis for relying on its certification. It's the kind of police state, Alice in Wonderland - like action that makes fans of collegiate sports despise the NCAA.

Bobby Knight was a great basketball coach, but he has also been a bully, a buffoon and a jerk. In this case, he showed 3 of his 4 talents.

Lots of discussion over this the past few days:

For the first time in 20 years, a government panel is telling women in their 40s to stop getting routine mammograms and recommending that a host of other breast cancer screenings slow down. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force redefines mammogram needs. The United States Preventive Service Task Force announced Monday that it recommends against annual mammograms for women age 40 to 49 because, they say, the benefits of testing do not outweigh the "harms" and risks. [From New Mammogram Guidelines Spur Debate Over Early Detection - ABC News]

I'm very glad my wife's cancer was detected at its earliest possible stage by a routine mammogram at age 45, that these people are morons and that if you want them managing your health care, you're a moron, too.

"Harms?" "Risks?" They are apparently mean the imagined risk due to the tiny radiation dose and still believe in the stupid "no baseline" approach for estimating radiation risk. Like I said, they are morons.

But it's still an outrage and a disappointment:

It’s impossible, really, to caricature this White House; even Josiah Bartlett didn’t run through this many liberal stereotypes in his first season. Obama needs new writers. Blow up the World Trade Center and kill 3,000 Americans? Jail! Don’t buy health insurance? Jail! Win the Nobel Prize for doing jack squat. Travel to Copenhagen to beg and grovel unsuccessfully for the Olympics, and pledge to go visit Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but blow off traveling to Berlin to commemorate the victory of freedom over Communism (then give a tepid speech on the subject that refuses to acknowledge Ronald Reagan). Commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland by unilaterally abandoning missile defense installations in Poland. Insult and disdain one faithful ally after another - Britain, India, Israel, Poland, Columbia, you name it - and cozy up to our enemies, with nothing to show for it - nothing to show for anything he’s done in foreign affairs. All but ignore democratic protests in Iran while supporting an illegal effort by Honduras’ president to stay on beyond the end of his term. Suddenly complain about corruption and electoral fraud in Afghanistan, while seeking the favor of Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadenijad and Vladimir Putin - heck, Obama endorsed half a dozen people in Chicago more corrupt than Hamid Karzai. On and on and on we go, with President Apology constantly straining to run down his country’s record and talk up the propagandized view of history of its enemies. He’s taken more time to “evaluate” General McChrystal’s recommendations about Afghan policy than it took George W. Bush to invade Afghanistan and capture Kabul after September 11. It would be funny if it wasn’t tragically stupid and bound to get people killed. There is no mistake of our past that Obama is unwilling to remake.

So the presidential candidate that "palled around with terrorists" appointed an AG from a firm that defends terrorists. None of this should be a surprised. I'm really wondering whether Jimmy Carter's second term would have been this bad.

"Restore My Soul" by The Choir. Details here.

Moe Lane points out some things that should be obvious to everyone that has a clue:

One has to make a distinction between the people of the world, and the governments of the world. The people of the world generally like the USA/Americans/the concept of America for one or more of the following reasons:

• Because we are free;
• Because we are vulgar;
• Because we are loud;
• And because we visibly do not care if anybody likes that or not.

Meanwhile, most national governments do not like the USA/Americans/the concept of America for one or more of the following reasons:

• Because we are free;
• Because we are vulgar;
• Because we are loud;
• And because we visibly do not care if anybody likes that or not.
• 
  

Unfortunately, the current resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. doesn't have a clue.