Sorry that I haven't been posting lately … that "real life" thing has started eating up most of my free time now that I've actually started working (still part-time at this point) with TruthMedia and serving actively at my church.

Lately though I've been trying to get back into reading more often, and the current book I'm working through is Timothy Keller's The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism. It was recommended by a couple different blogs that I frequent (independently of eachother) so I figured I'd pick it up. It's quite well written so far (I'm only about 20% done at this point) and I like the fact that it is sort of a reply to Dawkins/Harris/Dennet/Hitchens without actually being presented that way (as merely a rebuttal or defense). He brings a scholar's mind and a pastor's heart to his writing which helps to make it intellectually rigorous while at the same time compassionate and humble.

I recently also saw an interesting post about Tim Keller speaking at Google headquarters about his book. Apparently it was the largest turn out ever for a Google "Author Talk" event. Hopefully the talk will be posted on YouTube or something soon. Quote: "Weak faith in a strong object is infinitely better than strong faith in a weak object." Check out the book if you haven't already, it's good stuff.

Watch the hilarious new TV commercial for the popular online MMORPG World of Warcraft below:

After watching the video, I checked out Mr T's Wikipedia page and noticed something that I'd heard before but never investigated: That Mr T (real name Laurence Tureaud) is a dedicated Christian. At the bottom of the Wikipedia entry there's a link to an interview Mr T did with Beliefnet.com entitled Words of Wisdom from Mr T. I'm not sure if the article title is intended to be sarcastic, but he actually comes across as quite wise in the article and deeply dedicated in his faith. He talks about why he no longer wears the gold chains (though he's wearing 'em in the commercial, I guess people might not recognize him without them??), his battle with cancer, and how he attempts to live our his faith in his life. It's a good read, so check it out.

I'm not sure how accurate its numbers are, but this "World Clock" purports to give you statistics on a number of different worldwide metrics, updated dynamically, including:

• Population
• Births
• Deaths (sorted by method)
• Abortions
• Number of cars, bicycles, and computers produced
• Etc …

You can also click the Year, Month, Week, Day, and Now buttons at the top to limit the results to a specific period of time. For example, since I started writing this post, 200 abortions have occurred. In the last week, the number of abortions that occurred was approximately 258,000, compared to 17,000 from all STDs including HIV/AIDs. Now, all of these figures are sad and alarming, and I am in no way trying to belittle the AIDS epidemic. In fact I regularly support the blood:water mission in their efforts to provide clean drinking water and clean blood to help battle the HIV/ADS crisis in Africa.

However, although the shockingly large number of abortions does not itself prove anything about the ethics of abortion, it should lead us to think seriously about the morality of this issue: Year-to-date nearly 31 million abortions have occurred. If abortion does take the life of a human person, that is 31 million murders.

• For more on this subject, please see my previous post Abortion = Profits?.

Today I started reading The Secret, and came across the following quote:

Quantum physicists tell us the Universe emerged from thought! (Page 15)

I admit my knowledge of quantum physics is sorely lacking … is this statement accurate? If so, what exactly does it mean? I know what it means in "The Secret" context, but what does it mean in the world of quantum physics (if anything)? (I'm not trying to be a smart-ass by the way, this is a serious question!)

I'll post some thoughts on the content of The Secret as I get farther in the book. For those who haven't heard of the book, it's basically the best-selling New Age repackaging of the 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking. Available via Amazon, eBook version from eBooks.com (this is the version I got) or your local bookseller. I'm reading it because I'm writing one of my research papers on it. My initial impression is that the power of positive thinking stuff is generally good, but the "thought magnet" stuff and the implication that thoughts create reality is simply unnecessary at best. [Edit: As I read further into the book, I'm becoming more increasingly concerned. I think this book could actually be harmful.]