Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
Mr. Hawking said about something or other, “if there were a God. Which there isn’t.”
I can admire or mock Mr. Hawking’s brash ignorance and unbelieving foolishness, but the big question for me is whether I live in daily acknowledgement of God’s existence. Read it all
The big night was September 8-9, 2014. The three photos I got that night aren’t so great.
So here are my photos the following night, taken 8:04-8:19 pm (Pacific) on September 9.
Whether walking along a train track rail or across the top of a fence, having your arms outstretched helps you maintain your balance.
Whether walking a tightrope or a wall or a rafter, stretching your arms out from your sides seems to help keep you on the rope, wall, or rafter.
Why? Or is it all an illusion?
Unaided, a person’s center of balance is located just beneath their ribcage, about halfway from the ground to the top of a person’s head. This means that we balance from this part of our bodies. Carrying a long pole lowers our center of balance, just as holding out our arms to the sides does. If the pole is long enough, a person’s center of balance can be lowered to their knees, ankles or even the tops of their feet. A lower center of balance makes it easier for anyone to balance while walking across even a narrow rope.
To get along well in life, we need a good sense of balance — physically, mentally, socially, spiritually. So along those lines, a few random thoughts…
People have tried for too long to “balance” their secular life with their “Christian” life. (May a Christian Do That?)
Blessing God does not undo my railing against another. It won’t even act as a counter balance to my evil speaking, somehow evening the score and giving me a clean slate. (Window to My Heart) Read it all
That’s quite the quote, eh?
The you in it was a very famous person.
And he signed his agreement with the accusation on this day: June 22.
See 1633 below…but let’s not get any further ahead of ourselves! Read it all
Also not that long ago, junk DNA was being defended as an important element of the Darwinian evolution paradigm.
Just one decade of post-genome biology has exploded that view. Biology’s new glimpse at a universe of non-coding DNA — what used to be called ‘junk’ DNA — has been fascinating and befuddling. Researchers from an international collaborative project called the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements ENCODE showed that in a selected portion of the genome containing just a few per cent of protein-coding sequence, between 74% and 93% of DNA was transcribed into RNA2. Much non-coding DNA has a regulatory role; small RNAs of different varieties seem to control gene expression at the level of both DNA and RNA transcripts in ways that are still only beginning to become clear. “Just the sheer existence of these exotic regulators suggests that our understanding about the most basic things — such as how a cell turns on and off — is incredibly naive,” says Joshua Plotkin, a mathematical biologist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Source: Evolution News & Views: Exploding the Darwin-Friendly Myth of Junk DNA
Suggested Reading: The Biblical View of Science (Lester E. Showalter; Rod and Staff Publishers)
Earlier this week, this news:
The fossilized remains of a 67 million-year-old snake found coiled around a dinosaur egg offer rare insight into the ancient reptile’s dining habits and evolution, scientists said Tuesday.
The findings, which appeared in Tuesday’s issue of the PLoS Biology journal, provide the first evidence that the 11.5-foot- 3.5-meter-long snake fed on eggs and hatchlings of saurapod dinosaurs, meaning it was one of the few predators to prey on the long-necked herbivores.
They also suggest that, as early as 100 million years ago, snakes were developing mobile jaws similar to those of today’s large-mouthed snakes, including vipers and boas.
“This is an early, well preserved snake, and it is doing something. We are capturing it’s behavior,” said University of Michigan paleontologist Jeff Wilson, who is credited with recognizing the snake bones amid the crushed dinosaur eggs and bones of hatchlings.
“We have information about what this early snake did for living,” he said. “It also helps us understand the early evolution of snakes both anatomically and ecologically.”
Dhananjay Mohabey of India’s Geological Survey discovered the fossilized remains in 1987, but he was only able to make out the dinosaur eggshells and limb bones. Wilson examined the fossils in 2001 and was “astonished” to find a predator in the midst of the sauropod’s nest.
“I saw the characteristic vertebral locking mechanism of snakes alongside dinosaur eggshell and larger bones, and I knew it was an extraordinary specimen,” Wilson said.
Mohabey theorized that the snake — dubbed Sanajeh indicus, which means “ancient gaped one” in Sanskrit — had just arrived at the nest and was in the process of gobbling a hatchling emerging from its egg. But the entire scene was “frozen in time” when it was hit by a storm or some other disaster and buried under layers of sediment.
If Noah hadn’t been ready and had been eating breakfast in his hut, this same event might have left his entire scene “frozen in time” as well.
Yup. That’s exactly what I’m sayin’. I got to that part of the story above and thought of that cataclysmic flood so long ago.
Well, actually not that long ago. More like the bat of an eye compared to the number the story uses. They say 67 million years. Me? Well, I’d modify that “slightly” to .0067 million years ago (if I’m limited to using the same numerals they use).
Is that chiming you hear a call to worship?
Or is it all in your head?
Like this, for instance: Bells toll to halt climate change.
Toll the bells; halt climate change.
Great. 🙄
Wow, who would have thought it could be so simple. And think of all the carbon and footprints expended getting to, around, and from Copenhagen for that CCC (climate change conference).
…a worldwide bell-ringing event initiated by the World Council of Churches for Sunday, Dec. 13. Churches have been asked to sound their bells or other instruments 350 times to symbolize the 350 parts per million considered the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Churches without bells are invited to use handbells or other noisemakers instead. Some congregations are choosing to toll their bells 35 times instead of 350.
Our church has no bells. But if anyone shows up with handbells or cow bells or dumb bells, I’ll try to remember to let you know via Twitter.
And about those congregations opting to tithe the bell ringing, what’s with that? Maybe they’re slackers. Maybe they don’t want to be fanatical. Maybe they think some anti-climate-change conspiracy has infiltrated the movement and succeeded in setting “the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide” 1000% too high.
Mark’s Special Request to the Bell Ringers: Please consider the consequences of halting climate change! Are you sure that’s really what you want?
Anyway, I thought you should know what all the bell ringing is about. (But won’t all that excessive ringing drive the bats out of the bellfry?)
Oh, and sorry this is so late. I meant to post it yesterday.