GroshLink

With regard to the campus, much to consider in this week's NY Times, these 2 pieces immediately caught my attention:

1. Campus Exposure: A new crop of college sex magazines shows students baring it all. In the age of MySpace and confessional blogs, is this the ultimate in self-revelation? -- my first response is one of prayer, my second is to read the Scriptures with Hayley and Ellen over lunch, in order to feed them the Word of God and remind myself of what it means to be received at the table of sinners by Jesus, 3. to not ignore the call to return to campus ASAP to invite those who hunger for life to feed upon the Word of God among the people of God who reflect the likeness of Jesus here and now. 

Father, Grant your grace and renewal to campuses this Lent, culminating in transformative, resurrection power. We eagerly await the coming of the new kingdom, enable us by your Holy Spirit to be a part of it now. In the Name of your Son Jesus who died that there might be victory over evil, Amen.

2. Darwin's God: In the world of evolutionary biology, the question is not whether God exists but why we believe in him. Is belief a helpful adaptation or an evolutionary accident? -- this topic is hot, we were talking about it last fall with Justin Barrett.  Missed Paul Bloom's visit to F&M, but Is God an Accident from the Atlantic Monthly says it all.  I'd encourage you to read and discuss it. PS. Thank-you to Michael Murray for bringing these 2 guys to my attention.

Note:  I already received some feedback to the Darwin's God piece, I posted the thoughts to 2 faculty below.  And don't miss Alvin's Plantiga's recent critique of The God Delusion by Dawkins.

1.  The application of the Darwinian paradigm to all of human existence is the goal of a particular community of discourse. It will be as successful as the Marxian paradigm. As a bad example of a 19th century grand metanarrative, it dazzles its devotees, but when the project has run its course, another metanarrative will displace it. There will always be a small group of Darwinian acolytes, but history is against the continuing hegemony of this narrow and conceptually thin idea. Real life is richer than Darwinism.

2. very difficult to understand these arguments that attempt to give evolutionary explanations for our natural inclination to believe in God? The question is given here: are we hard-wired to believe in God? We can ask an either-or question: are we inclined toward God because He does exist, or do we believe in God for some emotional reasons despite the fact that He doesn't exist. It's interesting that the article talks about atheists having difficulty on a practical level in living without God. let me know if you get some responses to this article

ps...francis schaeffer often mentioned that truth has to be livable...and the problem with non-christian worldviews is that those who mentally believe in them cannot live on a practical level in a world full of God's presence, and in a body made by Him with moral sense and longings for ultimate purpose