Elsewhere: A collection of interesting links and articles that I’ve come across in the last week or so. Follow me on Twitter for more of the same.

Why does contemporary Western culture hate itself so much?

The self-accusations are familiar. We are imperialists, racists, and purveyors of unsustainable consumption that threatens to engulf the world in an environmental disaster. The colonization of the New World amounted to genocide. Our greed supports brutal tyrants. Capitalism depends upon the exploitation of the world’s poor. On and on goes the litany of shame.

To a certain extent, our present self-laceration reflects one of the virtues of Western culture. Socratic philosophy and Old Testament prophecy combined to create a strong impulse toward self-criticism as a way to overcome self-deceptions and false loyalties. It was not an accident that St. Thomas began his analysis of the truths of Christianity by surveying the objections. As he knew, the pressure of criticism pushes us toward a fuller and more self-aware grasp of the truth.

Yet, as [Pascal] Bruckner recognizes, our postmodern age does not seem to view criticism as a way of refining and deepening our loyalty to the real achievements of Western culture, not the least of which is the freedom to criticize. We seem to relish denunciation for its own sake.

Why? To begin, the notion that the West is the Great Satan feeds our egoism. As Bruckner explains, “This is the paternalism of the guilty conscience: seeing ourselves as the kings of infamy is still a way of staying on the crest of history.”

Cults of an Unwitting Oracle: The (Unintended) Religious Legacy of H. P. Lovecraft:

There are two other possibilities for why some people are drawn to Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. First, since Copernicus and the dawn of modernity, the Earth is no longer the center of the universe, with the gods above us watching our every move. The universe is a vast, foreboding, and empty place. Stories of extraterrestrial visitors have clamed a powerful hold on popular consciousness, despite the fact that scientists, regardless of their herculean efforts, have yet to discover one shred of tangible evidence for alien life in the cosmos. Nevertheless, aliens have clearly replaced gods and demons for many in our modern society. For some, they are watching us, living among us, giving us secret information from their highly evolved planets. Reports of alien abduction, UFO-government conspiracies, and prophets in tune with alien entities have proliferated in the media over the past few decades. Who can forget the 39 members of Heaven’s Gate who, in 1997, under the leadership of Marshall Applewhite (1931–1997), committed suicide in order to transmit their souls into the Hale-Bopp comet, which was “really” an alien spacecraft that would take them to an interplanetary paradise? This is just the tip of the iceberg of UFO religions that have steadily arisen. Lovecraftian religions can be seen as a part of this larger trend, albeit the Cthulhu gods are not as “caring” as some of the other alien gods.

Secondly, and related to this, Lovecraft’s mythos, in stark contrast to its creator’s own ethnocentric views and overall xenophobia, is a perfect mythology in a multicultural world. Lovecraft’s gods are not bound to any ethnicity, as are the gods of Greece, Rome, Israel, Arabia, Northern Europe, the Americas, Africa, etc. Although they were invented by a New Englander, they are by definition cosmic and out of this world. They are extra-terrestrial, extra-dimensional, and post-race. Like other alien gods, Lovecraft’s gods are of a cosmic ethnicity that makes our continued squabbling about race and ethnicity on this planet seem infinitely petty.

Scientists are using virtual reality to run ethical tests that would otherwise be unethical:

Male volunteers in the Spanish experiment see a virtual room with a woman in front of them caressing their arm. Meanwhile, the illusion is reinforced by someone actually running their fingers down their arm in real life.

Looking in the mirror, the person looking back is a young girl wearing a skirt.

A little later, things take a sinister turn. The volunteer is shown a view hovering above the scene instead of acting as the girl. The previously affectionate woman inexplicably lashes out, slapping the girl twice on the face.

The idea is that having previously been the girl, the volunteer feels the shock of what has happened more personally.

If you’re a blogger living in Philadelphia and you make any money with your blog, the city wants to charge you $300 for a “business privilege license”:

...even if your blog collects a handful of hits a day, as long as there’s the potential for it to be lucrative—and, as Mandale points out, most hosting sites set aside space for bloggers to sell advertising—the city thinks you should cut it a check. According to Andrea Mannino of the Philadelphia Department of Revenue, in fact, simply choosing the option to make money from ads—regardless of how much or little money is actually generated—qualifies a blog as a business. The same rules apply to freelance writers. As former City Paper news editor Doron Taussig once lamented [Slant, “Taxed Out,” April 28, 2005], the city considers freelancers—which both Bess and Barry are, in addition to their blog work—“businesses,” and requires them to pay for a license and pay taxes on their profits, on top of their state and federal taxes.

The Scott Pilgrim Ending That Was Never Shot (spoiler-ish):

Anyway, in the months leading up to its release in theaters this month, Edgar Wright did some last minute retooling on “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World,” changing the ending from what test screening/preview audiences saw earlier in the year. But little did we know that Wright had another idea in mind that unfortunately he wasn’t able to get capture at least for posterity.

Elsewhere: A collection of interesting links and articles that I’ve come across in the last week or so. Follow me on Twitter for more of the same.

Damaris Zehner on “The Myth Of Autonomy”:

Enough balderdash. Let’s debunk this mythology of honorable autonomy and consider the nature of our true relationships with the world, each other, and God.

First of all, we aren’t living the autonomous life that we idealize. All of us depend on other people every day. Even the few who look like they’re self-sufficient really aren’t. The survivalist hunts his own meat and tans the hide, but did he smelt the ore to make his guns and traps? Amish farmers raise both food and buildings, but they didn’t plant the trees that they cut down for lumber, nor did they mine the iron for the nails. In fact, they didn’t give the trees the power to grow or place the raw materials in the earth. They—we—all rely on provisions from outside ourselves for life.

Even the autonomists who say that they’ve worked for all they have, that they’ve never taken a hand-out from anyone, aren’t telling the strict truth. They may have started their own business, but they didn’t make the economy or customers or infrastructure that made the business possible. They didn’t create and raise and educate the human capital that keeps their business running. And ironically, not only do they rely on others for their success, but others rely on them to provide something they need. Even autonomists are part of a web, not an isolated entity.

An interesting comparison of the importance and significance of the Qur’an and the Bible to their respective religions:

The interesting point of contrast emerges when you ask what position each religion assigns to its book. For Islam, the arrival of the book, the revelation of the Qur’an, is the central event in the history of salvation. According to Islam, Muhammad entered a cave and Allah made his word known to him through Gabriel. The reason there is a Muslim religion, according to Muslim theology, is that the word came to the prophet: There is one God, and his prophet is Muhammad.

What role does Christianity assign to its book? Certainly a very high role, with a claim of divine revelation and therefore a position of authority. But the coming of the book is not the central event in the history of revelation. The coming of the Son of God is that central event. The Bible is the prophetic anticipation of Christ (OT), and the apostolic interpretation of Christ (NT). One part of it looks forward to the central event, and one part of it looks backward to the central event. But the central event itself is not the arrival of a book; it is the arrival of God the Son.

How relevant are major labels in light of the success of indie acts like Arcade Fire?

Traditionally, independent labels have been a haven for bands that don’t fit in the mainstream. But musically, at least, Arcade Fire has enough in common with long-established acts like Bruce Springsteen and U2 that there isn’t much of a case to be made that the band is defining itself through novelty or innovation. The difference between major and indie labels now has less to do with aesthetics than with the way bands conceive of their careers. For Arcade Fire, independence and control may be ultimately more profitable.

Crowd Sourcing Loses Steam:

There’s no shortage of theories on why Wikipedia has stalled. One holds that the site is virtually complete. Another suggests that aggressive editors and a tangle of anti-vandalism rules have scared off casual users. But such explanations overlook a far deeper and enduring truth about human nature: most people simply don’t want to work for free. They like the idea of the Web as a place where no one goes unheard and the contributions of millions of amateurs can change the world. But when they come home from a hard day at work and turn on their computer, it turns out many of them would rather watch funny videos of kittens or shop for cheap airfares than contribute to the greater good. Even the Internet is no match for sloth.

Huffington Post: “Netflix Streaming Selection Expands To Include Paramount, Lionsgate, MGM Movies”:

Netflix Inc. will pay nearly $1 billion during the next five years for the online streaming rights to movies from Paramount, Lionsgate and MGM in a deal that could help convert even more people to the idea of getting their entertainment piped over high-speed Internet connections.

[...]

Mark Greenberg, the president of Epix, told The Associated Press that the channel had discussed a digital distribution deal with many potential partners including the online video site Hulu, Amazon.com Inc., and Google Inc.‘s YouTube, but the Netflix deal made the most sense because it had healthy subscriber revenues.

“We’re putting our bet on Netflix. They’ve done a great job and they’re a great brand,” Greenberg said.

That sound you hear is Blockbuster execs wailing and gnashing their teeth.

A growing number of video games are forcing players to wrestle with moral choices:

How far would you go to save your child’s life? Would you kill somebody? How about on a broader scale – would you be able to stand by and watch a terrorist attack if it meant saving more lives?

These are scenarios from two of the highest profile videogames of the past year, respectively Heavy Rain and Modern Warfare II, but difficult ethical decisions are becoming more and more common in games.

Christianity Today interviews Anne Rice concerning her recent decision to “quit” Christianity:

What will it look like follow Christ without being part of the institutional church?

The most important thing Christ demands of all of us is to love our enemies as much as our neighbors. That is the radical core of his teaching. If we do that, we can transform our lives.

Christ reaches out to us individually. He’s saying “Come follow me; I am the way, the truth, and the life.” These are beautiful things. I read Scripture every day, I study it every day, I’m mindful of it every day. I don’t claim to have the right interpretation of every passage, but I wrestle with it, and that’s what I think he wants us to do.

Within the larger church there have always been people with diverse views, since the history of the church is a history of contention for the truth. Why do you find it untenable to be a part of a church that is so very pluralistic in its very process?

I don’t feel called to examine various denominations and decide what is the most comfortable or the best. I don’t feel called to have to defend that kind of decision publicly. I feel called to declare that I’m a believer. I have my Bible, and I’m deeply committed to Christ. I don’t contest people who do it the other way.

There may be a time in the future when I’ll feel the necessity to join a community. Keep in mind that I am 68 years old. I live in a Christian household. My two assistants, members of my family, are believers, so I’m not isolated at all. I am with people for whom Christ is the center of their life. I also have a community online. Since I made the decision, it’s become very clear to me that there are thousands of believers who have walked away from organized religion. The body of Christ is much bigger than any one organized church. The decision to walk away from the church is just as valid as shopping for a denomination that you feel more comfortable with.

What makes Arcade Fire “indie”?

In today’s music industry, however, every band, big or small, has to push as hard as possible. And most do. What separates Arcade Fire from most others isn’t the band’s tactics; it’s that those tactics have worked.

“Everyone wants to be more popular; you don’t want to be less popular,” said Doug Brod, editor of Spin magazine. “So you take what steps you need to take to get there. What they’re doing, people may find it vulgar, but I think they’re doing it the right way.”

Ultimately, the most indie thing about Arcade Fire might simply be that it owns its means of production. Unlike most bands, which turn over many of their rights to a record label in exchange for financial support, Arcade Fire owns its music and licenses it to labels around the world. (“The Suburbs” was also No. 1 on the British, European and, of course, Canadian charts.)

Elsewhere: A collection of interesting links and articles that I’ve come across in the last week or so. Follow me on Twitter for more of the same.

If you can make it through Atul Gawande’s “Letting Go: What should medicine do when it can’t save your life?”, you’re a much stronger person than I.

I once cared for a woman in her sixties who had severe chest and abdominal pain from a bowel obstruction that had ruptured her colon, caused her to have a heart attack, and put her into septic shock and renal failure. I performed an emergency operation to remove the damaged length of colon and give her a colostomy. A cardiologist stented her coronary arteries. We put her on dialysis, a ventilator, and intravenous feeding, and stabilized her. After a couple of weeks, though, it was clear that she was not going to get much better. The septic shock had left her with heart and respiratory failure as well as dry gangrene of her foot, which would have to be amputated. She had a large, open abdominal wound with leaking bowel contents, which would require twice-a-day cleaning and dressing for weeks in order to heal. She would not be able to eat. She would need a tracheotomy. Her kidneys were gone, and she would have to spend three days a week on a dialysis machine for the rest of her life.

She was unmarried and without children. So I sat with her sisters in the I.C.U. family room to talk about whether we should proceed with the amputation and the tracheotomy. “Is she dying?” one of the sisters asked me. I didn’t know how to answer the question. I wasn’t even sure what the word “dying” meant anymore. In the past few decades, medical science has rendered obsolete centuries of experience, tradition, and language about our mortality, and created a new difficulty for mankind: how to die.

Sin, Suffering, and the Fall by Scot McKnight:

Both of these comments thoughtfully highlight a significant issue as we wrestle with the nature of God and the nature of our faith, considering both the gospel and the Christian hope of new creation. Does acceptance of an evolutionary creation change the meaning of suffering and does it mean that evil, death, tumors and blindness are part of God’s design? Does this have a significant theological impact?

There are a number of important questions here. As we think through the issues I would like to pose a thought experiment. These are the kinds of things that I think about while considering the theological significance of an evolutionary creation.

The U.S. military is co-producing a manga series entitled Our Alliance—A Lasting Partnership to celebrate the 50-year alliance between the U.S. and Japan.

Brandon Kelly’s excellent, in-depth article on ExpressionEngine’s custom fields and the growing irrelevance of field groups:

In my book, Custom Fields are ExpressionEngine’s strongest feature. They’re right at the core of what defines EE. And they’ve been bustling with innovation lately, from the add-on community as well as EllisLab.

But I don’t think we’ve seen their full potential yet, and I think Field Groups are partly to blame.

Collis Ta’eed asks “Is Technorati still relevant to bloggers?”

But for me personally, I don’t understand how a site that claims to be the fourth largest social media property in the world can do such a poor job of their core purpose.

(For what it’s worth, I can’t remember the last time I check my Technorati status.)

Christine Rosen asks “What Is Reality TV Doing to Us?”

Real life is a great deal messier than the predictable narratives of the “real” worlds we find on our television screens, and it presents ethical and social challenges that seldom intrude on the lives of pampered, self-absorbed suburban housewives. We are long past the point when anyone expects television to be edifying, but we still might pause to consider how the “flickering images” of reality TV are something more than an innocent diversion.

“Fire On The Earth: God’s New Creation and the Meaning of Our Lives” is a nice summation of the “story” of Christianity, as laid out in the Bible.

There’s nothing tepid or routine about a real encounter with Sacred Scripture. In his Narnia tales, C.S. Lewis warned that Aslan is a good lion, but he is not a “tame” lion. Likewise, God’s Word is profoundly good, but it is never “tame.” Augustine thought Christian Scripture was vulgar, inelegant, and shallow—until he heard it preached by St. Ambrose; then it grabbed him by the soul, and turned his world and his life inside out. When Jesus said “I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled” (Lk 12:49) he spoke not as an interesting moral counselor, but as the restless, incarnate Word of God, the Scriptures in flesh and blood, on fire with his Father’s mission of salvation.

Scripture is passionate; it’s a love story, and it can only be absorbed by giving it everything we have: our mind, our heart and our will. It’s the one story that really matters; the story of God’s love for humanity. And like every great story, it has a structure. Talking about that structure and its meaning is my purpose here today.

A simple way of understanding God’s Word is to see that the beginning, middle and end of Scripture correspond to man’s creation, fall, and redemption. Creation opens Scripture, followed by the sin of Adam and the infidelity of Israel. This drama takes up the bulk of the biblical story until we reach a climax in the birth of Jesus and the redemption he brings. Thus, creation, fall, and redemption make up the three key acts of Scripture’s story, and they embody God’s plan for each of us.

Twitch’s Todd Brown reviews Scott Pilgrim vs. The World:

Edgar Wright’s Scott Pilgrim Vs The World is a great many things. It is a love story for the comic book age. It is the story of a slacker forced to grow up. It is a kick ass fight spectacle. It is a nostalgic glance back on the golden age of eight bit video games. It is a blazing soundtrack brought to vivid life on screen. It is a coming out party for a cadre of young stars. It is arguably the most unusual and unlikely big studio film since The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension. It is director Wright’s chance to prove himself as a formidable talent all on his own, removed from the comfortable environs of the UK, his own original source material and his cozy working partnership with Shaun of the Dead and The Hot Fuzz collaborators Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. But, most of all, it is one of the greatest graphic novel adaptations ever to hit the screen, an absolute blast from start to finish, a film that sets the bar for itself almost impossibly high and then hits every single mark along the way.

Also regarding Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Josh Hurst tweeted that it’s “this year’s Juno, Speed Racer, American Splendor, Ghost World, Eternal Sunshine, and Kill Bill all rolled into one.”

What the Great Recession Has Done to Family Life, via Russell Moore:

Our nostalgia for the Depression speaks volumes about how we feel not just about the past but also about our lives today. A craving for a simpler, slower, more centered life, one less consumed by the soul-emptying crush of getting and spending, runs deep within our culture right now. It was born of the boom, and not just because of the materialism of that era but also because of the work it took then to keep a family afloat, at a time of rising home prices and health care costs, frozen real wages and the pressures of an ever-widening income gap. As the recent Rockefeller report showed, for most families the miseries of the Great Recession don’t represent a break from the recent past, just a significant worsening of the stresses they’ve been under for years and years.

That the Great Recession could then bring hope for a major recalibration—a resetting of all the clocks—is not surprising. Unfortunately, though, it’s not happening in any meaningful way. The poor are getting poorer, and the rich, despite stock-market setbacks, are still comparatively rich. The most devastating losses in household wealth over the past two years have been suffered by the middle class. And families are fraying at the seams. The Pew poll showed nearly half of people who had been unemployed for more than six months saying their family relationships had become strained, and a New York Times/CBS poll of unemployed adults last winter found about 40 percent saying they believed their joblessness was causing behavioral change in their children.

Elsewhere: A collection of interesting links and articles that I’ve come across in the last week or so. For more of the same, follow me on Twitter.

In The Land Of Mao, A Rising Tide Of Christianity (the first in a five-part series):

Official Chinese surveys now show that nearly one in three Chinese describe themselves as religious, an astonishing figure for an officially atheist country, where religion was banned until three decades ago.

The last 30 years of economic reform have seen an explosion of religious belief. China’s government officially recognizes five religions: Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Islam and Daoism. The biggest boom of all has been in Christianity, which the government has struggled to control.

[...]

No one knows exactly how many Christians there are among China’s population of 1.3 billion. There are an estimated 21 million members of the government-sanctioned Three-Self Patriotic movement, but nobody knows how many Protestants worship in unregistered house churches.

Some recent surveys have calculated there could be as many as 100 million Chinese Protestants. That would mean that China has more Christians than Communist Party members, which now number 75 million.

Five Things That Could Topple Facebook’s Empire

How Could God Create Through Evolution?: A Look at Theodicy, Part 1:

“How could a good God create through a process that involves so much pain and death?” For many people, accepting evolution is less a scientific question than a theological one. After all, seeing evolution as God’s method of creation requires affirming that death, pain, and natural disasters are part of God’s creative toolbox instead of a result of the Fall. In this three-part blog series, I will first look at how theologians and scientists have seen the world in contrary ways, and then reflect theologically on how a world created through evolutionary means can be good.

Ostrich is an extension for Safari 5 that adds a full-fledged Twitter client directly inside the browser. I’ve tried it out, and it’s very well-designed, but I’m still torn on whether I want Twitter running inside my browser or not. In any case, it’s pretty darn impressive.

Corporate Punks, and Other Non-Sequiturs:

Thank God for the snot-nosed truth tellers. Somebody needs to do it again, cut through the morass of political speeches and photo ops and lies that pass for Want Ads. Who will be this generation’s Joe Strummer or Johnny Rotten?

PopMatters offers an overview of Christopher Nolan’s career:

With only seven feature length films in his little over a decade old canon, Christopher Nolan stands at the crossroads of artform greatness. Not just being the best of his kind, but as an auteur worthy of names like Kubrick, Mann, Hitchcock, and Lumet. He’s no “next Spielberg” Shyamalan or foot draggingly difficult David O. Russell. Instead, he’s the bellwether for a new kind of filmmaker, one that successfully merges Hollywood classicism with the best of the post-modern revision. Looking at the movies he’s made since emerging in 1996, one can witness the development and growth of an innovative icon, someone schooled in the old ways of working while finding novel means of making his far reaching, philosophical points. With Inception signaling his ascension into undeniable artistic importance, let’s look back over his oeuvre to see just where it all started - and how he earned his new illustrious rank.

Be Fruitful and Multiply?

Observers weigh in on whether Christians have a special responsibility to have children.

This is officially the cutest site on the Intertubes: A mother brings to life her sleeping baby’s daydreams. All of the photos are great, but these two are my favorites (I think).

Syfy has announced Blood and Chrome, a new Battlestar Galactica online series that follows a young William Adama during the Cylon Wars.

Daniel Kasman offers up an interesting criticism of Toy Story 3:

On an object by object, moment by moment level, the film is nearly overwhelmingly dense with such minute material investment, yet as a film, it seems bogged down in replicating and investing in all these real world details to such a degree that imagination, one of the things most easily discoverable in animated works, seems evacuated. You only have to look at the tortilla gag in the movie to see how a touch of the unexpected can produce surprising, strange and surreal results. For me, there were far too few questions thrown at the film world (“what if?”...) the studio has created and far too many assurances (“Yes, that looks just right!”). A beautiful, overworked piece of animated sculpture.

A totally rad photo gallery of bar bands from the 1970s. I bet Star Trooper tore it up back in the day.

Josh Hurst reviews Arcade Fire’s The Suburbs:

If it sounds big, sweeping, sprawling—well, this is Arcade Fire. Of course it is. Still, this is the band’s most ambitious recording yet; on the second song Win Butler sings that he’s “Ready to Start,” and you get the feeling that this is indeed the genesis of a whole new era for the band, one in which even the familiar reveals itself to be far more complex than we previously imagined. Specifically, they’re revisiting the neighborhood they introduced us to on Funeral—only this time, the tunnels that provided escape are a sprawl that cultivates a modern, middle-aged malaise. This isn’t an album about grief and loss, but about something colder, more insidious. It’s about lack of feeling—about the loss of passion, of fervor, of intimacy. It’s about cultural norms that dehumanize us without us knowing. These are broad themes and big ideas, but even when they aren’t subtle, Arcade Fire is always complex.

Elsewhere: A collection of interesting links and articles that I’ve come across in the last week or so. For more of the same, follow me on Twitter.

Twitch’s Todd Brown reviews Alien Versus Ninja (watch the trailer):

Though the festival is still young and there are literally scores of films remaining to screen at the 2010 edition of Montreal’s Fantasia Festival, if this morning’s reaction to Seiji Chiba’s Alien Versus Ninja is anything to judge by the festival may have already found its Audience Award winner. Know this: Any film that has a prayer of unseating AvN has a literal mountain of hooting, hollering, laughter, spontaneous waves of cheering and applause and other related expressions of joy to overcome. A party broke out in the Hall today and Alien Versus Ninja was the pretty girl everybody wanted to take home.

Ron Rosenbaum wants “An Agnostic Manifesto”:

I would not go so far as to argue that there’s a “new agnosticism” on the rise. But I think it’s time for a new agnosticism, one that takes on the New Atheists. Indeed agnostics see atheism as “a theism”—as much a faith-based creed as the most orthodox of the religious variety.

Faith-based atheism? Yes, alas. Atheists display a credulous and childlike faith, worship a certainty as yet unsupported by evidence—the certainty that they can or will be able to explain how and why the universe came into existence. (And some of them can behave as intolerantly to heretics who deviate from their unproven orthodoxy as the most unbending religious Inquisitor.)

Faced with the fundamental question: “Why is there something rather than nothing?” atheists have faith that science will tell us eventually. Most seem never to consider that it may well be a philosophic, logical impossibility for something to create itself from nothing. But the question presents a fundamental mystery that has bedeviled (so to speak) philosophers and theologians from Aristotle to Aquinas. Recently scientists have tried to answer it with theories of “multiverses” and “vacuums filled with quantum potentialities,” none of which strikes me as persuasive.

And Julian Sanchez responds:

To the extent that it is a meaningful question, I have no reason to expect that science either eventually will, or even in principle could answer it. But I am not sure why I am supposed to care, except insofar as it’s interesting to mull over, if you go for that sort of thing. Suppose I allow that it is a genuine mystery—radically uncertain, even. It’s outside the realm about which we can talk meaningfully or offer evidence. So what? If there were some part of the world about which we couldn’t even in principle gather information, would I have to declare myself a basilisk agnostic because, after all, they might be there?

Rosenbaum’s mistake is to suppose that atheists are committed to providing some kind of utterly comprehensive worldview that explains everything in the way religious doctrine sometimes purports to. But why? Can’t we point out that claims made on behalf of one brand of snake oil are outlandish and unsupportable without peddling an even more wondrous tonic?

The Gospel Of Scientific Materialism:

If all the mental images we have about ourselves are deceptions, who can blame us for screwing things up? Who can blame us for trying to snatch what happiness we can, even if we have to transgress the moral laws our parents held dear? With this excuse, we can act contrary to our consciences, since conscience itself can be explained away by recourse to a deeper law of nature or a material process.

Yes, free will gives life its drama. But a life without drama is less stressful, less perilous, less urgent, less tense, and the therapists recommend stress reduction. If I’m just DNA trying to out compete other DNA, the mess I make of my life doesn’t matter, and it may even help the onward evolution of the species.

What Do Most Christians Really Believe About Evolution?

The results might be surprising to those who see the world, or wish to see it, in simple black and white terms. Catholics and many Protestant Christian groups (e.g. Methodists, Presbyterians, Lutherans (ELCA), United Church of Christ, and others) have statements of faith that show absolutely no problem with evolution. Some even have strong statements attesting to how an understanding of modern evolutionary biology even enriches their faith.

[...]

Perhaps a more surprising result from the survey is the indication that, although this is far from proven, those persons with a deeper, stronger education in theology—not science, but theology—are the ones most likely to understand and accept evolution as part of their faith. One example of this was the 1998 survey of the Presbyterian Church USA, where the statement “evolutionary theory is compatible with the idea of God as Creator” was agreed to by only 61% of the general membership but by 85% of the pastors. This seems to imply that although many church leaders tend to accept evolution, this acceptance does not seem to trickle down to the members of their congregations.

David Galbraith contacts Tim Berners-Lee and confirms the exact location where the World Wide Web was invented in 1989.

GameInformer lists five facts about your Dragon Age 2 character.

Jennie Hogan argues that “Faith should harness art’s appeal”:

Despite the centrality of faith in the art of centuries past, religious themes within contemporary art are fading fast. At Chelsea College of Art & Design, where I work as chaplain, God is dead. As students in their studios aspire to join the avant garde there is only a faint desire to look back at works in which the Christian tradition is central. Perhaps when universal themes such as death, suffering and delight are explored though a religious and theological lens the students cannot see them. Could it be then that art is replacing religion? The Tate’s Turbine Hall, into which visitors flock, could be recreating the awe and excitement that great cathedrals and churches once provided. Or is it that objects created by people are filling in the empty spaces where the ineffable and the invisible once dwelled?

Five cautionary statements when exploring and thinking about the worldviews expressed in art:

Analysing a work of art by constructing a worldview that supposedly shapes the work of art or is embodied by the work of art is currently a fashionable trend in Christian engagement with the arts. While I think this is a valuable approach, I am sometimes uncomfortable with the way that the relationship between the worldview and the work of art is conceived.

Edgar Wright’s 10 Coolest Movie Moments (includes Bullitt, Danger: Diabolik, and The Black Hole)

Hayao Miyazaki Compares iPad Use To Masturbation:

In an interview in the July issue of “Neppuu”, the Studio Ghibli published pamphlet, the famed animator does not pull any punches when discussing the iPad, or what he calls the “game machine-type thing” that people are “stroking with strange gestures”.

“For me, there is no feeling of admiration or no excitement whatsoever,” Miyazaki said about the iPad. “It’s disgusting. On trains, the number of those people doing that strange masturbation-like gesture is multiplying.”

6 Boring New England Destinations Made Awesome by H.P. Lovecraft

Inception and the Ten Rules for Proper Dream Sequences

Elsewhere: A collection of interesting links and articles that I’ve come across in the last week or so. For more of the same, follow me on Twitter.

The Internet Monk on “Religion and Culture”:

So the challenge for all Christians is to think through what elements of their beliefs and understandings are culturally particular; not necessarily to abandon them but to understand those elements as nonessential parts of the faith. Good advice, I know, and almost impossible to do.

Christ and Pop Culture reviews The Last Airbender and concludes that it is “not a good movie”.

Meanwhile, the Vulture urges us: “Don’t Give Up on M. Night Shyamalan”:

...no filmmaker nowadays—not Michael Bay, not Brett Ratner, not Joel Schumacher, not even Uwe-freaking-Boll—seems to prompt this kind of visceral, personal loathing. Which is a shame, because Shyamalan was once a rare talent—a director who could make serious, somber, and suspenseful dramas about grief that spoke to mass audiences. And we see little reason why he can’t be again.

I like Wovenhand’s The Threshingfloor well enough but I agree with PopMatters’ review:

The fire and fury remain, but it’s hard not to feel only satisfied and not truly invigorated at this point.

For what it’s worth, my favorite Woven Hand album remains Consider The Birds.

Rod Dreher on “The unjust firing of Octavia Nasr”:

You want a media in which nobody says anything interesting, insightful or provocative for fear of being fired over a single unguarded, poorly thought out, or clumsily phrased public remark? Keep this up. Again, we’ve got to develop more tolerance for this sort of thing—and it’s not really tolerance if you already agree.

Topless Robot has been on a roll lately: “The 30 Greatest Star Trek Villains”, “The 15 Greatest Songs from The Simpsons (So Far)”, and a readers-submitted collection of the best tweets from G.I. Joe and Cobra.

Twitch reviews Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance:

The changes to the story are all wise ones, all moves that bring the core ideas and themes into sharper focus while jettisoning some of the more frivolous elements. And, likewise, the new animation is a big step forward from the original series - a made for tv production whose humble budget often placed serious limits on what director Hideaki Anno and company were able to achieve. This new Evangelion is simply gorgeous to look at. Whether an epic robot battle - of which there are many - or a more quiet moment, the visual work is absolutely top notch and a wonder to behold.

The trailer for Gallants is one of my favorite trailers in recent memory (watch it), but now Twitch has posted a review and I’m even more excited to see it:

I had gone to Hong Kong with a mission to watch Hong Kong films, and this one clearly made my trip worthwhile many times over, coupled with so many hilarious moments to laugh along with.

Theology Destroys Small Thoughts Of God

I loves me some slick, ultra-stylish Asian action cinema, and to that end, The Man From Nowhere looks pretty solid indeed.

Pressing beyond “niceness” is imperative when it comes to dealing with religion, or so John Mark Reynolds argues:

People are all similar. Reality does not change from person to person, but the interpretation of reality can be different. Nobody should be so “nice” they end up insulting other faiths by refusing to admit they make truth claims that cannot be sustained.

[...]

Most great religions are mostly right, but “mostly” is not good enough. Making an error in physics, even a small one, can be fatal to the body. Making a metaphysical error, even a tiny one, can be fatal to the soul.

Iran has released a list of haircuts (photos) that are in-line with “Iranian and Islamic principles”.

Elsewhere: A collection of interesting links and articles that I’ve come across in the last week or so. For more of the same, follow me on Twitter.

io9 compiles a list of “What the Last Airbender TV series has that the movie doesn’t”. (Contains some spoilers if you’ve never seen the original series or M. Night Shyamalan’s movie.)

The Contemporary Relevance Of Augustine’s View Of Creation: “Consistent with the claim that Genesis 1-3 is difficult and obscure, Augustine repeatedly urges restraint, flexibility, openness to new interpretations, and openness to new knowledge that may provide insight into the text.”

The winners of the 2010 Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest have been announced. My favorites are the winner of the “Detective” category and the entries in the “Purple Prose” category. Via

Better Facebook is a browser add-on that gives you more control over Facebook (e.g., tabbed interfaces for newsfeeds, greater control over what is displayed, highlighting new comments). I’m not entirely sold on it yet—it’s easy to add even more clutter to Facebook’s already tangled interface—but some might find it handy. If nothing else, it’s yet more proof that Safari extensions are taking off.

Speaking of Safari extensions, one of my favorites—Shortly—recently got updated with some slick new features (e.g., “Toolbar Mode”, better language support).

Being the sci-fi geek that I am, it’s not surprising that Concept Ships—which features concept art of spaceships and other sci-fi vehicles and visions—has become one of my favorite new blogs. And even if you’re not a sci-fi geek, you’ve got to admit that John Berkey’s artwork is pretty lovely.

The 100 Greatest Movie Insults of All Time (As you might guess, this is not entirely work-safe, but it is awesome.)

Tullian Tchividjian’s “The Supremacy Of Christ” contains a wonderful quote from Malcolm Muggeridge.

Unfortunately, “Yes, abortion is killing. But it’s the lesser evil” by Antonia Senior requires registration to read, but it’s a fascinating article. An excerpt:

Any other conclusion is a convenient lie that we on the pro-choice side of the debate tell ourselves to make us feel better about the action of taking a life. That little seahorse shape floating in a willing womb is a growing miracle of life. In a resentful womb it is not a life, but a foetus—and thus killable.

So we are left with a problem. A growing movement in America, spearheaded by Sarah Palin, is pro-life feminism, This attempts to decouple feminism from abortion rights, arguing that you can believe in a woman’s right to be empowered without believing in her right to abort. Its proponents report a groundswell of support among young women looking to reinvent their mothers’ ideology.

But you cannot separate women’s rights from their right to fertility control. The single biggest factor in women’s liberation was our newly found ability to impose our will on our biology. Abortion would have been legal for millennia had it been men whose prospects and careers were put on sudden hold by an unexpected pregnancy. The mystery pondered on many a girls’ night out is how on earth men, bless them, managed to hang on to political and cultural hegemony for so long. The only answer is that they are not in hock to their biology as much as we are. Look at a map of the world and the right to abortion on request correlates pretty exactly with the expectation of a life unburdened by misogyny.

As ever, when an issue we thought was black and white becomes more nuanced, the answer lies in choosing the lesser evil. The nearly 200,000 aborted babies in the UK each year are the lesser evil, no matter how you define life, or death, for that matter. If you are willing to die for a cause, you must be prepared to kill for it, too.

Paste Magazine creates a bunch of Scott Pilgrim avatars for Cat Power, James Murphy, Zooey Deschanel, Kanye West, and a bunch of other hipster folks. Via

“Atheists Don’t Have No Songs” by Steve Martin with the Steep Canyon Rangers

American Cinematographer has named Amélie the best-shot film of 1998-2008 (based on the results of a recent online poll). The top 10 finalists contain some very fine films but In The Mood For Love should’ve been higher than #12.

Elsewhere: A collection of interesting links and articles that I’ve come across in the last week or so. For more of the same, follow me on Twitter.

Did you know you can create your very own Scott Pilgrim avatar?

M. Night Shyamalan responds to the accusations of racism that have been leveled at The Last Airbender, his live-action version of the Avatar: The Last Airbender. I’d quote from the article, but it does contain some potential spoilers, especially if you’re watching the cartoon. Suffice to say, Shyamalan sounds pretty pissed by the accusations. (For what it’s worth, I’ll be posting an in-depth analysis of Avatar: The Last Airbender in the next few days.)

A guy who goes by the moniker of “Sillof” has put together an awesome collection of Star Wars and comic book-inspired artwork, figures and dioramas, including a set inspired by Akira Kurosawa’s movies, a set inspired by World War II, and a set inspired by the films of Pixar. Via Kottke

Josh Hurst reviews Woven Hand’s The Threshingfloor: “This isn’t an album that’s meant to act as a musical extension of your youth group; this is music made by a man without shoes, for he knows he’s standing on holy ground.”

You’d think that “Soccer: The Perfect Socialist Sport” was from The Onion, but it’s neither good enough nor funny enough. Via @RaeWhitlock

The impending Akira live-action remake will now likely be PG-13, which doesn’t bother me—after all, The Dark Knight was PG-13—so much as the director’s apparent discontent with the studio and the script issues.

Tiffany and Debbie Gibson will be duking it out in Mega Python Versus Gatoroid. I have a feeling that the title is going to be the best part of the movie.

All of Solspace’s ExpressionEngine add-ons are now 30% off until July 28th, 2010.

Roger Ebert’s “My vocation as a priest” is a beautifully written account of his religious upbringing, though he no longer believes.

“The Twitter of Doom”:

I am glad that World Cup scores are delivered to my phone while I travel. My phone cannot match being at a match, however, for good and bad. The sun of South Africa, the joy of fellow fans, and the deafening sounds of the vuvuzela are all missing. When all I want is the result, my phone is good enough, but sometimes a fan has to go.

This is even more true about the biggest human events. Humans cannot be baptized with online water, because we are not just minds, but bodies. Only a coward breaks up with an email, because some news deserves eye-to-eye contact.

Death is such an event. It is physical and spiritual. A man created in the image of God has passed through the greatest and final challenge. Cultures that debase this event, debase their own humanity. The death of any human being is an awful thing. It is momentous and sacred. Reporting on it requires thought, compassion, and a human touch.

This is why it was wrong for a government official to “tweet” the news of an execution. Twitter can convey information and the writer’s immediate feelings, but any death, especially one sanctioned by the state, demands more seriousness.

PopMatters reviews Hisae Iwaoka’s Saturn Apartments: “[it] embraces an existential melancholy, accentuating quiet moments, mystery and introspection over space opera. Call it zen in the art of window-washing… in space.” More information, including some samples, can be found here.