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A Better Way To Board A Plane

Later today I'm scheduled to get on a plane to fly to Reno, where I'm going to be giving a talk tomorrow morning on the Church Fathers.

I expect that they'll do the standard thing and have us board by "zone numbers" out of a desire to cut down on the time it takes to board so that we get on the plane in an efficient manner.

But it turns out that the "zone number" system is really poorly thought out.

In fact, new evidence suggests that it's worse than letting people board RANDOMLY.

Why?

Because everyone in a certain zone gets on at the same time and they get in each others' way trying to find their seats, stow their carry-on things, get seated, and buckle up. They're all seated next to each other. Of course they're going to get in each others way!

Randomness is better than that.

But it seems there's a better way still--designed by a Fermilab astrophysicist who, I'm guessing, is as frustrated with commercial air travel as the rest of us.

HERE'S HOW HIS SYSTEM WORKS.

It helps keep people out of each others' way and cuts boarding times in half.

Maybe the airlines will implement it and we'll get some relief.

Probably not by later today, though. :-(

HERE'S VIDEO!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cyberdyne Builds Mechanical Suit That Endows Wearer W/Super Strength. Military Displays Interest.

No really! (This may not end well.)

GET THE STORY.

And the manufacturer's name really is "Cyberdyne."

Dino Deaths & Original Sin

A reader writes:

I've got my brain in a crunch.  If death, disease, pain and suffering entered the world because of the first sin, then how would one best reconcile the deaths of all the Dinosaurs and other preceding animal throughout time up until the point that God first breathed life into Man and then Mankind committed the first sin?  I've been comfortable pointing to the first sin as the reason for all the death and pain in the world, but I stumped myself with this question.

The standard way of reconciling this would be to say that human death entered the world when our first parents committed original sin. 

In other words, God gave man access to the tree of life that would have enabled him to live forever. He didn't give access to it (so far as we know) to dinosaurs or, in fact, any other creatures besides mankind.

Thus when the fall occurs in Genesis 3, God drives Adam and Eve from the garden so that they won't have access to the tree of life and live forever. That suggests--though it does not prove--that the tree of life represented a special offer of immortality to mankind as long as they refrained from sin.

Why? Because it apparently didn't grow anywhere except in the garden. Otherwise, Adam and Eve could have simply eaten from a tree of life growing down the road somewhere, and there would be no point in expelling them.

This suggests that the tree of life was a unique offer to man as long as he remained in spiritual harmony with God, and when he sinned, the offer was lost.

Other species, presumably, never had the offer in the first place.

One note: The Church today would likely interpret the tree of life in a symbolic rather than literal fashion as that is what it does with the other tree--the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. According to the Catechism, 

How to read the account of the fall

390 The account of the fall in Genesis 3 uses figurative language, but affirms a primeval event, a deed that took place at the beginning of the history of man. Revelation gives us the certainty of faith that the whole of human history is marked by the original fault freely committed by our first parents.

396 God created man in his image and established him in his friendship. A spiritual creature, man can live this friendship only in free submission to God. the prohibition against eating "of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" spells this out: "for in the day that you eat of it, you shall die." The "tree of the knowledge of good and evil" symbolically evokes the insurmountable limits that man, being a creature, must freely recognize and respect with trust. Man is dependent on his Creator, and subject to the laws of creation and to the moral norms that govern the use of freedom.

One is still free to interpret the two trees literally, but the common teaching of the Church, as expressed in the Catechism, would seem to take them symbolically, the one representing the opportunity for immortality in union with God and the other representing the moral limits that man must respect or fall out of harmony with God.

This moral probation was presumably unique to man, who is uniquely a moral agent in the terrestrial sphere.

Thus:

310 But why did God not create a world so perfect that no evil could exist in it? With infinite power God could always create something better. But with infinite wisdom and goodness God freely willed to create a world "in a state of journeying" towards its ultimate perfection. In God's plan this process of becoming involves the appearance of certain beings and the disappearance of others, the existence of the more perfect alongside the less perfect, both constructive and destructive forces of nature. With physical good there exists also physical evil as long as creation has not reached perfection.

Pope Challenges Big Bang Theory!

Yes! It's true!

If you believe all the nonsense there is on the Internet.

Take for example, this story from NBC's station WTHR and it's "Eyewitness News" team:

Pope Challenges Big Bang theory

Vatican City - Pope Benedict is offering his thoughts on how the universe was created. Thursday, the Pope said God's mind was behind the complex scientific theories such as the Big Bang, and Christians should reject the idea the universe was created by chance.

The Pope has rarely talked about specific scientific concepts such as the Big Bang, which scientists say caused the formation of the universe some 13.7 billion years ago.

The Pope added scientific theories on the origin and development of the universe and humans leave many questions unanswered.

And that's all there is to this story, which was picked up and echoed in other locations in the mainstream media's vast news echo chamber.

The dateline of the story, you will note, says "Vatican City," and given journalistic praxis for datelines, that implies that the story was written by somebody in Rome, allowing this to fall under the "Eyewitness News" heading.

But not all eyewitnesses have eyes to see or wits to think--or ears to hear for that matter. And not all editors compose (or approve) headlines that accurately reflect the story.

KEEP READING.

The Answer Is No

Should We Clone Neandertals?

The scientific, legal, and ethical obstacles

via www.archaeology.org

Eco-Fundamentalists? Hate, Actually.

Let me say up front that I have nothing against treating the environment in a responsible manner. It's implied by the commission God gave mankind in Genesis 1. I also try to avoid fights about words, so whether one would call a responsible environmental position "conservationion" or "environmentalism" is a thing that does not need to be fought about.

But there is a very prominent strand in the environmental movement that takes matters to extreme and anti-human limits. In a previous post, I have referred to this position as environmental fundamentalism, to distinguish it from healthy concern for the environment.

I mean, nobody wants to make Iron Eyes Cody's iron eyes cry. Do they?

However that may be, the deeply misanthropic views and "convert-or-die" rhetoric of environmental fundamentalism was very clearly on display this week, with the release of a shock video produced by 10:10, an international initiative to get people to cut their "carbon emissions" by 10%.

Here's the video . . . WARNING: EXTREMELY GROSS AND OFFENSIVE!

KEEP READING.

Stephen Hawking's Cosmic Slot Machine (Part 2)

In their new book, The Grand Design, co-authors and physicists Stephen Hawking (pictured) and Leonard Mlodinow argue that God is not necessary to explain the existence of the universe as we experience it.

Why not?

After all, if you look at the universe it looks suspiciously like it has been deliberately designed with us in mind. This is something that Harking and Mlodinow go into in some depth. They point out, as have many theistic apologists, that the laws governing our universe seem finely tuned to allow the existence of life. There are any number of constants—the gravitational constant, the mass of the proton, etc.—that are set at just the value needed to allow life to exist. If any of these constants were off by even a small amount, life would not be possible. It therefore appears that our universe has been intelligently designed to allow for life, which implies the existence of an intelligent designer.

In apologetics, this argument is sometimes called the argument from design from cosmological constants.

In their book, the two authors try to provide an alternative account of the universe’s origin that does not require an intelligent designer.

In the account they sketch they claim that ours is not the only universe. In fact, ours is only one of a vast number of universes, all of which pop into existence out of nothing as spontaneous creations. What’s more, the laws of physics take on every possible permutation in these universes, so there are vast numbers of them out there where the cosmological constants are different. So there isn’t a single uni-verse but a multi-verse in which every possible flavor of individual universes occur.

KEEP READING

Stephen Hawking's Cosmic Slot Machine (Part 1)

I’ve read a number of books by Stephen Hawking (pictured) and Leonard Mlodinow, writing both together and separately. I’ve enjoyed them. They’re informative and funny, and they make clear some pretty deep concepts of physics and mathematics—without burdening you with a bunch of equations (that’s some trick).

But their new book The Grand Design was a disappointment.

It’s a short read, which is fine, though I was surprised when I discovered that the last 25% of the alredy-short book to be composed of back matter (an exotic form of matter discovered by publishers; it consists of glossaries, indexes, author bios, acknowledgements, and the like).

Despite its brevity, it does a good job making clear some pretty far-out physics concepts, many of which are also treated in similar works, including Hawking’s and Mlodinow’s previous books. It is also nicely laced with humor.

What is disappointing is the way the book treats philosophy and theology.

KEEP READING.

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New Awesome Win!

 Great new vid from the folks at Eepybird.com! (CHT: GreenAutoBlog)

 Amazing new automotive fuel source . . . Diet Coke + Mentos! (Technically, Coke Zero, but, y'know.)

Behold . . . Experiment #321!

Impressive as always!

(And I had the same thought about a next destination as the guys in the video did, though I don't guess we'll get to see that one.)

Mind you, Experiment #321 is definitely awesome win, but it's no Experiment #214, which was truly epic win.

In case your memory needs refreshing, let's take a pause that refreshes.

Up from the archives . . .

You see? Totally epic! Experiment #214 is not only cutting-edge science, it also has amazing healing properties. It's the kind of thing that you want to keep bookmarked so that any time you're feeling down or hurt, you can watch it and remember how much there is to celebrate in the world.