Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 400
June 21, 2013
Exodus International is going out of business
Exodus International, the evangelical ministry to gays that sought to help them change their orientation, has announced that it is going out of business. The group publicly repented of its advocacy of “reparative therapy” (behavioral conditioning techniques) and of being judgmental against homosexuals. See this. After the jump, the statement from the organization. From the [...]
June 20, 2013
College does NOT undermine faith
Glenn T. Stanton, in a useful feature at Gospel Coalition called “FactChecker,” cites research overturning the conventional wisdom that going to college undermines a young person’s faith. Actually, NOT going to college is much more strongly associated with losing faith. And 2.7 times more graduates say that college strengthened their faith, as opposed to weakening [...]
Bee summit
Back in 2007, about three different servers ago when this blog was with World, I wrote a post entitled The Rapture of the Bees. Honeybees were disappearing, which is a major concern, since they are so important in the pollination of crops. Since then, I’ve read several pieces that purportedly solved the mystery of why [...]
House passes bill banning abortions after 20 weeks
The House of Representatives voted to ban abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy, the point at which fetuses can reportedly feel pain. It won’t survive the Senate or a presidential veto threat, but it’s the biggest restriction on abortion that ever passed Congress since Roe v. Wade, which does allow for restrictions on abortion after [...]
June 19, 2013
Good books
Summertime, and the living is easy. A perfect time for reading. It’s about time for me to reload my Kindle. I have Lars Walker’s new novel, Hailstone Mountain, which I’m looking forward to reading, but that won’t get me through the summer. What books would you recommend? (Feel free to recommend whatever you want–some one [...]
Abortion and the Left
I’ve always wondered what is particularly “liberal” or even “left wing” about abortion, given that liberals and leftists generally present themselves as champions of the weak and the marginalized. No one is as weak and marginalized as an unborn child. Dale O’Leary, at the Catholic website Aleteia, explains the connection between radical feminism, leftist ideology, [...]
The factions in our proxy war in Syria
It isn’t just that we are intervening on behalf of the rebels in Syria by providing weapons. We are intervening on behalf of a specific faction of rebels, with various Arab states supporting the other faction. Since you can’t tell the players without a program, after the jump we have a guide to who’s fighting [...]
June 18, 2013
“The child who is born to you shall die”
The sermon last Sunday was about Nathan’s preaching to King David about his sin with Bathsheba in 2 Samuel 12. Some striking insights about the role of the “sword” never departing from his house in keeping David (and us) faithful and about David’s other child, likewise descended from this sinful relationship (through Bathsheba’s child Solomon), [...]
Babies change the male brain
At least in deer mice. Scientists have known that motherhood makes the female rodents smarter, better foragers, braver, and more level-headed. A researcher has found the same effect in father mice. In fact, something similar happens when male mice are exposed to baby mice, even when they aren’t the biological father. All of this has [...]
Taxes as a means of control
The Constitution limits the federal government’s power, but it does give Congress the power to levy taxes. So Congress has historically used its taxing authority to pre-empt state laws and to exercise control over its citizens’ behavior. George Will discusses an essay by David B. Kopel and Trevor Burrus entitled “Sex, Drugs, Alcohol, Gambling and [...]
