Odds and Ends X

Serious:

• Douglas Wilson responded to Christopher Hitchens' new book God Is Not Great with a very presuppositional post. Now they are engaged in an online debate hosted by Christianity Today that I have found very informative. Check them both out, and be further convinced in the effectiveness of presuppositionalism.
• Tim Challies asks the question "Is error in doctrine always sin?"
• William Saletan writes about the impact of ultrasound to the abortion debate.
• Pulpit makes a brief but convincing argument for the Lord's Day Observance view of the Sabbath, which goes along with this discussion here at HoldFast from a few months ago.
• Tim Challies also addresses the atheists who try to condemn themselves to Hell by blaspheming the Holy Spirit and contemplates the nature of the Unpardonable Sin (see key quote below).

Funny:

• This is for my fellow Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy fans: go to Google Calculator, type in "answer to life the universe and everything," and what do you get?
• One of Joel Osteen's sermons gets a commentary track that is extremely revealing...this guy scares me.

Interesting:

• People often ask me what "RSS" means. I tell them it's the best invention since the Internet. But if you actually want to know how it works, Challies gives a helpful overview. I use the built-in feeder in IE7, but Bloglines is also a great option.
• I've been following this intriguing project from the Washington Post: onBeing, a series of interviews with all different sorts of people. This week's video was a boy with Down's Syndrome, and is well worth watching (it's short, only a few minutes long).
• Pride and Prejudice condensed into ten minutes by two very talented NCFCA performers. John and I almost did one of these from The Hobbit, but had to drop out (remember my reference in my challenge to "having to back out of many other activities"? Yeah...).
• This game is addicting. I've made it to 16.5 seconds.

Quotes:

"Admittedly there is some level of disagreement about what exactly constitutes [the unforgiveable sin]. But the vast consensus is this: that the blasphemy against the Spirit involves ascribing the work of the Holy Spirit, accomplished through Jesus Christ, to Satan. To commit this sin you must know that Jesus Christ is God and, despite that knowledge, ascribe the Spirit's work through Him to the devil.

"Reverend Richard Phillips, pastor at First Presbyterian Church Coral Springs, Margate, Florida, says 'There is no sin so great that the precious blood of the Son of God -- of infinite value before God -- is not sufficient to pay for it. The issue is that forgiveness comes only to those who believe on the Lord Jesus. And someone who knows who Jesus is -- who realizes that his work is by the Holy Spirit -- and yet so refuses to believe that he actually ascribes the Spirit's work to the devil, cannot possibly be saved. Why? Because that person is not just ignorant, but they willfully, knowingly, reject Jesus as Messiah, as proved by the Holy Spirit. So this passage describes not someone who in a fit of anger or temptation commits blasphemy, but someone who refuses to believe on Jesus as the Messiah, even when he recognizes the Holy Spirit at work.'

"So the great irony, based on what the Bible teaches, is that this sin cannot be committed by one who considers himself an atheist! This sin presupposes seeing and acknowledging the work of God, but then attributing it to Satan." --Tim Challies, "Challenging the Blasphemy Challenge"