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Thu, 26 Jun 2008 23:10:06 Z

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Max Dunn

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:23:53 Z

Max Dunn’s Author Page

Ok, this is a little weird to have a “Max Dunn” page on my MaxDunn.com web site. The reason for this page is that this web site is actually a Wiki and Wiki’s usually have a special page for all the authors.

Pages I Don’t Know Where Else To Put

Genesis and Science

Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:22:13 Z

Genesis and Science

Here is a series of lessons I gave for my Kindergarten Sunday School class on how science and Genesis are complementary.

God is Great

Starting in December, we will be talking about the coming of Jesus and His life in the kindergarten Sunday School class. We were going to do a series on Joshua that would highlight the prophecies of the coming of Jesus. However, that curriculum is geared towards older kids and would be hard to bring down to the kindergartener’s level.

So I was praying about what to teach, and a thought came to me to do a series that would highlight how big and vast and old and smart God is, to provide a background so that the kids can really appreciate how significant it is that such a great God that created the universe would send his Son to save us.

God is Vast

Earth 16 inches (size of basketball) moon is 4 inches (softball). How far away is moon from earth? 40 feet.
Mars is ? far away
Nearest star is ?
Nearest galaxy is?

Craft: Draw the solar system

God is Big

Size of sun compared to earth
Hubble dark sky picture
- Nothing visible
- Picture the size the grain of sand
- About 10,000 galaxies
- Each galaxie has millions? of stars

Craft: Cover a picture of the sky with colored grains of rice

God is Old

Timeline for how long a 5 year old has lived
Timeline for the Bible
Bible story of creation
- Sun made in the 4th day
- Can’t see the stars because of cloud cover
Universe is ? billion years old

Craft: Timeline of your life

God is Everywhere

Demo: Picture through a moving slit
Demo: Turn rubber band inside out on a piece of paper
Universe had 10 dimensions at the beginning
Jesus walked through a wall
God can hear everyone at all times

Craft: Draw a 3 dimensional picture

God is Smart

How hard is it to create life?
Scientist have tried for 50 years to create life in the laboratory, haven’t succeeded
God invented DNA
Life sprang up about the same time
Lots of different animals and plants
No new species since then

Craft: Create a new animal

God is Love

How would aliens contact us?
- TV message
- Spaceship
- Oblisk (Movie 2001)
God talked to us
God sent his Son

Craft: Draw a picture that you would send as an important message to someone who lived far away.

Day 1 – God Made the Heavens and Earth

Who believes in science and who believes in the Bible? Do we have to pick one or the other, or are they both compatible? Some people who believe in science think that science explains everything, but it doesn’t. However, it is amazing how often science and the Bible support each other!

In the lesson today, we will be looking at day one in Genesis 1 and how it corresponds amazingly well with modern astrophysics.

Background

For those teachers not up-to-date on the latest astrophysics :-) you might want to review this:

Beginning of the Universe

Bible Verse

“God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.” Genesis 1:31 NIV

Lesson

What is science? (Hold up science book.) Science is stuff like 1+1 (write on board) and how we make things like computers work. (Show Treo.) Who has a computer?
Does science explain everything? Science explains a lot of things, and some people think it explains everything.
Do we need the Bible then? Are computers mentioned in the Bible? No, but the Bible explains a lot of amazing things that science can’t even begin to explain.
Science can explain the beginning of the universe with the Big Bang theory.
- According to scicne, about 15 billion years everything was smaller than a pea. (Show pea) Everything, including all the atoms in you and me, your computer, this earth, the sun, the planets, stars, everything. Then there was a big explosion and it all sprang out and started expanding. (Release foam).
- But there was a problem. The universe was just a sea of particles and no light could escape. (Shine light through dark solution.) Everything was dark. This was called the Dark Ages.
- Then after a couple of hundred million years, the universe cooled down a little and atoms formed so that light could shine out across open space. (Add chemical to solution to make it transparent and shine light into it.)
Pretty cool stuff huh? This is what science says about the begining of the universe, lets see what the Bible says.
(Read Genesis 1:1 – 1:5)
Isn’t it incredible that Bible was right about how the universe was made, even though the Bible was written down thousands of years before this science book?
The Bible was the first book the showed that the universe did have a beginning. This is pretty amazing because most people didn’t believe this.
- For instance, when Einstein discovered the theory of relativity it showed that the universe had a beginning. But he didn’t like this, so he add some calculations that he later realized were the biggest mistake of his life.
- Many religions think that the universe has always been present, or that it comes and goes.
In the coming weeks, we are going to find out more about how the Bible has a lot of really accurate science in it, and can explain things that even modern science can’t explain.
(Pray)

Props

Treo
Science book
Bible
Pea
Foam balls, or foam snakes, or something that can be compressed a lot and will spring out
Flashlight
Solution of something dark that can be turned light by adding something

Genesis 1:1 – 1:5 from The Message

First this: God created the Heavens and Earth – all you see, all you don’t see.

Earth was a soup of nothingness, a bottomless emptiness, an inky blackness. God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.

God spoke: “Light!” And light appeared.

God saw that light was good and separated light from dark.

God named the light Day, he named the dark Night. It was evening, it was morning – Day One.

Craft Ideas

Pasta Sun

Give each student a piece of construction paper and a the verse printed on a piece of paper.
Have the students cut out the verse and glue it on the construction paper
Glue pasta noodles around the circle as sun rays.

Note: Unless we get thick, quick drying glue, the glue might not have time to set.

Solar System

Print out a sheet with circles of various sizes (representing the planets) with the name of the planet in each circle.
Print another with the Bible verse colored paper
Let the students cut out the planets and glue them on the colored paper and then decorate with stickers and pens.

Decorate Planets

Print out sheets with one planet per sheet
Let the students cut out and decorate with stickers and pens
Put these up around the classroom

Day 2 - God Made the Sky

On the second day, God separated the waters from the sky and named it the Heavens. Today, we will try to show how big and wide and numerous the Heavens are.

Lesson

Intro

Last week we learned how God created the entire universe, starting from a seed smaller than the size of a pea.
This week, we are going to learn how big and wide it is, and how numerous are the stars and planets.

Verse

God spoke: “Sky! In the middle of the waters: separate water from water!”

God made sky. He separated the water under the sky from the water above sky. And there it was: he named sky the Heavens:

It was evening, it was morning – Day Two.

Genesis 6-8, The Message

Explanation: Maybe the “waters” were the gaseous clouds that existed after the big bang and separating the waters from the sky was forming the gas into planets.

Big

Who has gone on a long plane flight? 10 hours? 20 hours? Remember how long it was. That is because the earth is really big. But the earth is small compared to the other planets. (Show the planet proportion)

Numerous

Sand
Pass out a tiny bit of sand and ask the kids to count the grains
Hold up a baggie of sand and ask how many are in there
Show pictures of beaches, ask how many in all the beaches in the worlds.
There are probably 7.5 billion billion grains of sand

Stars
Solar system
Galaxy: Ours has 100 millions stars, most have 400 million stars
Universe: 100 billion galaxies
But there are probably 100 stars in the universe for every grain of sand on earth (Show science book)

Bible Verse

“I’ll bless you – oh, how I’ll bless you! And I’ll make sure that your children flourish – like stars in the sky! like sand on the beaches!”

Genesis 22:17 The Message

Far

Earth 10 inches (size of basketball) moon is 4 inches (tennis ball). How far away is moon from earth? 25 feet. (Wrap a string around the basketball 9.5 times to measure the distance.)
Show how far the planets are on the pre-measured distances

Summary

God must be really powerful to create all this

Supplies

Basketball
Tennis ball
1” sticker for the sun, and tiny stickers for the planets
Measure out on the wall and then outside the locations of the planets in feet: 3, 6, 8, 13, 46, 85, 171, 269
Sand
Pictures of beaches

Craft Ideas

Cover a picture of the sky with colored grains of rice
Draw a scale model of the solar system
- Use three pieces of butcher paper, one for each table.
- On one, draw an arc with a 10 foot diameter (as much as can fit on the paper) that represents the Sun.
- On another, there could be outlines for Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars
- On the third, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. (Pluto was voted out as a planet last month by the International Astronomical Union.)
Have the kids work on it together and color the planets, draw in stars and comets, and decorate with stickers.

Scales

Size – Earth is 1 inch

Body	Size (in)	Orbit radius (ft)
Sun	120
Mercury	0.42	776
Venus	1.0	1074
Earth	1.1	1636
Mars	0.58	5590
Jupiter	12	10252
Saturn	10	20621
Uranus	4.0	32329
Neptune	3.9	42481

Distance – Sun is 1 inch

Body	Size (mm)	Orbit radius (ft)
Sun	25.4 (1 inch)
Mercury	0.005	3
Venus	0.2	6
Earth	0.2	8
Mars	0.1	13
Jupiter	2.5	46
Saturn	2.1	85
Uranus	0.8	171
Neptune	0.8	269

Day 3 - God Made the Land and Plants

On the third day, God separated the waters from land and called the land Earth. Today we are going to see how amazing the Earth is.

Lesson

Intro

Last week we learned about how many stars there are and how far away they are
This week, we are going to learn about how amazing the Earth is.
Let’s read what the Bible has to say about this

(Show picture of the Earth)

Verse

God spoke: “Separate! Water-beneath-Heaven, gather into one place: Land, appear!” And there it was.

God named the land Earth. He named the pooled water Ocean. God saw that it was good.

God spoke: “Earth, green up! Grow all varieties of seed-bearing plants. Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.” And there it was.

Earth produced green seed-bearing plans, all varieties. And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts. God saw that it was good.

It was evening, it was morning – Day Three.

Genesis 9-13, The Message

Now let’s read what science says about the formation of the Earth

(Read science book)

Probabilities

Does anyone know what “probability” is?
It is just like this spinner, explaining how long it would take to spin a 6
Who wants to try?

(Let several kids spin once and try to get a 6)

Okay, now we are going to try to get 6 sixes.

(Tape the spinner on the wall and let the child keep spinning to see if they can get 6 sixes. Have an adult mark down each one. Have them continue speaking while you go on. Once they get 6 sixes, say:)

Oh wait, I meant to get 6 sixes in a row. Try again.

Earth Probability

Remember on the first day when the Bible said that “God’s Spirit brooded like a bird above the watery abyss.” I think that He was preparing the Earth even way back to the beginning.
Let’s look at some of the things that make the Earth special

(Get out the globe. Ask a teacher to be at the board writing down a mark for each of the critical factors)

What are some of the things that make the Earth special, and make it possible for us to live here?

Temperature
Spinning speed (too slow and temperatures difference between night and day is too great, to fast and you get too many hurricanse)

(Get out the sun and let someone hold it)

Why is the sun important?

Too hot, or too close, and all water would evaporate
Too cold, or too far away, and all water would freeze
Needs to be stable. Many starts give off erratic radiation

(Get out the moon and let someone hold it)

Why is the moon important?

Stablizes the tilt of the Earth so we don’ wobble
Creates tides to cleanse seawater and move around nutrients
If too big or too small, wouldn’t do this.

Some scientist think that there are probably more than 40 of these important parameters that are important for making the Earth special and supporting life.

(Have the teacher add more marks to make it 40)

Each of these parameters is more than 1-to-6, many are more like 1-to-100!

(Draw a spinner on the board with many lines)

So we would have to spin the spinner 40 times and land on the same number each time!

(Reference: Hugh Ross, “The Creater and the Cosmos”)

Summary

The Earth is really a special place and everything had to happen just right in order to make it a good home for us.
So even though there are billions and billions of stars, God made this special planet just for us.

Supplies

Picture of the earth
Science book
Spinner
Globe
Tennis ball
Lamp

Craft Ideas

Print outlines of Earth with continents and let kids color it
Paper Plate Earth (from curriculum)

Day 4 - God Made Lights in the Sky

On the fourth day, God made the lights in the sky? How can that be when God created the Heavens on day two? Also, why does the Bible say that the Universe was created in 6 days when science says it took billions of years?

Lesson

Intro

Last week we learned how amazing the Earth is
This week, we are going to learn about how the lights came into the sky, how long it took to create the universe, and how many dimensions God exists in.

Verse

God spoke: “Lights! Come out! Shine in Heaven’s sky! Separate Day from Night. Mark seasons and days and years. Lights in Heaven’s sky to give light to Earth.”

And there it was.

God made two big lights, the larger to take charge of Day. The smaller to be in charge of Night: and he made the stars. God placed them in heavenly sky to light up Earth and oversee Day and Night, to separate light and dark.

God saw that it was good.

It was evening, it was morning – Day Four.

Lights Appear

Hey, wait a second, how can the sun, moon and stars appear on the fourth day when they were made earlier?
Remember from first verse that God’s spirit was on the Earth. So the story of creation is from the view of the earth.
But when the Earth was first formed, it likely was very cloudy and the stars couldn’t be seen from the Earth.
Let’s see what it was like

(Put a sheet over the kids. Have some helpers hold some stars and moon and sun. Have someone turn on and off the lights.)

Can you tell when the lights are on and off?
Can you see any stars?

(Take off the sheet)

Now can you see the stars?
That is what it was like that the stars were already created, but they couldn’t be seen from the Earth because it was too cloudy.

Creation 6 Days or 6 Yohms?

The Bible says the Universe was created in 6 days
But science tells us that the Universe is about 14 billions years old
Which is right?
Wait a second, I need to go get something while you think about the answer.

(Stand up, and walk over to the counter, pick up something and walk back)

Now, when I said “wait a second” did I really mean exactly one second?
No, I was using this to just mean wait a little bit
The word in Genesis for day is the Hebrew word “Yowm”. Can you say “yohm”?
Now yohm can mean a 24 hour day, but it can also mean a general period of time.

Joke

A man was talking to God and asked: “God, what is a million years to you? God replied: “But a second”.
The man then asked: “God, what is a million dollars to you?” God replied: “But a penny”.
Then the man got smart and asked: “God, can I have a penny?”
God replied: “In a second”

Bible

The Bible also has passages that suggest a day is not always a day:
“For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by” Psalm 90:4
“God’s days are not our days” Isaiah 55:9

Summary

So science and the Bible are both right, since “yohm” can mean an extended period of time.

Dimensionality

How many dimensions do we live in?
The answer is three.
What would it be like to live in a one dimensional world?

(Put some blue tape on the floor in a line. Put the jar on one end)

Okay, who wants to move this jar to the other end?

(Let someone move it to the other end, then another person move it back)

If we lived in a 1 dimensional world, we could only move back and forth along a line
What if it was a two dimensional world?

(Put a piece of blue tape perpendicular to the first. Let kids move it all over the floor, they don’t need to stay on the tape)

Okay, what about 3 dimensions?

(Move a chair over to the cross of the tape and put a piece of tape from the floor up to the chair. Let some kids move the jar up to the chair)

That was great. Now lets see what it would be like to live in a 4 dimensional world.

(Shake the jar really hard so the egg breaks)

Okay, who wants to move this jar back in time before the egg broke? Come on, it can’t be that hard, we moved it forward and back, sideways, and up and down. We should be able to move it back in time too, right?
We can’t, because we live in just 3 dimensions and don’t have control over 4 dimensions.

However, scientist have discovered that when the Universe was first created, there were 10 dimensions. Not just 3 but 10! But shortly after the big bang, the other dimensions curled in and hid so that we live in a world of only 3 dimensions
But this means that God lives in many more dimensions than we do. To Him, time is nothing. He can move forward and back in time, or make it slow or fast.
Even Jesus after he died and rose up, lived in more than 3 dimensions.
Let’s read a story about this:

The disciples were together with the doors lock and Jesus appeared. They thought they were seeing a ghost and were scared half to death. Jesus said “Why are you troubled? Look at my hands and my feet – it’s really me. Touch me. A ghost doesn’t have muscle and bone like this.”

So even though Jesus was real and not a ghost, he was able to get through a locked door. This is because He exists in more than 3 dimensions.
Let’s see how this woud work.

(Put up a barrier on the blue tape. Jump the jar over the barrier)

God exists in many dimensions
The great thing about this is that he can be with all of us, all the time.

Supplies

White sheet
Something that represents the stars, sun and moon that can be easily held by the teachers
Blue painters tape
Glass jar with lid
Egg

Craft Ideas

Print some general timelines. Have the kids do a timeline for their life marking important events. Then have them do another for the creation of the Universe.

Day 5 and 6 - God Made Animals and Man

Intro

Last week we learned how the lights came into the sky, how long it took to create the universe, and how many dimensions God exists in.
This week, we are going to learn about how what science knows about how life was created fits in with what the Bible says

Lesson – Evolution

Verse

God spoke: “Swarm, Ocean, with fish and all sea life! Birds, fly through the sky over Earth!”

God created the huge whales, all the swarm of life in the waters. And every kind and species of flying birds.

God saw that it was good.

God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Ocean! Birds, reproduce on Earth!”

It was evening, it was morning – Day Five.

God spoke: “Earth, generate life! Every sort and kind: cattle and reptiles and wild animals – all kinds.”

And there it was: wild animals of every kind, cattle of all kinds, every sort of reptile and bug.

God saw that it was good.

God spoke: “Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature so they can be responsible for the fish in the sea, the birds in the air, the cattle, and, yes, Earth itself, and every animal that moves on the face of Earth.”

God created human beings: he created them godlike, reflecting God’s nature. He created them male and female.

God blessed them: “Prosper! Reproduce! Fill Earth! Take charge! Be responsible for fish in the sea and birds in the air, for every living things that moves on the face of Earth.”

Then God said, “I’ve given you every sort of seed-bearing plant on Earth and every kind of fruit-bearing tree, given them to you for food. To all animals and all birds, everything that moves and breathes, I give whatever grows out of the ground for food.”

And there it was.

God looked over everything he had made: It was so good, so very good!

It was evening, it was morning – Day Six.

DNA

Science has learned a lot about life.
It has shown that the “instruction book” for life is is written in DNA
DNA uses 4 amino acids.
The human genome (instruction book) consists of 23 chromosomes, 25,000 genes and about 3 billion DNA base pairs
Even a simple bacteria has about 1 million base pairs

(Show picture of DNA)

Lego Entropy

Let’s pretend that DNA base pairs are like Legos
Has anyone put together a Lego car?

(Hold up Lego car)

Do you put it together carefully?
What happens if you throw it down?

(Throw it up, and let it fall an break into pieces)

Hmm, it breaks into pieces.
Well what if we threw down a lot of pieces and see what they built.
Who wants to try?

(Let kids throw Legos into a bucket, each time hold it up and show that nothing was built)

Hmm, this doesn’t seem to be working too well.
Maybe we just need to try longer.

(Let them try a few more times)

Why doesn’t this work?
Science says this is called “Entropy” which means that things always get messier rather than neater.
Doesn’t that make sense?

Lego Instructions

So how do we make something out of Legos?
We use an instruction manual

(Show lego instruction manual)

This one is pretty hard, it has 24 instructions.
Has anyone ever built a Lego car this hard?
Well what if instead of 24 instructions, it had 1 million instructions, like a bacteria has – would that be hard?
One million instructions would mean this book would be about 30 feet tall!
Well what if it has 3 billion instructions, like a human does? Would that be totally impossible?

Science Limitations

Well if you use only science to explain life, then life had to come about because all the DNA pairs just happened to get assembled in exactly the right order
But even science has a hard time explaining this. Even over billions of years with exactly the right conditions, there wouldn’t be enough time

(Show picture of spark in glass ball)

Scientists have been trying to create life for a long time using things similar to this.
This ball contains just the right gases scientists think are necessary to create life, and then the put a spark in it to try to get them to combine
But no protocells have been made.

(Read Wired excerpt)

Cambrian Explosions

Another thing science can’t explain is that during a period about 540 million years ago, there was an explosion of animal life.
This was called the “Cambrian” period
Not “explosion” like a firecracker, but explosion like a lot of new animals were first seen.

(Read from book about Cambrian puzzle)

Before that, there were mainly just plants on the Earth.
Science has a hard time explaining this, but the Bible doesn’t.
Remember in Day 3, God created plants?
And then in Day 5 God created animals?

Summary

We have seen how the Bible doesn’t include all of the details about the creation of the Universe and how life came about on the Earth.
We have also learned that science knows a lot of stuff, but doesn’t have all the answers either
But when you combine what is in the Bible with what science knows, it explains a lot.

Lesson – Messenger

What if you had a friend really far away, how would you contact them?
Maybe write a letter, or send an email or a picture
What if you thought there was someone living on another planet? How would you contact them?
What if there were other people outside our own solar system – how would they contact us?
Let’s see one idea about this

(Show clip from “2001” starting at 12 minutes)

This writer thought that maybe someone would contact us by sending this large, black slab that made noise.
What did God send to us?

(Hold up picture of Jesus)

God sent his only Son.
Does that show that He loves us?

Summary

We have seen how big, and old, and powerful God is and how we created this huge, gigantic Universe.
So isn’t it easy to wonder sometimes if he really cares about small, little us in this tiny part of His Universe?
But we know He cares because He sent his only Son to us.
Let’s pray

Beginning of the Universe

Dark Ages

Known as the Dark Ages of the universe, it’s the 200 million-year period (more or less) after the last flash of light from the Big Bang faded and the first blush of sun-like stars began to appear. What happened during the Dark Ages set the stage for the cosmos we see today, with its billions of magnificent galaxies and everything that they contain – the shimmering gas clouds, the fiery stars, the tiny planets, the mammoth black holes.

When the Dark Ages began, the cosmos was a formless sea of particles; by the time it ended, just a couple hundred million years later, the universe was alight with young stars gathered into nascent galaxies. It was during the Dark Ages that the chemical elements we know so well – carbon, oxygen, nitrogen and most of the rest – were first forged out of primordial hydrogen and helium. And it was during this time that the great structures of the modern universe – superclusters of thousands of galaxies stretching across millions of light-years – began to assemble.

From: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376229-2,00.html

Flash of Light

The first of those hints comes from the universe-wide flash of light that followed nearly half a million years after the Big Bang. Before that flash occurred, according to the widely accepted “standard model” of cosmology, our entire cosmos had swelled from a space smaller than an atom to something 100 billion miles across. It was then a seething maelstrom of matter so hot that subatomic particles trying to form into atoms would have been blasted apart instantly and so dense that light couldn’t have traveled more than a short distance before being absorbed. If you could somehow live long enough to look around in such conditions, you would see nothing but brilliant light in all directions.

But as the universe expanded, it finally cooled down enough to allow atoms to form and light to shine out across open space. The accidental discovery of that light back in the 1960s convinced astronomers that the Big Bang was a real event, not just a theoretical construct.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1376229-2,00.html

Stephen Hawking On How the Universe Began

How did the universe really begin? Most astronomers would say that the debate is now over: The universe started with a giant explosion, called the Big Bang. The big-bang theory got its start with the observations by Edwin Hubble that showed the universe to be expanding. If you imagine the history of the universe as a long-running movie, what happens when you show the movie in reverse? All the galaxies would move closer and closer together, until eventually they all get crushed together into one massive yet tiny sphere. It was just this sort of thinking that led to the concept of the Big Bang.

The Big Bang marks the instant at which the universe began, when space and time came into existence and all the matter in the cosmos started to expand. Amazingly, theorists have deduced the history of the universe dating back to just 10-43 second (10 million trillion trillion trillionths of a second) after the Big Bang. Before this time all four fundamental forcesÃ¯Â¿Â½gravity, electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forcesÃ¯Â¿Â½were unified, but physicists have yet to develop a workable theory that can describe these conditions.

During the first second or so of the universe, protons, neutrons, and electronsÃ¯Â¿Â½the building blocks of atomsÃ¯Â¿Â½formed when photons collided and converted their energy into mass, and the four forces split into their separate identities. The temperature of the universe also cooled during this time, from about 1032 (100 million trillion trillion) degrees to 10 billion degrees. Approximately three minutes after the Big Bang, when the temperature fell to a cool one billion degrees, protons and neutrons combined to form the nuclei of a few heavier elements, most notably helium.

The next major step didnÃ¯Â¿Â½t take place until roughly 300,000 years after the Big Bang, when the universe had cooled to a not-quite comfortable 3000 degrees. At this temperature, electrons could combine with atomic nuclei to form neutral atoms. With no free electrons left to scatter photons of light, the universe became transparent to radiation. (It is this light that we see today as the cosmic background radiation.) Stars and galaxies began to form about one billion years following the Big Bang, and since then the universe has simply continued to grow larger and cooler, creating conditions conducive to life.

Three excellent reasons exist for believing in the big-bang theory. First, and most obvious, the universe is expanding. Second, the theory predicts that 25 percent of the total mass of the universe should be the helium that formed during the first few minutes, an amount that agrees with observations. Finally, and most convincing, is the presence of the cosmic background radiation. The big-bang theory predicted this remnant radiation, which now glows at a temperature just 3 degrees above absolute zero, well before radio astronomers chanced upon it.

From http://www.pbs.org/wnet/hawking/html/home.html

Hebrew Word for “Day”

Transliterated Word: Yowm
Original Word: ewy
Phonetic Spelling: yome

1. day, time, year

1. day (as opposed to night)
2. day (24 hour period)
      1. as defined by evening and morning in Genesis 1
      2. as a division of time 1b 
3. a working day, a day's journey
4. days, lifetime (pl.)
5. time, period (general)
6. year
7. temporal references
      1. today
      2. yesterday
      3. tomorrow

From: http://www.studylight.org/lex/heb/view.cgi?number=03117

Hugh Ross instead believes these days (translated from the Hebrew word yom) to be historic, distinct, and sequential, but not literally 24 hours in length nor equal in length.

From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_Ross_%28creationist%29

Book - Sleeping with the Devil

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 21:23:27 Z

Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude
by Robert Baer

Let's say the CIA had no inside contacts in Middle East terrorist organizations. Then if a book was written by a former CIA operative about this, it would say they didn't have inside agents. But now let's assume that the CIA did have people planted inside these groups. Then if the book was edited by the CIA, it would still say that they didn't have any inside agents because the CIA certainly wouldn't want the terrorist organizations to know that they did. So the fact that Robert Baer in "Sleeping with the Devil" laments about how little inside information they have on Middle East radical organizations doesn't really mean that that is the case. But given how little our country expected the Iraqi resistance after we "liberated" the county and how we had no clue about the 9/11 attacks, his testimony seems likely.

Baer goes into great detail on how Saudi Arabian money has permeated our government and causes us to overlook the abuses and corruption in that country in exchange for the continued flow of oil and financial support. But what is truly frightening about this book is his contention that the Saudi people hate their spoiled and corrupt ruling class and would like nothing better than to overthrow them. And if that happens, it would likely mean a curtailing of oil exports to the West which would cause devastating economic consequences for us.

Books

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:52:08 Z

Books

I have been a avid reader my whole life. In high school, I enjoyed re-reading Shakespeare over the summer. Geeky, I know. Lately I have been reading a lot of non-fiction books and blogs in particular those that deal with global warming, peak oil and resource wars and Christian history.

Here is what I have been reading lately. (The links on the left are books I have read in the past that I have particularly enjoyed.)

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Book - Resource Wars

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:48:47 Z

Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict
by Michael T. Klare
Read March 2008

In looking at the classes offered at Stanfords Continuing Education program this quarter, one caught my eye in particular. It was Resource Wars taught by Barry Schutz. This interested me since I have predicted that trouble will soon explode in Saudi Arabia and we will be forced to send in our military to assure our supply of oil - a war over oil resources. One of the books in the class curriculum was "Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict" by Michael T. Klare. The most intriguing part of this book was that Klare brought up other resources besides that have caused conflicts in the past and will likely continue to be problematic, including water, shipping routes, timber and gems. He also makes a strong argument that many local conflicts that outwardly seem to be about political or ethnic issues, in reality the fighting is usually about control and exploitation of natural resources. Overall, a very informative read. A drawback to this book, however, is that it was published in 2001 and thus is a little dated. For instance, there is an entire chapter on the Caspian Sea Basin assuming that there would be prodigious oil fields and fights over control of it, but the oil there never materialized and it has largely been abandoned. Also, it was written before the Iraq war, and I would love to get Klare's take on that. I guess we will just have to wait for his next book which should be out next month.

Book-Twilight in the Desert

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:47:35 Z

Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy
by Matthew R. Simmons

Amazingly, this book wasn't boring. Although it was focused on analyzing and interpreting more than two hundred Society for Petroleum Engineers (SPE) reports, it actually was quite interesting. Now of course, peak oil is a subject I am very interested in and having a physics background I also enjoyed the technical parts, but I suspect that other people will enjoy it too. But if you don't want to read the whole thing, it is easy to summarize Matthew Simmons conclusions:

Only a handful of super-giant oilfields have ever been discovered in Saudi Arabia and these account for the bulk of their oil production
It is not likely that any other giant oilfields will be discovered in Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia production has probably peaked and it is very unlikely that it will be able to boost its output to the levels needed to sustain current global oil consumption growth rates

Simmons analysis is tight, detailed and hard to refute. However, his call for Aramco to reverse course and open their data for public review is shortsighted. Alerting the world to the fact their their oil production is declining will have only negative consequences for them including:

Accelerating the global movement towards alternative energy sources
Encouraging investment and re-build of other marginal fields
The possibility of inciting rebellion in the Arab population against the Saud ruling family in order to control the dwindling oil supplies

So don't expect any openness from the Saudis about their oil situation. Instead, get used to the idea that Simmons is probably right and that we will run into major oil problems sometime soon.

Religious Books

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:39:46 Z

Religious

While I enjoy studying the Bible directly, for the past few years I have felt as if no matter how much I read the Bible, I am missing something. So I have started delving into more background information including how the Bible came to be, as well as the history and alternate writings from that era.

The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?
by Peter J. Gomes
Read Jan 2008

Gomes comes at you not like a punch, but more like a gentle push. He doesn't write in sound-bites or hysterics, instead he offers reasonable, thoughtful ideas. So what is so good about the Good News? In summing up why he wrote this book, Gomes says: "If we read what Jesus says and sees what he has done, we must be convinced that the status quo, ancient or contemporary, is still not where he would have us be." (Page 241). This is not a book that those comfortable with the Christian status quo will be comfortable with. As he says: "Most people do not go to church to be confronted with the gap between what they believe and practice, and what their faith teaches and requires." (Page 32) In particular, he laments over the demonization of homosexuality in the church: "In the Bible, Jesus has a great deal to say about divorce and nothing about homosexuality, yet most Bible preachers today avoid any serious discussion of Jesus' views on divorce, whereas homosexuality has become the most divisive subject in the church." (Page 179) This is an important book that points out many shortcomings of today's church and lays out a plan for its salvation, yet it is unlikely that those who need his message the most will have the inclination or courage to read this book.

The Historical Jesus: The Life of a Mediterranean Jewish Peasant
by John Dominic Crossan

Jesus: Uncovering the Life, Teachings, and Relevance of a Religious Revolutionary
by Marcus J. Borg

The Quest of the Historical Jesus
by Albert Schweitzer

The Challenge of Jesus: Rediscovering Who Jesus Was and Is
by N. T. Wright

The Historical Jesus in Context (Princeton Readings in Religions)
by Amy-Jill Levine

The New Testament and Other Early Christian Writings: A Reader
by Bart D. Ehrman

Jesus: Apocalyptic Prophet of the New Millennium
by Bart D. Ehrman

THE HISTORICAL JESUS A SCHOLARLY VIEW OF THE MAN AND HIS WORLD
by Gaalyah (EDITOR) Cornfeld

The Gospel of Judas
by Bart D. Ehrman

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why (Plus)
by Bart D. Ehrman

Peter, Paul, and Mary Magdalene: The Followers of Jesus in History and Legend
by Bart D. Ehrman

The Jesus Papers: Exposing the Greatest Cover-Up in History
by Michael Baigent

Aramaic Light on the Gospel of Matthew
by George M. Lamsa

From Jesus to Christianity: How Four Generations of Visionaries & Storytellers Created the New Testament and Christian Faith
by L. Michael White

What Jesus Meant
by Garry Wills

What Paul Meant
by Garry Wills

Why So Many Gods?
by Nelson Reference

Searching for God Knows What
by Donald Miller

Reaching for the Invisible God
by Philip Yancey

The Scandalous Gospel of Jesus: What's So Good About the Good News?
by Peter J. Gomes

Non Fiction Books

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:34:07 Z

Non Fiction

Here are the non fiction books I have read that don’t fall into one of the other categories.

Crude: The Story of Oil
by Sonia Shah
Read March 2008

Lately, I have been reading a lot more non-fiction than fiction. While I enjoy a good fictional story, there is a lot of mediocre fiction out there and not much that I consider worthwhile. So I concentrate on non-fiction because then I can learn something.

However, some non-fiction books veer over into the fiction, especially when the author is trying to make a point. This happens in "Crude: The Story of Oil" by Sonia Shah. This is an interesting and informative book and includes a lot of information with a ton of references. However, Shah often veers into tirades against oil that read more like fiction than fact.

In "The Curse of Crude" chapter, Shah gives a description of how Shell basically raped the land and people after they discovered oil in the Niger Delta. Reading this, I was appalled. However, in the next chapter "Carbon Perils" she denigrates Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project (GCEP) and says it would "revolve around technofixes to enable decades of continued oil drilling." I am familiar with GCEP and just attended their five-year progress seminar. They are working on many different projects and are spending 40% of their funds on renewable energy, 17% on batteries and fuel cells and 11% on hydrogen - all projects that will reduce dependence on oil. Maybe Shah is objecting to the 17% GCEP spends on CO2 capture and storage, 9% on advanced combustion and 3% on advanced coal. However, even these last are worthwhile projects and could hardly be considered "technofixes to enable continued drilling."

For me, this one inaccurate tirade is the peephole that casts doubt over the accuracy of all her other editorial statements about the evil of oil companies and oil production. Nonetheless, this is a worthwhile book and provides a lot of good information about oil and the oil industry.

Shattered Consensus: The True State of Global Warming
by Patrick J. Michaels
Read March 2008

It is amazing how much vitriol is directed at those that ask questions about climate change instead of blindly accepting the party line. Some say that climate denial is “in a similar moral category to Holocaust denial” others the "there is a case for making climate change denial an offense — it is a crime against humanity after all." Even the top scientist of the IPCC said: “Where is the difference between Lomborg’s view on humans and Hitler’s?" But the problem is when you look more closely at the science of climate change, you discover there really is not much certainty at all.

This is made clear in "Shattered Consensus" which is a collection of papers edited by Patrick Michaels. The book starts out with Ross McKitrick's discussion of the problems in Mann's "Hockey Stick" climate index, which is a very interesting read since the Mann climate graph was used extensively throughout the TAR but is deeply flawed.

Robert Davis's paper on "Climate Change and Human Health" showed how in recent years, heat deaths have gone down in developed countries in large part due to more pervasive air-conditioning. This struck me as ironic since Kyoto would have us turn off our air-conditioners to reduce the amount of CO2 produced, but this would then increase the amount of heat deaths.

Posmentier and Soon in "Limitations of Computer Predictions of Carbon Dioxide Effects" found that "no reliable predictions currently exist for the response of clouds to increased atmosphere CO2", which is an extremely important factor since clouds have a much higher affect on climate than CO2. They note: "a 4 percent increase in the area of stratus clous over the globe could also potentially compensate for the estimated warming of a double atmosphereic CO2 concentration (Miles et al. 2000)." They conclude the book by noting "Our current lack of understanding of the earth's climate system does not allow us to determine reliably the magnitude of the climate change that will be caused by anthropogenic CO2 emissions."

In other words, there really is no consensus on global warming.

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
by Jared Diamond
Read December 2007

Jared Diamond doesn't like to take on small subjects. His first book, "Guns, Germs and Steel" discussed how civilization started. In this book, "Collapse", he discusses his theories on how some civilizations ended. As his previous book, it is an interesting and provocative read. Especially with all the global warming fears going on right now, this book provides some interesting case studies on how some civilizations were wiped out because of climate change and their inability to conserve their natural resources. Diamond certainly makes this link explicit in Part Four of the book "Practical Lessons". However, this is the weakest part of the book and it is just preaching to the choir since the case studies make these same points just as clearly. On the other hand, one probably undesirable conclusion that Diamonds well researched case studies also makes painfully clear is that dramatic climate change has been happening throughout man's history and that recognizing that climate change will continue to occur no matter what we do and that we need to be adaptable to survive it, belies many global warming advocates contention that it will be sufficient if we just reverse man's effects on the environment.

Storm World: Hurricanes, Politics, and the Battle Over Global Warming
by Chris Mooney
Read December 2007

It seems like most people have a very difficult time approaching the subject of global warming subjectively. Even reporters (maybe especially reporters!) can't seem to help bring in their own biases to subjects they write about. This is certainly the case with Chris Mooney in "Storm World." For instance, he often discounts groups that don't believe in global warming by saying they "took money from oil companies" as if this by itself negates everything these "tainted" groups believe. He also goes overboard in continually but politely ridiculing William Gray, a towering figure of hurricane science and staunch global warming denier. The problem with being biased of course is that we can't be really sure that the conclusions that are drawn are also not biased. Nonetheless, this is actually a very good book and provides an informative and entertaining take on the history, conflicts and politics of hurricane research. And Mooney does seem to try to provide a fairly balanced debate and give at least some mention to both sides of the debaute. So I am fairly confident that his overall conclusion that increasing sea temperatures are likely to cause more or more powerful hurricanes is probably accurate.

Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America's Energy Future
by Jeff Goodell
Read November 2007

Coal. That black, dirty substance that is likely to be both the saviour and bane of the world. It will be the saviour because there is lots of it, and once we start running out of cheap oil it will likely start powering more and more of the world. But it will also be our bane because it produce twice as much CO2 as natural gas and also emits a host of other toxins. In "Big Coal" by Jeff Goodell, coal is presented in the front jacked as a "devastating, century-long legacy that has claimed millions of lives and ravaged the environment", so at least we know up-front where he is coming from. The book had more anecedotal stories than real facts and science, but overall was an interesting read.

The Politically Incorrect Guide to Global Warming (and Environmentalism)
by Christopher C. Horner
Read November 2007

Ouch. Don't read this book unless you think that all people that believe in global warming are idiots, or you have a very, very thick skin. Unlike "Storm World" that was biased in a polite way, "The Politcally Incorrect Guide to Global Warming" pulls no punches and with the tenor of a right-wing radio talk show, launches into a barbed vendetta against environmentalist and global warming advocates. Which is too bad, because Christopher Horner actually makes some good points in this book and provides quite a bit of documented science.

For instance, after seeing "An Inconvenient Truth", I was curious about the temperature graph that showed stable temperatures for the last 1000 years and then a sudden spike in the last part of the 20th century. I couldn't find any information the science behind this on Climate Crisis or any other place I looked, but "The PIG Guide to Global Warming" tackled this head on and pointed out many of the problems of this reconstruction, in particular that it doesn't show the Medieval Warming Period or the Little Ice Age. Horner also discusses how there really is no "global" temperature and that the Southern Hemisphere has shown virtually now warming. He also mentions that in 1990 thousands of Russian temperature measuring stations closed, many of them in cold regions, which could skew temperature data.

So even though reading this book caused me to wince often, it did provide some interesting data that contradicts many global warming beliefs.

Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming
by Bjorn Lomborg
Read November 2007

Rating: SE (Safe for Environmentalist). Unlike many other books that take a contrarian view to global warming, "Cool It" doesn't bash environmentalist or global warming advocates. Actually, Bjorn Lomborg starts out from the position that "global warming is happening and the consequences are important and mostly negative." Where he diverges is in the next step of what we do about it. He believes that "Cutting CO2 -- even substantially -- will not much matter for the problems on this (global warming) list."

The title of the book "Cool It" has a double meaning in referring to both alleviating global warming, and also turning down the screaming and global warming and instead reclaiming sensible dialogue. He goes through many of the problems of global warming including polar bears, rising temperatures, melting glaciers, rising sea levels and provides reasonable scientific analysis of the severity of each of these problems, and also what the most cost effective way of dealing with them is.

For instance, he notes that even if we take the flawed study that we are losing 15 Hudson Bay polar bears each year due to global warming at face value, the easiest way to solve this problem is to reduce the number of permits for hunting bears which currently results in about 49 bears being shot each year. He also notes that global warming will result in more heat deaths, but it will also result in a much greater number of people not dying from the cold!

Overall this was a very interesting book with lots of rational science behind it and should be read by anyone that is interested in global warming and what we should do about it.

The Clinton Crack-Up: The Boy President's Life After the White House
by R. Emmett Tyrrell
Read: October 2007

The Elephant and the Dragon: The Rise of India and China and What It Means for All of Us
by Robyn Meredith
Read: October 2007

The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization
by Thomas Homer-Dixon
Read: September 2007

The Fabric of the Cosmos: Space, Time, and the Texture of Reality
by Brian Greene
Read: July 2007

Are you interested in how the universe started and where it will end up? Who isn't! So this is the book that will answer all your questions. From Higgs-Boson particles to string theory to the expansion of time-space, all the answers to your questions are here. And you don't need an advanced degree in astro-physics to get it. While the book at times delves into some fairly complicated principles, it never leaves the layman far behind. Definitely a recommended read for all so we can start having some more intelligent arguments about whether the Higgs particle really exists.

The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century
by Thomas L. Friedman

My brother-in-law, Shawn Singh, gave this book to my Dad to read. However, when I was up in Healdsburg in the Spring of 2006, I started reading it and became so engrossed that I couldn’t put it down. Much of the ideas in this book were obvious to me, having lived in Silicon Valley the last 15 years, but Friedman presented them in a clear and interesting way, and also drew some further conclusions that were not obvious.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking
by Malcolm Gladwell

The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference
by Malcolm Gladwell

The Long Tail: Why the Future of Business is Selling Less of More
by Chris Anderson

Freakonomics [Revised and Expanded]: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
by Steven D. Levitt

The Long Emergency: Surviving the End of Oil, Climate Change, and Other Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century
by James Howard Kunstler

The U.N. Exposed: How the United Nations Sabotages America's Security and Fails the World
by Eric Shawn

Book-Beyond Oil

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:29:37 Z

Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak
by Kenneth S. Deffeyes
Read May 2008

"Beyond Oil" was a quick and entertaining read. It would be a good backgrounder for someone that doesn't know much about peak oil, but I also learned quite a few new things as well. Deffeye's background as a geologist and working with Hubbert allowed him to provide some interesting details on Hubberts peak oil curve as well as details about how oil is produced, natural gas, coal tar sands, oil shale.

Books - Saudi Arabia and the Illusion of Security

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:29:13 Z

Saudi Arabia and the Illusion of Security (Adelphi Papers, 348)
by J.E. Peterson
Read May 2008

This is one of the books I read in order to write my paper on Saudi Arabia for my Resource Wars class. This was a book I got from the library, so instead of highlighting passages that I want to go back and reference, I use little yellow stickies instead. And this book had a lot of them when I was done, clearly showing how informative this book was. Here are some of the passages that I marked:

There is no greater source of permanent rancor between the two countries than the imbroglio of Palestine. The deep passions on the subject at all levels of Saudi society dictate that the Kingdom's fundamental support for the Palestinian cause will not diminish. The longer the present cycle of violence and hatred continues, the more it will poison US relations, not only with Saudi Arabia but with the entire Arab world and Middle East.

The regime must somehow come to terms with the sharpening tension between its dependence on the American relationship and popular discontent with American policies. In part, this seems to be the path the Prince Abdullah is following.

Far from opposing change and denying basic rights to its citizens, the government has promoted steady economic and social change - albeit at a measured pace, so as to keep a workable balance between traditionalists and modernists within the Kingdom.

Anecdotal evidence again suggests that most Saudis do no want a different political system; they just want the present system to be fairer and more responsive.

Book - Economic Development in Saudi Arabia

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:28:43 Z

Economic Development in Saudi Arabia (Routledgecurzon Durham Modern Middle East and Islamic World Series)
by Ahmed Al Rajhi
Read May 2008

Here is another book I read for my Resource Wars paper. Its main thesis is that while the Western media usually paints a gloomy picture of Saudi Arabia's economy, it is actually remarkably resilient and its government policy-making relatively robust. The book also makes an interesting point that while business time management is at odds with the need to pray five times a day and the segregation of women impedes efficiency (which makes the working day different from developed countries), the fact is that most of the work still gets done. I also found it interesting how how modern banking industry was able to emerge and adapt to Islamic finance constraints, such as the subject of paying interest.

Book - Zoom

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:26:19 Z

ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future
by Vijay Vaitheeswaran

I wanted to like this book - I really did. With a name like "Zoom" and the promise to show the car of the future, I was excited to read it. But in the end, the book turned out to be a dud. The authors went on and on about how great hydrogen powered cars would be and that there were ways of producing hydrogen for free using spare windmill and dam capacity, but they never even once talked about the efficiency of this process or how it would even be done. They gave a ton of useless background on the history of Detroit, but mentioned all-electric vehicles only briefly. These guys seem like they prefer sitting in their office typing away whatever comes into their heads rather than bothering to do any serious research to verify their assumptions. Some of their blunders include:

Restating without question Aramco's assumption that Saudi Arabia can "maintain an output of 15 million barrels per day or higher for 50 years" (Page 94) when Saudi Arabia is actually only producing 11 mbd and has even stated that this is likely to be the maximum they will ever produce.
Saying "Coal could prove a squeaky-clean source for that hydrogen" (Page 216) thinking that if the just sequestered the CO2 from coal it would be clean without realizing that coal is a major source of mercury, heavy metals, and radioactivity and there is currently no efficient way of cleaning up these un-clean emissions
Stating that one advantage that China has in developing sustainable transportation is: "the local and federal authorities have meaningful power to enforce green mandates." (Page 218) Have these guys even been to China? One look at the countryside will change their minds when they see truck weight limits being routinely flaunted which quickly destroy new roads or pollution belching small power plants in flagrant violation of emission standards.
Now the biggy: "In America, the two biggests obstacles to fuel-cell cars have been the lack of an infrastructure to supply hydrogen to gas stations and the burden of historic investment in internal-combustion vehicles." (Page 219) I could go on about how hydrogen is mainly produced using natural gas so it won't really reduce fossil fuel dependency, how inefficient the process is, how it leaks from tanks or how it won't power a car very far, but the fact that they don't make any mention at all of these issues is enough to discredit their work.

So while I really wanted to like this book, in the end I think it is more damaging to the future of clean cars then helpful and I would recommend that everyone NOT read this book.

Book - Radical Collaboration

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 15:25:53 Z

Radical Collaboration: Five Essential Skills to Overcome Defensiveness and Build Successful Relationships
by James W. Tamm

I am becoming more-and-more interested in organizational behavior. While some businesses are able to survive with dysfunctional teams and collaboration processes, to thrive and provide a truly fulfilling work environment, it is necessary to put a lot of effort into identifying and resolving personal and inter-personal issues. That is why when my surfing buddy, Janelle Tamm, mentioned that her dad James works in this area, I was very interested to learn more.

James Tamm's book "Radical Collaboration" packs in so much information and so many good ideas, that it is hard to summarize the main points I learned from it. So instead, I will just list the chapters so you can get a feel for what is covered:

Collaborative Intention: staying in the Green Zone and avoiding defensiveness
Truthfulness: including listening
Self-accountability
Self-awareness and awareness of others
Problem solving and negotiating

Probably the most interesting aspect of this book for me was that while I have studied and practiced negotiating techniques that focus on win-win outcomes, Radical Collaboration goes beyond that to teach techniques that not only make sure both sides get what they want, but also to do it in a way that builds up long term trust and understanding.

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God is Great

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Day 1 – God Made the Heavens and Earth

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Book - Sleeping with the Devil

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