This may become a semi-regular feature on the blog. My school will remain nameless, to protect the innocent, but I am currently taking a few online classes from a major state university and from time to time I read something that stands out as either worth remembering or worth laughing at. I have three such items to record this week:

1. According to a 2007 Veronis Suhler Stevenson report on Annual Media Consumption the average American watches about 5 hours of television per day. According the same report the average American reads books for about 8 minutes a day.

2. According to my current science textbook the earth is approximately 4.7 billion years old, though its origin is ‘incompletely understood,’ and Global Warming is a scientific fact.
I’m not so bold as to claim that I know, or even have a clue about, the age of the earth. I will not speculate where God has not spoken clearly. And so it amazes me the presumptions that science can make in some instances. And they think we’re the religious dogmatists going on blind faith. I know people will argue with me about this till they’re blue in the face, but I struggle with the idea that you can have ‘observable data’ proving such an age of the earth without giant leaps in your reasoning (i.e. faith). I have no opinion on global warming, that’s way above my pay-grade,  but it seems the idea that it is a ‘scientific fact’ is a bit disputed these days. Our textbook speaks it as if it were indisputable brute fact.

3. Another one from my Mass Media class: In discussions about diffusion of innovation I admitted myself to be a horrible laggard as far as new technology is concerned. I don’t even have a smart phone. I might as well be Amish by today’s standards.
In defense of myself, I mentioned the practically enslaving qualities these phones seem to possess over their users, who seem to be glued to them most of the time. I also mentioned that I am busy enough in my life that I like having times when people can’t text message me, and when I can just work or spend time with my wife and children without interruptions.
I actually got a good bit of positive feedback believe it or not – mostly of the ‘I admire you, but I just can’t go back’ kind – people missing those ‘simpler’ times. One quote is worth remembering. Someone said to me, ‘There are times when I feel like running away from my phone, but without my phone I can’t tell directions.’ That’s an eloquent way of putting it. I may expand upon this a bit in the near future.

• Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible.

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