Podcasts

Two great podcasts from J. Warner Wallace of Please Convince Me

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J Warner Wallace and Please Convince Me
J Warner Wallace and Please Convince Me

Please Convince Me is my absolute favorite podcast. The host, J. Warner Wallace, is a cold case homicide detective. He has a real job! And he talks about Christian things like you might expect a detective to talk – everything is logic, case-making and evidence. Very cool.

Why Being Respected Is Better Than Being Liked

The MP3 file is here.

The most interesting segment starts at 8 minutes and ends at 21 minutes in.

Topics

  • humans have an innate desire to be liked and to fit in with their peers
  • there are times when our desire to do what is right will conflict with the desire to be liked and to fit in
  • 1 Peter talks about how Christian living in the world will often have these conflicts
  • Christians have a different standard and that creates conflicts with the surrounding culture
  • at times like this, it is important for us to be RESPECTED rather than LIKED
  • being a Christian conflicts with the goal of being popular
  • two ways for us to proceed: 1) agree with others, 2) be who you are and let others agree with you
  • James also says that there is a conflict between being friends with the world and friends with God
  • you cannot have both friendship with the world and friendship with God
  • even non-believers understand that there is a conflict between morality and the hedonistic culture\
  • courage is needed in order to resist the pressure to embrace the beliefs of others in order to be liked
  • courage is needed in order to point others to the truth so that they change to match what is true
  • politicians often change their positions in order to appeal to the culture
  • politicians seem to shy away from trying to argue through why others should accept their positions
  • we should seek to influence others by explaining why others should accept what we believe
  • we should have the courage to make the case for what we believe
  • even if people do not accept our beliefs, they will still respect the way we can make the case
  • they will respect our courage in being willing to prepare a case and make the case in public
  • they will respect that we have not formed our beliefs based on feelings
  • we need to get better at knowing more stuff and communicating that knowledge better
  • wanting to be popular is too easy
  • we should take the harder path and desire to be respected instead of liked

Other topics from listeners:

  • the interpretation of “thou shalt not kill” in the Bible
  • can a person still be a Christian if they are not doing works, like tithing or serving in the church?
  • theistic evolution and the presumption of naturalism in science

And here’s another good podcast – it’s on the same topic as the PCM post I linked before.

Stop Teaching Young Christians About Their Faith

The MP3 is here.

Topics:

  • our nation is becoming more and more secular
  • secularism makes it harder for us to defend our faith and values in public and influence the culture
  • why is secularism happening? it’s because young people are walking away from the faith
  • young Christians are leaving the faith in high school and college
  • this is where the real battleground is – and that’s where apologists need to focus
  • we need to be focused especially on junior high school and high school, and to a lesser degree college
  • it’s good that we have lots scholars working physics, philosophy and biology
  • but what we really need is ordinary Christians to get serious about apologetics and work on young people
  • some people believe that there is no great youth exodus problem: are they right to doubt the statistics
  • it’s undeniable that young people are inarticulate about their faith – that much is certain
  • what young people in church actually believ is not Christianity, but moralistic therapeutic deism
  • young people: life is about feeling good, being liked, and nice people of all religions are saved
  • young people think that there is so little substance to Christianity that it can’t even be discussed
  • the focus among young people today is not on true beliefs, but on being kinds to others
  • even in churches, there is higher respect for helping others than on having knowledge and evidence
  • instead of focusing on the worldview that grounds good works, the focus is on good works
  • young people have learned to minimize discussions about specifics of theology
  • teachers and college professors are hostile to public expressions of evangelical Christianity
  • television is also hostile and much less Christian than it used to be
  • even if young people come back to the church, they come back for the wrong reasons
  • the adults come back for tradition and comfort but they don’t really believe Christianity is true
  • they want to pick and choose what they believe based on what they like, like going to a buffet
  • they return to church when they have kids so that their kids will absorb values – but not truth
  • that’s what we have sitting in the pews: people who think Christianity is false, but “useful”
  • and that’s why so many christians are so liberal on social values (abortion, same-sex marriage)
  • they don’t really accept the Bible as authoritative, they pick and choose what they like and don’t like
  • if Christianity is taught as “useful” then they will dump it when they find something more “useful”
  • people who leave the church are exposed to Christianity, but it doesn’t stick
  • young people lose their faith before college, and then when they escape the nest, they act it out
  • the disconnecting from the faith occurs in high school, but it only becomes public after they leave home
  • young people are becoming more focused on redefining “the good life” with consumption and materialism
  • the typical experience of young adults involves alcohol use, drug use, and recreational sex
  • young people actually want more than niceness – they want real answers to serious questions
  • young people have doubts and questions, but no one in the church or home is equipped to answer them
  • adults have to be involved in the education of young people
  • parents who are engaged in teaching their children Christian truths see much better retention rates
  • we need to stop teaching people (one-way preaching) and start training them (two-way interactive)
  • when you give a young person a definite goal – a fight with a date certain – then they will be engaged
  • when people know that they will fail unless they can perform, then they will be more engaged in learning
  • church needs to be in the business of scheduling battles, and then training young people for the battles
  • there is no sense of urgency, risk and purpose in young people, so the teaching is not effective

I’m absolutely sure you will love these podcasts. Give them a listen! I’m pretty sure that he will put me in jail if you don’t listen to them. So, um… please do!

News

Do conservative policies or liberal policies cause outsourcing? The case of California

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Here’s an interesting article about a new paper published by the centrist Manhattan Institute about California, a state that is controlled from top to bottom by Democrats. Have the liberal economic policies of the Democrats caused a decrease or an increase in outsourcing?

Let’s see:

For decades after World War II, California was a destination for Americans in search of a better life. In many people’s minds, it was the state with more jobs, more space, more sunlight, and more opportunity. They voted with their feet, and California grew spectacularly (its population increased by 137 percent between 1960 and 2010). However, this golden age of migration into the state is over. For the past two decades, California has been sending more people to other American states than it receives from them. Since 1990, the state has lost nearly 3.4 million residents through this migration.

This study describes the great ongoing California exodus, using data from the Census, the Internal Revenue Service, the state’s Department of Finance, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Housing Finance Agency, and other sources. We map in detail where in California the migrants come from, and where they go when they leave the state. We then analyze the data to determine the likely causes of California’s decline and the lessons that its decline holds for other states.

The data show a pattern of movement over the past decade from California mainly to states in the western and southern U.S.: Texas, Nevada, and Arizona, in that order, are the top magnet states. Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Idaho, and Utah follow. Rounding out the top ten are two southern states: Georgia and South Carolina.

A finer-grained regional analysis reveals that the main current of migration out of California in the past decade has flowed eastward across the Colorado River, reversing the storied passages of the Dust Bowl era. Southern California had about 55 percent of the state’s population in 2000 but accounted for about 65 percent of the net out-migration in the decade that followed. More than 70 percent of the state’s net migration to Texas came from California’s south.

What has caused California’s transformation from a “pull in” to a “push out” state? The data have revealed several crucial drivers. One is chronic economic adversity (in most years, California unemployment is above the national average). Another is density: the Los Angeles and Orange County region now has a population density of 6,999.3 per square mile—well ahead of New York or Chicago. Dense coastal areas are a source of internal migration, as people seek more space in California’s interior, as well as migration to other states. A third factor is state and local governments’ constant fiscal instability, which sends at least two discouraging messages to businesses and individuals. One is that they cannot count on state and local governments to provide essential services—much less, tax breaks or other incentives. Second, chronically out-of-balance budgets can be seen as tax hikes waiting to happen.

The data also reveal the motives that drive individuals and businesses to leave California. One of these, of course, is work. States with low unemployment rates, such as Texas, are drawing people from California, whose rate is above the national average. Taxation also appears to be a factor, especially as it contributes to the business climate and, in turn, jobs. Most of the destination states favored by Californians have lower taxes. States that have gained the most at California’s expense are rated as having better business climates. The data suggest that many cost drivers—taxes, regulations, the high price of housing and commercial real estate, costly electricity, union power, and high labor costs—are prompting businesses to locate outside California, thus helping to drive the exodus.

Population change, along with the migration patterns that shape it, are important indicators of fiscal and political health. Migration choices reveal an important truth: some states understand how to get richer, while others seem to have lost the touch. California is a state in the latter group, but it can be put back on track. All it takes is the political will.

Also, California is absolutely dominated by corrupt public sector labor unions and teacher unions, who regularly interfere in elections to make sure that economic policy is very, very liberal.

What’s true of California is becoming true of the United States as a whole, under our socialist President Barack Obama. The more that Obama enacts left-wing economic policies that threaten job creators and investors with higher taxes and more burdensome regulations and wasteful spending and massive deficits, the more they will leave for other countries or expand to other countries. It turns out that the “greedy” businessmen and investors who advocate for lower taxes and less burdensome regulation are the real champions of low unemployment, economic growth and prosperity.

News

Romney won the presidential debate – according to left-wing MSNBC hosts

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From the left-wing Politico, no less.

Excerpt: (links removed)

Left-leaning commentators hit President Barack Obama hard on TV and the Internet after the first presidential debate in Denver on Wednesday night, saying GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney handily defeated his more experienced opponent.

MSNBC hosts were “stunned” by Obama’s performance, suggesting the president was rusty for not having debated in four years.

“I don’t think he explained himself very well on the economy. I think he was off his game. I was absolutely stunned tonight,” Ed Schultz said.

“Where was Obama tonight?” Chris Matthews asked.

Matthews said Romney addressed Obama “like the prey. He did it just right. I’m coming at an incumbent. I’ve got to beat him. You gotta beat the champ, and I’m gonna beat him tonight. And I don’t care what this guy moderator, whatever he thinks he is, because I’m going to ignore him. What was Romney doing? He was winning.”

“It does remind you that the last debate Mitt Romney had was seven months ago and the last debate that Barack Obama had was four years ago,” said Maddow.

The Daily Beast’s Andrew Sullivan called Obama “tired,” “bored” and wrote that he might have even lost the election.

“He choked. He lost. He may even have lost the election tonight,” Sullivan wrote, later adding, “Obama looked tired, even bored; he kept looking down; he had no crisp statements of passion or argument; he wasn’t there. He was entirely defensive, which may have been the strategy. But it was the wrong strategy. At the wrong moment.”

Sullivan, an Obama supporter, was even more vicious on Twitter, calling Obama’s performance “terrible” and “political malpractice.”

“This is a rolling calamity for Obama. He’s boring, abstract, and less human-seeming than Romney!” he wrote. “He’s throwing the debate away.”

Another Obama supporter, liberal comedian Bill Maher, went on a similar Twitter rant, firing off such comments as, “Obama made a lot of great points tonight. Unfortunately, most of them were for Romney.”

A post-debate CNN poll found that:

According to a CNN/ORC International survey conducted right after the debate, 67% of debate watchers questioned said that the Republican nominee won the faceoff, with one in four saying that President Barack Obama was victorious.

“No presidential candidate has topped 60% in that question since it was first asked in 1984,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland.

While nearly half of debate watchers said the showdown didn’t make them more likely to vote for either candidate, 35% said the debate made them more likely to vote for Romney while only 18% said the faceoff made them more likely to vote to re-elect the president.

More than six in ten said that president did worse than expected, with one in five saying that Obama performed better than expected. Compare that to the 82% who said that Romney performed better than expected. Only one in ten felt that the former Massachusetts governor performed worse than expected.

[…]The sample of debate-watchers in the poll was 37% Democratic and 33% Republican.

[…]Debate watchers thought Romney was more aggressive. Fifty-three percent said Romney spent more time attacking his opponent. Only three in ten thought Obama spent more time taking it to Romney. By a 58%-37% margin, debate watchers thought Romney appeared to be the stronger leader.

The problem with Obama is that he had four years to run the economy, and he ran it into the ground. You can’t defend failure like that by shifting blame and pointing fingers. He failed because his ideas are wrong. We need new ideas – a different approach. But that doesn’t explain why Obama performed so poorly. Obama performed poorly because he has been totally isolated from any disagreement or critical evaluation for the last 4 years. In his mind, it’s not just the private sector that’s fine. The unemployment rate is fine, the national debt is fine, the budget deficit is fine, the terrorist attack in Libya is fine, socialized health care is fine, poor education outcomes is fine, taxpayer-funded abortion is fine, Iran having nuclear weapons is fine, and gay marriage is fine. He just has complete and utter contempt for anyone who disagrees with him – he has been indoctrinated to think that anyone who disagrees with him is not just wrong, but evil. And maybe even that all disagreement with him is motivated by racism. He came across as a whiny, petulant child, because of his ideological rigidity and lack of humility.

The mask came off Wednesday night, and it was all Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers underneath. The media and the teleprompter could not protect him from his real self.