Greek is Evil, and The Return of the Sunday Roundup

Do you have any idea what this says? If you do not, don't worry, because NEITHER DO I.

Dear folks,

There is a reason for my prolonged absence from this blog: I have been studying Greek nonstop for the past couple of weeks.

Turns out that Greek is really, really hard.  So hard, in fact, that it makes me wonder why God would have chosen to have people write the New Testament in this squiggly, convoluted excuse for a language.  In fact, you kind of have to wonder: why would God/Yawheh/Allah choose to have God’s sacred texts written in ancient Hebrew, ancient Greek and ancient Arabic of ALL THINGS?!

Not cool, God.  Not cool.

Anyway, I’ll be back on the horse later this week.  In the meantime, take a moment to check out some things below:

1.) CNN Has a New Page -I like it, especially the “News Pulse” section, which seems like it might actually be useful and not gimicky.  Thoughts?

2.) I Love Infographics and Politics, So You KNOW I Love This Thing – it’s odd to see beliefs that people so fervently cling to broken down in simple, graphic form, but here it is anyway.  Indeed, the terms “Left” and “Right” are used so often these days that it’s sometimes hard to discern the concrete meaning behind the nebulous concepts that the terms evoke.  This image, however, explains things pretty well.  Oh, and it’s pretty, so I like it.

3.) Pure Cinematic Awesomeness – I worked on Barack Obama’s campaign, so obviously I’m pretty excited about this documentary.  It also helps that I know virtually everyone in it.

4.) The University of Chicago Breaks Down Religion, With Interesting Results – I apologize for the format of this article (it’s written for the iPhone, and I couldn’t find the web version), but it’s pretty fascinating stuff.  For me, the real interesting find is the rising number of people who say they believe in God yet don’t affiliate with one religious group or another.  There are a thousand different theories for what this means (are people distrustful of organized religion, distrustful of the tenets of organized religion, or do they just want to form their own opinions?), and it reminds me of Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a crazy-awesome German theologian who was put to death by the Nazi’s for his role in a plot to kill Hitler- yeah, the one in Valkaryie) and his concept of  ”Religionless Christianity.”  To him, the constructs of organized religion were simply no longer equipped to provide for a world that he believed had “come of age.”

…And that was written in 1945.

Also, apparently more people believe in an afterlife than they did in 1970.  Hrm…Are people concerned about their souls, perhaps?  I’d love to hear some different opinions on this one…

Anyway, in keeping with religion-related news stuff:

5.) The Catholic Church is Making it Easy for Disgruntled but Married Anglican Priests to Become Catholic Clergy – and Stay Married – Honestly, I only have a moderately informed comprehension of this debate because I have several Catholic friends here at the Divinity School who have kindly taken the time to explain the issue to my super-Protestant self.  Nevertheless, the article says a lot, and could have serious ramifications for the religious world in the coming years.  Interesting stuff.

6.) A Completely Inappropriate and Destructive Prank, But Hilarious Regardless – A comedy troupe pretended to speak on behalf of a government agency and dozens of reporters showed up.  Hilarity ensues.

That’s all for now.  I should be studying Greek, anyway…

Sunday Roundup

And you thought I’d miss it.  Silly you.

We’re going to do a special Sunday Roundup this week entitled…

An Ode to Infographics.

As you might have noticed, I love infographics.  I love them lots.  Why?  Well, because usually data – that is, statistics, estimations, and other fancy words for “numbers” – are usually represented by, you know, numbers.  And graphs.  And those evil, evil things called “spreadsheets” that trick you into thinking that if they put numbers in boxes that they somehow won’t break out and hurt your brain (they’re lying).  Numbers are – at least to “numerically impaired” people like myself – boring.  But graphics aren’t boring.  Graphics are pretty. And I, for reasons that defy logic, arbitrarily believe the crap out of any information that is put in pretty, simple, stylistic infographic form.  Don’t believe me?  Check out the following examples:

The Nuclear Holocaust Isn’t Really That Big of a Deal – Apparently, the human race lacks the nuclear arms necessarily to destroy all human life on the planet with one blinding flash.  In fact, we only have 0.83% of what would be required. Heck, even before the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty we only had 2.3% (which also, for the record, shows how impressively effective that treaty was).

All this Cold War “hide under your desk kids – it’s all going to end!” craziness for 2.3%?  Psh, I feel better already.

…Except that they didn’t really explain whether or not the Nuclear Winter brought on by that 0.83% would eventually kill us all anyway.  But that’s not in the infographic, so it must not be real.

To Power All of America via Solar Power, We’d Just Have to Get Rid Of Half of Utah –  Zero Carbon Emissions.  No harm to the environment.  Thousands of new jobs.  Well bust out your Ray Bans, baby, because I’m sure as heck convinced. Who needs Utah, anyway?

Cash for Clunkers Explained – You know, I follow politics pretty closely, but the cash for clunkers stuff just managed to slip by me.  But this graphic suddenly made me think about trading in my old 97 Honda Civic.  But then I didn’t, because the graphic told me to stop.  It’s very persuasive, that graphic.

And finally…

We Put Really Big Walls Around Our Money/Countries – Interesting take how wealth in the world is literally walled off from others.  Feel guilty?  Yeah, that’s the power of the infographic you’re feeling.  Just let it happen.

There.  Considered yourself educated.  Visually.