Time Immortal

So I’m sure that most people have noticed that the site has been offline for a few days. There’s a reason for that, which I will get to shortly. But first, let me just say this:

In fact, I am blogging at a new site I have just finished setting up: kennethhynek.net. A full explanation for the reasons behind the move can be found here.

That said, this is not the end of Time Immortal. My wife Grace has expressed interest in taking over blogging at this domain, and I am working to make sure that she gets set up here as soon as possible.

Also, my profound apologies for the modification to the site face; the move was not as seamless as I would have hoped, and many of the image files for this theme, and in the gallery, were corrupted during the course of their evacuation from my previous web host’s servers. Until such time as I have repaired them, I’ve put a clean-looking template in place of the previous one.

Mayan Spicy Chocolate coffee is also lies.

It’s certainly cold enough; where’s the snow?

Website seems to be down again, which sometimes happens when I write about BSG. Time to find a new webhost, methinks.

Although I’m thankful for glass windows in skyscraper offices, I have to admit that sometimes they interfere with what would otherwise be an awesome shot. Especially since the windows in the office that I was shooting this picture from happen to be tinted anyhow (which is a pain to adjust for in Lightroom). That said, a sunset is a sunset, and this one was too good to pass up.

The HDR shot worked, mostly, but I had to add some lens flare in Photoshop to correct for the ugly lens flare added by the lens I was using at the time. Grrrr.

Yeah, yeah, it’s an old joke. Here’s a new twist on it:

Also a good sendup of Keanu Reeves‘ acting in that movie.

I seem to be doing panoramic photos lately. And it helps that there have been a few photo-worthy sunsets of late, I suppose.

This particular picture was composed from a 3-by-3 grid of photos, assembled in Autopano (Curse your precision, program! I will find your weakness yet!) and then cropped and adjusted in Lightroom. I tried to bring out the buildings in the foreground as much as was possible, although this the results definitely fall short of what one could potentially achieve with HDR. I’m just not ready to try HDR in a panoramic photo yet.

My former professor, Denis O. Lamoureux, offers up his thoughts in a discussion of a recent paper by one George Murphy: Roads to Paradise and Perdition: Christ, Evolution, and Original Sin.

I basically agree with George, but I wish he had been more forceful. Gen 1-2 is an ancient origins account. Typical of these in the ancient world, origins is De Novo (quick and complete). The ancients saw a cow give birth to a cow, give birth to a cow, etc; and they logically extended this phenomenological experience to an original cow [termed "retrojection" It's what we do in geology]. Similarly, a human gives birth to a human, who gives birth to a human, etc, Ergo, who is Adam? Ancient science. He never existed.

Therefore, if Adam never existed, then he never sinned. And if he never sinned, then his sin was never passed down to us from him. End of story.

So what’s happening? The Holy Spirit is accommodating. NOT LYING, BUT ACCOMMODATING. Therefore, don’t go to Gen 1-3 to find out how the world was created, or how human history began — it’s not there.

What we must do is separate (not conflate as most through history and today have done) the Holy Spirit inspired Message of faith (inerrant & infallible) from the INCIDENTAL ancient origins science (the science-of-the-day). In the case of Gen 1-3, Adam is an ancient vessel that transports the spiritual Truths: humans are created in the Image of God, humans are sinful, and God judges us for our sins. Worrying about where Adam fits in the paleontological record makes about as much sense as trying to figure out where in the firmament NASA sends its spacecraft.

There’s more than just what I’ve excerpted, but I’ve always thought that this hermeneutical analysis of Denis’ has always been the important starting point for dialogues with those who take an anti-evolutionary, hyper-literalist interpretation of the Bible, especially concerning the Book of Genesis and Adam and Eve.

At any rate, read the whole thing, good Reader. And maybe check out some of the other articles in the ongoing dialogue as well.

Hmmn…that’s twice today I’ve found a reason to link to Denis’ new book on Amazon.com.