Links to Your World, Tuesday August 25

Watch Your Mouth: “I am trying to wait a few seconds before answering a question—attempting thus to eliminate all exaggeration, half-truths, flattery, faithless comments, and other worthless forms of speech. The early results have been ecstatic foretastes. The payoff of taming the tongue turns out to be more broad, deep, and wide than expected. I thought I was just changing one thing, but I discovered I was changing everything” (Andree Seu, World)


How do you know when your social drinking habits have crossed the line into what experts refer to as "at risk" drinking? (NYT)


This Boundless article reminds us that atheism in the world of science is more about the hostility of scientists than the evidence of science. In other words, unbelief among scientists reveals the flawed ego and peer pressure that all of us face—indeed, scientists may have a greater weakness in these areas than others.


So True: Report: 90% Of Waking Hours Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles


Fascinating: “Accounts of experiencing a supportive presence in extreme situations—sometimes called the "third-man phenomenon"—are common in mountaineering ­literature. In 1933, Frank Smythe made it to within a 1,000 feet of the summit of Mount Everest before turning around. On the way down, he stopped to eat a mint cake, cutting it in half to share with someone who wasn't there but who had seemed to be his partner all day. Again on Nanga Parbat, on a 1970 climb during which his brother died, Reinhold Messner recalled being accompanied by a companion who offered wordless comfort and encouragement.” (WSJ)


Another Dispatch from the Religion of Peace: “He should be killed by authorities.” So says Abdul Aziz Zakareya, a cleric and former professor at Al Azhar University, regarding Maher El Gohary, who converted from Islam to Christianity. (LA Times)


According to studies reported in the NYT, stress can re-wire the brain so you become less creative and more likely to fall into repetitive routines regardless of how productive they are. The good news: the brain can return to creativity when you rest and renew.


“Forgiveness is the f-word for the evangelical community. It's not that victims are against forgiveness. Victims are against forgiveness as the solution to the problem.” (An adult victim of a mission school where teachers physically and sexually abused the children in their care, in the documentary All God’s Children. CT’s review here.)


“As more and more people carry out their lives online, and as older generations make the digital move, there's less being stored away in dusty attics for loved ones to discover and hang onto. Letters have become e-mails; diaries have morphed into blogs; photo albums have turned virtual and come with tags. The pieces of our lives we put online can feel as eternal as the Internet itself, but how much of our virtual identity actually lives on after we die?” (Time)


“A growing number of people want to celebrate a loved one's life at a funeral or memorial service without clergy — sometimes even without God…. ‘Today, of all the ceremonies we deal with, I'd say 50% are religious or clergy-led, 20% celebrant-led and 30% are having no ceremony or one led by family,’ says [William] McQueen [President of Anderson-McQueen Funeral & Cremation Centers in the St. Petersburg, Fla., area]…. More than one in four U.S. adults (27%) say that when they die, they don't expect to have a religious service, according to a national survey of 6,000 people.” (USA Today)


“There's a growing cottage industry of experts who contend that sending kids off into the great wide open deserves at least as much attention as preparing to have them in the first place. Community centers and churches around the country are tuning in to the problem and hosting seminars in which parents try to reignite their relationship and figure out how to move forward as a twosome. Marriage therapists Claudia and David Arp call this stage the second half of marriage” (Time).


Fellow Austin pastor, Jonathan Dodson, is the author of Fight Clubs, a book to promote small-group support for our fight against the things that hold us back spiritually. Click here to read it online, download the PDF for free, or purchase a copy.


According to Charles Krauthammer, some people are being irresponsible to claim that any of the various health-care proposals advocate “death panels,” yet other people are being disingenuous to claim that the proposals won’t end up nudging people to go gently into that good night.