The answer to life, the universe and everything IS actually 42

Our galaxy weighs three times 10 to the power of 42kg - a number written as 3 followed by 42 zeroes, which has echoes of author Douglas Adams's fictional answer to the question of life, the universe and everything in his series Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

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Computer science and theology

One thing that's interested me is the relationship between science and theology - I've got a number of books on the topic sitting on my shelves and today I got a copy of Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About from the library.

The book mentioned above was authored by Donald Knuth, and is basically a transcript of some lectures given on the relationship between computer science and technology. Knuth is a fairly well known guy in computer science and author of perhaps the best known volumes on computational algorithms. He's won a Turing award - generally considered the Nobel Prize of Computing, been awarded the National Medal of Science in the US, and according to one source had been awarded 18 honorary doctorates by 1995.

I know that Knuth came from some sort of Lutheran background, but I wanted to get a better idea of where he stood on things. From reading the first few pages of the book, it would appear that he fits definitely on the liberal side of the spectrum. Theologians that he quoted appear to by and large be people like Paul Tillich and Peter Gomes.

A few quotes:

Don gaves his opinion that the questions have no objective, universally valuable, and applicable answers; that everyone has to try to seek answers for themselves. From the feedback, I gathered that some people were disappointed. But the vast majority of people were excited. Against all of their prejudices, here was someone religious who did not claim to own the truth. Instead, Don invited his listeners to find their own path, of questioning and reasoning about themselves and all the rest. (from the foreword, p. ix)

The 3:16 project was a turning point in my life because it opened my eyes to what other scholars have written. I learned to appreciate the way that God is present in the lives of people from many cultures. I learned that there were deep connections between Christianity and other world religions. (p. 7/8)

I'm not the kind of person who explicitly emphasizes my Christianity and implicitly asserts that the people I meet had better believe in God the same way I do. (p. 11)

I think my faith was greatly shored up by the 3:16 project, because it survived the attacks of so many writers who hold diametrically opposite views. On the other hand the experience did weaken my faith in certain specific thigns, such as some of the stories of miracles that I was brought up with. At present I don't think those stories are necessarily true, although I still believe that they could have happened. My current attitude is that many specific details in the Bible might not be historical, because I know now about what can happen to manuscripts over long periods of time, and because I often find significant discrepancies in newspaper accounts of events that I have witnessed in person. (p. 15)

I was extremely happy two months ago when the Lutheran church voted to have full communion with the Episcopal church. ... I've become much more ecumenical in my approach and not specifically Lutheran. I'm also glad that the Lutherans and Catholics will be signing a so-called Concordat later this month in Augsburg, Germany, resolving the major differences that split the church in the sixteenth century. (p. 15)

Musicians in the church

Red Mountain musicians do not have to be Christians. We have said from the beginning that a vocalist must be a confessing Christian, but the musicians can come and play, whether they believe or not. It has been beautiful to invite musicians to play with us who have not been in a church for sometimes upwards of 20 years. (From Music at Red Mountain)

This is just one of the points on the Red Mountain (PCA) church's website. I know that Mark Driscoll's group in Seattle operates under a similar policy. What do you think of it? Do you think that all church musicians must be committed Christians? I'm not quite sure what to think of this policy.

The gift of gab?

Popular wisdom would have it that women are much chattier than men, speaking 20,000 words a day, vs. the average man's 7,000.

But a study being published Friday debunks that stereotype. Both men and women use about 16,000 words a day, says the new research, in Science magazine. ...

(From a USA Today article)

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