Saturday Selections - Sept 7, 2019
Is college worth it? (5 min)
If you want to be a nurse or architect, college is vital. But if you don't know why you're going – if you're not going in with a plan – then this fellow below argues that it isn't a good investment of your time or money. The dollar figures are US, but on both sides of the border, the investment of time is always considerable.
If the link above and the video below are about why not to go (or why to wait) here's a link to help make it possible. There should be something to help everyone here: 68 ways to save money in college
Facebook experimenting with removing "Like" counts?
The social media giant shared that it has been experimenting with removing Like counts on Instagram posts and is considering it for Facebook too.
Gun violence: Prov. 18:17 and the other sides to the story...
Mass shootings south of the border fill the news, and each time one happens there are calls to ban guns. Most of those proposed bans are directed at military-looking rifles, but as the Daily Wire's Ryan Saavedra noted this past week, the number of homocides by rifle is comparatively low. What he shares below are the average number of deaths per day in US caused by:
Abortion: 2,408
Heart disease: 1,773
Cancer: 1,641
Medical error: 685
Accidents: 401
Stroke: 401
Alzheimer's: 332
Diabetes: 228
Flu: 150
Suicide: 128
Opioids: 115
Drunk driving: 28
Underage drinking: 11
Teen texting-and-driving: 8
All Rifles: 1
This additional information is in keeping with Prov. 18:17, where we learn that to discern the Truth it helps to hear the two sides questioning each other. So, still in keeping with this verse, it's worth noting that Saavedra didn't share the overall number of gun-related deaths per day – those that involve not just rifles, but handguns and other guns as well – which gives us a considerably higher number: 30 per day. That's comparable to drunk-driving (though far less than abortion) so if gun bans could lower those numbers, shouldn't we try? Well, to go all Prov.18:17 again, another important side of this discussion is to consider how effective previous gun control legislation has been (can the gov't even do what it is attempting to do?), and how often do people use guns to defend themselves (how many lives are saved by guns)? When trying to track down those numbers Prov. 18:17 needs to be our guide once again because the different sides of this debate provide very different numbers that have to be questioned to get any sort of understanding of them.
Female soccer player says she could definitely play in the NFL. No, she could not.
Just because your three-year-old knows it doesn't mean adults don't need to hear the Truth stated clearly. Matt Walsh helps out here by explaining women cannot play football at the NFL level for the it-should-have-been-obvious reason that men and women are different.
Faithfulness is not theologically complicated (10 minute read)
Confused Christians don't know what to think about abortion, marriage, gender, homosexuality, and Jesus' exclusive claims because they aren't looking to Scripture. But, as Greg Koukl shares here, in His Word God is very clear on all these issues.
Is sex assigned at birth? – what would you say? (4 min)
The Colson Center is a conservative Judeo-Christian think tank (with some Reformed influences to it) that's probably best known for their daily audio Breakpoint commentaries on 1,200 radio stations across North America. Now they're expanding into video, with short "PragerU" type videos tackling controversial issues under the theme: "What would you say?". So far they have three videos, with this one tackling the topic of gender fluidity.
As good as this video is, it would best be characterized as a secular presentation because God is never mentioned, which is a strange omission for a professedly Christian think tank. So watch the video, but when you share it be sure to add what they missed: that even when the activists, celebrities, politicians, and scientists are confused, we can turn to God's Word for the unchanging Truth. And when it comes to gender, the Truth is God made us male and female (Gen. 1:27).
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