I was reading about Bill Gates’ speech to the Northern Virginia Technology Council last week, which received a lot of media coverage (PDF transcript here). In the speech about software innovation, Gates “speculated that some of the most important advances e in the ways people interact puters: speech-recognition technology, tablets that will recognize handwriting and touch-screen surfaces that will integrate a wide variety of information.” “I don’t see anything that will stop the rapid advance,” Gates said. I appreciate the...

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Rep. Peter Hoekstra discusses the impending release of Fitna, a short film highly critical of Islam, by Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament. Hoekstra: Radical jihadists are prepared to use violence against individuals to stop them from exercising their free speech rights. In some countries, converting a Muslim to another faith is a crime punishable by death. While Muslim clerics are free to preach and proselytize in the West, some Muslim nations severely...

Ben Stein’s new movie Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is creating a few waves in the Evolution vs. Intelligent Design debate. He presents it as, “a controversial, soon-to-be-released documentary that chronicles my confrontation with the widespread suppression and entrenched discrimination that is spreading in our institutions, laboratories and most importantly, in our classrooms, and that is doing irreparable harm to some of the world’s top scientists, educators, and thinkers.” It is not surprising to find Richard Dawkins interviewed in the film,...

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here; he has risen!” – Luke 24:5b,6a The Lord Jesus Christ makes all things new. He is the alpha and the omega, the beginning and the end, and his glory knows no end. Isaiah says in his 65th Chapter, “Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will e to mind.” Christians understand everything is summed up...

One of the most frustrating things about politics is the use of simplistic labels to categorize political beliefs-in particular, the terms “conservative” and “liberal.” Instead of a “left-right” political spectrum, Libertarians are quick to note that people embrace various degrees of freedom (or government) in two separate realms: economic markets and personal or social behaviors. A popular and useful “two-dimensional” quiz along these lines is available at www.theadvocates.org/quiz. A two-dimensional quiz results in four categories. Conservatives are described as those...

It’s election time in Italy, with voting scheduled for April 13 and 14 to select a new parliament and government. With the center of the Roman Catholic Church located within the Italian republic and historic tensions between the Church and State in Italy, it is worth asking how Italian pastors address public issues in this notoriously political country. On March 18 the Secretary of the Italian Episcopal Conference (CEI), Giuseppe Bertori stated that the Church does “not express any involvement...

If it be all for nought, for nothingness At last, why does God make the world so fair? Why spill this golden splendor out across The western hills, and light the silver lamp Of eve? Why give me eyes to see, the soul To love so strong and deep? Then, with a pang This brightness stabs me through, and wakes within Rebellious voice to cry against all death? Why set this hunger for eternity To gnaw my heartstrings through, if...

Edward C. Green and Allison Herling Ruark of the Harvard Center for Population and Development Studies cut through the nonsense and offer clear thinking on AIDS in Africa. Their article in the April issue of First Things more specifically criticizes a recent report on faith-based organizations and AIDS emerging from the Berkley Center at Georgetown University. Green and Ruark take pains to be respectful and deferential toward the Georgetown researchers, even where the egregious errors of the latter might have...

In the Catholic Church, the Easter Vigil liturgy is usually the ceremony during which catechumens (non-Christians) and candidates (non-Catholic Christians) are respectively baptized and received into the Church. In Rome this Easter there was a particularly noteworthy baptism, presided over by Pope Benedict. Magdi Allam is an Italian journalist who converted from Islam to Christianity. Instead of taking mon route of doing so as inconspicuously as possible—an approach that is perfectly reasonable given the risks entailed by such a move—Allam...

“Private charities do demanding and heroic work for vulnerable people. We seek to reward their good work with prizes and publicity.” The Samaritan Guide Web site has been revamped and we’d love for you to stop by and check it out. The Guide is an online database of charities that accept little or no government funding and that serve vulnerable human populations. The Guide focuses on es and personal transformation, how religious and moral principles are implemented, and funding sources...