Beauty and the Ugly

First, the beauty. I must thank my friends Mark and Frank for showing me a video of two lovely young ladies in their late adolescence denouncing the truth of the Bible. Sadly, embedding has been disabled for this particular video. So, instead, click this link.

Now, aside from the girls being obviously facetious about the subject material with their silly grins and banter, I can't help but find fault in the video. I nearly died of a heart attack when the brunette, Jessica, showed a close-up of the Holt Physics textbook by Ray Serway and Jerry Faughn. Now, do not get me wrong. I appreciate the work of Serway and Faughn, but the particular edition of Holt Physics held up to the camera should not be labeled as 'truth'. Actually, in my personal opinion, Holt Physics is one of the blandest introductory textbooks for physics. I personally approve of either Cutnell and Johnson's Physics or Halliday, Resnick, and Walker's Fundamentals of Physics. Obviously, the latter is the most prominent text to choose from for an introductory course as it requires foreknowledge in calculus, but for those lacking in such a toolkit would find satisfaction with Cutnell and Johnson.

Now, if I had to choose one book to label as 'truth', I think it would be a toss up between the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics or the Merck Index. However, it is simply too hard to indicate one book as 'truth'. Truth encompasses many topics of concern, from anthropology to zoology. I guess one ought to go through the entire list of subjects and pick out the most exemplary form out of that topic.

Now, the Ugly. Alistar McGrath and William Lane Craig will be in New Orleans next weekend for the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum held by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. I have been doing some side work on Craig's infamous Kalam cosmological argument. I am tempted to attend the forum to not only see Craig and McGrath possibly becoming trapped in a corner, but to see their adversary and guest speaker Daniel Dennett. I have read most of Dennett's works save his last one, so I've become quite familiar with his style, thinking, and worldview. It will be an interesting forum to attend, in my opinion, to see Dennett, one of the more prominent defenders of Darwinian thought, go up against Craig, champion of the incredulous intelligent design, and McGrath, the self-proclaimed adversary to Richard Dawkins. If I attend, I will let everyone know what I thought of the two day forum. Perhaps I can even get one of those men to sign something so I can sell it on EBay for college or book money.