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ARTOFMANLINESS.COM -- While putting certain access blockers on your phone can be a great help in breaking the smartphone habit, you have to take a truly holistic and intentional approach to maintaining a healthy relationship with your phone. Below I present such a plan, with all the tools and techniques you might consider implementing to get a handle on your smartphone habit. Let start with why you might consider limiting your smartphone use in the first place. Research shows that heavy smartphone use can have a negative effect on several different aspects of our lives. For example, simply having a smartphone in our line of sight causes us to ...

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DISCOVERY.ORG -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 1987: "The industrialised world only rather recently has rediscovered that [many] questions engage not merely professional ethics and standards; they touch the deeply held convictions of a Judeo-Christian tradition.... Nations cannot assign these issues to a priesthood of scientists."] ARTICLE: On this episode of ID the Future, host Ira Berkowitz talks with Rabbi Moshe Averick about his recent Times of Israel article, "From the People Who Brought You the Hydrogen Bomb." Yes, it's pointed -- straight at scientists. It's about scientists who jump out of their disciplines, taking the place of priests and shamans and pronouncing upon the place of mankind in the universe. Averick is the author of Nonsense of a "High Order: The Confused World of Modern Atheism." ...

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TIMESOFISRAEL.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 1987: "[Many questions] touch the deeply held convictions of a Judeo-Christian tradition, an idea of humanity that has challenged the prophets and philosophers for thousands of years. Nations cannot assign these issues to a priesthood of scientists."] ARTICLE: For those who lean towards secularism in the Western world, Scientists have taken over the role of priests and clergymen. Scientists are looked upon with awe and are conferred with something akin to a demi-god status. Many Scientists have a rather arrogant habit of assuming their scientific credentials confer upon them expertise and wisdom on fundamental questions of human existence. However, as Nobel Prize winning physicist, Richard Feynman said: "When even the greatest scientist talks about things that are outside of his area of expertise, he is just as dumb as the next guy." ...

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DAILYSTOIC.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Mawlana Sultan Muhammad Shah: "A man's chief capital is time and if he wastes time, he wastes his greatest asset which can never be recouped."] ARTICLE: In his twenty-third letter, Seneca opens with a snark that is relatable to anyone who has ever been trapped in a banal conversation. "You were probably thinking I was going to open this letter with idle chit chat about the weather," Seneca begins, "but I'm not, because who has the time?" Certainly not Seneca, who spends the rest of the letter talking about the joy from the earnest pursuit of the art of living. Important ideas. None of these trivialities -- the weather, 'what have you been up to lately?,' 'how's your mother?,' 'reading anything good?' -- which he says are the refuge of people who are "at a loss for topics of conversation." They are not ...

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ACCIDENTALTHEOLOGIST.COM -- LESLEY HAZLETON -- Tarzan and Jane come up when I'm asked about interfaith gatherings, which I generally find kind of stilted. We tend to get together as me-Tarzan-you-Jane-we-friends. That is, me-Jew-you-Muslim-we-friends. We need to get beyond that. We need to see each other first as people. Talk about anything but religion. Eat together, two or three or four at a time, over our own dining tables. It seems ...

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THEATLANTIC.COM -- Women's religiosity can have tangible consequences on the lives of families. A new report [2016] from the Pew Research Center suggests mothers have more influence on their children's religious upbringings than fathers, especially in interfaith households. One-third of respondents said their mom was more responsible for their religious experiences than their dad. In families with parents of mixed religious backgrounds, the percentage was well more than half. According to Pew, nearly half of people who grew up in interfaith households now practice their mom's faith, compared to less than a third who practice their dad's. In a lot of families, these patterns ...

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MINDMATTERS.AI -- Today, we know much more about what happens when we die -- and what we are learning does not support materialism. What's remarkable is people who have near death experiences come back with amazing stories. Like the young lady born blind and rushed to the emergency room after a car accident. She finds herself hovering over a group of doctors frantically working on a lady which she didn't immediately recognize was herself. After she was resuscitated, she shared her story and reminded them, "I'm a blind person and can tell you everything that went on in the operating room." Many report taking a journey through walls and down a tunnel with a light at the end, what I would call ...

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THEATLANTIC.COM -- A new study [2018] explores a strange paradox: In countries that empower women, they are less likely to choose math and science professions. While countries with the most female STEM graduates were also some of the least gender-equal countries. Something in even the most liberal societies is nudging women away from STEM, even when those are their best subjects. "Countries with the highest gender equality tend to be welfare states," they write, "with a high level of social security." Thus, the authors suggest, girls in less gender-equal countries might be more inclined to choose STEM professions, since they offer a more certain financial future than, say, painting or writing. That correlation echoes past research showing that ...

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FEE.ORG -- To measure sexism in earnings, we need to look at men and women doing the same job at the same place. A new study [2018] from Harvard does just this with data from the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (MBTA). The MBTA is union shop with almost no scope for a sexist boss to favor men over women. And yet, even here, female train and bus operators earn less than their male counterparts. "The gap of $0.89," the authors concluded, "can be explained entirely by the fact that, while having the same choice sets in the workplace, women and men make different choices." For example, male train and bus drivers worked about 83% more overtime than female ...

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AREOMAGAZINE.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, 2015: "If I were trying to sum up in a single word [AKDN's] central objective, I would focus on the word 'opportunity.'"] ARTICLE: Social Justice (the idea of correcting for unequal outcomes [as opposed to correcting for unequal opportunity]) defines fairness in terms of outcomes, rather than processes. It carries an implicit assumption that, were it not for such injustice, equal outcomes would be the norm. However, equal opportunity (the absence of arbitrary discrimination) does not imply equal probability. Since people differ in a myriad of ways, we have no reason to expect equal outcomes. As Sowell notes, "Given the innumerable factors influencing the current well-being and misfortunes of individuals and groups, the presumption of being able to disentangle all these factors and determine ...

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QUILLETTE.COM -- A deeper investigation into our religious nature casts doubt on the idea that science-centered secular culture can succeed without the sacred. Ultimately, religion is about the need for meaning. When people turn away from one source of meaning, such as religion, they simply look for another. Traditional religion's decline has come with a rise in supernatural, paranormal and related beliefs, Young adults are more inclined to believe in ghosts, astrology, clairvoyance and spiritual energy. And secular liberal regions tend to be where markets for alternative spiritual experiences and products are most lucrative. "They are filling the void that Christianity once owned, without any of the wisdom and culture and restraint that Christianity once provided" Andrew Sullivan wrote in New York magazine. ...

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EVIEMAGAZINE.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: In honour of International Men's Day 2019.] ARTICLE: In a world where female empowerment revolves around denouncing masculinity, we tend to overlook the crucial role men play in society and fail to recognize how much a young girl needs a strong father. A decade ago Barack Obama said in his Father's Day speech "We know the statistics -- children who grow up without a father are 5 times more likely to live in poverty and commit crime; 9 times more likely to drop out of schools and 20 times more likely to end up in prison." ... At a young age, it's crucial for us to witness our father treating women with respect. A strong father appreciates his wife's femininity and compliments her role in society. When he embraces a woman's femininity ...

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EVIEMAGAZINE.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: In honour of International Men's Day 2019.] ARTICLE: If it's wrong to like strong, manly, powerful men, I don't want to be right! Men operate in a completely different way than women do, and that's a good thing. Men don't need to become more like women in order to have successful relationships. In fact, regardless of what modern feminists say, we wouldn't want them to. We want men to be men: protective, loyal, quick to take action, and willing to lead. We want them to be our rock, the shoulder we cry on, the mountain we stand behind that takes the brunt of the storm. And if we want those things -- which we do -- we have to understand that manliness comes with ...

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DISCOVERY.ORG -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Very highly recommended book.] ARTICLE: "Heretic: One Scientist's Journey from Darwin to Design" has two authors. One is Finish bio-engineer Matti Leisola. Former Dean at Helsinki University of Technology with 140 peer reviewed science articles to his name. His new book, Heretic, is about how the scientific evidence led him from Darwinism to Intelligent Design. From the Introduction: "As a young student, I used to laugh at those who placed God in the gaps of our scientific knowledge. To my way of thinking, such people lacked the patience and level-headedness that I possessed so I didn't listen to their arguments. But eventually I came to realize that this criticism cuts both ways, since a functional atheist also can reach for pat explanations ...

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EVOLUTIONNEWS.ORG -- Phillip E. Johnson, Berkeley law professor and author of "Darwin on Trial" (described as "brilliant and devastating") died on November 2 this year. I first met Phillip Johnson at a small Greek restaurant in Cambridge, UK, in the fall of 1987. However, only later did I learn of Johnson's intellectual pedigree: Harvard B.A.; top of class University of Chicago law grad; law clerk for Chief Justice Earl Warren; leading constitutional scholar; occupant of a distinguished chair at the University of California, Berkeley. A man of supple and prodigious intellect who seemed to have found the pulse of the origins issue. Johnson told me that his doubts about Darwinism had started with a visit to the British Natural History Museum where ...

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IFSTUDIES.ORG -- When a young person mentions cohabiting, you might suggest they consider questions Bradford Wilcox asked: "Is fidelity important to you? Having someone who always tells the truth? Has your back? Communicates well? If these are important to you, marriage looks best." Wilcox was responding to a new [Nov, 2019] Pew Research Center report on cohabitation and marriage which shows Americans, especially younger generations, embrace myths about cohabitation not reflected in reality or research. The results are telling. "By double digits," as the report puts it. Another 2017 study revealed that in the United States and 16 European countries, about 50% of cohabiting parents break up by a child's 12th birthday, compared to about 25% of married couples. Marriage also ...

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IFSTUDIES.ORG -- "Majority of Americans Now Believe in Cohabitation." That's the headline from a 2016 Barna Group survey. They found 84% of those who approve of cohabiting before marriage said that it was valuable for testing compatibility. However, a 2013 study showed testing is not the most common reason cohabitors give for *actually moving in together*. In fact, it was second-to-last at just 7%. Findings suggest that cohabiting to test a relationship is associated with many kinds of negatives. In fact, many thinking about cohabiting, to test their relationship, already know, on some level, what the grade of that test may be but are hoping that the answer looks better over time. There are many better ways to ...

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OZANVAROL.COM -- It was one of my first classes as a law professor. I was young and reluctant to admit what I didn't know, for fear of openly revealing what I was -- a novice. During class, a student asked a question that left me befuddled. Instead of saying what I should have said -- I don't know-- I winged it. Not only that, but I spoke with conviction. I was happy with myself. My high lasted for all of an hour. An astute student emailed me to point out (nicely) that the answer I provided was wrong. Not even a little wrong, but completely wrong. The next class ...

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TIMESOFISRAEL.COM -- [ISMAILI DIGEST ED: Hazar Imam, New York, 1983: "Those who are most qualified in scientific subjects today are often the most humble and the most convinced in their attitude to the existence of Allah."] ARTICLE: Nobel Laureate Werner Arber: "Although a biologist I must confess that I do not understand how life came about. [It] remains a mystery to me. The possibility of the existence of a Creator, of God, represents to me a satisfactory solution to this problem." Origin of Life research has failed because basic laws of physics tell us systems tend toward chaos and disorder, not toward order and function. Our argument [for Intelligent Design] is not based on foolish truisms like God of the Gaps but on observed laws of nature and physics. And it is supported by world class scientists. The first thing I would bring to your attention ...

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EVOLUTIONNEWS.ORG -- In these 2 videos, Professor Tour, a heralded scientist and nanotechnology researcher at Rice University, delivers a tongue lashing to his fellow scientists laying out his devastating, detailed critique of current origins theories in plain language everyone can understand. "Whether you want to have [life] originate from Earth or from some other planet, you have to have the origin of life. You have to have the origin of that first cell. How does that happen? We have no idea." In this bonus video from the Science Uprising ...

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THEFEDERALIST.COM -- The class of 2019, the first to experience all four high school years under Common Core, is the worst-prepared for college in 15 years, according to a new report. "The results are, frankly, devastating," said the U.S. Education Secretary said about the 2019 results. "Over the past decade [student achievement] has continued to worsen. Two out of three of our nation's children aren't proficient readers. Fourth grade reading declined in 17 states and eighth grade reading declined in 31." Common Core is a set of national instruction and testing mandates implemented [by President Obama] starting in 2010, over waves of bipartisan citizen protests. Experts said they thought it would improve student achievement but all were wrong, wrong, wrong. ...

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THEGOSPELCOALITION.ORG -- Named a top 100 and top 30 global thinker by Foreign Policy and British Prospect Magazine, respectively, Jonathan Haidt, professor of social psychology, has been writing about morality and religion since graduate school. His 2012 book "The Righteous Mind" debuted at number six on The New York Times bestseller list. Everyone loved it.... "I started realizing that the scientific community was really underestimating and misunderstanding religion." Haidt's book outlines his moral foundations theory. The six values he believes are common across time and cultures. Haidt found political liberals don't give much credence to the three of the six (loyality to ingroup/community, respect for authority, and sanctity) but conservatives value all six equally.... Haidt said his Christian students "radiated a kind of ...

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