Comment on month old posts - how many times have you actually gotten a comment on a post over a month old? Turning off comments should not be a hardship, and, if someone new comes aboard, you could turn them back on again for a while.

Can you CAPTCHA the month old comments only?

What to blog about? Well, there's this little presidential race. It might be worth commenting about why the right can't seem to coallesce behind any one candidate. Too many warts on each?
Or maybe about the daily joy of the rising prices in the economy?

Comments: can't see it being a problem to turn off comments on old posts

What to blog about:

- Five books you have read (ever) that you consider to be "must-reads" for anyone.

- How would you answer someone who says "God predestined me not to believe, so therefore I won't believe"?

- If you were on a spaceship to Mars and could only take three movies with you, which three would you choose and why? What about Books? Computer games? TV series?

- If you were handed a piece of an unspeakably horrible weapon to hide away where it would be safe until great need arose in the future, what would you do with it?

- What are your thoughts about the Bishop Ussher calculation of the date of Creation?

- If you could ask God one question, knowing that He would answer it, what would you ask? Why?

- Who would you like to see as president out of Clinton, Huckabee, McCain, Obama, and Romney? Who do you think will win in November? And who do you think would make a good president but is not running or is not a major contender?

- In a battle between Darth Vader and Sauron, who would win?

I'll let you know if I think of anything else...

My last two attempts to comment on your blog have disappeared into a black hole somewhere. I'm using a different e-mail address this time to see if it changes anything, though I don't know why my other one wouldn't have worked.

Melissa – thanks!
One of your comments got flagged for moderation because of the infamous ellipsis ". . ." problem. Beware the ellipsis!!! I didn't see a second post from you.

I put Bishop Ussher in the same bucket as the lady who traced her line all the way back to Adam. She made the logical leap that because her Scottish line went back to X and the biblical line reached about the smae time that they must be connected.

For the good bishop to say the world was created at a certain date, and at 9 AM no less, well it stretches credulity. The sun wasn't even invented until the third day, so how could he tell it was 9 AM?

Re: Ussher - While I have issues with his scholarship and the assumptions that went into it, he did not in fact say that creation was at 9AM. This detail was added by later scholars and falsely attributed to him. What Ussher actually said was “nightfall” which, of course, is equally problematic. It is however important to be careful to criticize him for what he actually said, not what others have said about him.

Ro (can I call you that here?) -
Although Science has done much to discredit Ussher's Bible-based calculations, there are plenty of people who take his ballpark 6Ka age-of-Earth as truth. I know some of them. In fact, knowing people who staunchly believe the 6Ka number is the only real reason I consider it at all after years of science class beating 4.5Ma into me.

I haven't done enough research of my own to dismiss Ussher's calculations entirely, but my geology training and the research I have done leads me to believe the Earth is older than 6Ka. The compromiser in me says the real number is probably somewhere between the two.

I asked for Steve's take on it because he is much more well-read than I and because he invests a lot of time into researching things that relate to his faith (even if this is not one of them(?)). I'm also interested because I think he is probably a lot more critical of both the old-Earth and young-Earth beliefs than the countless people who take the one because 'science says' or the other because 'every word in the Bible is literally true' (even though the Bible never tells us when exactly Creation took place).

[This is not to say that I think Steve has all the answers, but I've come to expect that what he has to say on a subject will be thought-out and critical. And what he says usually makes me think. This is a good thing.]
And Steve - please don't feel obligated to blog about Bishop Ussher. I am interested, but it is your blog, your time, and your energy.