Bernie Miklasz on Babe Ruth

St. Louis sports columnist Bernie Miklasz recently wrote this column about how even though Babe Ruth is now #3 on the all-time home run list, a great case can still be made for considering him the best baseball player ever. In particular, Miklasz rightly points out that in addition to being arguably the best hitter in the history of the game, Ruth also had the start of a great pitching career before he gave up pitching to concentrate on hitting. In fact, it's very possible that he could have gone to the Hall of Fame based only on his pitching, if he had remained a pitcher for his entire career. Here are some specific numbers as given by Miklasz:

Ruth still endures as the greatest player in baseball history, period. He hit 714 homers, drove in 2,217 runs and batted .342. As a pitcher he went 94-46 with a 2.28 ERA and 17 shutouts and was 3-0 with an 0.87 ERA in the World Series. Until a modern slugger steps onto the mound to win 94 games, there's no discussion about who's No. 1. Ruth even outpitched the immortal Walter Johnson in head-to-head matchups, going 6-1.

Miklasz also makes an interesting point about how Babe Ruth's home run totals compared to other baseball players of his day:

No one can equal Ruth's historical impact. He changed the game. He took baseball out of the dead-ball era, the slap-hit mentality, and introduced the bombast of the home run into the culture, for better and for worse.

Put it this way: When Ruth hit 59 homers in 1921, the figure represented 12.3 percent of the league total. Last season 2,437 homers were hit in the American League, meaning that a slugger would have to hit about 300 homers to net 12.3 percent of the league total.

To baseball fans, none of this is new information. But it's interesting to reflect on just how great a player Babe Ruth was, and how he left a huge and permanent mark on the game of baseball.

Why are Christians so worked up about "The Da Vinci Code"?

...After all, don't they understand that it's just a novel (or just a movie)? These are common questions in response to Christian reactions to "The Da Vinci Code", and they are understandable questions. In answer to these questions, I would say that the problem is that many people who read this novel are in fact believing its outlandish historical claims, as evidenced by this recent article from the London Telegraph newspaper. Here are some relevant (and somewhat disconcerting) quotes from the article:

Two thirds of Britons who have read Dan Brown's thriller believe that Jesus fathered a child with Mary Magdalene, a claim rejected as baseless by historians and Bible scholars.

Those who have read it are also four times as likely to think that the conservative Roman Catholic organisation Opus Dei, whose members include the Cabinet minister Ruth Kelly, is a murderous sect.

Seventeen per cent of readers are convinced that the lay group, whose founder was canonised by the late Pope John Paul II, has ordered or carried out a murder, compared with four per cent of those who have not read the book.

The poll has shocked Church leaders who have mounted a massive campaign to debunk The Da Vinci Code in advance of the release of the Hollywood film version this week. The findings suggest that the book has significantly shifted attitudes towards traditional Christianity and will fuel fears that people increasingly prefer to believe in conspiracy theories that taint the Church rather than historical evidence.

Of course, I think that these numbers say more about widespread historical illiteracy, inherent biases toward Christianity and the Catholic Church, and a general willingness to believe in conspiracy theories, than they say about "The Da Vinci Code" itself. But still, these numbers give a very good indication as to why many serious Christians are not willing to ignore the impact of "The Da Vinci Code" based on the fact that it's "just fiction".

Archbishop of San Francisco on "The Da Vinci Code"

San Francisco Archbishop George Niederauer recently wrote a great article on "The Da Vinci Code", though the title of the article could have been better. Here is the link:

"How Dark the Con of Dan"

I like the article for several reasons. For starters, I like that he quotes Mark Twain a couple of times. I'm a big fan Mark Twain, and the quote at the beginning of the article ("A lie is halfway round the world while the truth is still putting its boots on") is very appropriate to the whole Da Vinci Code phenomenon.

But mostly I like the article because he gives a very readable and even-handed explanation of just exactly why this book and movie are offensive to Catholics, and what the real truth is behind several of Dan Brown's historical claims.

(Hat tip to "The Da Vinci Hoax" blog for the link to this article.)

Speaking of recent columns by great economists...

... Thomas Sowell's most recent column, "Is Thinking Obsolete?", is a must-read for anyone following the media hype over what can be done about high gas prices. Sowell points out that the oil companies are an easy scapegoat, but that putting some actual thought into the issue reveals a different picture.

Walter Williams on the virtues of not caring

The latest weekly column by economist Walter Williams, called Caring vs. Uncaring, gives a brief but helpful reminder of how economics really works. While one must be careful not to conclude from this piece that there is little or no value in caring and selflessness, Williams makes some good basic points, particularly about the positive role of profits in our economy.

Debunking "The Da Vinci Code"

With the movie version of Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code set to hit theaters later this month, I figured it that this would be a good time to link to some information about this novel. First, I should state that I haven't read the novel. However, I have read enough about it to know that it bashes Christianity, and particularly the Catholic Church, and that it does so by portraying a wildly inaccurate version of Christian history. It also appears that some readers of the novel are buying into Dan Brown's bizarre historical claims, and accepting them as an accurate portrayal of history. For this reason, I think that there is legitimate value in debunking the historical myths perpetuated by this novel. In fact, many entire books, web sites, and blogs have been devoted to this exact purpose.

Just to make sure that my words above are not misunderstood, the major problem I see with this book is not that its author disagrees with Christian ideas. Rather, the problem is that Brown claims to have based his book on extensive research, and yet he gets his facts (regarding history, art, religion, geography, etc.) hopelessly wrong, again and again. The following two-part essay by Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel provides a well-researched and well-documented antidote to these errors in The Da Vinci Code:

"Planet Envoy" Critique of The Da Vinci Code, Part 1
"Planet Envoy" Critique of The Da Vinci Code, Part 2

These same authors have also written a book called The Da Vinci Hoax, which is basically an expansion of the above essay. You can read some lengthy excerpts from this book at the following link, though obviously it will have some overlap with the essay linked above:

Exposing the Errors in the Da Vinci Code

Finally, for those who would say, "why make such a big deal about a novel, after all, it's just fiction!", Carl Olson has a great response in the following article:

The "It's Just Fiction!" Doctrine

How to Interpret the Creation Account in Genesis?

I have seen many discussions and debates among Christians over how to interpret the creation account in the first chapter of the book of Genesis (and to be honest, I've participated in a few such discussions myself). Some contend that the creation account in Genesis tells us that the world was created in six literal days. Others say that the six days are symbolic, and not meant to be interpreted literally, and that therefore the creation of the world may have taken much longer than six days. The question of how to square the interpretation of Genesis with modern scientific theories and discoveries is usually raised as well, since modern science seems to rule out the possibility of a recent, literal six-day creation.

Well, a few months ago, I read a great series of posts on this topic on Jimmy Akin's blog. Jimmy Akin is a Catholic apologist who is very well-read and knowledgeable in areas such as moral theology, ancient languages, and Biblical scholarship. He is a also a very clear thinker who backs up his claims with detailed documentation and sound logic.

In this series of posts, Jimmy considers the pros and cons of five different possible interpretations of the creation account in Genesis, based on the following criteria:

The question I'm asking is: "Given what the text says, how likely is it that this is the correct interpretation of the text?" . . . My interest is in figuring out what the text most likely means taken on its own terms, not trying to harmonize it with modern science.

I found Jimmy's conclusions to be very interesting, and perhaps slightly surprising. Admittedly his conclusions are just his own opinion, but he makes some convincing arguments. Here is a link to the entire series of posts on a single page:

Genesis One

Or here are separate links, in order, for each post:

1. Interpreting Genesis One
2. The Day-Age Interpretation
3. The Revelatory Day Interpretation
4. The Gap Interpretation
5. The Ordinary Day Interpretation
6. The Framework Interpretation

The Plight of Iraq's Christians

I don't have a strong opinion one way or the other about whether we did the right thing by going to war in Iraq in order to depose Saddam Hussein. I tend to think that it was the right choice, given what we knew at the time -- or at least I can sympathize with the reasoning behind the decision. However, the decision to go to war is not one that can or should be taken lightly, and ultimately I don't think that I have enough information to have made that call. But this story about the grave difficulties facing Christians in Iraq gives me great cause for concern over how things are going in Iraq currently.

It doesn't surprise me that Christians are being persecuted in a predominantly Muslim country -- such persecutions unfortunately seem to be quite common in predominantly Muslim countries. However, it seems that the U.S. could and should be doing more about this problem, considering the role we are taking in rebuilding Iraq as a supposedly democratic and free nation. I certainly hope that we are in fact doing more than the article implies.

Also, it seems a bit strange to me that both the mainstream (i.e., liberal-leaning) media and the conservative media have been largely silent on this issue -- perhaps because the former tends to be less than sympathetic toward Christians, and because the latter may be hesitant to report anything that makes our war (or post-war) effort look bad. (But this is just my own speculation.)