Debates and cartoons

We have added a cartoon page to ChapmanKids.net: http://www.chapmankids.net/bettyblonde. Kelly is getting far enough ahead with her cartooning that she thinks she will be able to do one every day for quite awhile. I think she only has to draw one more to have enough for this week. I like her cartoons a lot. In addition to cartooning while I read aloud, this weekend she cartooned while we listened to Dinesh D’Souza debate Michael Shermer on the questions: Is Religion a Force for Good or Evil? and Can you be Good without God? and Christopher Hitchens on: Is Christianity the Problem?

A special treat for the Hitchens debate was that it was moderated by Marvin Olasky. Marvin Olasky is the editor of World Magazine. We have subscribed to World for many years. We look forward to reading Joel Belz, Lynn Vincent, Janie B. Chaney, and all the others. We lurk at the World Mag blog but we are special fans of Marvin Olasky. Kelly’s desire to study things like statistics, philosophy, sociology, biology, and politics has been inspired by the things she reads in World Magazine. Olasky’s interviews of Arthur C. Brooks, Rodney Stark, and others have provided fodder for many fruitful discussions and inspired us to learn more. We have listened to several of William Lane Craig‘s debates on the existence of God and the historocity of the resurrection of Jesus. We have purchased books by Behe, Dembski and others involved in the great intelligent design debates. We have studied logic and argumentation. I do not know what Kelly will study in college, but her plan is to prepare herself to participate as a writer in the national discourse on these great topics.

This fall, she will be writing for this blog. Every couple of weeks it will be given to her to describe her thoughts on what we call the great debates. The commentary she writes will not so much be about taking positions on the topics, rather they will be about what she feels she understands, what confuses her, what is interesting to hear and why it is interesting. We want the work to be challenging and interesting for her.