Global Warming my left foot. Normal people--those without money-making, grant-grubbing, power-accumulating agendas--call it "weather." And for those of you who have fallen for it, the realty is an inconvenient truth; 4So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. 5He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. 6While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, 7and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
8And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night. 9An angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. 10But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. 11Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is Christ[a] the Lord. 12This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger." 13Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying,
14"Glory to God in the highest,
and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."
15When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, "Let's go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about."
16So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph, and the baby, who was lying in the manger. 17When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, 18and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them. 19But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart."
I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Then from each black, accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound the carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn, the households born
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”
This year December 8 is on Monday. Have fun!
The whole idea is to pretend for the day that you are a traveler from a different time - except that, of course, you can't actually *tell* people you're a time traveler, because they'll think you're crazy. There are, of course, options as to how a traveler from a certain other time might act:
1) Utopian/cliché Future - "If the Future did a documentary of the last fifty years, this is how badly the reenactors would dress." Think Star Trek: TNG or the Time Travelers from Hob. Ever see how the society in Futurama sees the 20th century? Run with it. Your job is to dress with moderately anachronistic clothing and speak in slang from varying decades. Here are some good starters:
- Greet people by referring to things that don't yet exist or haven't existed for a long time. Example: "Have you penetrated the atmosphere lately?" "What spectrum will today's broadcast be in?" and "Your king must be a kindly soul!"
- Show extreme ignorance in operating regular technology. Pay phones should be a complete mystery (try placing the receiver in odd places). Chuckle knowingly at cell phones.
2) Dystopian Future - This one offers a little more flexibility. It can be any kind of future from Terminator to Freejack. The important thing to remember is dress like a crazy person with armor. Black spray painted football pads, high tech visors, torn up trenchcoats and maybe even some dirt here or there. Remember, dystopian future travelers are very startled that they've gone back in time. Some starters:
- If you go the "prisoner who's escaped the future" try shaving your head and putting a barcode on the back of your neck. Then stagger around and stare at the sky, as if you've never seen it before.
- Walk up to random people and say "WHAT YEAR IS THIS?" and when they tell you, get quiet and then say "Then there's still time!" and run off.
- Stand in front of a statue (any statue, really), fall to your knees, and yell "NOOOOOOOOO"
- Stare at newspaper headlines and look astonished.
- Take some trinket with you (it can be anything really), hand it to some stranger, along with a phone number and say "In thirty years dial this number. You'll know what to do after that." Then slip away.
3) The Past - This one is more for beginners. Basically dress in period clothing (preferably Victorian era) and stagger around amazed at everything. Since the culture's set in place already, you have more of a template to work off of. Some pointers:
- Airplanes are terrifying. Also, carry on conversations with televisions for a while.
- Discover and become obsessed with one trivial aspect of technology, like automatic grocery doors. Stay there for hours playing with it.
- Be generally terrified of people who are dressed immodestly compared to your era. Tattoos and shorts on women are especially scary.
We should never despair, our situation before has been unpromising and has changed for the better, so I trust, it will again. If new difficulties arise, we must only put forth new exertions and proportion our efforts to the exigency of the times." --George Washington
"If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
Nailed The Sneaky Little Snake!
News Flash—PRAYER OF JABEZ FOUND
And Jabez called on the God of
The prayer, actually one of twenty-seven copies, was found engraved on small plaques with notches on the back. Archaeologists speculate they were made to hang on the living room walls of devout Jews. Senior archaeologist Merle Puckerd expressed puzzlement that the original prayer was written in standard King James English, rather than the normally expected, ancient Hebrew.
Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens often attack religion on the basis of the problem of evil. Why do good people suffer? Why do bad people prosper? What kind of God doesn’t intervene to deliver the righteous and punish the wicked? Their answer is, God is either cruel, or doesn’t exist at all. For many, this is an insurmountable barrier to belief in the Almighty. Admittedly, it is a difficult and uncomfortable question for believers. It is not, however, an impossible question to answer.
Let’s start by defining the Problem: How can we say there is a good God who rules the universe when there is so much evil and violence touching innocent people, while allowing evil people to continue committing unspeakable acts of wickedness?
There are five traditional answers:
1. You’re suffering because you did something to deserve it.
2. God does not exist so it is foolish to expect justice in a mindless universe.
3. God would really like to help, but is just as bound by the laws of the
universe and of cause-effect as we are.
4. God is beyond good and evil: essentially, he doesn’t care anymore than
5. Evil doesn’t really exist, it’s a figment of the collective imagination—cue Twilight Zone theme music.
The problem can be illustrated by William Hendricks’ “Triangle of Reality,” seen above.
The problem is, how can God be great and good while evil exists? Many people try to resolve the problem by taking away one or more sides of the triangle. God is not great, God is not Good, evil is not real. But the perception of the problem remains because deep down mankind believes in God and the experience of our lives tells us that evil indeed exists. The triangle does not explain the problem of evil; it illustrates why there is a problem.
There are actually two reasons for our perception of a problem. The first is obvious, we question why God allows suffering. The second is a bit more subtle, for some reason we expect justice despite the experience of our lives. That’s odd. Okay, it makes sense that believers should have a problem, but aren’t we westerners living in a “post Christian,” secular society? Why do unbelievers persist in a belief in ultimate right and wrong, justice and injustice?
“But wait,” you say, “they don’t.”
To which I reply, “bologna!”
If there is no God, there is no problem. Without God there is no reason for an expectation of cosmic, external, transcendent right and wrong. Nonetheless, everybody and his grandmother persists in recognizing that there is a problem.
We are often told that "right" is subjective and everyone decides what is "right" for themselves, right? That’s what I keep hearing. Yet, the same people who claim there is no such thing as objective truth—and therefore right or wrong—are the very ones who turn around and demand that everybody else accept their standard. We ought to help the poor, we ought to feed the hungry, we ought to stop global warming. Why? Sounds like they believe some things are morally right and others wrong.
This is why there is a problem with the concept of evil. Animals don’t cry and whine about injustice. We do. The human race, whether we admit to belief in God or not, believes in objective right and wrong. In his letter to the Roman Christians the Apostle Paul said that the knowledge of God is written on human hearts. Our persistent belief in right and wrong is evidence of that statement.
That said, its time to move toward a resolution of the problem: If you think about your own experience, there is no answer that completely satisfies when you personally are hurting. Even when the answers are logically consistent, they fail to satisfy on an emotional level. When a grieving person cries, “why me O God?” they are not necessarily looking for an answer. They are seeking comfort. They are, in fact, crying out that they don’t deserve it.
The Christian answer is that freewill carries the necessary corollary of the possibility of evil. Since God created mankind as free moral agents, able to make moral choices, than the freedom to choose evil is a possibility. In fact, it is a reality. In other words, it is more important to God that humans be free, than that humans be good. Yes, I know you don’t like that. Put it on the back burner to simmer for a while. It makes sense on further reflection.
But how can God be omnipotent if man has freewill? In every philosophy class I ever took this was a major question, eliciting great awe and mystery. Nuts. Lets ignore the point that omnipotence is a Greek philosophical concept, rather than a Biblical term. The Bible would simply say God is almighty. Fine, I wave the objection; God is "omnipotent." I point out that Being omnipotent is not the same thing as exercising omnipotence. God, in omnipotence, allowed mankind limited freewill so that our response to him (love or hate) would be genuine. Therefore, from the divine perspective, the suffering of this life is somehow justified by freewill played out through eternity. That is the Christian answer.
In the Old Testament the word “Soul” is found in the King James Version in Genesis 2:7 “And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” The Hebrew words translated “living soul” are nepish hayah. It has been used as a proof text to show that man has a soul, distinguishing him from the animal kingdom. However, the same words are used of the animals: Genesis 1:24. Even the NIV fudges a bit, using the phrase “living being.” Since nepish Hayah is used of both man and animals 2:7 could more accurately be translated as “living creature.” It cannot refer to a human soul in the commonly understood meaning of the word.
The biblical difference between man and animal—found in the same 2:7—is that though both are made from the dust of the earth, only man received the breath or spirit of God directly.
New Testament usage is also problematical. The Greek word for soul is psyche. The Greeks used it to refer to the unsubstantial spirit that survives the body’s death. Though psyche is often translated “soul” in English, it seems that first century Jews and Christians used the term to mean spirit.
My problem is the way “soul” is used in popular theology. I’ve often heard the assertion that since man is made in the image of the triune God than man is a trinity as well: body, soul and spirit. Because of the above, I feel there is a confusion of soul and spirit. It goes against popular usage but I see no biblical evidence that the ancients had a concept of soul that was substantially different from that of spirit. In fact, until quite recently it was commonplace to see a headline like this: “Titanic Sinks With Loss of Some 1,500 Souls.” The meaning here is obviously referring to the whole person.
Your last name stays put.
The garage is all yours.
Wedding plans take care of themselves.
Chocolate is just another snack.
You can wear a white T-shirt to a water park.
You can wear NO T-shirt to a water park.
Car mechanics tell you the truth.
The world is your urinal.
You never have to drive to another gas station because this one's just too icky.
You don't have to stop and think of which way to turn a nut on a bolt.
Wrinkles add character.
Wedding dress - $5000; tux rental - $100.
People never stare at your chest when you're talking to them.
The occasional well-rendered belch is practically expected.
New shoes don't cut, blister, or mangle your feet.
One mood, ALL the time.
Phone conversations are over in 30 seconds flat.
You know stuff about tanks.
A five-day vacation requires only one suitcase.
You can open all your own jars.
You get extra credit for the slightest act of thoughtfulness.
If someone forgets to invite you to something, he or she can still be your friend.
Your underwear is $8.95 for a three-pack.
Three pairs of shoes are more than enough.
You almost never have strap problems in public.
You are unable to see wrinkles in your clothes.
Everything on your face stays its original color.
The same hairstyle lasts for years, maybe decades.
You only have to shave your face and neck.
You can play with toys all your life.
One wallet and one pair of shoes, one color, all seasons.
You can wear shorts no matter how your legs look.
You can "do" your nails with a pocketknife.
You have freedom of choice concerning growing a mustache.
On "Meet the Press" last weekend, Gore called on America to be carbon dioxide-free within 10 years. In the same spirit of pointlessness and futility, I call on America to be 100 percent oxygen-free within 10 years."
