| HowManyOfMe.com | ||
|
Hat-tip to my apparently non-existant little sister
(piddly statistics: 173,982 other Jons and 960 other Stueves and only one little ol’ me.)
Monthly Archives: October 2006
The Truth Project
That is the topic we studied in our bible study last night, here is a link:
Produced by Focus on the Family, it is a fairly good worldview study, looking at the ‘big’ questions. Last night we watched the third segment, that talks about ‘Anthropology’ and tries to answer the question of ‘who is man?’. The segment, taught primarily by Dr. Del Tackett was mostly over the question of evil, if it exists, where is comes from, and how the secular world view has some unsatisfying answers to the question of evil. Pointing out that secular thought (from Rosseau and Maslow) has a basis that man is essentially good (aside: what you say, isn’t that what the Bible says, that we are good? Um well, yes, in our original state, in the natural state, we are fallen, which is different than good… ). Tackett does a good job of tying knots in the secular response of the question of evil, because if man is essentially good, and the source of evil, as some philosophers say, is the cultural institutions, where do institutions become evil, if their sum is made up of ‘essentially good’ parts.
Tackett never really answers the where does evil come from, and more points out that the secular response to the question is unsatisfying. Good, well produced video, that brings up some good worldview discussions in our group. We’re left realizing that man’s default state (currently, not pre-fall) is a corrupt state, that although we still bear the ‘image of God’, we lack the Spirit of God and lack the control over our ‘inherent’ ‘natural’ instincts and in a way the problem of evil, is the problem of being fallen. Or as the Calvinists say, Totally Depraved.
I’m looking forward to next week’s session.
Busy night… no recaps…
Thursday is becoming the busiest night of the week for us, last night we had Michael’s pre-school art and book fair, then I had bible study for and hour and a half. Which brings us to about 9:30 and over four hours of TV to watch… (well that is why God made DVRs… right?)
Couldn’t make it through them all… so Six Degrees song dedications will have to wait until tomorrow night. Snarkwife Stacy recapped Grey’s so I don’t have to. And Survivor is far enough along where there isn’t much to talk about until the field gets whittled down more. But I do have some comments.
Yul is wishing Jonathan kept his big mouth shut. But really the only people on the island has been the three that are already in a solid alliance. Glad that Yul and Becky realized that my friend Flicka was a bit too flaky, but wow, their replacement isn’t that much better.
Cao Boi may make it to the merge, but he’ll soon go, he ends up stomping on whatever conventions there may be, and has lots of the ‘awkward silence’ moments happen right after he’s donw talking.
Speaking of silence, Stephanie needed to learn that, especially after the near miss the last tribal. She can practice it now, over her plate of mashed potato(e)s… she got voted off, after a very very close immunity challenge was lost by Raro.
Jericho – The Walls of Jericho
Ummm should I have recapped this on first? Is this thing on? hello?
Anyhoo, Michael also recapped Jericho, and Jollyblogger (great questions to consider in that link) is a viewer, and I like to link them, so here I go.
I’ve watched Jericho each week, partly because I’m marking time waiting for Angie to come home so we can watch Lost together. Also because the storyline of nuclear holocaust… what’s not to like. But it is a bit draggy, but they do a good job of keeping the mysteries alive. I’m not going to blow-by-blow Jericho, because well, I’d start poking ice-picks in my eyes, so if you watch this show and want to dicuss the theories and story arcs, click to read on. Other wise scroll down and read the LOST post. Continue reading
Lost – The Glass Ballerina
Since last week, Jollyblogger (David Wayne, who has an excellent blog on all things theological, btw) espoused a new ‘snow-globe‘ theory of Lost. He also had a ‘dead-pool’ poll for who would be the next character that died in the show. The winner was ‘Henry Gale’ who happens to already be dead, but like the votes for Mark Foley, he’s just putting votes for Henry into the Ben basket.
Last nights episode was a meh for me. Parts of it were omg… but for the most part I’m not wholly up on the whole Jin-Sun backstory, maybe it is that Korean subtitles aren’t near as funny as Japanese subtitles. Or how creepy looking Sun’s father is. Or .. well I just get bored with it.
So I’ll do some quick recapping and commentary and theorizing be done. So click if you don’t mind being a bit spoiled.
Other recaps:
- Big Orange Michael
- Wikipedia’s Episode Summary
- Sledgeweb’s Investigations with freeze frames of some interesting stuff.
- Jen’s thoughts
- Thinklings thread
For AP: Biblical context for ‘With us’
Last week, HotAir’s AllahPundit had a discussion on the Amish’s tendancy to outrageously forgive their enemies, and asked Christians to reconcile their advocacy of war, with Christ’s teaching of ‘turn the other cheek’.
Today’s controversy is Ted Turner’s comments on President Bush use of the phrase ‘if you aren’t with us, you are against us’, quoting AP, quoting CSPAN:
There are a lot of things about this war that disturb me and one of them is the attitude, that you know, that was well expressed by our President. He said it very clearly, he said either you’re with us or you’re against us. And I had a problem with that because I really hadn’t made my mind up yet.
Typical of Ted, who’s news agency cozied up to Saddam in prelude to Iraq, becuase they were neither hot nor cold… But anyways, my point is that that religious zealot Bush was using the words of Jesus in that speech. The lede:
“He who is not with me is against me, and he who does not gather with me, scatters. ( Luke 11:23)
I like Eugene Peterson’s ‘The Message’ paraphrase that renders the text as:
This is war, and there is no neutral ground. If you’re not on my side, you’re the enemy; if you’re not helping, you’re making things worse.
I think Ted’s comments fall into the ‘making things worse category. But that is plainly up to interpretation.
Also interesting to grab the crossrefrences in that Luke passage (one is Matthew 12:30 which is a synoptic, same thing, different verse…)
Luke 9:50 – But Jesus said to him, “Do not stop him, for whoever is not against you is for you.†(paradox? looking at context, the person in question is casting out demons in Jesus’ name, so while not technically a disciple, clearly on the same side…)
Revelations 3:15-16 “I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either cold or hot!. So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I am going to vomit you out of my mouth!”
Whoa, that Jesus dude, knew how to slice to the point. Get with the program, take a side, stop hemming and hawing… Seems Jesus was a bit more complex than the ‘turn the other cheek’ angle. But we’re now talking spiritual warfare here, not Iraq and not the war on terror. Still good apocalyptic thoughts … even from Ted Turner… who is as lukewarm as they come.
Morphin’ Time…
And now for something completely different. A couple of weeks ago, I signed up to teach a course for our church during our Wednesday night activities. The course is a video presentation based on John Ortberg’s book The Life You’ve Always Wanted. Let me cut&paste a bit from the preface:
If you have ever been frustrated with the state of your spiritual life. If you’ve ever wondered why spiritual growth goes so slowly. If you’ve ever wondered if real change is possible. If you’ve ever felt confused or stuck in your spiritual life — you’re my kind of person.
…
Throughout the centuries, wise people have devoted themselves to following Jesus in this way. This series is an attempt to make some of that wisdom accessible to people who line in a world of freeways, corporate ladders and Xboxes. When you are through, my hope is that you will accept Christ’s invitation to live life his way because it truly is the live you’ve always wanted.
A facinating topic, to be sure. One that I’ve struggled with for much of my life. Spiritual maturity or growth is a weird thing. If anyone has a litany of things you must do to mature spiritually, run away, seriously. Not because a list of things to do is inherently bad, it just might be misdirected. These past few weeks in my daily reading of blogs, or studying for Sunday School, or just leafing through the book that goes along with the study, I’ve realized I’ve playing a bit on the fringes of my spirituality.
Its gonna get wordy, so if you’re interested click to continue reading.
Heroes – One Giant Leap
Michael has a post complaining about some inconsistencies in the plot, and I have to say that he’s got a point. But if we start getting into inconsistencies in comicbook plots, then we’d have to start getting all slayer like on LOST, and dammit, I’m not going there. The writers should take note to tighten up some hole, but to give them some slack, we have to move the story along pretty quick.
The rest might spoil, so click on to read more.
Posting LIVE from a Luxury Suite
From the American Airlines Center for the Dallas Stars’ Home Opener!
Just because I can. 🙂
UPDATE: Stars beat the Devils 3-1
Zowowie! – Creative Zen Vision:M
Last night, we went to StuffMart and purchased for Angie a Creative Zen Vision:M. She’s been wanting something that plays MP3s and that she can take with her (her laptop is a bit bulky) and play the songs she loves in the car, or around the town. One of the requirements was that it can connect to her Rhapsody account, and be able to use their subscription service. The sexy slick iPods are tied to the iTunes (I know they can play other normal MP3s, &c.) and isn’t compatible with the subscription service that Angie would like to use. I had heard about the Zen Vision a few months back, and had a crush on it for a while, since it has some pretty cool video features (much more flexible than the iPod with codecs). So we’ve had our eyes on this one for a while. We bought an old style cassette tape adapter so she can listen to her music in the car as well.Â
After we got home, it needed to charge up (via a USB connection, which is the way things seem to be going nowdays, and also handy as we both have our laptops) and so she left to go scrap/stamp with Natalie. *evil laugh* ITS MINE!!! *cough cough* at least for a few hours…
Time to put it through its paces, so follow the geekitude after the break.