Posts from — December 2005

In his blog today, my brother recounted a story of a woman who was surprised when she was asked if she swore to “to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth”.

There was no “so help you God” on the end of it…

I guess this is just one more separation of Church and State issues, huh?

People don’t realize that without the ultimate authority of an omniscient God there is no reason to tell the truth unless it works in your favor.

Washington, in his Farewell address said this:

Let it simply be asked, “where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice?

He then continued to say:

Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.

If the original GW thought that we needed a sense of religious obligation in our courts, who am I to argue?

For those with stamina, read the full farewell address. It holds a lot of wisdom…

On Gamespot today, someone posted a forum question asking “What makes you a nerd?”.

A full-on battle of the geeks ensued, and here was my entry:

Hmm.. How much space you got here?

If it has an “ON” switch, I own it and have probably taken it apart to find out how it works.

I collect DVDs, video games, own 2 lightsabers and at least 4 die cast mechas over 15 inches tall.

I, more often than not, am tanning by the light of dual monitors, basking in the heat of the 5 computers in my home office.

With the exception of the laptop, I built all the above rigs.

I have 3 digital and 2 film cameras, a webcam and at least 3 PC headsets. I have 4 different pairs of headphones that are selected for the situation I’m going to use them for and a CLOSET full of joysticks, game pads and funked up sundry controllers.

My cellphone has more features than most people’s PC – and, I actually use them…

Must I go on?

I spent more time researching home theater equipment than most people spend looking for a house, and I’m still not happy with the outcome.

I spent a month of my life in college proving that 1 was indeed, 1. I can do multivariable calculus, but I can’t multiply.

In a game like Balderdash, I can fool 3 out of 4 people, 3 out of 4 times.

I wear a watch with C3P0 and R2D2 on it.

I can program in several different languages and have been making websites since the dawn of the graphical browser.

I’ve seen every episode of Star Trek The Original Series, The Next Generation and Enterprise. For Christmas and my birthday, I just received the entire Deep Space 9 series on DVD, so that will soon follow. I’ve seen every episode of Farscape and Smallville. I own all three LOTR movies in both theatrical and extended versions. I can name most of major planets in the Star Wars Universe and tell you what races, etc. live there.

I invented “noise cancelling” technology in my 7th grade science class, but my teacher told me it was impossible. DARNIT! Bastard probably works at Sennheiser now!

I’ve spent 30 minutes on this silly question, just to be thorough.

Oh crap! I really am a nerd!

Check this out on ArsTechnica: RIAA lawyers bully witnesses into perjury.

And my rant on the RIAA.

Jay Adkins asked a great question about Debating for God on his blog. It made me think quite a bit about the matter, and here are my thoughts.

I think it is impossible to share your faith with someone without a certain amount of “debate”. I think Jay hit the nail on the head by saying it should be done in a calm discussion. How else will the person know that you actually care?

I’d like to add a level to the question which I think will add some clarity – WHY would we debate with someone on this matter? I think many times we are tempted to do it for God’s honor or even worse, our own.

I think the true answer to the whole issue is found in our intentions.

I remember having a discussion with someone that I worked with – she was a pagan (literally). She knew I was a Christian and asked me about it over lunch one day. “How can you believe that I will go to hell for not agreeing with you?”

Ever wonder why people who don’t believe in hell are worried that we think they are going there?

Anyway, we had a civilized discussion and I shared my faith with her. She ended the conversation with, “Well, I guess we will just have to agree to disagree…”

I replied, “I guess so – I believe that you have the free will to do so… But I do care about you and my hesitation is this – If you’re right, I’m no worse off, but if I’m right, you’ve got some serious things to think about.”

She finally realized that I wasn’t in this conversation for myself, but rather for her. On the surface, she was as hard-headed as the atheists that Jay talks about, but my intentions broke past that.

I think that this type of calm, caring discussion increases the likelihood of the seed hitting fertile the ground rather than the stone. After all, “people don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care…”

Thanks Jay for such a great topic…

OK – this is a bit rude, but really cracked me up…

I can’t count the number of times I’ve come out of a discussion with liberal folks feeling like I was in a Saturday Night Live Skit -

“I’m sorry, I was told there would be no facts required for this debate. I just think (fill in the blank) …”

My apologies to the many lefties who do indeed have a brain. Would you mind working with the other please?

You can get this printed on just about anything from RightWingStuff.com.

This sounds interesting – I’ll let you know after I watch it…

According to their site, Variety writes the film is “far more jocular, good-natured and thoughtful than Moore partisans might expect” and Ebert and Roeper give it “Two Thumbs Up!”

I’ve never particularly liked Michael Moore, but always respected his Constitutional right to voice his wacky opinion. Then he based Bush when he received his Oscar – while some people clapped, I was really surprised that many people in the audience booed. I don’t know why I was surprised, but I was. Stupid me.

Now I’m pretty certain we should kick him out of a plane over North Korea dressed like Mr. Magoo.

Has anyone seen this? What did you think?

There has been a bit of controversy going on about new NBC show “The Book of Daniel” that chronicles the life of an Episcopalian Priest and his less than traditional family.

In an interview with the AP, Star Aidan Quinn (Rev. Daniel Webster) says the show is a “wholesome show. … It just has the courage to deal with some of the real issues that go on in people’s lives.”

My response, is “Really? Hmm – go on…”

Quinn continues, “I’m an Episcopalian priest who struggles with a little self-medication problem, and I have a 23-year-old son who’s gay, and a 16-year-old daughter who’s caught dealing pot, and another son who’s jumping on every high school girl he sees, and a wife who’s very loving but also likes her martinis.”

Many folks embroiled in the controversy, such as the American Family Association are trying to petition NBC to remove the show. Others believe that the show is a positive influence and that the AFA is over-reacting. ” ‘This is an offbeat, inclusive series — inclusive of people of faith and inclusive of gay and bisexual people,’ Damon Romine, GLAAD’s entertainment media director, told the PlanetOut Network. ‘It doesn’t surprise me that the AFA would be afraid of this series — it shows a family that’s both deeply religious and loving and accepting of their gay son.’ ”

OK, time out! Lets take a minute and look at this. What’s wrong with this picture?

Now, I haven’t seen this show, and I haven’t made up my mind if I will watch an episode or two. In general I don’t like to monetarily support items that I don’t agree with, but then I already pay for cable every month and with a DVR I don’t watch commercials anyway – so I’m up in the air on it.

This aside though, I’d like to attempt to put forth a reasonable argument for why many Christians are upset and worried about this type of show – hopefully an argument that non-Christians will understand. I know that to many non-believers, Christians can look like an odd bunch, getting our panties in a wad about the slightest little thing. I’d like to at least explain the anger that “The Book of Daniel” has fanned, and why we don’t necessarily even need to see it to know what we are up against.

On the one hand, self-medication, homosexuality, drugs, fornication and alcoholism are topics that many people deal with on a daily basis. On the other hand, I’m sorry but who the hell can say that this is “wholesome”?

Merriam-Webster defines “wholesome” as “promoting health or well-being of mind or spirit”. Now, which of those show twists, exactly, were the wholesome ones? Oh, being the Episcopalian priest maybe?

As C.S. Lewis so eloquently describes in his book Mere Christianity it is very important to guard the meaning of words, for otherwise they end up having no use at all. He describes the slide of the word “Gentleman” from meaning a man who had a coat of arms and some landed property into a term of praise targeting his behavior. Originally, there was no conflict with being a Gentleman and a liar, but with today’s meaning that would be impossible – maybe. See, the problem is that not everyone agrees on what the behavior of a gentleman should be, so the word is now useless for the task of accurate description. It is a nebulous idea whose meaning though likely similar, can differ for each person in profound ways. While there were plenty of words to praise or chastise behavior already, we now have nothing save full explanations to refer to the original Gentleman.

We see this same issue with Quinn’s reference to “wholesome” – the etymology of it is from the old English “whole”, in the healthy sense and is circa 1200. Originally this meant in a moral sense, with the physical sense being first attested to circa 1374. For an English word at those times in history, saying morality would mean talking about a Christian morality and then the flow of this morality into the body in a physical sense. So, this was a distinct word – if something was “wholesome” it displayed the distinct characteristics of a physically and spiritually sound Christian foundation. I have severe doubt that “The Book of Daniel” will stand up to this definition, regardless of what Quinn says.

How can I say that without even seeing the show? Because of the creators and their world view. Forgive me if I’d rather not take my direction of what is wholesome from the mainstream media and Jack Kenny. The AFA says this of Kenny: “a practicing homosexual who describes himself as being ‘in Catholic recovery,’ and is interested in Buddhist teachings about reincarnation and isn’t sure exactly how he defines God and/or Jesus. ‘I don’t necessarily know that all the myth surrounding him (Jesus) is true,’ he said.”

Its OK to be questioning things – God gave us a free will for a purpose – but don’t take your questions and put our label on them. This is the crux of the issue. Being a Christian means a SPECIFIC thing, and we object to those who are not Christians telling the nation what it means to be one of us.

It would be like me putting a show on NBC entitled “The Lesbian” – just because I like women, doesn’t make me a lesbian. Right now, it means something pretty specific and I just don’t qualify. Portraying a Christian priest who acts in very unchristian manner is the same thing. They just don’t qualify to showcase the subject. How do I know he acts in a very unchristian manner? Because doing otherwise would never make it on NBC.

Romine says that its OK for a “deeply religious” family to be “loving and accepting of their gay son” – I would agree, but I doubt it is in the manner that Romine is talking about. In general, I believe that with only a few exceptions (Exodus International and Love Won Out for example) the Christian community at large has lost a huge opportunity to minister to homosexuals. As a Church, we seem to be OK helping adulterers and drunks overcome their sin, but gays have to have completely healed themselves before they can be among us? That’s not right. I say hate the sin, love the sinner.

The real issue is that I don’t think Romine, OR “The Book of Daniel” will sign up to the gay son being in sin. I don’t mean to focus only on the homosexual aspect – I’m sure that most of these other unwholesome things will be portrayed simply as foibles that make for drama in the life of Daniel. I would wager a large sum that “The Book of Daniel” is all about how the family despite its problems, despite its differences and despite the challenges of life are able to overcome through love and togetherness. Well, that is very sweet, and a nice message, but it isn’t Christian. Its secular humanism, and as a Christian, I object to it wearing a Christian cloak.

If my guess is correct, then the fact that Daniel talks directly to Jesus only makes matters worse. With this type of direct give and take relationship, Daniel’s actions will implicitly carry Jesus’ approval. I find it hard to believe that NBC, Quinn or Kenny have gone through the Biblical scholarship necessary to answer these questions, especially when their goal is ratings not sound theology. If the response to these culture-defining issues isn’t based on solid Christian teaching, then what is it based on? Given the source, I’d again say secular humanism. So, what about this is Christian?

Non-Christians say we are over-reacting. Christians say this type of show chips away at what it means to be a follower of Christ, and that’s something we will ALWAYS be upset about.