In The Year 2025

In celebration of this, my 5,000th blog post, I arranged with the Wayback Machine 5.0 to send this post back in time to 2011. 

It was a nice July walk to the coffee shop today as the snow has finally melted. We have adjusted to the Global Cooling well. The immigration of the glacier-locked Canadians was a godsend to the construction industry. 

Stacy just had her first child. Her husband, Hung Ho Lee, is a good man and doing well in his job at China Motors (used to be GM). We hope to visit Stacy in Shanghai next year. 

I just received my first Social Security check at age 70. I do not believe the rumor that the checks will stop coming this fall; President Bristol Palin will not allow this. She is looking out for me. I am glad that the constitution was amended to allow President Palin to inherit the office from her father. 

I just ordered my latte, and I am surfing the web with my iNeural implant from AppleComcast. I just tugged on my ear to start it up. The guy next to me is tugging away madly on his ear—he must have the iWindows implant from Googlesoft. Hopefully he does not have the iPorno implant from Facebook. Disgusting. 

The economy is fine. The Dow Jones just reached $100,000, twice the $50,000 that some pundits predicted. The latte is ready. I am sorry they banned dairy products in 2020 as cruel to animals, but I have gotten used to the soy milk taste. The Latte cost me $100. Life is good! 

I was allowed to send you all one Youtube link with my best advice for the future. Here it is: 

Titanic Denial part III

Pam Dewey has completed her three part series on the followers of Harold Camping. 

You see, Harold convinced his followers, something “did” happen on May 21. It just didn’t happen where anyone could see it. It was a “spiritual” event. God judged the world on that day, and closed the door to salvation. (Like when God closed the door on Noah’s Ark once Noah and family were inside.) Only those who were inside the Ship on that day will be saved when the Ultimate End comes on October 21 and the whole world is destroyed. The job of Family Radio now is only to “feed the sheep” inside the Ark. Only five more months to sail, and then all the waiting will be over. Really. Guaranteed.

A good read to help understand the psychology of the "true believers."

Two Holes-in-One

This was from last year. This is one lucky teen: 

Three weeks after making a double eagle, Phillips, who just started his junior year of high school, had made his first hole-in-one.

The odds of a golfer making two aces in one round, according to Golf Digest's Dean Knuth, are one in 64 million, not that Phillips was aware of that when he pulled out his 9-iron and teed up the same Slazenger No. 1 on the 160-yard 16th hole.

"It was really windy, in my face, but I said, 'The heck with it, I'm going to go ahead and hit the 9-iron again," Phillips said. "There was no doubt about this one -- we saw it go in. It took one bounce, then sat down and rolled once to the left and went in."

Why am I blogging about a back to back hole-in-one from last year? Why have I tagged it as a Bible subject? It illustrates an important concept.

We humans love to make patterns where there are no patterns. Thus the late Jerry Falwell blamed the 9-11 disaster on gays in America. He saw a pattern where none existed. This is not to say that God might not be stepping back from any protection He may have given in the past. Nor is it impossible that God might intervene in history. He has done it before. But the words of Jesus tell us how to look at "bad luck" in Luke13:

1 Now there were some present at that time who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 2 Jesus answered, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans because they suffered this way? 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish. 4 Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem?5 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish.”

Yes sooner or later we will all perish. Are we ready for that time?

Odd things happen. Do not read into these events more than you should.

You Are Being Played?

The Arab Spring, a series of revolutions in the Arab world, began with this man. 

A hero of the revolution.

But when the same thing occurs in America it gets different coverage. 

A man who died after lighting himself on fire outside the Cheshire County Superior Court House Wednesday had a history with local courts. Thomas J. Ball, 58, of Holden, Mass., was embroiled in legal battles over how much he owed his ex-wife for their three children’s medical bills, according to court documents.

My point is not about either of these cases. It is the difference in the coverage. Anyone who burns himself alive has mental health issues. Both were economically distressed. Both felt persecuted by oppressive governments.

But the emphasis in the American case is the goofiness of the man. One video I saw showed his cluttered back porch. This of course proves that he is crazy. I hope they never look at mine, at least I hope that no one has a video of my back porch before I got married.  

In the Tunisian case the emphasis is the economic hardship and the oppressive government. The stories are framed by the producers to achieve the desired effect.

Have you ever watched a news story where you had personal knowledge of the situation discussed? Was it correct? If it was not correct, then why are you assuming the stories you watch where you have no personal knowledge are correct?

The stories we watch and read are often not correct. This is not a left/right issue. All stories are framed, the question is who is framing them. If you do not understand that you are being played by the news, by both sides, you will not understand the news.

Note that I fell into a framing error in that last sentence. There are NOT two sides, there are many sides. Do not allow yourself to be manipulated by Babylon.

A Moment of Clarity

I have been talking about the templates we use to interpret the world around us. One of the templates I use is that one can use the Old Testament. While most Christians say they use it, in reality most do not. I remember the exact moment that I understood the continued validity of the Old Testament, it was

A Moment of Clarity

I remember it well. It was back in my cowboy days, and I was at my ranch in the evening reading. The carpet was green shag and the couch had earth tones. I was reading a former Seventh Day Adventist, Robert Brimsmead, who had left that denomination. His main argument against the Sabbath keeping of his former denomination was an argument against the Old Testament. Basically he was saying that the Old Testament (OT) was superseded by the New Testament (NT). He made several arguments that no doubt were convincing to some, as later he was the poster boy for the New and Improved Worldwide Church of God which also abandoned the Sabbath. In the book I was reading, Brimsmead was ranting about the Old Testament not being relevant and so on when I had my moment of clarity. I think I even said it out loud.

"Doesn't he realize that if he is right about the Old Testament, the New Testament falls by these same arguments?"

Obviously he did not.  What do I mean by this? The NT cannot stand alone because it is so infused with the Hebrew Scriptures that the two cannot be separated. If the OT is obsolete (the exact reasoning does not matter, and there are many versions), then how can another document based on it be inspired? If God's inspired word for 1400 BC is not inspired, then clearly God's inspired word for 50 AD is not inspired either.

For example, the NT in 2 Tim 3 says the Old Testament is inspired. The Message version puts it this way:

Unscrupulous con men will continue to exploit the faith. They're as deceived as the people they lead astray. As long as they are out there, things can only get worse. But don't let it faze you. Stick with what you learned and believed, sure of the integrity of your teachers—why, you took in the sacred Scriptures with your mother's milk! There's nothing like the written Word of God for showing you the way to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God's way. Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.

The Scriptures referenced here are the Old Testament.  How can we claim inspiration for the NT, but reject the OT, when the NT disagrees with us? To make it even more telling this scripture tells us that we can use the Old Testament in a way that some modern theologians say we cannot--that it can be used to train and lead us. Who do we believe?

Of course the usual dodge is to claim "inspiration" for the Hebrew Scriptures but decide (in contrast to the scripture) that it is no longer useful. The advocates of this approach will often deny that this is what they are doing, but to be blunt they are lying to themselves. It is as if they are turning the words of Jesus in Mat 5 on their head, making Him say:

17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to abolish them.

My favorite professor in graduate school actually said this, and he smiled broadly when he said it. He was joking, but this is the exact approach many take. What Jesus said was that he came to fulfill them, not destroy them.

What happened to Brimsmead? Well, he realized his dilemma later in life, and understood that he either had to accept the Old or reject the New. He chose badly. Last I heard he was operating a New Age book store and growing avocados in New Zealand-a non-Christian by any reasonable metric.

Yet, this does not trouble Christians who still regard Brimsmead as a mentor. Brimsmead's material is still used as a source in some circles. This approach is a common malady among many people. They decide to adopt an idea or a doctrine, and they began to parrot the arguments of others in order to come to the preordained, desired conclusion. They do not stop to consider that they do not agree with the premises that the people making the argument may have. The only thing that makes is self-justification, not good theology. Ideas have consequences.