Absolutely Amazing
She lives alone with her cat, named pebbles, and she’s never been kissed. This is her audition for England’s version of “American Idol.”
Check out Susan Boyle, if you haven’t heard of this woman, than this link is guaranteed to make you smile.
Why would Bart Ehrman go on this show?
Bart Ehrman is what happens when you decide to lose faith like a child, and let your brain rule over your heart. It is so sad. I call it “smart-guy syndrome.”
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/224128/april-09-2009/bart-ehrman
My favorite line: “why don’t we both die and let God settle it.”
I don’t know if it is good to love this interview this much.
Government Bill Will Criminalize Home Gardening!
Not.
Just heard noise about a federal bill (HR 875) before Congress. The noise was that this bill would end backyard food gardening. Thankfully, it is just alarmist language being thrown around by the beleaguered organic and raw foodies.
The bill (called the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009) was created as a response to the recent contamination problems within peanut butter, lettuce and spinach which transmitted e. coli to American homes.
The bill, essentially, requires anyone who sells food to register with the US government, receive an identification number, and potentially be subject to inspections by federal employees. Failure to comply with regulations could bring a $1,000,000 fine.
Apparently the bill’s sponsor (Rep. Rosa DeLauro [D-CT]) is married to a Monsanto employee. The conspiracy minded foodies out there have concluded that it is a secret ‘agro-industrial’ plot to prevent us from growing our own food and put CSA’s and Farmer’s Markets out of business. This is not only an unfounded accusation against the Representative, but inflammatory rhetoric. Ironically, this bill has not just polarized the left, but is also making the reactionary right nervous
So, if you get an email about the ‘end of home gardens’ – be aware that you are probably receiving some of the propaganda spreading through the internet and not an accurate of the actual congressional bill. This website has a more moderate analysis of the bill’s purpose. (It almost sounds like they read through the bill themselves…like I did!)
The problem with food contamination is actually because the food distribution system is already too centralized. When one link in the massive food distribution system gets contaminated, it spreads like wildfire to tens of thousands of products and people. The idea that the government plans to step in to make it even more centralized (shiver)…
Local (decentralized) growers maintain genetic diversity and create long-term, personal relationships with their customers, thereby assuring a greater accountability in the safety and quality of their products.
If you are a local grower, you are probably involved with the cultivation of that food from seed to market. You probably feed your family with it. You sell to your friends and neighbors. The bonds of friendship alone ‘protect’ your customers. Of course, it’s also very bad for business to make your customers sick.
I dislike this bill not because it will ‘put organic farmers out of business’ but because it will put the US government even more directly in control of our food resources. It is another example of the US government exhibiting a patronizing attitude towards the American people. In ‘protecting’ us they create a paternalistic dependence.
The ability for humanity to sustain itself with some seeds, sunlight, good soil and a little water has been a most basic skill for all of recorded history. The US government wants to help us now to make sure we don’t make ourselves sick because we eat a bad apple. Do we really need their help with this? In any case, I’m sure that by the time the bill makes it to the floor vote some language ‘de-regulating’ home gardens and small growers will be included. There are probably 15 home gardeners on the Agriculture sub-comittee alone.
The bottom line is that government control of a nation’s food supply is a slippery slope to go down. Though I don’t agree with the tone or rhetoric of the organic fanatics out there – I agree that this is a very unfortunate bill to rule over us if it passes Congress. I might even call it a sign of the times.
Twitter: On
So, I jumped on the twitter wagon to see what it’s all about. Click here to follow me…
One of the things that got me interested was the fact that Claire McCaskill updates on Twitter – interested in keeping up with the day-to-day of her maneuvers in Washington.
Hope to hear from ya if your tweeting.
38 New Notifications (and Counting)
I’m nothing, if not a social critic. I watch people. I offer (often unsolicited) commentary on their actions and reactions – and fight against slightly cynical tendencies in the process. And I’m not sentimental. Precious Moments? My sworn enemies. Cliche’s and warm fuzzies? I gag on them.
My thought today, however, is the strange glory that is the Facebook Birthday Party. I signed up with facebook last year – and was thrilled to gain over 78 friends in a single day. It felt good, all that friendliness. And today – opening my FB to discover that I have at least 38 fans (and the day is still young!) Who says the Internet isolates and alienates people from one another! Shame on them.
So a quick thanks to those who chimed in to celebrate that awesomeness that is me. And a reminder that I do have an amazon wish list if you want to take it to the next level.
A Question for Preterists
I’ve been (slowly) continuing forward in my studies on emergent views of eschatology – got a little stalled over the Christmas season, traveling, and preparing for teaching a NT Survey class this month.
I went to the ‘preterist planet’ website – which seems to be a sort of spokesperson for preterism, and discovered (among other things) that there is a view that there will never be a Jewish Temple rebuilt in Jerusalem.
The question (simple enough):
Would most (say 85%) preterists consider this a standard view that represents the majority?
Amanda Beattie Knocks it Out of the Park.
This post is amazing. Some of the best writing and thinking I’ve heard in a long time.
Emergent Eschatology: First Shot Across the Bow
For those not used to the metaphor above: a shot across the bow is a warning shot related to a threatened naval engagement.
I’ve got three or four sources that I’m actively engaging related to getting a picture of Emergent/Emerging views of the end-times. Tony Jones has a few key comments in his book The New Christians, I just got the book The Coming of the Son of Man by Andrew Perriman (thank you Jon Green for the recommend).
Additionally I’ll be reading and reviewing a book by Kevin Beck, This Book will Change Your World. Thanks to Kevin for comping me a copy of the book, look for a full review next week sometime.
Initial findings:
- Preterism is common in emergent circles.
- Dispensational pre-millenialism (which we at IHOP-KC are inevitably be lumped into…sigh) is considered theologically irresponsible.
- It is primarily reactionary related to popular pre-millenial views as espoused by LaHaye, Lindsey, and Hagee.
A few quotes to illustrate the above points. The bold is mine. Tony Jones says,
Here’s the major theological flaw [with the attempt to evangelize the world to cause Jesus to come back]: it makes the assumption that the activity of God is contingent on the activity of humans, while the biblical narrative seems to indicate that God acts independently of us…A similar defect afflicts the so-called dispensational view of the end-time made popular in the 1970’s by Hal Lindsey in The Late Great Planet Earth and more recently by the jejune Left Behind novels. These propose the dubious theology that the world is going to get worse and worse and worse until it gets so bad that God has to intervene (but not before God whisks away all of the Christians and lets the rest of humanity rot in a satanic hell for seven years). The New Christians p. 99
For those (like me) who didn’t know what ‘jejune’ meant, click here.
And a description by Kevin Beck of a typical dispensational view of eschatology:
God will order up disease and disaster, followed up by World War III on the plains of Armageddon. The only hope—so say the prognosticators of pain—is for God to send Jesus cloud-surfing back to earth to put the cosmos out of its misery.
If so, God will allow you to party it up for all eternity while everyone else—including many people you love—suffer torments that’d make the residents of Auschwitz and Abu Ghraib blush. This Book Will Change Your World, p. 16
For those unfamiliar with American abuses at Abu Ghraib, click here.
To summarize: Those of us who believe in a literal, common sense interpretation of eschatological passages of the Bible (esp. the book of Revelation) believe that God is a sadist on the level of Hitler. This God we promote seems to enjoy creating a hell-on-earth to cause humanity to suffer unimaginable horrors. Not only does God initiate said conditions, but this God invites His sadist disciples to help initiate the suffering by getting people saved and praying for Him to come back.
That view doesn’t seem very accurate to me, but of course it assumes that all literal interpretations of Revelation 6-22 include a rapture prior to the seals, trumpets and bowls.
Still have reading to do, so maybe the rhetoric lightens up. I will also be responding to one or two of the main exegetical arguments for preterism here in the future related to my reading.
Rick Warren: One Sabbath
I am appalled, but not shocked by this video. And here’s the website. (the video is a little long – but the first 3 min or so give you the idea)
Serving the poor without preaching the gospel (if you are a Christian) is like giving a starving person cans of food with no tools to open it. It is cruel and foolish, selfish, and destructive. Providing people with physical health for 70 years is not justice, if they spend eternity in hell.
Jesus primary concern is eternal life; otherwise he would have skipped the whole ‘dying on the cross’ step and just set up effective social planning in the Roman Empire. We do not share the values of Muslims, Hindus, or rabinnical Judaism. We are NOT one with them if we are believers in Jesus.
In fact, Jesus kingdom is actively resisting them – and if we agree with Him we resist the strongholds and principalities that are keeping them in bondage and dragging them into eternal destruction.
Are you willing to give GM, Ford and Chrysler $111?
I’m massively oversimplifying the situation. They want 34 billion dollars. The population of the US is 305,000,000 (approx.)
All things being equal it means the bailout will cost you $111. Are you willing to pay?
As a side note: The combined compensation (in stock options, salary, and bonuses) for the executive teams of these three companies is about 150 million dollars in the last year. That is only the top 5 executives in each company however. With the level of ‘millionaire’ managers who report to these guys, who knows how much is flowing up the wealth ladder?
