Archive for May, 2007

Reconnecting With Family

Sandals on the BeachWe had a great Memorial Day weekend. We packed the kids up and went out to the lake for the day on Sunday. Despite the fact that I have a great dislike for beaches (the sand gets in places where sand doesn’t belong), muddy water, and oversized rednecks in ill-fitting bikinis I had a great time. The reason I had a good time was that I had a chance to really reconnect with my family.

My family is awesome.

Not only that, but I think my family is better than yours. I’m completely nationalistic when it comes to my family. I look at other nice families and think, “Yeah, they’re pretty cool but mine is so much better.” I think my kids are cuter and smarter, my wife is hotter, and my son Owen could definitely take your sweater-vest wearing kid in a knife fight ANY DAY OF THE WEEK.

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1816 days ago 1

Memorial Day Salute

Let’s remember our heroes today.

This video features footage from the movie “Saving Private Ryan” so this is NOT for young eyes, but I think it’s important that we not look away from the sacrifice that so many have made before us (and are still making today).

[tags]memorial day, soldiers, WWII, world war 2, war, saving private ryan, YouTube[/tags]

1816 days ago 0

The Wiggles Creep Me Out

My 2 year old daughter and her cousins love The Wiggles. Personally, they make me shudder. Maybe it’s all the primary colors or the songs that make no sense. If Stanley Kubrick had put together a boy band, I think the result would’ve been something just like The Wiggles.

Here is a puppet version of a famous Wiggles song, remixed into a techno style.

This is perhaps the funniest and creepiest thing I have ever seen. I can’t stop watching it! And is it just me, or does the yellow Wiggle look just like Tom Cruise? Hmmm.

Have a great weekend!

If you’re dying to see the real version without the puppets, you can find it here. I’m not posting the video here, because the real Wiggles give me nightmares.

[tags]The Wiggles, Greg, Jeff, Anthony, puppets, point your finger and do the twist, song, remix, youtube[/tags]

1820 days ago 5

The Nature of Truth

Truth TornJames Dobson is famous for asking young Christian leaders this question:

Why do you believe the Bible is the authoritative and sufficient Word of God?

The answers he gets are strikingly consistent. Almost without fail, the answers go something like:

Because I believe it. I have faith!

This response should not shock you, but it should disturb you. It disturbs me not because these kids don’t know how the canon was formed, or that the scriptures are inspired (God-breathed), self affirming, or any of the other myriad of good answers to that question. What disturbs me is the world view that is revealed in their answers.

We live in an age where belief determines truth. What’s true is now only true for the individual and cannot then be applied to everyone. What’s true for you is fine, but it may not be true for me (unless I decide that it is). So, in effect, our belief creates truth. We call this tolerance. Truth is no longer something to be discovered, but rather it is something to be created and something that evolves over time as our experiences shape it.

So we end up with a society that forms personal religious beliefs like picking from a menu a la carte. A little Muslim, a little New Age, with a dash of Jesus (as a teacher or prophet, not as Lord), and a dollop of Oprah on top for garnish. Everyone ends up with their own fatty concoction that is neither nutritious or appetizing. They create customized belief systems that are full of internal conflicts and impotency. Yet they look at each other, hold their useless beliefs in the air and cheer for their diversity.

So let me be clear. Christianity is fully, completely, without exception incompatible with EVERY other religious system past, present or future. The Bible is clear as crystal about this! Are we just going to ignore John 14:6? Tear that page out because it’s “true for us, but not true for them”?

In our attempt to obey Christ by loving our neighbors, we have dimwittedly allowed our children and our churches to believe that the truth is not something to be discovered, but rather an ever changing journey with no ultimate destination. As a result, postmodernism is eating their lunch while they sit wide-eyed and placidly content.

You can shut [Jesus] up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ~CS Lewis

The truth is more than an idea, a philosophy or religious system of dogma. The truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ must be contended with.

Cheers and stone throwing welcome in the comments!

[tags]apologetics, religion, truth, faith, bible, Jesus, Christ, gospel, humanism, relativism, tolerance, philosophy, God, postmodernism[/tags]

1821 days ago 4

My Favorite Blogs List

In an ongoing effort to bring you both thought provoking articles and mind numbing entertainment, I’m compiling my short list of favorite blogs. I narrowed the list to blogs because I think that’s where the best content is on the web these days.

Why only five? Add to the list in the comments!

  1. Challies.com — A christian blog that has been around since the beginning of blogging popularity. The site’s design ROCKS. And he is a very good writer and clear thinker. He writes a lot of book reviews as well as church life/general christianity stuff. The quality of his site and his writing is rare in the blogosphere.
  2. Nathan’s Blog — Nathan Rice, to be specific. This is one of my favorite bloggers and I visit it almost daily. He alternates between articles on science (usually as it relates to Intelligent Design), politics, and Christianity/theology. His blogging is always open ended. He rarely comes to the conclusions himself, but just gives some info and poses a question to the readers. It makes the commenting integral to the content. Head on over and join in!
  3. Tall Skinny Kiwi — one of the older christian blogs around and very popular. He’s tall, skinny, and he’s from New Zealand: hence the blog’s name. I think he was a house church planter for a while and has since gotten involved in the emerging church. From his About Page:

    I am the Project Director for the Boaz Project. We are developing a support structure for church in the emerging culture. My blog is about God, spirituality, new media and new expressions of church

    The content there ranges from personal posts to longer articles on church life, culture, book reviews, and theology. Great stuff.

  4. The Resurgence — a ministry of Mars Hill Church. Lots of writers (Mark Driscoll, Ed Stetzer, Gary Shavey, sometimes John Piper, and others) writing on a wide range of topics, the most common being theology and missional church life. The articles are usually pretty deep and involved treatments of various subjects. It’s often not light reading, but a great resource. And Mark Driscoll is a little cranky so it makes it fun to read.
  5. Lifehacker — a tech blog with multiple writers with content designed for non-techies. They post multiple times a day and rarely a day goes by that I don’t see something there that is helpful in my job or in my home office.

[tags]best blogs, list, top blogs, blogging, websites,[/tags]

1822 days ago 7
spider_monkey-wide

My Apologies to Golden China for the Spider Monkeys

If you were one of the diners that had the misfortune of eating at Golden China in Fuquay-Varina, NC Saturday night you have my sincerest apologies. If a ball of fried rice hit you in the back of the head, that was my middle child Eliana. She gets carried away sometimes. That sound of banging and growling? That would be Owen. He likes to pull over cups of ice tea and splash in the wreckage.

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1823 days ago /  Tagged: 7

Scientology is Growing in Hollywood

L. Ron Hubbard, Sci-fi writer and creator of ScientologyThe BBC recently did an investigation of Scientology in the UK. It resulted in a much publicized temper flare-up by the interviewer. It was another reminder to me that Scientology is not going to go away, despite it’s nuttiness.

I’ve been watching Scientology for a while. I don’t know why, but it has always stood out to me as particularly dangerous and insipid. I know, I know. How dangerous can a cult be that believes in an evil (pronounced ‘eeeee’ – ‘villllll’) overlord alien that tried to take over the earth to solve his overpopulation problems be “dangerous and insipid”?

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1823 days ago 3
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