Hogzilla

In case anyone missed this story a few months ago, this is the world's largest known pig. It was found and killed in southern Georgia a few months ago after rumors that a "hogzilla" was terrorizing the locals. They are now making a horror movie about it. When, exactly, did we run out of good ideas for movies?

Answers in Genesis

There is a new Creation Museum opening up in Cincinnati next month. It is done by a group called Answers in Genesis. It cost them $27 million and is done very well. It features animatronic scenes of humans co-existing with dinosaurs and Noah building the ark. It has received a lot of buzz in the media (it was even secretly crashed by Bill Maher) The media's rection has generally been bad, most articles poking fun of the Christian community in general for the beliefs of the Answers in Genesis organization. What do you think? Do you think that this is a good idea in promoting the Gospel? Do you even agree with the assumptions of AiG?

Thoughts on Virginia Tech

I think the thing that bothers me the most about this whole incident is the media saturation. All you could hear about on Tuesday was about the murders, and all you could hear about yesterday were the tapes that he made about it. The media bombarded us with the same handful of images of Virginia Tech, the same interviews with students who survived saying they didn't really know what was going on at the time, and they same misinformation about the murderer. Some said he was South-east Asian, Chinese, Korean, and some said he was a student others not a student. It is the responsibility of the media to report facts, not speculation and hearsay. And then playing his videos to the world legitimized this guy. He was a disturbed young man who felt that he was a victim of some horrible wrong. He was not a victim, though! Once you take the life of another, you forfeit any right to the title "victim." I has a roommate at college who had all the same signs as Cho: he was socially awkward and constantly teased. He was manic-depressive and would skip class and spend entire days laying on his bed in the dark. Should I have notified school counseling and had them hold him because he fit the profile of a potential suicidal school shooter?? Sure, it was sad that he was teased, but that does not give him the right to kill 32 people and then himself.

They are so unlike your Christ

This is why people like our Christ but not our Christians.

Revelation

I want to revisit something that I started posting on this blog at the beginning. This concerns God's revelation. And I am asking this to spark a dialogue, so please respond if you have an opinion.


Does God continue to reveal Himself (outside of the general revelation in nature) after the closing of the canon of scripture? In other words, does God continue to directly speak to individuals about His will like He did with Adam, Abraham, Moses, the prophets, Jesus, etc.? Do you think that He spoke to Martin Luther and Aimee Semple McPherson the same way he spoke to David and Elijah?

Witnessing

I ask these questions to discuss the issues and to try to spark thought into why we do the things we do.
Why do we witness? As Christians, what is our motive for witnessing? Are we called to convince or coerce people to believe in Jesus, or are we called to just tell people about Jesus and let them make their own decisions? How do we witness? Do we go to the malls and main streets and popular places on the weekends and walk up to complete strangers and tell them that Jesus loves them and died for their sins with having no intention of ever seeing that person again? Do we go door to door and hand out Bible tracks that gives the Bible message in 2-3 paragraphs? Do we take a missions trip to another country and build houses or help with VBS or help AIDS victims? Do we sit down with our closest friends and really listen to what is bothering them and give them a shoulder to cry on if they need it? Is our purpose as Christians to convert as many people as possible to Christianity?

Salvation for Native Americans

For those of you who I have already talked to about this, you can ignore this post. For those of you who have not, I hope you will find this as interesting to think about as I do.

Were the post-Christ-pre-Columbian Native Americans saved? The Bible tells us that there is no salvation outside of the knowledge and belief in Christ as the only saving God. But what of the Native Americans who lived between the years of 0 AD and 1492? Did God abandon two entire continents worth of people for 15 centuries, or did someone come to the western hemisphere and tell the Native Americans about Jesus? And if someone did, that means that the western hemisphere was known long before Columbus, because it would have been common knowledge in order for the apostles and first Christian missionaries to cross the Atlantic. The knowledge that there is another half of the world would not have just died. So does that mean that Columbus knew about the New World and all of the people living there before he left Spain? Or was the knowledge of this world purposefully buried in history? And if so, why? Or the third option is that God left these people to their own devices for 1500 years? Any thoughts?

Top 10 most important events in history

I am going to start posting what I think are the top ten most important events in history and why I think they are the most important. I am starting today with number 10.



The Plague:
The plague was the greatest thing to happen to Europe, at least for those who survived. Before the plague, 95% of Europe was landless, wageless peasents who worked the land in order to stay alive. Right before the plague, Europe began a series of enclosure acts that closed the previously public land that serfs used to plant crops and raise their livestock and sold it off to the highest bidders. This was devestating to everyone in Europe who did not have enouigh money to buy land. The plague killed up to 75% of the people in some places (about 33-66% total in all Europe). Suddenly, the same amount of work needed to be done with half the people. Now the peasentry had a huge bargaining chip. They could now start to demand wages instead of a percentage of the crop. They were no longer tied to the lands, and many moved into these new cities that were popping up wverywhere. Not only did the peasentry now fight back against the nobility, but they started to innovate. A noble who would have paid 50 peasants to cut the grass around his estate with scissors could now pay the 1 peasant who invented a lawn mower. This opened Europe to advances in technology that might not have occured before the plague. The plague jumpstarted the Industrial Revolution which probably would not have occured when it did if the plague never happened as pre-plague, feudal Europe did not have any reason to innovate.

You know what grinds my gears??

When some commercial says something like, "This product is only for those who want to be millionaires, or real estate gurus, and have fun doing it!" Do the advertisers think we are stupid?? Do they expect us to say, "Well, I want to be a millionaire and I want to have fun. Maybe I should buy this 45 page $75 book written by Donald Trump on the secrets of how to be a fun millioniare-real-estate-guru!" Is there anyone that actually does not want all that? Is there anyone that actually thinks they can get all that by reading a book written by Donald Trump??

Stats for this semester

I am right aroung the half way point for this semester and the end is looking so sweet. I am going to take 2 summer classes, but they are going to be in the second summer session, so I get 7 weeks off between the end of spring semester and beginning of summer semester. Here is where I stand so far this semester:

History of the Atlantic World - solid B
Historical Writing - low A
Development of American Law - high B with potential for A
History of Modern Christian Thought - low A
Books read - 20
Books left to read - 15
papers written - 12
papers left to write - 9

Flying Time

Why does time fly by so fast when you want it to the least? This past week was spring break and I feel like I blinked and the week was over. That was literally the fastest week of my life and now I have to start class again tonight. The week before last was possibly the longest week of my life because I couldnt wait for spring break to start. Einstein was trying to describe his theory of relativity one day and when describing the relative-ness (?) of time said (and I paraphrase) "When you are taking a math test, time will go by slowly. But when you are talking to a girl, time will fly by."