Monday, November 30, 2009

Comments Should Now Work

Hi, folks! Apparently some of you have had some difficulty commenting on my blogs. That is the second weirdest thing I have ever heard. The first weirdest thing was that some of you want to comment.

Well, I think I fixed the issue, so, you may go ahead now and surprise me.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

Whaddaya Know? Einsten *Was* Wrong

One of the more interesting theories to be developed in the twentieth century was the theory of relativity. When Einstein first proposed it many thought he was crazy. Over the years it has come to be accepted as fact. I have disproven it. The flawless argument proceeds as follows:

1. According to the theory of relativity, anything that has mass cannot travel the speed of light, nor exceed it.

2. If it can be shown, therefore, that an object with mass could travel faster than the speed of light, the theory of relativity would be shown to be absolutely false.

3. Analog Clocks can be created.

4. An analog clock is a circle, and the second hand is the length of the radius of the circle. The distance the very tip of the second hand travels is the circumference of the circle, which of course is a function of the length of the second hand itself.

5. The formula for the circumference of the circle is 2&pi r, with r being the length of the second hand.

6. The tip of the second hand travels the circumference of the circle in exactly one minute.

7. Since analog clock can be created, create one with a second hand that is 3 billion meters long. The distance it travels is therefore 2 * 3.1415926535897932 * 3,000,000,000 = 18,849,555,921.5 meters. It does this is one minute. Since there are 60 seconds in one minute, we can get the number of meters per second the tip of the second hand is travelling by dividing by 60.

8. 18,849,555,921.5 / 60 = 314,159,265.359 meters per second.

9. The speed of light is 299,792,458 meters per second.

10. The second hand on an analog clock has mass.

10. Therefore by the truth of point number 2, the theory of relativity is completely false.

It's too bad the theory has been believed up until this point, when it is so easy to disprove. It's a good thing this blog has enough room to contain it.

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

The Purest, Most Noble of Emotions

I have a lot of time to think while I pull weeds out of garden beds these days, and today my thoughts turned towards the subject of greed. What is the first thought that goes through somebody's head when they see a person acting greedy? Here at Rocky Cape we have two pigs that get fed old bread and table scraps, and when we arrive with the bucket of slop, the pigs go nuts because they know they will soon be eating. They seemingly cannot wait the few seconds it will take me to carry the bucket over to their feeding pan. They want their food NOW! When the slop gets poured into the bucket, the larger of the two pigs eats first as much as she can, then the smaller pig gets to eat the leftovers. If there is anything more disgusting than pig slop it's pig slop leftovers. The interesting thing is, though, nobody judges the large pig's behaviour. It is the way of pigs.

Darwinists would have us believe that over the process of about two million years, a ground-dwelling ape-like creature turned into humans by a process known as natural selection, the idea that only those individuals who are the most fit will survive to produce offspring, and those individuals who are least fit will die off, leaving no mark of their ever having been born except for those lucky enough to have their skeletons fossilized. This is what is observed in groups of animals, so the natural thought for the humanist is to assume that's what has happened with humans in the past.

But wait! If that is really how we arrived on this planet, then why are each of us imbued with a complete set of morals?

An example will suffice:

There was an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space 9 that featured a creature known as a ferengi whose name was Quark, and his brother, Rom. The ferengi are a race of sentient beings that apparently spend their lives trying to acquire as many riches as they can before they die. The Star Trek writers would usually focus on the ferengi when a slightly more humourous episode was needed, or as comic-relief as a sub-plot to a very serious episode. There was one episode in which the leader of the ferengi had his behaviour altered by a higher race of aliens, which made him quite charitable instead of greedy. In one scene, Rom and Quark had the following conversation:

Rom: "...it's time for the Ferengi to move beyond greed."
Quark: "Beyond Greed? There's nothing 'beyond greed!' Greed is the purest, most noble of emotions!"

To which everyone watching laughs.

Why do we laugh? Because we are seeing some beings that are the complete opposite of ourselves. We laugh because in reality this is the opposite of what everybody in the world knows to be the truth. What is the opposite of greed? Selflessness. Everybody inherently knows that there is nothing beyond selflessness. Selflessness is the purest most noble of emotions.

Selflessness is to not seek one's own needs, but rather the needs of others. Paul wrote to the Corinthians that Love seeks not her own. True selflessness comes from love. And the world over knows it. Everybody you meet will understand that it's better to love than to hate. Sometimes it's very deep, but everybody knows it to some extent.

And when I think about selflessness, the person who comes to mind first is the man from Galilee, sent by God the Father, to take away the sins of the world, by becoming sin for us, and allowing himself to be humbled by death, even death on a cross.

The creator of all things gave himself for us. We are asked to do the same. Act in love towards all people. That is the purest, most noble of emotions. But love is much more than just an emotion. It is a way of life.

Do we love the folks around us? Are we mirroring that love that Jesus displayed when he took on himself our sins and was punished for it, Him who did no wrong at all?

I fear I get greedy sometimes. First it's me, then it's my neighbour. We have to change that to be: First it's my neighbour, then it's my other neighbour.

I have a long way to go.

Friday, November 13, 2009

Do You Want to Die?

I have been reading the ante-nicene fathers lately, and while reading I came upon a fellow who has some pretty intense words for the Ephesians to read:

"For it is not my desire to act towards you as a man-pleaser, but as pleasing God, even as also ye please Him. For neither shall I ever have such [another] opportunity of attaining to God; nor will ye, if ye shall now be silent, ever be entitled to the honour of a better work. For if ye are silent concerning me, I shall become God’s; but if you show your love to my flesh, I shall again have to run my race. Pray, then, do not seek to confer any greater favour upon me than that I be sacrificed to God while the altar is still prepared; that, being gathered together in love, ye may sing praise to the Father, through Christ Jesus, that God has deemed me, the bishop of Syria, worthy to be sent for from the east unto the west. It is good to set from the world unto God, that I may rise again to Him."

"May I enjoy the wild beasts that are prepared for me; and I pray they may be found eager to rush upon me, which also I will entice to devour me speedily, and not deal with me as with some, whom, out of fear, they have not touched. But if they be unwilling to assail me, I will compel them to do so. Pardon me [in this]: I know what is for my benefit. Now I begin to be a disciple. And let no one, of things visible or invisible, envy me that I should attain to Jesus Christ. Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ."


"All the pleasures of the world, and all the kingdoms of this earth, shall profit me nothing. It is better for me to die in behalf of Jesus Christ, than to reign over all the ends of the earth. “For what shall a man be profited, if he gain the whole world, but lose his own soul?” Him I seek, who died for us: Him I desire, who rose again for our sake. This is the gain which is laid up for me. Pardon me, brethren: do not hinder me from living, do not wish to keep me in a state of death; and while I desire to belong to God, do not ye give me over to the world. Suffer me to obtain pure light: when I have gone thither, I shall indeed be a man of God. Permit me to be an imitator of the passion of my God. If any one has Him within himself, let him consider what I desire, and let him have sympathy with me, as knowing how I am straitened."


"Do not speak of Jesus Christ, and yet set your desires on the world. Let not envy find a dwelling-place among you; nor even should I, when present with you, exhort you to it, be ye persuaded to listen to me, but rather give credit to those things which I now write to you. For though I am alive while I write to you, yet I am eager to die. My love has been crucified, and there is no fire in me desiring to be fed; but there is within me a water that liveth and speaketh, saying to me inwardly, Come to the Father. I have no delight in corruptible food, nor in the pleasures of this life. I desire the bread of God, the heavenly bread, the bread of life, which is the flesh of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who became afterwards of the seed of David and Abraham; and I desire the drink of God, namely His blood, which is incorruptible love and eternal life."

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Who was this man? His name was Ignatius and he lived from about A.D. 30 - 107, and there is a (possibly untrue) tradition that states that he was the young child that Jesus picked out of the crowd and placed before His apostles in Matthew 18:2. He was the bishop of Smyrna and he wrote several letters, and this excerpt from his letter to the Ephesians details quite nicely where his thoughts lie most of the time.

How can a man so long for death that he would compel wild beasts to devour him? He was so in love with the Father that he it was his only goal in life to become a martyr. Why? How can someone think that way?

Maybe he realized what this life is all about. That it is but a short stepping stone to eternity. He was utterly convinced in what he believed, and it drove him to near insanity: at least that's what most people today would call it. Imagine longing for death? Wanting to get eaten by wild beasts for the masses to enjoy?

Doesn't he know that God wants us to be happy and safe, and free from all forms of suffering? We're His children and he wants us to "have our best life now".

Boy, too bad Ignatius lived way back then and only had the apostles of Christ to learn from. Good thing we have "proper" theologians today who teach us what a Christian really ought to do and to think.

Poor Ignatius.


(Note: the preceding blog entry used an immense amount of verbal irony)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Look What I Did



At 29,029 feet above sea level, Mt Everest towers over every other thing in existence on this planet. According to Wikipedia, 2700 people have been successful at reaching the summit, while 210 have never returned. There are some areas on Everest where the conditions are so terrible that the bodies of those who have sacrificed themselves to the thrill of climbing the world's tallest mountain have been left where they are, for all to see: the risk is too great to try and remove them.

What compels people to climb Everest? I suppose it is the same reason people go skydiving, or do somersaults in the air with a motorcycle. It is the thrill, the adventure, the sense of accomplishment. To be able to say to the world, "Look What I Did!" Everybody is very impressed by those who risk their lives to do such fantastic feats of strength, endurance, and concentration.

I wonder, however, what God thinks of all these things.

The diameter of the Earth is 6357km from pole to pole, and Everest is 8.9 km high. This means that our planet is a sphere, the largest deviation being only 0.14% of it's diameter.

A billiard ball is allowed deviations of 0.2%.

The Earth, therefore, is smoother than a billiard ball. Everest doesn't look so big anymore, does it?

Can you imagine how God views us. I don't think He cares about the ability of humans to scale a measly twenty-nine thousand feet into the air. I don't think He's very impressed.

What does impress Him?

"Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; Learn to do well; seek judgment, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow"

"Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

"Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying, Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord they God with all thy hear, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou slat love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

We can know what pleases God because he has told us.

Funny, but I can't find "Everest" anywhere in scripture.