Personal Life Update: Sankta Lucia

Journal Entry, Monday December 15, 2014

         Sankta Lucia party _______ with the Swedish families

[Blondie] didn’t come this time; she’s still in CA and according to [German] her brother, doing very well for herself. She’d be coming up later for Tradition Day (my epithet for “christmas” nowadays). Their mom [EyeShadow] was there, too, but we didn’t talk all too much. I jotted notes down before bed last night (tonight?) to avoid forgetting details like names. [Snowball] was the shorter, oldest woman there, who it sounded like she said had been the one who started the Lucia get-together 15 (or 25?) years ago. She’s 80something, with a narcissistic (her word—to [Swede], who told us in the car going home) 50y.o. son for whom she has been paying rent in order to get him to move out of her house and stay out. I didn’t talk to [German] super much but I pointed out a key-fiddle on the wall in one of the rooms and noted that it features in Nordman music, and he was interested in song suggestions. At the dinner, [Bruno] and I talked with about 4-5 other older women, and the only one who was not Swedish, I think, was [Smiley], a [someone's mom from high school] lookalike who was very cute for what I’m assuming must be an early or mid-40s woman, since she referenced having a 15-year-old son (see below). Her husband’s name is [Smilie], and she made reference to him starting up a company 1½  years ago to comment that just having a degree, though I don’t have much more on paper to impress with, was noteworthy because it showed you’re smart and dedicated enough to persist until you learn something. She’s a [career] of some sort, and listened to [Bruno] explain his career track hopes: [redacted] She laughed at how he relayed that the [women coworkers] treat him, some joking that they could be his mother, and others straight up being mischevious (he had another time used the word “lecherous” to describe them to me, but I forget what word he used yesterday). After that point, she complimented both him and I that we were confident in speaking with older women, and that that was somewhat unique and a good thing. I can’t remember exactly how she put it, but she did use the word confident to describe us, as I parsed that phrase above. That was encouraging. In a text to [college friend] after coming home, I contemplated that her personal experience with young men perhaps not being comfortable speaking with older women could be in part due to her being sexually intimidating, more than just merely older. On the other hand, maybe [Bruno] and I are unique, as she suggested herself, because of [redacted] . I speculated further in the text I mentioned, that maybe young adult males in this culture have difficulty interacting with both pretty and ugly, both young and old women, for different but connected reasons, because of pornography consumption—that they are mentally conditioned so that it’s hard for them to relate to women in any way other than sexually. This was naturally not included in the table talk, but her delightfulness again brought to mind the same feeling I recognized in Fall 2012 and have written about a few other times, such as in my Plato’s Forms blog post—that something I see in her is appealing, and I know better than to think that I’m romantically attracted to her personally; instead, her engaging personality represents that which is my ideal that I desire: an attractive, elegant, intelligent, wise, motherly, mature, feminine woman who’s easy to communicate with and who I can relish in the joy of being united with at all stages of our lives together, both when young and when middle aged and when old. Rounding out the text, I speculated that if more people could recognize the difference between these feelings being inspired by someone, and having feelings for that person, that there would be a lot less adultery in the world. Right about when we left, and said goodbye to [Smiley], another lady  asked if we were her sons, to which she laughed and, patting [Bruno] on the shoulder, said ‘thanks for the compliment.’ And followed it by saying, “I do have a 15 year old son,” compounding the flattery by implying we, or at least he, looked youthful as a teenager. But the last people we talked to were [Green] and her daughter [Attila] , who it turned out [Bruno] had met and posed for a photograph with a few years ago (I only went to the event last year for the first time, because I’d been at college otherwise). She and he made grimacing furrowed-eye gestures at each other, and it amused me to note that the little girl’s forehead (she was 8) was nearly expressionless, having no forehead wrinkles to speak of. Having a number of fine lines there myself when I gesticulate with my eyebrows, it had not occurred to me that they’re a subtle sign of my age. She’d been dancing ballet since she was 2, and like most kids between 4 and 9, connected really well with [Bruno], whether she remembered having met him before or not. She impressed us by spontaneously offering to pronounce deoxyribonucleic acid perfectly, and I told her mom, who was holding her at that point, “encourage that.” [Green] said that it was nice that there was someone here [Attila] could connect with, indicating [Bruno] , and I affirmed that by philosophically stating that I think we can bridge the gap between youth and adulthood, and encourage young children to mature by, for lack of a better word, being a model of what growing up looks like. I told her the story of my Boy Scout experience, where the incorporation of a satirical fantasy written by another boy my age to deal with his difficulty taking directions from me became a sort of local mythology that allowed the younger boys (11-13) to be entertained without making a joke out of everything, and actually seemed to help them discipline themselves and be more receptive to what I would tell them as the SPL (Senior Patrol Leader). [Green] was impressed, and I said that in our position, [Bruno] and I are able to figuratively give a hand-up to those younger than us, to spur them on toward maturity/adulthood, but we’re getting on in age, so we’re doing the best we can, but soon we’ll be “pure adults”—though that wouldn’t stop us from trying to influence kids positively! In the car on the way home, [Swede] explained that [Green] had just gotten full custody over [Attila] , after having put her in school in Sweden for less than a year, but that having been interpreted as running away with the child, and leading to a prolonged custody dispute with an unreliable ex husband. [Swede] had gone in to be a (character?) witness for her in court, while that was happening. Apparently, the ex had amassed $65,000 in back taxes over many years, but did not own his house or cars, instead rented them, so that they could not be repossessed, indicating that this was a preplanned scheme, and before the divorce, [Green] had been advised to file ‘married filing separately,’ to avoid getting dragged into the financial ridiculousness that her apparently grotesquely narcissistic ex was creating. When the same judge who had judged the divorce finally judged the custody dispute, because of the ex’s known unreliability, he or she had awarded [Green] full custody.

It's weird to go hang out with mid-and-upper middle-class folks, being from the lower middle class myself. But hey, experiencing diversity and culture and stuff, that's good, right? Plus a little bit of immersion in a part of my heritage is bound to be beneficial somehow.

~ Rak Chazak

Random further reading:

http://welcometosweden.blogspot.com/2009/03/moving-to-sweden-public-holidays.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Lucy%27s_Day

Pulp Fiction I

Pulp Fiction I

This is the intellectual property of the author. Permission to reproduce in any format is granted, on the condition that you attribute it to the author and that you do not publish it for personal monetary gain.

 

            It was late Fall 2010 when the campus exploded.

            This was not a terrorist attack. In fact, the explosion couldn’t be seen. But by its effects it made itself known. Rippling out from the epicenter of an abstract reality, shockwaves of discontent manifested in rumors and outrage. What had happened was deeply injurious to the sense of pride many had in the academic establishment to which they belonged. If their prejudices were correct, then the lone voice in the electronic wilderness was a painful evidence of the failure of higher education to reform minds and achieve a unanimity of scientific doctrine among its pupils.

            This cheapened their view of their own success and insulted those who took comfort in their perceived academic prowess. The dissonance produced an argumentative backlash on the insulated discussion forum of a prestigious university. Men and women whetted their appetites for controversy, brought to bear their weapons of worldly wisdom, and took aim at the man who dared defy the presumed conclusions of the education he was receiving. Thousands became acquainted with a single name—for some, a byword; for others, a folk legend; and for still fewer others, an ideological ally and friend.

            Love and hate were expressed, by no means in equal measure. Some were impressed by his command of logic, others by his depths of ignorance. He converted apparent friends and apparent enemies, each to the opposite camp. For a man who wished to imitate Christ, he certainly had one thing in common with Him: he drove a wedge between everybody. Everyone had an opinion, and no one was let alone to sit on a fence. And of course, he was ‘despised and rejected’ by most, but very few people truly knew him.

            In the end run, the most important things he learned at college were gained from this forum. And after his baptism-by-fire, he was no less zealous than when he started. His destiny may turn out to be insignificant, but he would see it through to its utmost fulfillment.

~ Rak Chazak

The Purity Principle: A Biologist's Perspective on the Timing of God's Wrath and Salvation

This'll be a long post with lots of pictures, yay! Make sure to click "Read More" so you don't miss out! 

The Purity Principle

Thesis abstract: my observation and speculation that the reason the Fall happened before Adam and Eve had children, and that the Flood destroyed all of mankind except Noah’s family, is that God chose those times to avoid the far more complicated consequences of what would happen if only a part of mankind fell at once, or how to keep the Messianic Line undiluted from Adam to Christ. They appear to be decisions made mainly on the basis of demographics, with respect to their relation to sinfulness and its effects on the righteous who are living, keeping in mind God’s respect for the deterministic autonomy of man.

How can I say that with simple words? = Specific points in history have seen God’s intervention, I speculate, because of an implied, but (to my knowledge) inexplicit, goal of maintaining the spiritual purity of believers: first the patriarchs, then Israel, and then the Church.

Here’s my big idea: have you noticed, for instance, that every single person in Jesus’ lineage as given in Matthew and Luke (as far as can be told from Biblical background information on them) were saved? What are the chances of that? Now, there must certainly be unbelievers in His ancestry somewhere, BUT nevertheless the fact that there is at least one lineage containing an unbroken chain of belief in God, from father to son, from Adam to Christ, is a very conspicuous observation. And it begs analysis of why this might be the case.

I should clarify how I am using the word purity. You may have gotten the idea from the last paragraph, but let me dispel any possible misunderstanding. My notion of purity in this article concerns itself with spiritual genealogy. The physical lineage doesn’t matter; this isn’t promoting nationalism or ethnic divisions between people. In the context of Israel and the Church, Biblically, purity means you have believers inside and unbelievers outside. Let unrepentant ones in, and the passage “a little leaven leavens the whole lump” comes true. The idea is that unbelief is, from a demographic viewpoint, infectious. Leave it alone without a purge of some sort (does not need to be violent), and over time it has the tendency to totally corrupt everything. We see this in the example of Noah, whose culture had become so far removed from God (from the impurity of the God-believing Sethites intermarrying with pagan Cainites, which tainted the succeeding generations with the Cainite godlessness) that he was the ONLY man alive on earth who walked with God!—out of the millions or possibly billions of people alive at that point. As a student trained in biology, this makes me think of serial dilutions. 

Right-click on any of the following images to see them in a full size view.

Faithlessness, if tolerated by the faithful, and absent God’s intervention, has the effect of diluting faithfulness over time so that there is less and less faith on earth, by proportion of the total population, by every succeeding generation.

This is obviously a bad thing, and if God does not desire (as I believe the Bible gives us strong support to believe) for faithfulness to ever disappear completely from the earth, at any one time, then He would have to do something to protect the diminishing remaining faithful from the corrupting godlessness around them.

And this is, I believe, a supporting reason for God’s decisions in history to a) send the Flood, b) call Abraham out of Ur, c) the Israelite Exodus, d) the Zionistic theocratic laws for Israel that forbade intermarriage with foreigners, and ultimately why Jesus came at just the time that He did.

Naturally, the main reasons from a theological point of view, and a historical point of view, are different, more obvious, and more important. But every good thing done has more than one good reason for doing it, and I’m going to use the space after the jump to describe how God’s desire for the spiritual purity of the various people God has dealt with has, I believe, been a supporting reason for His decision making and His perfect timing.

Adultification II: Loan Repayment (IBR) and Capitalization of Interest

I had a lot of assumptions about how money, interest, payments, etc were handled, and they were all slightly incorrect in one way or another. Here's my voyage of error and education.

First, my loans entered repayment 6 months after graduation, which was roughly December 2013. I believe I was previously aware of the possibility of gaining what's called "forbearance" on loans, (probably from a phone call to the loan servicer before the repayment period began) which allows you to pay less, or wait to pay, while you are in a difficult financial situation.

The standard repayment option for my student loans owed to the Department of Education was $350/mo. The interest alone is $170, roughly. But under the Income-Based Repayment (IBR) option, I'm allowed to pay nothing, so long as my yearly income is less than my total debt. On minimum wage, that's a given.

In the mean time, I had asked for the loans to be placed on "administrative forbearance," where I wouldn't get penalized for not making payments, but I had to still make an official IBR plan request. I got around to this by July of this year. Nevertheless, I was tantalized by the idea of getting an income tax refund for the interest I paid to the loans, so I set about to mail checks to pay the interest during that time period anyway.

And last month, when I set about to calculate how much I was paying of interest and principal, I found some upsetting numbers.

On not a single month was the full amount of the accrued interest paid! And tallying up the total interest paid, I calculated that a full half of the money I'd sent had gone to principal, rather than the interest on every loan group, which I'd specifically requested in the special payment instructions. (I had sent a little more each month, to go to the principal on the loan group with the highest interest rate, but not nearly half of each check) What was going on?!

This was my mistake. I had made three false assumptions.

1. That interest was capitalized monthly. (Capitalization is when interest gets added to principal, which is what is used to calculate how much interest you'll 'earn' on subsequent statements) Perhaps it's different for different loans, but if I understood my call-center lady correctly, the IBR plan never capitalizes interest, but keeps it separate from principal, for as long as you remain on the plan and as long as you don't "reallocate" the interest/principal.
2. That interest accrued monthly. I knew that the interest rate was a yearly rate, but I had not considered that the loan holder calculated additions to the interest on a daily basis. That's why, when I mailed my checks ahead of the due date, the full amount of interest shown on the statements had not accrued yet, so I was sending them more money than there was interest, and the remainder was being put to principal.
3. That the payments I mailed would be deposited on the due date. See above. Payments received were applied on the same day, and if I had wanted it differently, I should have made payments over the phone or via the internet.

And further, something I was unaware of, that really threw me off: After my IBR request went through, the Department of Education got rid of--not paid, but simply erased--any interest that had accrued up to that point on every loan, as of the August statement. Considering that I had been paying interest all along, this didn't accomplish much, except to make my entire next deposit go completely to principal. That really threw me for a loop.

Despite all of these explanations, there was still unpaid interest for nearly every month except one, according to my loan adviser girl. Neither of us had a clue why that was so. Payments for one month could not be moved to another month, but she told me that she could put in a "reallocation request," to move principal for each month to pay the remaining unpaid interest for said month. August would seem to be the odd man out.

As the principal gets reallocated, that would raise the loan balance, thus raising the amount of interest that accrues each month, and so on and so forth. This has the consequence of making the loans more expensive in the long term, especially in the event that I don't make interest payments. But the whole incentive for me to make these large payments was because it is only interest that can be tax-deducted in 2015, not the principal. That money would be money I gave away, not to get back. I was paying down interest with the expectation that it was money I was going to get back, so in other words I was essentially not spending any money, all I would have to do is wait until April 2015 to have those funds available again.

And now that that's resolved, I should soon be able to log in to see what the final count of my paid principal and interest is, online, and I'll definitely keep myself to electronic payments in the future to avoid possible fiascos. The daily accruing interest will be higher as a result of this reallocation, but I'll be able to get the maximum amount of money back from the Feds that I intended.

~ Rak Chazak

Another Candidate for a Poignant Quote by 2080

This one's by Paul Washer, and it goes well with the Ken Ham one I posted in October.

"The church in America is going to suffer so terribly and you laugh now but they will come after us, they will come after our children, they will close the net around us while we are playing soccer mom and soccer dad, when we’re arguing over so many little things and mesmerized by so many trinkets. The net even now is closing around you and your children and your grandchildren and it does not cause you to fear. You will be isolated from society as has already happened, anyone who tries to run for office who actually believes the Bible will be considered a lunatic until finally we are silenced. We will be called things that we’re not and persecuted not for being followers of Christ, but for being radical fundamentalists who do not know the true way of Christ, which of course is love and tolerance. We’ll go down as the greatest bigots and haters of mankind in history." ~ Paul Washer, in speech a year-ish ago at the Master’s College (longer transcript here)

Have you been accused of not being a true Christian? Of not being a good Christian? Of not loving like Christ? Perhaps of having your own arrogant interpretation of Scripture, or of being pride-filled and acting out of concern for your own glory?

Take heart. It's what Jesus told us would happen.

Note, He said 1) we would be persecuted for His sake, AND 2) we would be falsely accused.

So when somebody attacks you for "not representing true followers of Christ," that doesn't mean you're "not being persecuted for His sake." It could just mean that you're being falsely accused. Why would liars tell the truth and admit that they're persecuting you for standing in the cause of righteousness? Think about it.

But search the Scriptures to ensure that you are obedient to the Father.

~ Rak Chazak

Fox News is Not Your Friend (Hat-Tip to Wretched)

Subcaption: Voddie Baucham Cut off As Soon as He Mentions the Cross

Video after the jump.

Here's the link to the original podcast that inspired the article title for this piece:

http://www.wretchedradio.com/podcast.cfm?h=62C14A71AA2030A715E5A1720DABEFD2&page=86

And now the piece de resistance. Black conservative pastor taken on conservative television station to talk about black violence and racism, and perhaps you think the producers will let him spread his conservative Christian views?

Haha. Nope.

See, Fox News is conservative, but that does not equivocate to Biblical Christianity. Sure, as Todd points out in the intro to the podcast, there might be many Christians on the side of the Republican Party, but that does not make the GOP a Christian, let alone Bible-based platform, party, or movement. It's most fair to say that it's influenced by Christians, but it disdains us in much the same way that the Democratic Party disdains the Republican Party. It's merely a matter of degree. Both groups want national influence, and they are strongly motivated to cast themselves as pro-Christian or the true representation of Christian virtue, in different ways, in order to court the support of believers.

But the parties as a whole and the nation as a whole is not Christian, and to say that Christianity influences them is becoming a more and more misleading statement.

No, Fox News exists to make money by selling commercial time based on viewership. They do whatever they can to get more views, hence the nauseating sensationalism. Yes, they bring up valid journalistic pieces that other networks don't, but then they do the same as those other networks. CNN might have spent 200 hours covering Carnival cruise disasters a few years ago, but FNC has covered Benghazi and that soldier stuck in a Mexican prison in just the same manner. "Breaking News: Nothing New To Report in the Politically Charged Issue We Keep Telling You About Because We've Staked Our Quarterly Profits On It." Ugh, just quit it.

Ferguson has something in common with 5th century BC Athens

And that is ostracism. It was a practice where unpopular people would be thrown out of a city if enough people wanted them gone. There's a theory mentioned in the Wikipedia article on the subject that suggests that the purpose of ostracism was to satisfy the anger of the populace while avoiding the troubling outcomes of vigilante murder or mob lynching, or political tyranny if the person was a public official. That's an interesting statement. The idea is essentially that ostracism appeases the anger of the mob. There were no rules for why someone should be ostracized, except that there had to be a sizeable vote by the citizenry to cast him out. It could be for no good reason at all, as you'll note at the end of the first link.

Officer Wilson is apparently leaving Ferguson "willingly." Yeah, right. I don't think he wanted any of this hullabaloo to happen for the simple fact that he did his job. Yes, the evidence is in. Here is the AP link hub to all of the Grand Jury documents.

Wilson wasn't likely forced out by an official act of the police department. Although facts may come out to the tune that he was pressured to leave, that's probably unlikely as well. No, it seems clear that he can't live a normal life in the city any more because of the public lynching-in-effigy that has occurred by people with no facts, but plenty of racial animosity toward him. He's a hated man. He's unsafe wherever he goes, because someone might think that they can make a name for themselves by taking him out.

"They got some intelligence that suggested there were going to be some targets at the Ferguson Police Department and the minute he said that, he also indicated that he thought his resignation might alleviate some of those threats," one of Wilson's attorneys Neil Bruntrager said. "They had some intel that suggested there was going to be some action of a violent nature." source

It's injustice, but it is reality. He'll have to go somewhere else because he's unwelcome. He's been ostracized.

And Ferguson's race rioters and the criminally biased news media have taken social progress back 2500 years.

~ Rak Chazak

PS I was initially misled (thanks to CBS-sponsored news-tickers at my workplace) to believe that there were reports that Wilson was leaving the city itself, not just the police force. I wanted to put this here to correct that, although I still think it's likely that he'll eventually leave anyway. How could you stay there when you have no hope of a living in your chosen career, and where everybody from the gutter to the ivory towers hates you and wants to turn your life into a failure in order to vent their private frustrations? But that's speculation. The point about being pressured out by public opinion still stands, as shown in the citation I added.

"Darren Wilson has a new wife and a child on the way. And while his wife works for the Ferguson police department, Wilson is now unemployed. People have been trying to keep their income afloat with vigorous online fundraising efforts."

Filed under, lives ruined by racism

This is Not A Post

I just felt like writing something.

In my upcoming days off around this holiday, I'm hoping to take the time to churn through the backlog of posts, including very large ones, as well as AWPATTs, and to mix it up, get rid of some miscellania that clutter up my 'upcoming blog posts' Word file that helps me keep it all straight.

I made extensive use of Excel and Photoshop to make image aids for my next mega-treatise, which is intended to speculate on a mostly unexplored reason for God's decisions to destroy or disperse or relocate different groups of people at different points in history. Basically, it seems that it's intended to mitigate corrupting spiritual influences of pagan cultures that the faithful happen to be living in.

I've made the pictures, now I've just got to finish the article itself. Soon to be posted,

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Of the Making of Many Books There is No End

My reading of that verse in Ecclesiastes 12:12 is that the process of recording, preserving, and transmitting information is an endless task. It appears to be connected to learning, since the following verse says "much study wearies the body." For me, I read lots of articles online, which by virtue of their content is like a topical chapter-of-the-day consumption of the literature that is often referenced, but I also take what I learn and try to process it so that it's understandable to the point where I can explain it to others. If something doesn't make sense in a big-picture sense, to me, I try to comprehend it until it does. I have an upcoming "Adultification" post about just one such thing.

How does 'making books' apply to me? Well, I'm not writing bound textbooks, but a lot of what I've written on this blog is repurposed high-level technical, philosophical or theological works, with a sizeable amount of my own contribution--expanding upon the wisdom gained, and drawing further conclusions. You could consider it "derived knowledge," in the same way that many mathematical equations are derived from other equations. An increase in knowledge without any additional input, as it's all the result of internal mental processing of the information that is already possessed.

That's why there is no end to the making of many books. Not only because new information is continually gained, but for each individual, you can indefinitely expand upon the knowledge you have, in order to gain new knowledge from the processing of that information.

It's a bit like how experimental studies yield data, multiple data sets give you the ability to arrange them in statistical relations, and the interpretation of these statistics give you insight into what is going on on the experimental level, and opens new doors for asking the right questions to gain greater knowledge about the subject.

Enough rambling. Suffice it to say, there's so much stuff for me to work on, be it personal professional development or private economics, or fulfilling my backlog of ideas for posting subjects on this blog. It's a challenge to not disproportionately spend time blogging rather than "living life," while at the same time making progress on the goals I have in mind for "completing" the blog's purpose.

I'm going to try to take a few days over the coming holiday season to work through some of this backlog and produce good-quality content and make progress. What is it that Ecclesiastes says, after all? "There is nothing better for a man than that he should enjoy the fruit of his labor." Ecclesiastes 2:24

~ Rak Chazak

What Was Jesus' Sacrifice? Using Infinity to Contemplate the Gospel

Originally posted in response to a post on an ex-mormon website. The blogger has fallen for the common error of rejecting Christianity after leaving a cultic false religion for very valid reasons. Just because someone lied to you doesn't mean that truth doesn't exist. But on to the subject. The claim is that Jesus didn't really sacrifice anything when He died if He could take it back by coming back to life just a few days later. How do we address this challenge? My answer is below.

*     *     *     *

The mistake here is in thinking that physical death is the focus. That's not what the Bible teaches (Reformed, here, not a Mormon). 

Instead it teaches that death is not the cessation of 'life,' but the unnatural separation of a living being from the source of its life. Man-God, Man's body-Man's soul, God-God.

It was not in dying that Jesus did His miraculous deed. That was just the necessary finishing touch, a bit of a technical requirement.

But what He really sacrificed was His relationship to the Father. For 3 hours, He was spiritually separated from the Father and they were not in communion, as they have/are/will be in all other possible places in time and space from eternity past to eternity future.

Christian Encouragement: How I Compliment Pretty Girls Who Have Good Theology

The following contains 1,700 words of fairly easily-readable monologue that I sent as an expanded version of a compliment to a girl on her theological soundness and zeal. I'll place a page break early on, to avoid cluttering the front page, and encourage you to click on "read more" to look at the whole thing for your consideration, edification, what-have-you.

Hiyah,

I came across your facebook profile on a [..............] post where you had commented. So the fact that you seemed to affirm pre-trib eschatology was what first stood out, not to mention the fact that you're following a page representing Reformed doctrine, which is encouraging. The next thing that I saw was that you're cute, which is only natural considering that I'm a typical male in that I'm visually oriented, and that my personality preference (which I find the Myers-Briggs profile to be a fairly effective measure of) is to thoroughly evaluate everything I perceive. It's a little unclear from facebook and your blog, but erring on the safe side, I'll treat you as if you're married and avoid anything that might be flirtatious. However, I have many compliments to give you.

It's rare for most young people to be very theologically astute -- I speak as one myself, who feels sometimes as if the peer landscape is very sparsely populated with Christian brethren -- and considering that roughly half of any age group is female, and only a subset thereof is of notable physical attractiveness, it's only logical to conclude that it's a very rare thing for a beautiful young woman to be so zealous for good doctrine as it is apparent to me that you are.

And mark, that is primarily what makes you beautiful:

3Your adornment must not be merely external-- braiding the hair, and wearing gold jewelry, or putting on dresses; 4but let it be the hidden person of the heart, with the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is precious in the sight of God. 1 Peter 3:3-4

Christian Satire, Courtesy of a UK Pastor on the Spiritual Front Lines

I came across this via a post on The End Time. The author is one Andrew Wilson, and it was posted a few days ago under the title "The Case for Idolatry: Why Evangelical Christians Can Worship Idols." I recommend it to you. It rehashes a lot of common arguments that professing christians make in justifying their stance in favor of homosexuality. Note that it is not a sarcastic sneer at homosexuals but a satirical representation of these alleged christians. Their frequent reasoning as seen in far too many editorials etc is reduced to absurdity by substituting the notion of idolatry--made more poignant by the fact that idolatry is at the heart of every claim that "the god I believe in would not condemn [name of favorite sin or family member who is slave to sin]"

I've decided to quote just one section:

With all of these preliminary ideas in place, we can finally turn to Paul, who has sadly been used as a judgmental battering ram by monolaters for centuries. When we do, what immediately strikes us is that in the ultimate “clobber passage”, namely Romans 1, the problem isn’t really idol-worship at all! The problem, as Paul puts it, is not that people worship idols, but that they “exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images” (1:23). Paul isn’t talking about people who are idolatrous by nature. He is talking about people who were naturally worshippers of Israel’s God, and exchanged it for the worship of idols. What else could the word “exchange” here possibly mean? ... In other words, when Paul talks about idolatry, he is not talking about the worship of idols as we know it today.

It's genius. It takes the claim that Romans 1 does not condemn homosexuality per se, only that homosexual behavior by heterosexuals is wrong, but homosexual behavior by homosexuals is fine, and shows how ridiculous it is by comparison. But the best and final word on this came from the comments:

James Bejon • 3 days ago   I agree with your reading of Paul, Andrew. It's important to remember that, for Paul, idolatry was inextricably linked to homosexual practices. And Paul's major issue was, of course, with the latter. (See Von Straussenhaus’s important work, ‘Götzendienst, Sexualität, und Ein Haar Ball Großes’.) Idolatry in and of itself wasn't a problem for him.

Did you catch it? It's bitingly insightful. The pro-homosexual claim has been that homosexuality is not what is condemned in the Bible, but idolatry of homosexual behavior. This is supposed to be on parallel with idolatry of food, money, power, etc, things which are not evil in themselves but become so when made an idol. The genius of this commentor was to make the opposite claim for maximum satire: that when Paul condemns idolatry and homosexuality in Romans 1, he's really only condemning homosexual idolatry, not other forms of idolatry. That argument makes as much sense as the reverse.

This by itself is a powerful deconstruction of the faux-Biblical argument to legitimize homosexuality by pretending that Paul is only concerned with idolatry. Decimated, in one fell swoop.

Congratulations, gentlemen.

~ Rak Chazak

A Little Joel Rosenberg to Start the Day

Joel is one of many stories like these that I have come across--some of the biggest power players in Christianity are not Gentiles, but Jews. Ray Comfort, perhaps the biggest influence on open-air evangelism in the whole world, is an ethnic Jew; as is Jonathan Sarfati, a prodigy by any human measure, who churns out an amazing variety, amount and quality of work for CMI in that ministry's young-earth creation apologetics capacity.

That's the field of preaching and the field of teaching, to name two spiritual gifts the New Testament mentions as being areas wherein Christians work for the Lord (the point is not to label; there's overlap of gifts and it's indicated that not all possible gifts are listed). The point of the gifts mentioned by Paul and Peter seem primarily to me to be in context of talking about the "Body of Christ." Christians as part of the invisible Church all have a role to play, and the purpose of mentioning gifting is, I think, to enlighten us that there are diversities of ways to serve the Lord. Ray Comfort could not do Jonathan Sarfati's job, and I doubt there's anyone quite like Ray Comfort in his singleminded zeal for evangelizing the lost. Their natural talents and inclinations are divinely given to equip them for the purpose God intended them to fulfill.

Then there's the gift of prophecy, which brings me to another Jewish Christian. No one is quite so heavily involved in current events and politics as he, while still not failing to keep himself and his ministry centered on the Gospel. It's incredibly easy to fall into a trap where Christianity is subsumed into your political activism, and well-intended people and organizations abound where this can be seen. But in every place that I've read Joel's words or heard him speak, he has not lost sight of his ultimate goal--which is not awareness of a political issue, or some larger agenda to influence mid-east relations (though that's in view, but not the endgame)--he knows that his aim is to spread the Gospel first, and that his position of influence in political spheres is an aid to that, not the other way around.

Joel Rosenberg recently addressed criticism of the new Left Behind movie. Mark, he didn't defend the movie--what happened is that it brought out a lot of professing christians who denounced it because allegedly the Rapture is an "unbiblical" doctrine. Here's his article:

http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/2014/10/05/hollywood-tackles-the-end-times-with-left-behind-film-but-is-the-rapture-a-biblical-concept-or-a-fictional-plot-device/

Flashback: Reflection on Social Stratus

It's indeed "stratus," not "status." Level based on financial assets, not esteem based on political success in the realm of public personality. This was a text:

I recall a classmate back in high school once described his family as "middle class," because they only owned one yacht and had a 5-bathroom house on waterfront property. That was my first recollectable introduction to the idea that there are big differences between tiers in the middle class. 

I'd have to honestly say that I'm middle class (one-family home, college educated, never missed payments on utilities growing up, one car per person [now!]), but definitely LOWER middle class (no cell phone until age of 19; no cable tv; no disposable income; underemployed; highly infrequent rate of 'going out' to movies, let alone restaurants anymore, etc; 8 new major articles of clothing in the last 3 years; drained or insufficient safety net/rainy day fund; no savings worthy of the name; no bi-monthly dinner parties like our neighbors; no dental visit in 1.5 years; etc)

Also, no second homes, second cars, RVs, ATVs, boats, etc. 1 or 2 acre property. No owned stocks or other investments. 

We have enough to not feel impoverished, but we don't have enough to have a sense of optimism with respect to finances. My parents have no retirement outlook apart from the sale of the house at some future date. I have enough money saved to pay for TWO college courses, or car insurance and food to keep me alive for c. 1 year, if I lose everything else. We have just enough to feel the pressure from what we lack.

And from a standpoint of pride and grace, I appreciate the place I've grown up in so much; there's neither a strong impulse of bitterness nor arrogance. I have things, which let me be grateful for the gift of possessing them, to God; and I lack a great many things as well, which give me a mindset of dependence on God and an appreciation of whatever I get in the future, that it's a blessing and privilege and not a sign of my own greatness or monument to hard work.

7 

The sayings of Agur
Two things I request of You

(Deprive me not before I die):

8 

Remove falsehood and lies far from me;

Give me neither poverty nor riches—

Feed me with the food allotted to me;

9 

Lest I be full and deny You,

And say, “Who is the Lord?”

Or lest I be poor and steal,

And profane the name of my God.
Proverbs 30:7-9

That came to mind.

~ Rak Chazak

Movie Review: Hercules ft. Dwayne Johnson, and Edge of Tomorrow

I used my day off to take scrap garbage to the landfill, and watch two movies from Redbox back-to-back. The $2.50 for two movies is sweet, sweet free market delight. I might never go to the movie theater again, save once a year for auspicious occasions. Let the lowest-priced DVD-quality video provider win.

Hercules:

What I liked: With the exception of one flash-back of his wife, there really wasn't any sexual innuendo aside from wordplay that younger children would miss.

What I really liked: The movie avoided cliche'd supernatural cinematic overtures, and left the question of Hercules' mythology largely ambiguous. The movie even ends with a narration asking whether Hercules was more myth than man and whether it mattered; The Rock doesn't do anything that's necessarily impossible, just in two scenes he performs deeds that seem highly, highly improbable, which I suppose are included to offer the viewer something to grumble about--whether it indicates superhuman strength or not. In the legend of Hercules, Zeus' jealous wife Hera possesses Hercules to murder his family, driving him mad. But in the movie, it's part of a very human, larger plot twist that plays an integral role in the theme of who the man is, where he stops and the myth begins.

What might make you think: I appreciated that the film offered a "mythologically accurate" retelling while at the same time eschewing the cliche's and offering you a suggestion of how it might have happened if there were no gods or demons involved at all, just larger-than-life men who inspired embellished storytelling for one reason or another. I also appreciated that for once, this was directed at an actual myth, and not like so many modern movies, an attempt to undermine the Bible's account of history by recasting it as an after-the-fact hagiographical depiction of a much different reality.

It's a war movie, so there's blood and depictions of dead bodies, implied just-barely-off-screen breaking of bones, and intense emotional grief/anger, on people's faces as well as in the audio, so it's not a fairy tale movie but because of its lack of sex and obscene gore, as well as comparatively minimal profanity, it should be fine to watch with your preteen.

Edge of Tomorrow:                  (Groundhog Day, or Source Code, with guns and aliens)

Second Real Election, First Real Ballot Win

For me, not for some candidate or party in particular.

In 2012, on every single issue that came up on referendum in the state I live in, not to mention the presidential election, I picked the losing side. This year, with the exception of two offices, I picked every winner, both local and state level as well as state and local initiatives.

It feels nice not to be losing all the time.

But my relief is tempered by the knowledge that it's only a temporary victory. Our final destiny on this side of eternity--especially if we are close to the end--is to be defeated, not to conquer. It is by being overcome that the saints overcome, following in the imitation of Christ who dying, defeated death. Our victory will not be political in nature, so let's not be tempted by the same trap as the Jews, who both in Jesus' time as well as right this very moment are expecting a conquering Savior to come and destroy the ungodly nations and set up His everlasting kingdom from Zion. Mark, that day will come, but "in this life you will have tribulation." Don't lose sight of that detail. Don't get distracted by the alluring prize of political victories.

Bear in mind that the more important goal than winning elections is winning souls. If the Gospel suffers while we secure greater freedom or prosperity, what have we gained? We already know that our lives are not graded by how well we lived for ourselves, for our own sake. What matters in eternity is how well we died to self, and lived for God, promoting His cause--the good news of salvation--above all earthly causes.

I'm keenly political and a diehard conservative pundit at heart, by virtue of the nature of my transformation between 2010-12. But thanks to the faithful God-centered guidance by ministries like Answers in Genesis, Grace to You, The Way of the Master and Wretched Radio, I'm totally convinced that any gains, while they help us, are a mirage, if they are not accompanied, or better, underpinned, by solid and faithful Gospel preaching. You can't change the world without changing the world's hearts. This shouldn't be the primary motivation of preaching, but it should be the first priority in politics. What are you working for, if you're trying to get out the Christian vote when the Christians are dying and not being replaced? Political activism in the cause of conservatism is PERFECTLY FUTILE if it is sought after for its own sake, and not simply accepted as a gratifying side effect of truly converted souls reached by God's Word.

And if politics has no point to it if the Gospel isn't in it, then it is perfectly clear that the only thing worth pushing the agenda for is the spread of said Gospel. Political victories are nice, but they aren't the ends, and they aren't even the means by which we secure lasting victories in the name of God. The only cause worth fighting is God's cause, and that means that no matter whether we win or lose politically, we will always bring the discussion back to the Biblical truth, and always turn attention away from us toward God. In humility sacrificing our own desires for success in government for the greater good of touching as many lives as possible with the truth we've been entrusted, and giving the final results to God.

That's the only way to be content, whether the temporary fight is a win or a rout.

And in a strictly theological sense, consider, with the good feeling you feel when you win an election, imagine how much grander the relief will be when the greatest of all victories is finally realized: when Jesus is King of Earth for a thousand years, and vanquishes once and for all the gridlock, the partisanship, the corruption, the special interests and the man-centered rule of law that perverts the name of justice in all the earth today?

Take the short term success in stride and keep your eyes fixed on the prize: Jesus, and evangelism. Jesus and evangelism. Jesus and evangelism.

"But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." ~ Matthew 6:20-21

~ Rak Chazak

All About that Alto, No Soprano..."Empowering" Sexism in Mainstream Music

This is a lambast of the Main-Stream-Music song "All About That Bass." I recently read a TIME snippet where the song, along with a few others, was held up as an example of an uplifting message for girls about body image.


Talks about butts.

Ok.

Here are the lyrics from the chorus:

My mama she told me, 'don't worry about your size'
She said 'boys like a little more booty to hold at night'

WHAT?

Okay, let me get this straight: "(1)Don't care about your personal health, (2) because you're a sex object." Niiiice. Oh, and even better: "your personal worth lies in your rump's ease of being groped, and (sexism alert!) boys don't care about anything but sex, objectifying women, and being a pervert." And last but not least, it purports to lift up fat girls by dealing with their insecurity by telling them they're superior because of their body type. This is literally putting down skinny girls for the same reason, that they "don't have all that bass." Yay empowerment!

You don't improve someone's self image by telling them they're better than somebody else. That's the essence of what bullying is, putting someone else down to make you feel better about yourself. And that's even without the twisted fact that the thing that makes you better than the other person is your ability to be objectified and treated like a piece of ass, that you don't have value in yourself, only in being desired by immature sexually-obsessed boys!

Is this empowerment? No, this is an example of how messed up our culture is, when in the name of doing good for someone, the exact opposite is perpetrated.

Feminism is dung.

That is all.

~Rak Chazak

Some missed observations on the transformers article.

For the sake of completeness, there were a couple of religiously poignant statements that I didn't include in the previous post about religious themes in Transformers: Age of Extinction, because they didn't appear to be large, intentional themes, but isolated statements that are more up to interpretation because of which character said them. Of course, depending on your political persuasion, you might disagree.

1. In one scene, Optimus is fighting a human-made decepticon possessed by Megatron's mind (Megatron's head having been severed in the previous movie), and Optimus shouts "you have no soul", while shoving a sword through Megatron's chest. The Megatron puppet grabs the sword, drives it deeper, somehow melting it, and smilingly says, "that is why I have no fear."

2. Kelsey Grammer's character is a top CIA official who is secretly directing military personnel to attack Autobots (the 'good' transformers) in his part of an illicit deal to melt their metal to be used in the construction of the human-made decepticon models. Later on, there are two scenes in particular that stand out.

a. When Stanley Tucci's character has second thoughts about the plan they had concocted, Grammer bullies him physically and says that they had both had dreams of changing the world, but "somewhere along the line you made billions of dollars, and I'm still waiting on my dream to come true. Where's my dream? Where's my piece of the pie?" (paraphrased)
b. In the endgame, Grammer confronts Cade Yeager and waxes eloquent about how everything he did was "for god and country," while holding Cade at gunpoint. It's an open question whether it was said in spite or if you are supposed to interpret him as a fanatical 'good-ol-boy.' Optimus kills him immediately afterward.

Final random points:

The science lady tells Stanley Tucci that she "carbon dated" metal (impossible by definition) and found it to be 65 million years old (also impossible by definition).

First off, carbon isn't metal, so anything completely metallic (as the dinosaur skeletons were implied to be, by virtue of the transmutative bio-weapon that is shown twice in the movie and explained to be the source of the material for the transformers) would never have radioactive carbon-14 in it so as to measure it. Secondly, because of the short half-life of radioactive carbon, even if every atom on planet earth was radioactive carbon, in 1 million years it would all have decayed away. So ages higher than that are impossible to be determined, not least because sensor equipment can only detect the C-14 at concentrations corresponding to 80,000 years of age at current uptake levels.

In other dialogue, Grammer's character echoes the racist sentiments I quoted Lockdown as promoting in the first article, about an "us vs them" mentality, humans vs aliens.

Another quote by the advanced bounty hunter alien:

"Every galaxy I have traveled, all you species are the same. You all think you're the center of the universe. You have no idea."

Which fits into the larger narrative of humanity not being special, and if humanity isn't special, that's supposed to be a challenge to the idea that we're the only sentient life in the universe, and thus taken as proof that the Bible's account of history, our special creation directly by God, and all that follows from that (Christ as the last Adam, and ultimately the message of salvation) is to be doubted.

So there. Interpretation left largely open.

~ Rak Chazak

Not 1 Corinthians 13

A poetic text treatise.

Love: an earnest, sustained desire to pursue another person's best interest, at the expense of one's personal wants, convenience, comfort and enjoyment. An attitude demonstrated by action, not an emotion or expression of affection. Affection is a by-product of love, it is not love, though it is commonly called love. Love sacrifices the self for the sake of another's benefit. It esteems what others need as more important to attain than what you yourself want. Anything that defies this is not love, but selfishness disguised. Wanting what makes someone happy is not love, because what makes you or someone else happy is not always what is best for them. Love perseveres when there is no reward of happiness, no fulfillment of personal desires, and no recognition or thankfulness for the effort expended. Love is not exhausting, because it is its own reward, and putting it into action is its own sustenance.

~ Rak Chazak

Which Quotes Will Be Famously Poignant 100 Years From Now? One Idea.

The title expresses my whole thought. And here is the quote-du-jour that sparked it.

Our society is rapidly not just drifting away from its once-biblical foundation, but it is actively and aggressively attacking this foundation. For years, Christian leaders, including myself, have been saying that we are heading toward a time when Christians are going to be persecuted and even jailed for what they believe. Many people thought we were crazy, that nothing like that would ever happen in America, but it’s happening right now before our eyes. Ken Ham, CEO of Answers in Genesis

More food for thought at the link. Lots of other possible quotes.

I think of Dietrich Bonhoffer's quote, "silence in the face of evil is itself evil. Not to act is to act." (paraphrased), which references the Nazi Holocaust. Bonhoffer was executed just a few months before the war ended, but his stark stand on behalf of the oppressed has been memorialized in this generation as his words have made the rounds on social media in connection with the modern day abortion holocaust. 70-some years removed.

What passionate statements will become increasingly poignant in future decades, as 'evil men, being deceived, go from worse to worse?'

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Car Trouble Revisited, and what I've been doing instead of blogging

Blitz upload, let's go:

1. My "big, slow and ugly" recently started making scary noises. Those scary noises were diagnosed to be chunks broken off from the catalytic converter, which had gotten stuck in the muffler. Hence, the symptoms weren't associated with either steering, braking, shifting or accelerating, consistently. They rattle at random based on the exhaust movement, and sound like metal scraping on the ground behind the car, but are functionally harmless, and the car's driving is hardly affected.

2. More important is the back tires, which I learned from an older man at church that the reason the tire guys were able to tell me they needed replacement in under two seconds, was because there's this neat little thing called a "wear indicator" in between the treads. Much like how you aim a gun with iron sights by lining up the ball at the tip of the muzzle with the two bars by the action, the wear indicator will show you that you need to replace the tires when the treads get worn down to an equal height with that rubber strip.

3. A lot of the time when a long time goes between blog posts, it's because I play video games in the morning instead of visiting the library. Or I take my day off to work on a project instead of sitting at a wifi location all day like I'm doing today. However, the dead periods in January were because I was walking 5 miles back and forth to work because I didn't have the car yet at that point.

4. This last week, though, I decided to have a little fun and delve into some dating sites, not completely seriously, but to see what was out there and mainly because I was starved for human interaction. My coworkers at Fast Food Chain don't make for intelligent conversation. On a related note, I've learned a lot of ebonics, such as the proper application and definition of the words "ratchet," "bae," "turnt up," "wuz good," "real talk," "right though," and I've learned that there aren't wives any more, just "baby mammas."

5. Now that I'm done with that little investigation, I've gotten someone to talk to and intend to pursue making friends. It's interesting, all the very good friends I have from college I met online first. This really isn't that out of the ordinary, then, for me. It's just more fun because it began expressedly under the auspices of looking for someone to be in a relationship. This is hardly to suggest that I'm manipulating the poor lady, everything I do is very real. It's just that every part of life is an adventure for me. It's thrilling to see where it goes.

And in other news, today I got some information with regard to what I'm considering in terms of career advancement, and plan to be making some phone calls in the coming week. A deacon at church asked me to meet with him a day or two ago, since I hadn't been to 'sunday school' (not the word the church uses but the essence of it) for a couple of weeks, and he's offered to help hook me up with other folks who can give career advice, and for that matter, cheaper tires. Church is really intended to be a family. It's pretty neat what you can benefit from just by being connected.

And life goes on.

~ Rak Chazak