Mild Amusement: Replace One Word

The first time I encountered something like this, it was in a book called Uncle John's Bathroom Reader Plunges Into History Again, and it was full of neat tidbits, not all necessarily toilet-related, but short enough to read in a sitting (or read several in a row if you're just really fascinated by learning stuff about history).

A later encounter was online, where movie titles were posted on a social media thread where one word was replaced by a certain body part that appeals to people with a certain type of humor (although to me, situational comedy and pun appreciation makes it appealing).

The Bathroom Reader had one chapter that consisted of replacing a single letter in a historical event, to change the meaning and suggest what it could've been instead. The only example I remember is "The Lone March," (supposed to be "The Long March"), where Mao Zedong couldn't find anyone to join his revolution so he embarked all by himself.

So, today, to relieve my need for some creative amusement, I sat down and made up a few on my own. Without further ado, here's my contribution (note: I'll use historical events, sitcom and movie titles):

The Trail of Bears -- President Jackson was unable to relocate the Cherokee nation because of rabid anti-immigrant opposition by central American natives.

Gransformers -- Optimus Prime and Bumblebee swear allegiance to an elderly woman.

The HoloFaust -- Hitler makes a deal with the devil to sell him all the golden dental implants and earrings of 6 million Jews in return for conquering Europe. (In true Satan fashion, his horribleness found a loophole where the Third Reich only lasted a matter of months). (What is Faust?)

The Big Dang Theory -- The Big Bang Theory had so many holes in it, it kept requiring modifications to it to fit with all the conflicting evidence (this is actually true).

The Mommy -- Newly engaged Rachel has an awkward first meeting with the in-laws when her fiancee's long-distant ancestor Rameses' mother returns from the grave.

Everybody Loves Gaymond -- Gaymond whines about his life with his family who just doesn't understand him (and his overly pushy and critical mother), and tries to keep his marriage together.

Born to be Gild -- A lion's dreams of having a golden statue made of him come to fruition.

Man of Steer -- the strongest man on earth is not a man at all: he was born and raised by bulls.

Jurassic Would -- If people didn't make stupid decisions, there wouldn't be a plot for the movie.

The War of the Hoses -- Britain's 2 strongest families got together for a rousing squirtgun battle.

Schindler's Fists -- A man hiding Jews becomes an unsuspecting recipient of superhuman strength, and takes on the Nazi SS mano a mano.

Lonesome Doge -- Much movie. Very cowboy. Wow.

Star Cars -- Mad Max in space. 'nuff said.

Scar Trek -- Captain Kirk voyages across an unexplored galaxy, getting beat up along the way.

Paraformal Activity -- In this horror movie, a group of teenagers become haunted by the ghosts of questionable prom attire.

Hang 'em Nigh -- bring that noose a little closer.

No Country for Old Hen -- the Little Red Hen finds her work ethic and business savvy unwelcome in the New America.

Lancelit -- A knight rises to fame because his lance glows in the dark. OR What if the Knights of the Round Table had lightsabers?

Pilates of the Caribbean -- Buccaneers have to be in tip-top shape to be ready for boarding ships.

The Balk -- A CBS daytime talk show talks about the hosts' sexual preferences and other explicit material (also true)

That's it for now, hope it tickled someone's funny bone.

~ Rak Chazak

PS I think I'll try to do a blitz sometime early in August to get all the ideas I have lying around out quickly so they won't languish or be a distraction.

I haven't died! (PLU)

Not yet, anyway. After my summer course ended, I've been reviewing various subjects from old textbooks I kept (I never resold a single book at college, figuring there could be some value in the information one day). Then, as my Fall textbooks have been arriving, I went to Staples and grabbed some non-spiral notebooks (so they'll lie flat and not have an irritating ridge in the middle), and I've been going through the early chapters, compiling and condensing the stuff I think I won't remember off the top of my head, and making neat, neat notes out of it.

My Organic Chemistry notebook was done the same way, and I was so thorough and explanatory with it that I've been using it to reteach me, to great success. Organic Chemistry 2, which I have not taken, is a required course for a Chemistry Minor, which I'm going to squeeze in to my course of study. See, because I already have a degree, I don't need to pursue the general education requirements which the program left slots open for, so I can pick other courses to take instead. And as it turns out, all that's required for a chemistry minor is to have a minimum number of courses taken at the university, and a certain number having to be upper-level (300-level and above) courses. And that number exactly matches the slots I have available in between my other classes. (The only question is whether Orgo transfers. I graduated with the class but not the lab (wasn't required), but this university has the lab and class together. It could thwart the minor objective; in that case I suppose I could just retake Orgo once again and get an unquestioned A....then I could pursue a biochemistry major part-time when I become duly employed. I kind of want to do it just to show myself that I can, and that my rocky road the first time around was because of non-academic reasons.

On the subject of not having died, I'm still a little bit skeptical of the accuracy of the blood pressure cuffs at the YMCA, but the values they're giving me are pretty consistent. The across-the-board medical consensus on what's healthy is a blood pressure of 120/80. Either number being less is a sign of above-average cardiovascular health, but higher pressure in either number indicates danger signs for heart issues. The lower number, the diastolic pressure, is the one to watch out for. It indicates the elasticity of your arteries--higher pressure, more trans and saturated fats in your cell membranes, ergo, stiffer arterial walls, meaning that the blood pressure can roughen them, exposing underlying collagen, to which platelets react, then dislodging and causing embolisms. Or not dislodging, and causing atherosclerosis.

[Here's an image] -- comparing the two pressures

The higher pressure indicates the strength of the heart--it is when the stethoscope first hears the pulse, which means that that is how much pressure your heart can generate with each contraction. It's essentially an estimate of the strength of your ventricles, which means that an abnormally high systolic pressure can indicate an enlarged heart muscle, for whatever reason. Conversely, the lower this pressure is, provided you're in visibly good health, the less effort your heart has to put in to do its job.

Yesterday morning, I woke up early enough to start a run at 5:20 a.m. I ran three miles at 7:20, 7:55, 9:35 pace, walked one, and then ran another at 8:35. Heart rate was 161 beats per minute after each segment (the 3-mile and 1-mile). That's a good baseline that I'll use to keep track of how well I'm progressing. The more you run, the better your body optimizes and the lower your resting heart rate, aerobic heart rate, systolic and diastolic arterial pressures will be.

So I was thrilled that the electronic cuff measured my pre-workout blood pressure at 110/57. When I get my physical exam later in the month, I'll find out how accurate those cuffs are.

And in the meantime, I'll keep running. Which requires me to go to bed really early. Days I sleep in are my rest days. My body and I have a two-way dialogue when it comes to exercise. :D

~ Rak Chazak

"We Can't Be Sure if He Was Tied to A Terrorist Group"

A young man recently killed 4 marines at a recruitment center.

The news media has been telling me, every time I've heard of this since that event took place, that they just can't figure out what his motivation was. Most explicitly, they've said that they can't be sure if he has "ties to a terrorist organization," or "ties to ISIS."

Excuse me, but isn't this missing the point? I doubt it matters whether a drive-by shooting has ties to the Crip gang, Hell's Angels or the Italian Mob for it to count as gang violence. It either is, or isn't. Likewise, it's either terrorism or not terrorism -- whether he has "ties to an existing terrorist organization," while useful for preventing future attacks, is a massive red herring. It's as if the talking heads think we can't call it terrorism unless the guy went to Syria to be trained by ISIS.

Well, what would help you to decide whether he engaged in terrorism?

A Tale of Two Pain-Killer Advertisements.

I've always found myself offended by commercials that don't actually explain why their product is better than another -- let alone prove it -- because I realize that they operate on the concept of impressions. That is, they hope that the commercial itself will be memorable, so that when you remember the commercial -- because it was amusing, exciting, original, etc -- your mind associates the memory with the product. For a simple example, someone trying to cheer up someone else by saying "put a smile on" could result in that person saying, "hmmm, you know I am actually in the mood for some McDonald's."

The business incentive is that what people remember better are images and feelings (what something on TV looked like, or how it made you feel) than they do specifics of nitty-gritty facts, like whether Flonase blocks neutrophils, leukotrienes, histamines, etc (these all show up on the screen for their commercial but the persuasion is far less heady than that. It's a simple "we have 6, the competition has 1. We're better, yay! Buy our product").

The idea that someone's trying to get around my conscious decision-making apparatus and try to get me to buy something not because it's a good choice, but because it's the only product in that category that I can remember by recalling commercials, is insulting to me, because I've always preferentially gravitated toward what I can determine to be true and right and good, rather than what merely makes me feel good or what seems popular.

Plot Twist

Similarly insulting is the "identity politics" of various political movements in vogue at the moment. This is not limited to liberal/leftist/democrat agendas, but they are by far more invested in splitting their constituent demographics into groups and targeting single-issue messages to each one of them. When a political figure says "I think you're too dumb to think about more than one issue at a time," it insults me. But it must work, because candidates for both parties generate massive applause by doing what's called "doling out red meat." The primary season for the Republican 2016 field is getting ramped up, and examples of this include people shouting "God bless America" at the end of the speech, as if that's supposed to make every Christian want to vote for them, regardless of what else they said. But democrats are even more insidious, because they don't just utilize identity politics, they are far more effective than republicans at capitalizing on resentment, envy, hatred of 'the other,' often playing their constituent groups against each other. 

One way they insult you is by pretending that seeing more people "like you" represented somewhere, be it among Olympic sports teams (how many Americans are Olympians?), on television (how many of us are TV stars?), on news broadcasts (how many of us are journalists?), etc, that this will somehow improve your life. This is the insulting lie they tell women, blacks, hispanics and homosexuals, among other groups: that without doing anything significant to improve real life for the vast majority of Americans belonging to those groups, they agitate for rich CEOs to increase the amount of women news anchors, or black film leads, or homosexual sitcom actors, and they do this by telling the constituency to be angry that there aren't "more of them" represented in those positions.

The rich people shuffle the deck, the democrats claim victory, and the constituency feels satisfied with the result of something that does diddly squat to improve their life or liberty. And one simply must ask, "do they really think people are that dumb?"

Apparently they do. Whether people are that dumb depends on how representative the many people who happily follow along with this identity politicking are of the sum of the constituent groups in question.

My Point
And that's why a marketing department can propose this advertisement for an over-the-counter painkiller.

A lot of the promotion of homosexuality in television has been seen as "brave" or "bold," ostensibly because so many people are against it that it must be difficult or risky to endeavor. I suppose that means that the makers of this advertisement likewise think that there must be wide swaths of America that are Adoption-Racists, who don't think people should adopt kids who aren't of the same "race," judging by the still shot alone. It's hard to figure out the reasoning of people who don't expect you to be intelligent. What are they really expecting the response to be?

Well, the clear intent of this Tylenol commercial is to say "gay men raising children are just as good of a family dynamic as a man and woman, therefore, buy our product."

What does a painkiller have to do with homosexual households? Shouldn't I get a painkiller based on whether it reduces my pain? But nope, not according to Tylenol. They're banking on the fact that you don't buy painkillers for any scientific reason, but because you want to support the message and corporate policy of the company that creates the painkiller. They are hoping that you will think, "this company advocates for a single issue that I happen to agree with, so I will buy their product to increase their quarterly profits, to send the message that the American people supports their political views."

In contrast, another common painkiller, Aleve, uses this argument:

Aleve works better than Tylenol or Advil. All day long, all day strong.

It might be true, it might not be, but at least they're making the case that you should buy their product because it works.

Perhaps Aleve's corporate bigwigs are just as pro-ssm as Tylenol's are. That's not the point I'm making here. The point I'm making is, the way in which large companies advertise their products is based on how they are rewarded.

If an ad spot generates more revenue by making a scientific argument: "our product works and is better than the competition's," then they will keep doing that.

If an ad spot generates more revenue by making a political statement: "gay marriage, yay!" then they will keep doing that.

Takeaway:
The increase in recent days of similar ads, which portray happy homosexual couples (together with blended families and "interracial" couples, as if those things were morally controversial) being 'just like everyone else,' bottle-feeding babies and living the American Dream, seem to demonstrate that when it comes to the Public's response to advertisements, the People are thoroughly committed to rewarding rich people who treat them according to "identity politics," rather than rewarding people who encourage them to think and make decisions based on what works.

The consequences are readily apparent to that proportion of us which prefers to think.

~ Rak Chazak

Gonzalez case ironically provides an example in favor of a strong central government

Quick recap of the history of "States' Rights"

In 1777, the Articles of Confederation were adopted, and ratified by 1781 by the original 13 States. Because of the revolutionaries' distrust of an autocratic dictator (seeing as they just fought a war to free themselves from King George's rule), they intentionally made the central government far weaker than the States.

This presented obvious problems to the cohesiveness of the union, as a collection of papers by James Madison outlines. (this was from another link off of the first).

For example, there was no Executive to enforce the acts passed by Congress. Each State began printing its own money, raising its own military, and engaging in international agreements independently of one another.

The States sent representatives to rectify this in the Constitutional Convention. Convening first in 1787, the Constitution of the United States was ratified in 1789. They gave the central government of the federal system more power. As a pushback to this, there was clamor for a Bill of Rights to be added to the Constitution, to guarantee protections for the People against a now much stronger central government, and this occurred later.

The point of a federal system where the central government is stronger than the states in certain regards, is to prevent chaos from arising out of the states passing contradictory laws, attempting to control other states, seceding from the union or going to war with each other.

That last part is significant. The test of the federal system came with the Civil War, when pro-slavery states attempted to use "states' rights" to justify seceding from the union. Many legal pundits today still think that this is a constitutional right. However, whereas a state seceding from a state (West Virginia seceded from Virginia to join the Union during the Civil War) is not unconstitutional, a state seceding from the union is. And via might-makes-right, Abraham Lincoln cemented the role of the federal government through his executive actions leading up to and during the Civil War. Whereas the most obvious effect of the Civil War in our society was to end slavery, that was not the initial reason for it. Here is an excerpt from Abraham Lincoln's letter to Horace Greeley:

My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.

The whole thing is worth reading. It's short but makes it clear that Abraham Lincoln did hope to end slavery, but that that was not his primary goal in his executive capacity, early on. The primary goal was to do what was his Constitutional obligation as the Executive -- to preserve the Union.

Why am I spending so much time talking about the Federal government? Well, it's because --

if the Central government is stronger than the states in matters of foreign policy and commerce and trade and international agreements and military etc etc etc,

then some states won't, for example, take it into their own hands to deport illegal immigrants (such as Arizona), while others take it into their own hands to refuse to cooperate with Federal immigration enforcement in turning over known criminals (such as the 'sanctuary cities' in California, one of which is San Francisco).

San Francisco has a law that requires officials to ignore Federal requests for cooperation on the subject of illegal immigrants. Rather than turning them over for processing and possible deportation, they are released into the general public.

That is how a man who has been deported 5 times has now ended up in a Sanctuary City, where officials arrested him, ignored a Federal ICE detainment request, and released him back onto the street, where he then murdered a young woman.

It's both the city's fault and the federal government's fault. For one, the city has an unconstitutional law on the books. For two, the Obama administration has had an inconsistent, at best, approach to immigration. They deport some immigrants, but release others from prison onto the streets. They refuse to send personnel to the Arizona-Mexico border, or to in any way secure it, and then sue Arizona for attempting to do what the Constitution requires Washington to do but which Washington won't do. They allow sanctuary cities to operate without any such lawsuits.

If laws regarding immigration were applied evenly across the board, and actually enforced evenly as well, then none of this would be an issue in the first place.

We have a dysfunctional system where the central government won't do its job, and the States are acting more and more like they did in the 1780s and 1850s-60s, as a confederacy where everyone gets to have their own opinion about what laws are important and which ones aren't.

And it gets the people that the government is sworn to protect, killed.

That is injustice. Deportation is not injustice, it is law. When someone who has been deported 5 times and shouldn't be in the country in the first place murders an innocent pedestrian, THAT is injustice.

I'm just glad I don't live near the border. All I can do is watch and opine. I abhor the feeling of helplessness. But feeling helpless when your family and friends are becoming victims of government corruption that encourages lawlessness in your city and state, that is a deplorable feeling.

~ Rak Chazak

"Pre-Evident Grace" -- a.k.a. The Real Meaning of Foreknowledge

This was a post I made in the comments on one of Elizabeth Prata's recent posts about Calvinism. I had remarked that the Bible itself was the strongest argument for the doctrines of grace, because after you hear all the preachers make their case, you are left with the undeniable fact that the Bible says God elects people for salvation not based on what they do. In fact, the Bible says faith is a gift, so how can faith be something you give to God to make Him save you? It can't.

I ended my first post by saying that those who don't accept Calvinism, ultimately, then, are not treating the Bible as if it is inerrant or authoritative. Someone replied that non-calvinists can believe the Bible's inerrant. I agree, it's possible, but here is what I had to say:


If you believe the Bible is inerrant in theory, then show that you believe it in practice.

When the Bible says this: "For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren; and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified. " (Romans 8:29-30),

then acknowledge that God decides where someone will spend eternity BEFORE the call (contemporaneous with regeneration and initiation of conversion), and before they become a believer who has faith in God (which is justification). The eternal destiny is set before belief begins. How then can anyone say that God decides to save people based on what they will believe? You can say that God knows the future, that is undoubtedly true -- BUT it misses the point that the logical sequence of God's actions from God's perspective are laid out in these verses, and it shows that God follows a sequence.

Foreknowledge is, (and this is yet another exciting proof of the doctrine of Illumination, because I had reasoned to this before) as John MacArthur recently said in a radio broadcast, not a mere knowledge of the future. In fact, the verse specifically does NOT say that it is the *future* that God knows (He does know it, but it's not the context), it is **those He justifies** that He knows.

This is an article from Grace To You confirming my statement about JMac's view.

What then is foreknowledge? God has an intimate relationship with certain people, others He does not. And as a merciful God, He would never enter into close communion with someone and then cast them off afterward. The point of foreknowledge is to show that God doesn't choose people based on their belief in Him -- He chooses people based on what sort of relationship He is going to have with them. Those whom He will be to as a Father, those He will secure eternally for salvation, and ensure that before earthly death, that He will justify them by faith and give them the right to be called children of God.

When I understood this passage, I understood why I naturally comprehended the qualities of God like omniscience, omnipotence, goodness, Biblical infallibility etc, long before my crisis of faith that led to my conversion whereafter I *consciously* apprehended the Gospel and can claim salvation by grace through faith. I was a nominal believer before, but I can see God's hand in my life keeping me from the kinds of behavior patterns (sexuality and drugs being obvious examples) that beset so many others I've heard stories from. I was morally upright, in a limited human sense, and it was by the grace of God, because I was not spiritually regenerate, just well behaved and with a good brain. I believe that God, knowing that I *would* be brought into a right relationship with Him as His child, extended "pre-evident grace" (if you will humor me making up a new word) to me even during the time of my life that I lived without the full knowledge of salvation.

That is foreknowledge. It is not "knowing that I would choose Him." It is knowing that He would choose ME, and ensuring that as a consequence, He would lead me by His Spirit to come to an eventual understanding of the Gospel that I might be saved through the hearing of the word preached.

If someone insists that Romans 8 implies that God saves men based on knowing that they will believe on their own, then they are not honoring the Word and even if they insist that it is infallible, they are not submitting to what it plainly says and are not in practice treating the Word as if it is true, or authoritative.

That is my lengthier treatment of this matter. I hope I neither seemed too harsh or too soft. It's a serious issue but it doesn't make someone a heretic -- it does require your repentance, though.

Thanks for reading.

~ Rak Chazak

Josh Duggar

I can't bring much in the way of breaking news, but I will attempt to give a summary of the public statements and share a few worthy insights (not all mine--actually, none are originally mine, because it all comes from a Biblical worldview)

First off, for consideration: how Josh -- and every one of us -- should respond, inwardly, to being publicly attacked for any reason.

For the record: this man was chronically depressed because of extreme
mockery in the newspapers and even other pulpits. So he knows what it
feels like.

The political punditsphere was quick to respond, and the arguments are useful in provoking thought:

Matt Walsh wrote for the Blaze, making two main points:
* empathy: as a parent, is your first response to throw your child in jail? "I guess I'm just a horrible person then."
* hypocrisy: are the same people going after Josh Duggar also going after Lena Dunham, who publicly admitted to even more deviant behavior, and is thoroughly unrepentant about it? No? Well, why not? Is it perhaps because of the messages they promote on television?

"1) The Duggars are Christian. The Duggars are conservative. The Duggars don’t believe in gay marriage. Someone in the Duggar family did something terrible.
These are all facts. None of these facts conflict. None of these facts disprove any of the other facts. From the way liberals always react in these situations, you’d think that a Christian committing a sin somehow delegitimizes the faith itself, but that’s not quite accurate."

All reasonable statements, which appeal to logic.

In a similar vein to Lena Dunham, Rob Lowe tweeted about past indiscretions he'd committed, and this was after the Duggar story had broken. He was promoted as a beacon of hope in every media outlet I saw.

"In 1988, before Lowe got sober... he was filmed in a sex tape with two females and one of them was 16, according to CBS."

Is there a difference between 12 years and 25 years? Further, is there a difference between fondling (Duggar) and penetration (Lowe)? Or is the former simply more scandalous because it's new news, not old news?

I also saw an article on Stephen Crowder's website, by a contributor Krystal Heath, which made a similar statement initially, but emphasized more Christian-sounding language toward the end. Used the 'sin' word a bit more as well as forgiveness. This is good, but still not quite as incisive as what I read from Todd Friel.

If everyone who hears of the story reads just one article, this is the article everyone should read

"There are two groups of people who should not be shocked to discover that a member of the Duggar family is a sinner: Christians and non-Christians. Surprisingly, both camps seemed to be surprised by this revelation."

"There are two groups of people who should not be shocked to discover that a member of the Duggar family is a sinner: Christians and non-Christians. Surprisingly, both camps seemed to be surprised by this revelation." 

Without copying the entire article, here's the final paragraph:

"Josh tendered his resignation to the Family Research Council and they accepted it. While none of us know all of the details, if Josh were in my employ, I would not have accepted his resignation. 

I would have shouted from the rooftops, “If you think Josh is wicked, you should meet the rest of us! That is why we are Christians! We need forgiveness for being wretched, vile, wicked rebels. If you are a rebel too, Jesus died for you! Run to Jesus! Join the wretched club.” 

Let’s not squander this opportunity to share the great good news that Jesus died for perverts, liars, thieves, drunkards, abortionists, Wall Street fat cats, skid row bums, suburban housewives, blue collar workers and every sinner who will come to Him in repentance and faith. 

Josh Duggar’s story is more than a Gospel tragedy; it is a Gospel opportunity. Don’t waste it."

The Duggars' initial response to the accusations were reported here, and the full copy is on the "Duggar Family Official" Facebook page.

They did point out that they hope people can see that being a Christian doesn't mean being perfect,

"We have challenges and struggles everyday. It is one of the reasons we treasure our faith so much because God’s kindness and goodness and forgiveness are extended to us — even though we are so undeserving. We hope somehow the story of our journey — the good times and the difficult times — cause you to see the kindness of God and learn that He can bring you through anything. "

Perhaps the best possible short response, to anyone who would accuse Josh or the family in person (and even any of us 'other' Christians, if we are confronted by an accuser), would be this go-to:

"Just think, if God can forgive me for what I've done, then He can forgive you too. No one is ever too far from grace for God to save."

For the fairest and most complete telling of the story, actually letting the Duggars speak instead of just their social media critics, I found this Fox News link to where Megyn Kelly interviewed them.

For the complete article with several short video segments of the interview of Jim-Bob and Michelle (the parents), go here.

For the interview with the girls Jessa and Jill, which was just done last night and posted, go here.

One note: the girls feel victimized by the people attacking their family, not their brother. They have asked people to stop. Everyone who claims to be interested in their welfare should listen to them. Failure to do so will betray the truth, that you are interested in destroying the family in any way you can.
The behavior of social media antagonists who have attacked the Duggars persistently is aptly explained by God's Word. Romans describes the tell-tale behavior of people in a society who have denied God.

Romans 1
"²⁸ And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind, to do those things which are not fitting; ²⁹ being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil-mindedness; they are whisperers, ³⁰ backbiters, haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, ³¹ undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, unmerciful; ³² who, knowing the righteous judgment of God, that those who practice such things are deserving of death, not only do the same but also approve of those who practice them."

Romans 2 follows up by saying "and such were some of you." God can extend grace even to people like Josh. And God can extend grace even to people who slander Josh's family. None of us are deserving of praise, for all of us have sinned: some publicly, some privately, some knowingly, and others unknowingly. I daresay most of the critics do not realize that their speculation about Jim-Bob's alleged inappropriate handling of the issue constitutes GOSSIP, something the Bible condemns as a sin that we who commit it deserve hell for.

What an encouraging thing it is that God saves sinners. That means we all qualify.
~ Rak Chazak

PS I had more thoughts initially, but this works best as a summary post. More may follow later.

Subjective Experience vs. Materialistic Determinism

What if everything in the universe obeyed strict mathematical laws, and nothing -- not even personal volition, not even subatomic phenomena -- allowed for random chance?

Chance, here defined, is actual uncertainty about an event, such that if you knew the location, velocity, energy level and exact dimensions of every particle in the universe, and modeled reality in a hypothetical supercomputer, that you would not be able to predict the future with accuracy.

Materialistic determinism requires that if you somehow knew everything there was to know about this exact instance in the present, then you could know everything about the future and even the past, simply by mathematical modeling of the pieces that make up the universe. Their obedience to physical laws guarantees that you can know exactly how they will interact, with no randomness, leaving nothing to chance.

Generally, when we say that something is random, or a result of chance, it means that we can't predict it with the models we have and the knowledge of the universe that we possess. This is randomness from a human perspective. But real randomness -- absolute randomness -- does it exist?

Let's suppose it does not, and engage in a thought experiment.

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Bayes' Theorem

I ran across something that I wanted to share, some time ago. I figured I'd read it and write a handy little summary if I could, but I'm distracted by the need to commute and so I don't have the time to attempt to reacquaint myself with probability statistics. I do nevertheless find the field interesting and it has useful connections with the field I'm going into, so it'll be valuable to dust off my STAT book one of these days.

Bayes' Theorem is explained somewhat here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bayes%27_theorem

It is a mathematical method for assessing the likelihood of one event based on the probability of a related phenomenon. As it turns out, a professor once wrote an analysis of the statistical likelihood of the Resurrection based on the prevalence of eyewitness evidence. As of this post, this link to it was still active: http://www.thewarfareismental.net/b/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/depoe-bayesian-analysis-resurrection.pdf

I'll leave it at that, because I can't assess it very much nor give the holistic explanation I like to do, without further review of statistics. My thought process is logical but not mathematical. My visual-abstract reasoning needs to put in more effort to convert the numerical representations into "brain language." In essence, I'm translating mathematics into words and images in the process of learning it. But I may one day return and give more capable explanation of this interesting topic.

But suffice it to say: based on the number of direct eye witnesses to the event, as demonstrated by the recorded history, we can be perfectly statistically persuaded that the Resurrection took place. With the strength of mathematical analysis behind our conviction.

~ Rak Chazak

Poem: Do Us Part

This is best understood in light of the insights I shared in The Extrapolation Principle, and Intimacy in Heaven.

Do Us Part

You and me
indefinitely
not forever but together,
that's how it's meant to be.
True love will stick
but knows its place
our human bonds will yield before
eternity's embrace.
Another's love
is lovely, sure
but even though it's the best thing we know
I promise you there's more.
Keep in mind
symbols are signs
and marriage is a symbol
of a grander still design.
Ecstasy
we just can't foresee
how much better, in heaven
our love and joy will be.
Let us not
be easily caught
by believing that receiving
earthly joy is the best thing we've got.
Lift your eyes
eternity is out of sight
in more ways than one, we face a ton
of surprises when we arrive.
Our intimacy
will surpass physicality
this poem will end, but I and my friend
will love better than we ever dreamed...
indefinitely.

Matthew 22:30 "For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels of God in heaven."

~ Rak Chazak

PS background: the "You and me indefinitely" was initially inspired by a rejection of the Francis Chan book "You and me forever," which is ostensibly a book about how to make the most of Christian marriage. I might suggest to Mr. Chan and wife that telling the truth about the place of marriage in the context of God's divine plan would be a good place to start.

PPS something "indefinite" is something that doesn't have a defined limit (or a known one, from human perspective), yet which nevertheless is not practically infinite in extent. Our lives in eternity will go on forever, but the amount of time we've spent there will always be a finite number, even if it's 10^100^100^100^100 years and beyond. In a similar vein, human life and marriage has a distinct beginning and therefore the time from the beginning to the present is always definite -- but the time from the present to the unknown future ending (when "death do us part") is uncertain from our point of view of not knowing the future, and so the word 'indefinite' rather than 'forever' is better to describe something that has no foreseeable ending, like a committed earthly marriage. 

What's the Social Gospel? (case study: United Methodist Church)

It's not the Gospel, for one.

It is the reduction of "Christianity" to an outward faith devoid of almost anything Christian, let alone Biblical, except for the occasional references to a God or Christ in an attempt to infuse their agendas with strength. In that sense, it's no different from any worldly religion invented by greedy men to pursue their agendas with a "god says you must."

The United Methodist Church is running an ad campaign called 'rethink church.' It, and the site they redirect you to, is a perfect example of the social gospel.

See here:
http://rethinkchurch.org/learn-about-united-methodists
http://rethinkchurch.org/beliefs-into-action

On the second link, you'll see a dozen or so 'social justice campaigns,' and notice that nowhere in all of it is there anything hinting that people's eternal destiny is a concern, or even in mind.

Clicking the link to "spirituality," out of curiosity, I find this:

They briefly mention "anxiety, sadness, anger, shortcomings, guilt, shame" but don't connect it to sin and certainly don't tell about the remedy for sin, or how God sees sin or what He did for sinners. Nope. Instead they say that their goal is to 'find ways to connect with God' and find 'spiritual self expression.' 

We don't assume everyone's connection to God looks the same. Or should! We're reaching out to share God's love by meeting people where they are, and sharing our hearts in the process.

We welcome dialogue. We're respecting other people's beliefs and opinions about God, while maintaining our own practices and Wesleyan perspective.

We don't think church should just be for a certain kind of person. We think it's important for every person to have a place where they can express their spirituality.

The only thing they get right anywhere on this entire site is the tidbit that Church is not a building, it's a gathering of believers. But since the UMC doesn't identify what a believer is, their definition of church becomes functionally meaningless.

The Social Gospel denies and ignores sin and presumes to address physical difficulties, like hunger, housing, income, deforestation, etc as the greatest human ills and their sole focus.

It fails to save anybody. It accomplishes nothing more than making many people feel a little more comfortable on their economy-class flight to hell.

Further reading: http://www.gotquestions.org/social-gospel.html

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Timing is Everything

I got a big envelope in the mail today.

It was from my student loan servicer. It was dated two weeks ago, and it warned me that they'd need documentation within the next two weeks to renew my Income-Based Repayment Plan. Hey, thanks for that notice! ;D

As it turned out, I had already sent documentation, so this made me a bit worried. I'd sent it quite a while ago, so hopefully it hadn't been lost or intercepted on the way. I called the number. After putting in my information, the electronic voice said that my renewal request had been received -- four days after the slow-moving envelope was sent -- and approved.

Problem solved.

Most stress can be prevented or resolved, it truly seems, simply by second-guessing what you think.

~ Rak Chazak

Review: Fury

It fits easily on the (imaginary) shelf of war-movies I'd like to have as reference for future teenagers to help them understand the severe reality of a world in conflict beyond our present scope of peaceful experience. The only difference between this and other movies I've seen is that you see a lot of the inside of a tank.

As usual, my reviews are almost always plot-spoilers by default.

Fury

Could also have been called: Crouching King Tiger, Hidden Panzerwagen

 "That's an SS officer. You kill every one of them you can."

Synopsis: A green-as-grass private gets tapped as a replacement to be the front-gunner in a tank with hardened soldiers, and becomes the only survivor of a one-against-hundreds standoff against an SS platoon.

There's not much to say, so I'll start with basics:

* no sexual nudity. However, numerous references to sexuality and implicit intercourse, mostly confined to a few scenes in particular after a town had been liberated from the Nazis
* of course, there's cursing. Less of it than in Gone Girl, for comparison (Gone Girl was far more profane than most war movies I've seen).
** A younger child might not pick up on the sexuality. But a younger child shouldn't be watching it for the sake of the gruesome deaths depicted, unless (my opinion) he's already been exposed to it through school or other children or the secular media. The longer you can keep them innocent, the better. Pre teens/early teens are probably the most appropriate age (given the culture we're in) to begin showing war movies to.
* there's a few psychologically intense aggressive scenes. Brad Pitt's character forces the rookie to execute a German soldier, and Jon Bernthal's character slaps the rookie around right after the Nazis bomb the town they were in.

That last part is pretty much the main thing I want to highlight. All other aspects of the movie are interesting in the sense of warfare tactics and getting a broader concept of the dynamics of a prolonged invasion. But the middle of the movie was a bit confusing, initially. Almost like a detour.

Brad Pitt and the rookie go visit with a woman and her cousin (who he sees through a window) and the film devotes many minutes to a real-time portrayal of the tension when they first arrive, to Pitt washing himself, and to setting the table and eating. The rest of the tank crew comes in and act upset that they were left out, and misbehave in various 'passive'-aggressive ways. Michael Peña's character tells a story about how it took them three days to bury the dead and shoot horses amid flies on a battlefield earlier in the war. Jon Bernthal's character tells the rookie he should "share" the girl he met, which Pitt replies to by threatening to break his teeth. Bernthal then spits on the girl's food. Much of the cinematography shows awkward silences. Nevertheless, it was clearly intended to show that the rookie and the girl made friends, and had a bit of pleasantness and hope amid the war, to be uplifted by.

And then as soon as they walk outside, artillery or rockets impact the town and the girl is buried, clearly dead, in the rubble of her building. Rookie loses it, screaming and punching Bernthal's character who almost selflessly, in a strange way, instigates him to punch him in the face, and then grabs him tight and shouts in his ear, "that's WAR!"

While it likely wasn't Pitt's character's expectation that they would die, his choices and Bernthal's seemed to conspire to make the rookie suffer loss so that he would become battle-hardened like they, and finally want to kill Germans.

That seemed to be the purpose for the uncomfortably long dinner scene. As setting the backdrop for, and helping the audience empathize with, the rookie's loss so that they would understand his anger, and so that they would understand the hatred/will to fight that drove the tank crew to risk their lives to kill their enemies so that others would have the chance to live.

Viscerally feeling disgust and anger over the evil things others do is one way war movies (and to some extent action movies, but usually less confrontationally) do to help you get into the mindset and understand that an action is justified, or at least rational. Fury did this effectively, on a very personal scale.

~ Rak Chazak

PS As an afterthought, this was the only example I've seen in years of a secular movie making a distinction between going to church and being saved. It's right there in the dialogue when "Bible," Shia LaBeouf's character, first meets the rookie. It might surprise you to see it on the screen. If it turned out that it didn't do superbly at the box office, then I would suspect the open religious language between the characters to be the most likely culprit. In this society, no one wants to see people quote Bible verses as if it's a reliable document. They want to see bad guys misquote Scripture so they can hate them better, they don't want them to use Isaiah to comfort each other before a battle in which they would likely die. That's my suspicion.

Review: The Hunger Games, Mockingjay Part 1

I caught the last half of the first Hunger Games movie as a flatmate was watching it on Netflix one day, in my last year of college (first go-round). When the second film, Catching Fire, came out, I included it in a multiple-movie review I posted here. I realized that it was serving as an introduction to propaganda and deception to young people who may not have ever read Orwell's Animal Farm or 1984, let alone studied the politics of Communism in school. The last century of American -- and World -- history is a black hole for many people, seeing as the public education system goes up to the Great Depression and stops there.

That's why these films interest me, and I've been curious to see what sort of messages they're sending, subtly or overtly, to their fans.

The Hunger Games III: Mockingjay Part One

Could have been called: 1984, by Sun Tzu

POLI 201: Propaganda in Warfare

Synopsis: An unwilling hero learns how to fight with words rather than bow and arrow.

Observation One:

The dystopia is far more openly acknowledged now than in the first two movies. You had to look a little closer to catch hints that the characters were "on to" the fact that they lived in a tyrannical serfdom run by a centralized autocratic police state. It should have been obvious that something was wrong, and felt uncomfortable, but if you're not thinking about what you're seeing, you can miss it. Not so much in this movie. The rebellion is openly talked about and you see vivid examples of atrocities committed by the Capitol.

This is good. For the less conscious viewers, even if they're just floating along with the narrative, they should get something out of it. The Capitol's actions will come as more or less of a surprise based on your relative youth and experience or knowledge of totalitarianism, in fiction or reality. Naivete is best dealt with through shock. The film does a fair job at delivering on that.

Observation Two:

You don't get to control your heroes. Once you choose them, don't expect them to follow your script.

There is a scene where District 13(?)'s leadership is attempting to film a propaganda video with Katniss, the main character. They give her a script to speak and it comes out awkwardly wooden, with no heart to it. Woody Harrelson's character stands up and explains that he thinks the moments that made everyone love Katniss in the past were unscripted, when she did what was natural to her. So their solution to generating an Agitprop clip was to send Katniss to an actual conflict area. Subsequent to witnessing an atrocious act by the Capitol, she passionately delivers one of the most memorable dialogue sequences in the film.

It's true in politics, it's true in war, it's true in everyday life. And it's nowhere more true than in the case of putting your faith in Christ. No matter what foolish people may try to do, or other foolish people might accuse Christians of doing, no one gets to tell God what to do. No one can put Him in a box, or give Him a script to follow. Once you decide to stop trying to be God for yourself, you've let go of your chance to run the show. Now it's your turn to follow the leader. And the leader might not do things you expect or want them to do. The leader might require things of you that make you uncomfortable. That is the nature of following a hero.

This means that (lesson one) you need to be very careful who you select for yourselves as your heroes and leaders.

When you give someone power and influence, (speaking of humans here) you can't take it back easily. They can do lots of good or lots of bad in the mean time. And as for God, whom you don't give power, but merely submit to -- when you give your life over to Him, you don't get "takebacks." Your life is set to change dramatically and it might surprise or upset you, but you need to acknowledge that you don't have control, and stop resisting. You made your decision, and now you must follow through, so follow your Leader.

Observation Three:

The final observation is simply a reflection on the fact that the police force/military in The Hunger Games is composed of soldiers in white armor called "peacekeepers." Their primary function seems to be beating, executing, and shooting people in the back. For those who haven't read 1984, it's reminiscent of "Newspeak," where the government of Oceania attempted to manipulate and redefine the English language to limit how people were able to think or speak about things. Calling soldier-hitmen "peacekeepers" is an attempt to force every reference to them to imply that they are good, helpful, useful, important, and not at all a negative force. Talking about them in a way that suggests they are evil requires extra effort. But for the people who are aware of the truth, every reference to a word like "peacekeeper" is carried on a wave of sarcasm, and thereby undergoes still further alterations of meaning.

When words are used in a certain way extensively, then by way of gaining that association as their primary meaning, they lose their secondary (or even what used to be their primary) definitions. In the end, other words must be used to refer to something with the same intention that the now altered word originally conveyed.

Gay used to mean happy, lighthearted. No one uses it to mean that anymore.
Awesome used to mean terrible, frightening, and yes, awe-inducing. But most don't use it that way anymore.
Likewise, terrible used to mean causing fear, not necessarily something bad. You could describe yourself as terrible if you wanted to present yourself as an imposing figure.
The justice system is the place where people go to seek justice. But it doesn't always dispense it -- so there's a sense in which one could refer to it in sarcastic tones.
Girlfriend -- a friend who's a girl, right? No, now it almost always connotes a sexual partner.
Politically charged terms, like 'free market,' 'social security,' 'birth control,' 'husband and wife,' 'peace treaty,' etc all contain examples that someone could well argue do not represent what the word implies.

Something to think about. How are words changing, and why?

~ Rak Chazak

Review: The Hobbit, Battle of the Five Armies

I will try my hardest to keep my posts short, if only so that I can post them before I run out of time (a guy's got to sleep, you know). I have three short points to make.

The Hobbit III: Battle of the Five Armies

Could have been called: Big Ideas As Displayed By Little People

Aesop's Fables meets World of Warcraft

 Synopsis: A self-obsessed Dwarf king and self-righteous Elven king almost completely lose sight of everything that's really important in life.

Observation One:

Thorin Oakenshield gets struck with what's figuratively referred to by the old dwarf as "Dragon Sickness," which is apparently a literary device of JRR Tolkien's to represent hubris (greed borne of pride). He becomes obsessed with his own greatness and riches, and begins to see everyone around him as an enemy, a threat. He singlemindedly pursues the 'heart of the mountain,' ignoring the welfare of needy refugees and foolishly attempting to fight off an army of Elves with only 13 people (is that term applicable to dwarves? I'm not that into the lore).

It serves, through Bilbo and Dwalin's perception of him, as a poignant (and almost awkwardly lengthy, in terms of screen time) reflection of how people around us -- or ourselves -- can become self-destructively prideful in pursuit of greatness, glory, power, autonomy -- whatever you see the Heart of the Mountain as representing.

But the best part was the way Thorin recovers. Many other movies have done poorly with portraying a character who's fallen into a ditch, typically showing a spontaneous and total conversion upon the sudden realization of a one-liner that another character conveniently spoke to them at just the right moment. Reality is nothing like that. What the Hobbit did better was to show the character's transformation as taking place within his own mind. Ultimately, other people can only support you, but repentance is something that happens on an individual level. Thorin is walking in the hall of the castle and multiple thoughts are shown going through his head. The cinematography represents the collective weight of these as guiding him to a realization and awareness of what he's done wrong, and as he feels sincere remorse over it, he is shown seeing himself sinking into a pit. The best thing the director did was to, without any dialogue, have Thorin grab his crown in disgust and throw it down.

That is the root truth. Repentance and restoration comes from dethroning ourselves as the kings of our own lives. Thorin Oakenshield fancied himself a great king now that he had a crown, but Dwalin said that "you have always been my king," and that now he had become something shameful. When Thorin's life had been about a greater purpose than himself (reclaiming his people's heritage), he had been a lightning rod for his friends to rally in support of. But when he thought that because he wore a crown, that he now had authority, and his purpose became to seek his own ends, then his friends were grieved.

The symbolism is apparent; we become restored as heirs to the kingdom when we cease trying to be king and put others before ourselves. At the end, Thorin sacrificed his life to fight the enemy, laying it down for the sake of his friends. That's not to equate the character with a Christ-figure. Tolkien, catholic though he was, differed from C S Lewis's more overt Christian themes and in his own stories attempted to bury them more deeply in the narrative. Being willing to give ourselves for others is a theme consistent with Biblical Christianity, without needing to pigeon-hole the characters in LOTR or the Hobbit as representing Jesus or Satan.

Observation Two:

When Thorin lies dying, he calls Bilbo his true friend. In context, Bilbo had found the heart of the mountain and hidden it from Thorin, and then sneaked out of the castle and given it to Thorin's arch rival, the Elf lord Thranduil. Bilbo's hope had been that when Thranduil would offer it to Thorin, the latter would be willing to give aid to the refugees and return the treasures belonging to Thranduil in return for that which he wanted so badly.

As it turns out, Thorin refused, showing that pride is always stronger than greed. The desire to have things is really an outgrowth of the desire to have power, which is an expression of the desire to be in charge, make the rules, be your own King... Only somebody who's willing to step off the throne can be reasoned with.

At the end, Thorin gratefully acknowledged Bilbo's trustworthy friendship. He had not been a 'yes man,' doing what would make Thorin happy, or doing what would evade his wrath. He had been willing to risk his hatred, or even death, to do the right thing. Whereas I suspect neither Tolkien nor Peter Jackson had this intent in mind, I saw this as easily representative of the fact that telling someone the truth -- i.e. the Gospel when they don't want to hear it -- is always the right thing to do, and if they are later converted, they will be grateful that you did the hard thing and stood against them and were not willing to compromise.

Observation Three:

The dynamic between elves and dwarves has served in the Lord of the Rings series to provide commentary on how people from different social classes, cultures or "races" could initially have animosity toward each other but eventually come to see each other as friends and respect each other despite coming from or going to very different places.

The fact of elves being functionally immortal (living tens of thousands of years if not prematurely killed in battle) made for interesting analysis of some things Thranduil said with respect to Kili and Tauriel's budding romance. At one point in particular, he told her it wouldn't be worth it for her to go after him to save him, because since he was mortal, he would die anyway, indicating that he thought her efforts were futile. A similar dialogue occurs regarding Galadriel and Aragorn in the LOTR movies. "They are mortal."

Again, it's not a perfect analogy, and I'm not trying to construct one. What I have been doing here has been to use themes in the movies to stimulate contemplation of similar themes in the nonfiction world. In this case, the comparison of dwarves, elves and men on the basis of mortality and disposition makes me think of the differences between the Gentiles, Jews and the Saints as described by Romans 9-11. In reality there is overlap. More similar to the movie, in reality we all interact, even though we note differences between each other.

Elves (saints) and humans (gentiles, incl. professing believers) are superficially similar, whereas dwarves (Jews) are obviously different from both, as well as withdrawn, stubborn and consumed with yearning for the return of their long-ago glories. Men and dwarves are both quite capable of forming romances with Elves, but because only the Elves are immortal, romances with non-elves are guaranteed to result in a long separation, and the knowledge of their mortality induces heartbreak even before their death occurs. Thranduil (compare to a Christian who has no compassion for the Lost) rightly discourages Tauriel from pursuing romance with a dwarf ("a house divided against itself cannot stand"), but he does it with no love in his voice. At the end of the film, it seems as if he has a bit of a wake-up call, a hint of temporal redemption for himself, when Tauriel says "why does it (love--or the loss of a loved one) hurt so much?" and he replies, "because it was real." Perhaps the lesson here is that even if a lifelong love -- marriage -- cannot be, that does not mean that those who are promised immortality should not love or show love to strangers, those who are outside their earthly or heavenly society.

If you as a Christian watch the movies again, and put yourself in the shoes of the often snotty and self-righteous, self-concerned Elves ("the elves are for the elves," to borrow from a twist on a C S Lewis' Narnia line) and imagine the dialogue between elves and dwarves, or elves and men, to be as dialogue between a saved Christian and unsaved of various stripes, then it might be uniquely convicting for you, or at least very thoughtful, in ways you may or may not have already perceived.

That's the thought I leave you with.

~ Rak Chazak

Review: Gone Girl and The Imitation Game

I'm initiating a blogging blitz. I have a dozen+ subjects that have stacked up over the month or two past, and if I don't get them out of my system, it'll be too distant to write about. That sadly happened with Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, which is still in the back of my mind but I never got the chance to write anything for. So the next several posts will be short, or so I shall attempt.

Gone Girl

Could have also been called, "How to Frame Your Husband for Murder and Get Away With It."

Synopsis: A cautionary tale against marrying a psychopath.

Verbatim from my notes:
"Other than being original from the standpoint of plot, there was really nothing to take away from it that would make it worth seeing, especially for the Christian. The nicest thing I can say for it is that it very effectively serves as a cautionary tale against marrying someone you don't know, or having extramarital sex. And for the aspiring murderous female psychopaths, it will come across as a documentary on "how to stage your own murder and get someone else to take the blame."

More worrying is perhaps the instructions on how to fake evidence for rape. Just another in the list of hundreds of reasons why the Biblical model for relationships is superior.

At the bottom line, you'll have many young women concluding "she was justified, he deserved it," in much the same disturbing way that I've heard people try to sympathize with the fictional character Saw in the horror franchise of the same name. Why do they rationalize this? Because they sympathize with the main character, and therefore don't want to see their actions as wrong, or because they can't comprehend how "good" people could experience such suffering. They fail to realize the truth, that not only does everybody deserve far worse than that, because none of us are remotely good, and at the same time, none of us deserve to be treated that way by our fellow human beings, because all of us are image bearers of God and therefore deserve to be treated with dignity by others, no matter how despicable we happen to be. There! A Christian comparison.

Conclusion: Do not watch, on account of unnecessary (and gratuitous) sex and cursing
---

The Imitation Game

I have very little to say about this, save that for once there was a film without female nudity, though it does deal with sexuality -- however it's done maturely, perhaps influenced by the time period it seeks to portray, and likely wouldn't be comprehended by young children. There are references to sexual relationships but not in a graphic or vulgar way, so -- unless you're British -- there shouldn't be anything to overtly offend the senses.

Aside from the unnecessary plot holes/additions, as mentioned here, it was well done. Probably one of the safer award-nominees to allow yourself to watch.

I have little to add that wouldn't be a plot spoiler, and since the movie's worth watching for how the producers dealt with the subjects I have in mind, I will leave it here and not go into more depth.

~ Rak Chazak

The Texas Floods: Awe Reprise

I was "minded by the sight I saw" on the news concerning the Texas flooding, to recall a portion of the poem Awe that I wrote late in 2013.

Therecordlive.com

If nature so strikes awe in men

That they revere it, even when

It proves itself an unfit king,

Then what of Him who made all things?

Should not the God of nature too

Strike awe in hearts of men like you?

And unlike nature, God does not

Consider us a ‘pale blue dot’

It’s true He wants you to feel small

When you are deep in nature’s thrall

It’s so that you’ll depend on Him

Since power comes not from within.

~ Rak Chazak

Further Reading:
I Won't Say the Words "Mother Nature."

Poem: We Are the Judges

This is my first attempt at a non-rhyming poem. Not having any formal education regarding poetic structure or styles, I've attempted a little bit of antithetical parallelism.


A queer thing is afoot in America.

We no longer individually judge,
but we collectively heap condemnation.

We abhor the death penalty for murderers,
but transgressors must never be allowed to forget their past sins.

American forgiveness is expressed as legal clemency for felonies
but losing your job over your personal opinion.

The Court of Public Opinion is an unfair tribunal,
where the judges are unelected and their verdicts abide by no law.

There is no statute of limitations,
because restraint is one thing Americans do not have.

We eat, sleep, drink, speak, buy, keep, and excuse ourselves in excess,
and we admit to knowing it's wrong when we criticize others for the same.

Everything must be done to our liking,
because we like ourselves most.

When someone does something bad,
we contrast them to ourselves.

That way, everyone different from us is wrong,
but we never are.

If someone should tell us that our standard is not correct,
we say that judging others is wrong, and judge them as being wrong.

In these days, there is no king;
everyone does what is right in his own eyes.



~ Rak Chazak

PS The Bible verse cited in the final stanza is repeated frequently in the book of the Judges, for example Judges 17:6 . But rather than refer to want of gubernatorial jurisprudence, I am indicating the lack of God's lordship in the hearts of the people in this country. Far fewer follow His precepts -- whether believer, nominal professing believer, or unbeliever alike -- than did in the past, and their actions and opinions are unruly, not being in submission to the Judge of the universe. I'm not talking about lawbreakers, here, I'm talking about those who attempt to pursue or impose punishment on others. Romans 1 describes the unregenerate as unmerciful and unforgiving. Can anyone deny that this is an apt description of our popular culture?

Despite not following God's law, our countrymen insist that there are rules that must be followed, and in so doing fulfill Romans 2:14 -- they "are a law unto themselves," revealing the knowledge, in their conscience, that certain things are right and wrong. But because they do not submit to the revelation of Scripture, their conclusions about what those things are, and what a suitable remedy is for them, is way out of wack. They do what is right in their own eyes because they do not honor the King. 

Did God Die For Everyone Who Ever Lived, or Just Some?

If some people are in hell, and you believe that Christ died for everyone,
* then Christ died for those in hell. Then His sacrifice was insufficient to save them.
* then God is unjust, committing double jeopardy, because a person's sins are judged once at the cross, and then again in hell.

If no people are in hell,
* then you reject what the Bible clearly teaches, and have asserted the Universalism heresy.

Your only logical choice is to believe that
* Jesus died for all the sins of some people.
* Those not included in the category of "those He died for" are they who populate hell.

Christianity. The thinking faith.

~ Rak Chazak

Personal Life Update: Flying Colors

Last night as I drove home from work, "Fireflies" by Owl City became my life, for the space of about 5 minutes. 

I remember reading somewhere that Adam had a certain summer night in mind when he wrote it -- whether he was on vacation or if this was in Minnesota, I'm uncertain of, but using the context of his early music's many references to various states that he'd like to visit but never had ("Hello Seattle," "Alaska," "West Coast Friendship" etc), I suspect it was in his home state that he witnessed a swarm of fireflies one night, in the tens of thousands, somewhere in the country.

I run across fireflies on any given summer evening out by the road next to the field opposite my house. But I'd never before seen so many in one place that they resembled elaborate winter holiday decorations. Their rhythmic lighting resulted in what appeared to be waves of strobe lights undulating out from the trees on one side of the road, into the field opposite and back and forth in ways that made it look like the lights were on wires and carrying electric current.

It was really quite spectacular. If you focused on a single light source at once, you could tell that it was a bug, either stationary or slowly flying over the farm field looking for a mate. But when you scanned across the whole landscape, the simplicity of the mating call scaled upward into a much more complex, grander view that provokes you to marvel at how the simple things of earth that God has created can come together in spectacular arrangements so that the big picture of everything is so amazing that the only thing you can do is stand amazed, and give God glory.

It's reminiscent of this:

"By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible." Hebrews 11:3

And in a similar way, the small things make up big things. I've always been fascinated by how the macroscopic, microscopic and telescopic views of the world hang together. Ultimately, the bigger stuff has to be explained, in some way, by the smaller stuff. Economics and politics has to be explained by individual human interactions. Culture shifts have to be explained by psychology. Physiology has to be explained by cell theory. Computers have to be explained by electricity and mechanics. And on it goes. Being able to bridge the divisions between fields of study, in one's mind, does wonders for how one is able to understand the world, and marvel at the interconnected nature of reality. Perhaps that's why I'm in the field I'm in. Biology is the connection between chemistry and physiology. History is the connection between how things happened in the past, and why they are the way they are now. Philosophy is the connection between absolute revealed truth and sincere human questioning.

Rightly understood and pursued, of course.

I hope I'll have the opportunity to see a lightshow like that again, maybe with my bride.

Flying colors today doesn't only refer to the lightning bugs I stopped to stare at, but also to the fact that I checked my spring semester grades today and made straight As. And the journey continues!

~ Rak Chazak

Mini-Treatise: Emotions and How to Relate to Them

I find it helpful to see my emotions as something that happens to me, not "me." They are useful because:
* they are like indicator lights in a car, diagnostic tools that help you figure out what's right or wrong
* they sometimes give false readings, so you've got to use your brain to know when to ignore them or get them fixed
* sometimes they're not diagnostic at all, but rewarding. They make you feel good or bad, to reinforce doing/not doing a certain behavior you engaged in.

They are never your destiny. They don't tell you what you have to do--they have to be interpreted. You don't have to feel the way your emotions make you feel. You can uncouple your mind's participation in them by consciously choosing not to dwell on them. Engage in an activity that biochemically alters your physiology so that the emotions you're dealing with change. An easy example is if a guy is sexually aroused, a way to destroy that is to engage in vigorous exercise. It kills any feelings like that and clears the mind. It does the same with hunger, for that matter. If you're up late at night and feel depressed, go to sleep! It'll get your circadian rhythm back on track, and stressful build-up gets dealt with unconsciously while you sleep. Distracting your body by interrupting a natural process (or returning to one, if your emotions are due to biological instability) can keep certain moods at bay for a while so that you can make progress without their influence.

~ Rak Chazak