On Fantasy and Magic

Harry Potter and the Christian Magicians

It's a long-ish essay, not something to pick up when you have 5 minutes of browsing time, but it is a worthy essay that looks seriously at magic, fantasy, occult, technology and how they all interact with each other and Christians.

The comments ... well, they're comments on the Internet.

I thoroughly liked the essay, though I have to admit that I very possibly liked it because several parts of it very nicely matched with how I view books with "magic" in them.

One of the ways he phrased something is something I enjoyed and hadn't formulated for myself nearly so neatly: most "magic" in books is merely technology. It is a new trick that people can learn to use a different set of levers and cranks to make the universe do what you want. It has as little and as much to do with the witchcraft against which the Bible warns as computers do.

Many thanks to DJ for including it in his list of 7 things!

EDIT:
I read my post and realized it didn't actually say much about the essay other than I liked it. I would like to be somewhat more helpful than that, so allow me to give a brief excerpt.

I suggest that the type of story which actually glamorizes occultism or Gnosticism is the type of story that glamorizes the defiance of convention, glamorizes self-centeredness, and tells the moral that you are a special person from a higher world, and says sex is an act of self-fulfillment with no possible bad side effects: in other words, the movie PLEASANTVILLE.
.....
I mean simply that if a parent wishes to spare his child from the lure of occultism and Gnosticism, then let the parent comb through the child’s books and comic books and role playing gamebooks not to see which ones have wizards and unicorns on the cover — it is shallow to judge a book by its cover — but to see which books preach selfishness and promote suspicion and contempt for wholesome things. That is the motive and the leitmotif of occultism: the promise of hidden powers and the contempt for conformity, reason, normalcy.

Bits and pieces from here and there

The Wise Man's Fear - awesome fantasy book. Rothfuss must have sold his soul or something for the ability to write like he does. Beautiful turns of phrases, and the character development is ... unreal. He doesn't hurry through things, and you can see the characters grow and change through the story in a way that ....

Oh bother. I need to be a Rothfuss to give proper homage to Rothfuss's books. Phenomenal book!

On the much fluffier side of things, Monster Hunter Alpha is coming out soon. So far the entire Monster Hunter series has been a huge blast to read. Fun and adventurous modern monster fighting fantasy.

We just got new phones, nothing particularly fancy - a Sunburst. We don't have a data plan or anything, and we very much disliked the flip phone options they had, so we went for a touchscreen. We don't do much texting, so we didn't need anything with a proper keyboard. It is definitely taking us a while to figure out the menus, settings, and tools (boy do they ever need to work on their overall logical structure of things in that piece of software!), and the touchscreen feels slow and requires a fairly heavy touch. Maybe we'll get used to it. I like the size and large screen a LOT, though, so I suspect I'll ignore the poor logical layout aspects and get used to the touchscreen.

Westboro "Baptist Church" and Mars Hill Church - Westboro isn't a church, though they call themselves one, so I certainly mean the scare quotes in their name. They're protesting one of the Mars Hill Church locations for some reason (it'll get them publicity) and so Mars Hill Church put out a little blog response. It starts like this:

Westboro Baptist Church, this false prophet and his blind lemmings welcome you to our whore house for God's grace and free donuts

Sound like an odd way to invite people to church? Well, you might first understand that Westboro calls just about every church (and Mars Hill specifically) a "whore house" and declared their pastors as "false prophets" and anyone who attends the church to be "blind lemmings". Westboro is a charming group of people.

Check out the whole blog article: Westboro Baptist Church, This False Prophet and His Blind Lemmings Welcome You to Our Whore House for God’s Grace and Free Donuts.

5 More Months

I had such good intentions - I was (and still am) sympathetic to the deception and pain Harold Camping's followers are going through. I was going to write on that - how Christians need to reach out to our deceived brothers and sisters with grace. I didn't do that very consistently leading up to the failed May 21st event, but as it happened (or rather, didn't happen) I was more saddened for the people who were so deceived.

I read someone who mentioned Jesus' pain at seeing the Israelites laboring under the onerous and false duties laid on them by their leaders in comparison with the pain of the Campingites who were lost and wounded by Camping's repeated lies and false teachings.

And then I see how Camping is responding: Oops, it's still 5 months away - just wait!. And numerous articles about how so many of his followers have latched onto this as a way to continue believing in and following Camping. (and what happens in five more months when Camping is shown wrong again?)

Fffwwwip!! There went my compassion!

Well, not entirely, but it does make it a bit harder to feel any compassion and to actually demonstrate any sympathy toward Camping's followers when I see them online.

Thank God that He is so infinitely more compassionate than I. I have a hard enough time being compassionate in something like this.

Carrying one another in prayer

As one of my regular reads on the Internet, InternetMonk is consistently one of my favorites. They have consistently written excellent articles, and this one is one that I think they hit out of the park.

Carrying One Another

Funny, Thoughtful, and Cringe-worthy

And some of those categories overlap! I seem to have run across a bounty of things that I've thought would make good blog material, so I have a window that has a half-dozen tabs on it that I'm saving. Then my computer rebooted. Fortunately they were saved and I was able to pull them back up, but the warning was heeded and so no more procrastination!

In no particular order:

Game Theory and Raising Kids from the Freakonomics Blog
Got kids who are arguing? Ever told them they have to stay in "time out" until they apologize to each other? It seems that the kids should both decide to instantly apologize so they can get out of the punishment as quickly as possible, right? In comes Game Theory!

Say What? Maybe this "democracy" thing isn't quite all it's cracked up to be
Wow! Our nation's policies are being made by people who are elected, at least in part, by people like the one in this deposition. Maybe Idiocracy really isn't that far off.

Paul’s New Law—Or Our Identity In Christ?
Just a generally good article that spun my thoughts off into several tangential areas. My rabbit trail thoughts aren't much, but the article is good fodder for thought even if you don't agree with it entirely. Some of the comments are good too.

Cake Wrecks!!! These defy explanation. You'll just have to click and see the insane atrocities that are created by professional cake makers.
The Cake Wrecks Hangover Cure
Cakes to help with those New Years Resolutions!

AiG's Jason Lisle's speed of light problem "solution" is still "going strong"
Lisle came up with a theory he claims is untestable, but still an explanation for how light might travel billions of light years instantly. Ignoring the problems with making an untestable theory and then claiming it as an explanation for something, and then also claiming as support of said theory the fact that no one has submitted (in less than six months) a peer-reviewed rebuttal, there are another couple problems.
One, it's not untestable like he claimed.
Two, it's been pointed out to him many times that it is false for multiple reason.
Three, he has refused to accept such counters outside a "peer-reviewed journal".
Four, a scientist offered to work with Lisle to submit to a peer-reviewed journal a counter to Lisle's argument and then have Lisle's reply posted at the same time, but Lisle declined saying he didn't have time for that.
Five, the only journal ("Answers Research Journal") from which Lisle will accept counter-papers disallows papers that do not support a YEC position, which almost by definition does not allow papers disagreeing with Lisle's position.

But, he still boldly proclaims that his position is "going strong". I think he has finally made the jump to full loonie status, or possibly out and out liar status. It's sad to see AiG supporting the guy.

Good comment on 1 Cor 8:9-13

Nothing particularly earth-shattering, but I thought he put it together very nicely.

Good Theology Rightly Applied (1 Corinthians 8:9–13)

Hyperbole? Never!!!

I have a question that may appear somewhat out of the blue. I'm wondering if any readers have comments.

What might be a word other than hyperbole that fits this phrase? Or, is the phrase indeed a hyperbole?

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, 'Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.' And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?'
Acts 2:5-11

The specific phrase I'm looking at is in the first verse, "every nation under heaven". Now, I would not have called that hyperbole since hyperbole is an overstatement to make something seem more extreme than it is. Maybe that's what Luke was trying to do - make it seem bigger than it was. I don't think so though, especially in light of what he puts shortly after - he lists out the groupings of "nations" which describes his "every nation under heaven" phrasing.

So, to me, it doesn't seem that what he says is really hyperbole, but I can't come up with a term that really fits what I think he was doing - a common turn of phrase that wasn't intended to exaggerate but rather to communicate that there were a lot of nations there.

Is there a concise term which means that? The closest I'm thinking of is something like "figure of speech". Is there a better one?

The reason I bring this up is that I read an article in "Acts & Facts" (publication of the Institute for Creation Research) where they apparently take offense at the idea that "hyperbole" can be used in a historical account in the Bible, and so they try to prove that it is a literally precise and accurate statement which would hold up to a scientific counting and comparison of every "nation" on Earth.

How that ties back into my question about the term "hyperbole" is thus: I think it is the term "hyperbole" and its connotations which cause a reaction of such a bizarre interpretation. I suspect that if they looked at the the "every nation under heaven" phrase and approached it as a commonly used turn of phrase that isn't intended to be taken literally and isn't intended to exaggerate, they wouldn't have nearly so extreme a reaction.

I think the label used is creating an adverse reaction. So, my question - is there a term that fits that phrasing better than "hyperbole" that wouldn't evince such an adverse reaction?

The labeling aspect is only one thing, though. Ignoring that, I have to shake my head at the bizarre reasoning and linkings used which is supposed to show that "every nation under heaven" is a scientifically accurate phrase describing the gathering in Jerusalem. But, dealing with that part is just beating up on a defenseless target.

Hebrews 11: 39-40

NIV
(39) These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised. (40) God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

ESV
(39) And all these, though commended through their faith, did not receive what was promised, (40) since God had provided something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.

My dear put this into an email. I'm not sure why she picked this verse. The last bit of it jumped out at me - the emphasis which is put upon the value of community among those who seek God.

It's not like this was the one and only reason the old heroes of the faith didn't see the final fulfillment of the promises made, but it is listed as part of the reason - that their relationship with God not be different than ours - that we be made perfect all together, not separate from each other, each through unique means.

Take that to an extreme, and each person might have a separate relationship with God - saved in some unique fashion other than through faith in Christ God. Could that have been done? I guess, but God didn't want that, and so he provided a way that all mankind could come to him AND would still have a unified relationship with each other.

There are certainly more direct statements in the Bible about the unity and community of believers, but I hadn't noticed that one before.

And since I cannot do anything at work at the moment, I'm spending a couple minutes on odds and ends.

Life News

I was planning on a minor rant about the various reactions to Hawking's latest book The Grand Design, how the publisher's blurb is so provocatively phrased, and how everyone in the Christian side of the blogosphere seems to be flipping out over it, and how after actually READING most of the book (something all of the outraged attack bloggers neglected to do) I found that the cover's description and the publicist descriptions are WILDLY different than the contents of the book, and there is nothing outrageous and nothing that is designed to be a definitive proof that science has disproved God or anything like that.

But I changed my mind. I'm not going to rant on that topic. :^)

Instead it is time for a bit of family news that might be of more interest to the relatives who read this.

First of all, and probably of most interest to you: TGM!!

She is doing very well - about normal on the height measurements and just a bit on the slim side of things. A bit like her parents, I guess. She has taken more steps several times, but still prefers to scoot and crawl around. She has lots of signs she is using, and is taking off on her potty training.

Quick example: C took her over to the bank and while doing a transaction with the teller, C felt TGM tug on her and start signing "potty". C couldn't interrupt things at the moment and so told TGM to hold on for a bit. TGM squirmed and made some whining noises and signed potty a couple more times. Finally C finished up and took her to the bathroom, expecting to find a fully diaper.

Nope! Dry diaper, and TGM used the bathroom when set down on the adult-sized toilet. What a girl!!!!

Jeremiah has had his 8th birthday now (though he very nearly missed attending his own birthday party because he was getting in trouble all day the day before). However, he is now on the seventh heaven with lots of gifts and a party with friends. A Nintendo DS and four games were quite the smash hit for him!

C & I are still very much in love and happily doing all sorts of lovely and ordinary things like clogging, cooking meals, spending time with friends, going to church, teaching Sunday School and kids Bible study, and slowly moving along a half dozen projects on the house. It's not particularly glamorous, perhaps, but we do it together and life is good.

My work looks like it might be shifting a bit. I was on an R&D project most of this summer, but it lost its funding (perhaps), so I might be moving over to another project. I suspect I won't be going back to the R&D project if it does lose funding and I to shift projects, but it certainly was a lot of fun while it lasted! The continual fight for funding (and it may lose this round) makes it a bit too uncertain for my tastes.

Let's see. Mom is doing very well from what the doctors can tell, and is doing very well regardless of what the doctors can or can't see. (which is nothing, which is a good thing when talking of cancer!) God is good.

Facebook and the Watchtower

Facebook is my blog's enemy. For example, most everyone in my Facebook circles (or in my wife's circles) knows that my mom was diagnosed with cancer, but I've never made it over to write up a post on my blog about it.

That was just one example, but pretty representative. (and my mom is doing quite well - God is walking with her and is healing her through the various procedures.)

I have a vague memory of thinking a month ago that I would start posting here more frequently since it's easier to put longer thoughts here than on the Facebook status area. But, alas and alack, that seemed to fail. But (again), hope springs eternal, so here I go again.

That's the "Facebook" part of the title. Here's the "Watchtower" part.

About two weeks ago, we were handed a couple handouts from some high school or college age people while we were at the store. They went into the recycling bin, but I flipped through them before I tossed them in. It was interesting to see how they were virtually indistinguishable from common Christian pamphlets - there was nothing of the gospel of Christ in them, but were almost completely filled by self-help and social/political concerns.

Obviously there was nothing in them about Jesus actually being truly God since they don't believe that, but there wasn't even anything dealing with salvation in anything other than live-a-better-life-so-your-life-will-be-better sort of junk.

Like I said, it was virtually indistinguishable from most Christian pamphlets I run across. I did note a couple carefully phrased statements about Jesus which avoided implying that Jesus was one with God, but if you weren't looking for that, one would be unable to tell that they weren't Christian pamphlets.

That's a VERY sad state of affairs.

I did get a kick out of a particular part, though again it was a somewhat sad "kick". They had a "Reader Question" section, one of which was a question "Will the earth always produce enough to sustain life?"

By "life" the article definitely referred to human life on the scale we have now and foresee into the future. They stressed that modern famines are typically not caused by a lack of food in the world, but rather the distribution of that food, often caused by politics. Then they had to use a Bible verse to back themselves up. Here's what they said - Genesis 8:22.

What does it say? "As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, ... will never cease." They use that to say "Thus, just as surely as we know that the sun will shine each day, we can be confident that the earth will never cease to produce what is needed to sustain life."

Wow! No, that's not what it says, even if you use their own apparent "literal" reading. It doesn't say that the seedtime and harvest will always be sufficient to feed mankind, just that they will continue. And never mind that their literal reading is completely missing the point of the passage - it is immediately after the Flood and rainbow promise from God that He would never again destroy the earth by water.

That context does seem to change what the verse means, just a touch. But never mind that - they are taking the Bible "literally"!

Lest this be taken as a slam against the Watchtower publication and the group which supports it, remember that I said their pamphlet was pretty much indistinguishable from Christian publications. I'm slamming on the far too common tendency for Christians to take the Bible "literally" and completely miss the point of what is being said.

Common example: using bits and pieces of the Psalms to support specific details of Creation theories. (I'm looking at you whoever first claimed that "spread the heavens like a tent" means God used a white hole-like mechanism to create the universe - "spreading" matter! That has no more support for it than claims about "pillars of heaven" meaning the Bible says there are pillars holding up the sky.)

But, thankfully, the Church also has many members in it who eschew silly "literal" readings like those. God is good and I love His Church, it's just that every once and a while it's hard to swallow what some of my brothers and sisters spout off.

Wonder of Creation: Profaning God's Creation

Profaning God's Creation

The Wonder of Creation site is site that produces Christian devotional materials. This particular devotional is looking at Genesis from a slightly different angle. I haven't read the book from which the research was done, but the research result is that Genesis 1 was written as part of a temple dedication - as God dedicated the universe he made to His purpose, so too is a man-made temple dedicated to His purpose. The primary goal of Genesis 1 would be to convey that God made the universe holy to Himself, functioning according to His will, not necessarily to give detailed account of the physical mechanism with which He made it.

This would give a slightly different approach to viewing nature around us - it is holy to God. If we destroy it and/or ruin it, we are profaning that which is holy.

That is the general thrust of the article linked above. The part which especially caught my eye was a verse they mentioned toward the end, one I have read but never particularly noted: Revelation 11:18. (whole chapter here: Revelation 11)

.... The time has come for judging the dead, and for rewarding your servants the prophets and your saints and those who reverence your name, both small and great— and for destroying those who destroy the earth.

Note the "and for destroying those who destroy the earth."

Now, considering the VERY poetic and symbolic nature of the entire set of chapters around here, I think it's a bit of a stretch to consider this to be specifically aimed at "polluters" in the modern sense of ecological polluters (which would have been a nonsensical concept to readers 2000 years ago). It's much more general and other verses in Revelation also refer to the earth being corrupted/destroyed by sin.

However, when it is considered that the universe and earth are holy to the Lord, those who destroy the earth through polluting actions would certainly fall in this category.

Anyway, it was something that caught my eye in a way I hadn't viewed something before.

And since I haven't blogging in an embarrassingly long time (it has been so long that even my own mother has stopped reading!) I figured I should probably start getting back into the posting habit.

Refinancing and other odds and ends

We're trying to refinance our mortgage right now, and going through lots of fun paperwork. We can drop our interest rate from 6.375% down to 5.25%!!! That drops the principal and interest portion of the mortgage payment by over $120!

And for anyone who might be thinking it would be a good thing to roll that savings back into the mortgage payment as extra toward principal - that's the plan.

But, to get the refinance through, we're scrambling to find pay stubs, bank statements, tax information, etc. Lots and lots of fun.

Ran across a very good blog post from a Mars Hill church. I can't tell if it's from their pastor or from someone else (their blog has a variety of sources for content), but regardless it was an excellent post. I tried writing a couple of points of thought on it, but it started to come out as a sermon that was merely expanding the post not adding anything new, so I've deleted them and I'll leave it to you to read the post: What Do You Live For - Part One.

In more mundane news I finally have a computer at home again! My last computer crashed and burned for what I thought were power supply issues. It turned out to be the motherboard that went kablooey. I was doing a data recovery project on a friend's hard drive, and it was all done. Since I had two computers sitting around, I popped my hard drive into her computer and I'm back to having a working computer! (she asked me to throw away the computer for her)

Yay!!!

Let's see - what else? AP gave me a wonderful Christmas present - he painted my magnetized Necromunda gang!!! They look VERY good! It was a pleasure using them! We had a battle Sunday evening and while I won, I can't take many more of those "wins"!! He blew up my Settlement's power source and started to retreat. He had to take a panic check the turn before he was about to successfully retreat, and he failed it - panicking and giving me the win, at least technically. I lost that territory, my best one, and the advances my gang members got weren't particularly helpful. Maybe next time I'll be able to get some better after-battle results.

He has risen! He has risen indeed!

I'm not a person who is personally moved by traditions or the "cloud of witnesses" who are part of the Christian fellowship. So, I thoroughly enjoyed the Easter service which did not try to create the semblance of those things for a special service. Perhaps in a church which regularly used the Church traditions (and so wasn't suddenly discovering and implementing ancient traditions) I might not have quite such a discordant reaction. But, regardless, that wasn't an issue.

Instead it was an excellent time of breakfast and fellowship with my friends and family at church. Sermon was on how Jesus revealed himself after His resurrection, specifically to the two men on the road to Emmaus. Reveals Himself through all of Scripture, through teaching, through direct fellowship, and through the Holy Spirit. Basic stuff, but Pastor Ray does a phenomenal work of bringing basic stuff to a point of relevance and impact, and then encouraging to a living-out of those things. (ex. How does Jesus reach others through fellowship today? Through me and you.)

AP, CH and I did some very un-church-like stuff after church - practicing a variety of Parkour techniques. Then I discovered that I had put my jacket on top of C's car which she had quite sensibly put in her car when she left for the G's house for Easter lunch/dinner. The jacket had my cell phone, my car's keys, and the keys for the truck I was driving to drop off the church's equipment trailer. Oops!

Thankfully DB had a spare set for the truck and I was able to return the trailer, and when I got back to DB's house I was able to call the G's house to have C deliver my car keys to me.

I got a late start on the lunch and dinner, but managed to make up for lost time. By the time we finally finished talking and eating, it was 10:30 PM - a great time!

And just for a bit of random whateverness:

Random quote I ran across on an Easter blog topic.

It is a possibility that near perfect, smart humans (pre-flood) were smart enough to splice DNA with lizard and other animals to make some Dinosaurs. I know that seems odd and crazy to some or most of you but its a thought that's out there and didn't come from me.

Of course the guy also went on to claim that human tracks and dinosaur tracks were found together (the Paluxy tracks - a fraud), so he's not exactly a reputable Creationist. It was still a serious "cringe" moment, though.

However, there are people living lives and sharing Christ with others so that even those who have hated and rejected Christ are drawn back to Him.

A great quote from the article:

But there is more to it than that. My belief has come about in large measure because of the lives and examples of people I have known - not the famous, not saints, but friends and relations who have lived, and faced death, in the light of the Resurrection story, or in the quiet acceptance that they have a future after they die.

Mars Hill blog again

Having read a particularly virulent diatribe yesterday against megachurches in general, and Mars Hill in particular, I just want to post this as a purely self-satisfying exercise.

My War Against God

Particular quote: "I loved the church [Mars Hill] and wanted to learn everything about God. I learned about why God put all these rules on us—why I can’t have sex with my boyfriend, why I can’t get drunk. These weren’t just empty Christian morals; I read the Bible and learned about God’s great love for us. He wanted to protect me and keep me pure, because he was a true Father. He was the Father I had always wanted. I learned that Jesus died for all our sins, and that through Him I was forgiven. He was the Savior I always needed."

Now, I know there are people who see Mars Hill as teaching Law and Works Salvation, but that wasn't what this commenter was accusing. He was accusing Mars Hill of never teaching the "Godly truth of righteous living" and stated confidently that they were "tickling audience ear with feel good **** straight from HELL!"

After reading that commenter yesterday and then catching this post today, I just had to laugh!

One more question taken care of

Darren gave a good example - keep it simple and don't go into everything possibly related to the question. So, cutting out all the extraneous stuff, here is another question and answer. Maybe I should fine-tune this a bit, but youth group is tonight, so I think I'm running with this.

What does "clouds of heaven" mean in Mark 14:61-62?

In Mark 14, Jesus is being questioned by the council about whether or not he claims to be the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ. Jesus answers, "I am, and you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven."

It may sound a bit odd to us, but to them Jesus was saying very clearly that he was God, and it made them furious! How was he saying that? He was quoting Daniel 7:13 in the Old Testament. Daniel 7:13-14 talks about the Son of Man coming with the "clouds of heaven" and being put in charge of EVERYTHING FOREVER.

Exactly what does "clouds of heaven" mean? It probably describes all the glory in God and Heaven - great glory and honor. It's used in a similar way in Matthew 24:30, Christ comes on "clouds of heaven with power and great glory," and Luke 21:27 when the Son of Man comes "in a cloud with power and great glory."

When Jesus uses "clouds of heaven" in Mark, he's quoting Daniel 7, which is talking about the Son of Man being given all the authority and glory of God, which no one gets except God himself. He's using it to tell the council that he truly is the Son of Man, AKA GOD.

Good youth group

I've got a deal with them - if they bring me a good question, I pay them $1 for it and I have to answer it. I have reserved sole judging authority as to whether or not it is a "good" question or not (i.e. whether or not they have a serious question or are just trying to game me for money).

I've got some doozies I'm working on, and several of the others in the past have been great. I've decided that I want to put them on here, sort of as storage, but also as a place to brag about what a fun group I have.

I'll put up the hardest first because I haven't managed to get these into answers of less than a major essay yet. Any help and/or sources of answers would be appreciated!

What does "clouds of heaven" mean in Mark 14:61-62?

Is it ever right to do something wrong to get something good to happen?

Sure! Let me just whip out a quick, two paragraph answer to those! Yeesh!

Then there are a couple of easier ones. (Note: Answers are designed toward a variety of ages from 9 to 13, and are kept relatively straightforward.)

Do people eat and sleep in heaven?
There are lots of ways that Jesus and other people described heaven, such as different areas in heaven - the area where God makes his presence known, the great city, and a great river from God's throne to the city, just to name a few. (Revelation 4; Revelation 21; Revelation 22)

Jesus used many different ways to describe heaven, and several of the ways it is described definitely have food. A poor beggar was described in heaven eating and drinking with Abraham. Many times a feast is used to describe heaven, not just eating a meal, but a giant celebration with food, song, laughter, happiness and joy!

Finally, there are descriptions of rewards in heaven. Sometimes these are described as riches and mansions, and other times when Jesus says that people who are faithful to obey God, even in little things, will be put in charge of things in heaven.

These are all trying to describe what heaven is LIKE, and with all those descriptions of food, feasts, and other activities, then YES there probably will be eating in heaven. God also says he will be the light of heaven, and there won't be any night in heaven, so I don't think there will be any sleeping or any need for sleep. There are new, perfect, and different bodies from what we have now.

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When did Methuselah die? Before or after the flood?

Found in Genesis 5
NAME	AGE WHEN CHILD BORN	LIVED AFTERWARD
Adam	130	800	born 1, died 800
Seth	105	807	born 130, died 937
Enosh	90	815	born 235, died 1050
Kenan	70	840	born 325, died 1165
Mahalalel	65	830	born 395, died 1225
Jared	162	800	born 460, died 1260
Enoch	65	300*	born 702, "was no more" 1002
Methuselah	187	782	born 767, died 1549
Lamech	182	595	born 954, died 1549
Noah	500	450	born 1136, died 2086
Flood in year 1736, when Noah was 600 (Gen. 7, 9)

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The Jews couldn't have milk with sheep or goat meat, but what about beef?
Beef is out too.

Exodus 23:19, Exodus 34:26 and Deuteronomy 14:21 all talk about not boiling a kid (young goat) in its mother's milk. This was understood in the oral Torah to ban the eating of meats and milks together.

The Oral Torah is the collection of verbal traditions handed down ever since Moses, including details that Moses taught but didn't write down. These were finally written down in the 100s AD and are the "Mishnah" today. Commentaries have been written on the Mishnah from its beginning and are called the "Gemara". Put these together and you have the "Talmud", and this is the collection of laws and explanations of laws for Jews.

These passed-down oral teachings and the commentaries said that the meaning of not boiling a kid in its mother's milk was a prohibition against eating milk and meat together at all. Meat was lamb, goat, beef, deer, chicken, duck, turkey, etc. This does not include fish though. It is OK for Jews to eat milk and fish together.

Delays, delays, delays

At work this week, then entire focus has been on getting some software out. Focus, focus, focus. I'm the last step in the process and I spent all week getting ready because the deadline HAD to be today.

Y'all see where this is going.

I got it yesterday afternoon. I packaged it up. Worked out a couple bugs. It was ready to go by 2:30 today. About that time, I start hearing rumblings from the cube next to mine - problems.

Yup, the commercial software we are packaging together with our custom software just spit out a couple more bugs. Release is put off. Who knows when it will actually be released.

Just to give a hint of the type of "quality" of this software, their documentation that goes out with the segment is all entitled "9.2 for Solaris". We are working with version 9.3 for Linux. Copy and Paste errors on primary documentation. Yeah. Gotta love all the quality checking that must have gone into that.

I'm too depressed, I think. Here are some good things:

Harvard Researchers See Exotic Force for the First Time Maybe some of you have heard of sub-atomic attractions, or Casimir force. When two parallel, non-conducting plates get REALLY close, some of the quantum fluctuations that exist in all of spacetime can't "fit" between the plates, and so don't happen there. However, the fluctuations are happening outsides the plates, and the extra radiative pressure of the higher level of fluctuation outside the plates pushes them together - a quantum "attraction" between things that are REALLY close.

Well, this is the opposite. A quantum repulsion. So far the quantum repulsion has been theory, but no more! This has some very sweet applications in nanotechnology, and might even move things along toward Casimir motors which generate usable energy from the until-now unusable energy in the quantum fluctuations of spacetime.

And for those of you who aren't science geeks, I'll stick in some Christian stuff. An excellent blog post from the Mars Hill church's blog: I Made God in My Image. Really, the only reason I stuck this in was that I've been irritated recently by a variety of bash-Mars-Hill church nuts. Finding a good statement of Christian life and practice is good. Posting it is something of a poke-in-the-eye to a lot of those fanatics. The pastor of the church, Mark Driscoll, isn't perfect and has a variety of flaws, but he's a public figure and draws all sorts of really asinine sniping from fellow Christians.

And then, for those of you who found absolutely nothing of interest in any of that, how about this: baby stuff. I was able to make it to C's recent pregnancy appointment and got to listen to baby Beta's heartbeat - from 156 to 164 bpm. I'm thinking we're having a girl if various reports of heartbeat rates are correct. Higher = girls, lower = boys. Sounded like a little steam train chugging along. I tried to listen in later just with my own ear up against C's tummy, but I could only year a couple of stomach gurglings and C's heartbeat.

A bit of everything

No Jer this weekend, which was switched for having him two weekends in a row the previous two weekends. (R said she had something she wanted to do with him this weekend.) The silver lining to missing Jer was that I was able to judge at the debate tournament at PHC on Saturday!

The topic was whether or not the US government should significantly change its policy toward Cuba. Affirmative cases tended to focus on recent oil discoveries off the coast of Cuba, or just a general opening of trade and travel.

By an large, I tended to be in more agreement with the Affirmative side of things, though I think my decisions came down 50-50 between Affirmative and Negative. It was a long day since I started judging the first round at 8:00 and didn't finish judging my final round until 7:30. Poor C was working in the library that whole time, while I had several breaks in there.

In other news, Rick Warren wishes he could preach as well as Pastor Ray! (I'll provide the link to the podcast as soon as it gets posted.) Pastor Ray mentioned that he had hit a serious block when working on the sermon for this week, so he used the outline from one of Rick Warren's sermons, but adjusted some of the points. Proper citation and credit was given. Final result - Rick Warren needs to contact Ray to get a copy of the adjusted sermon. Seriously. I haven't heard this particular sermon by Warren since I've only listened to a small few of Warren's sermons, but I'm pretty safe saying Ray improved it with his adjustments.

In vaguely related news, InternetMonk put up a post about picking out the ONE TRUE CHRISTIAN CHURCH and depression. It had a great section to it:

Now, if I am convinced that one Denomination is right, my problem is going to be this: I still have to belong to a congregation, and a congregation is the place where the "essentials" are worked out in real life, not just in my head.
....
If I believe the Southern Baptist Convention is the church Jesus started... here’s this wonderful statement of faith, and a great missions network, and Al Mohler and those fine Calvinistic Ascol boys. But at my church... doctrine has been replaced with “How to be a great parent” sermons, the deacons have fired the last three pastors in less than 4 years, the music is a cross between an 80’s metal band made up of fat 45 year old men and the senior adult choir singing from the 1956 hymnal. We haven’t baptized a convert since 1993....
That’s your church. Oh sure, you can drive elsewhere and you can improve. (I drive two hours each way.) You can work for improvement. You can do all that stuff. But here’s my point: You chose the one true denomination, you still have to deal with your local church. It is the place you do or don’t hear the Bible. It’s the place you do or don’t start churches and do evangelism. It’s the place you are or are not taught the faith you read about on that great web site.

That's one of the things that perfectly describes why I attend a church which is part of a denomination that has several points of doctrine and practice which I disagree - this particular visible church body congregation of the Church universal is distilled awesomeness! There are issues with the people, with the church as a whole, and all that, but it is still a wonderful expression of good teaching and practiced love and fellowship.

And ... my lunch break is about over, so it's back to work.

As far as more important stuff goes - C and Beta are doing wonderfully well. C is looking especially fine with just the hint of a bulge starting to show. I've gotten Bro started on Necromunda (a small-group, tactical version of Warhammer 40K) along with NinjaSniper. I'm hoping to start a long game of risk today with Bro and his housemate - we'll drop in and make moves whenever we're around. We'll see how that works out.

Biblical Question

I just thought of something that I wish I could ask of someone, but I don't know of anyone with any particular expertise and the necessary POV, so I'm posting it here in the extremely long shot that it might somehow come to the notice of someone "out there".

How would an Old Earth Christian (of whatever persuasion - Theistic Evolution, Day Age, whatever) understand the Flood as described in the OT. I assume that the understanding would be that it is a localized flood and when it speaks of covering the "whole earth" it intends that to be understood locally, sort of like there were Jews from "every nation" at Pentecost. (obviously there weren't Jews from China or Japan)

That's straightforward enough, but there are further questions that I've never heard addressed.

Why would Noah have needed to build an Ark for animals if it were a localized flood of the generally Black Sea to Arabia area? Unless the Flood were truly global in nature, then it seems nonsensical for God to have Noah build an Ark to protect animal species which are in no danger of being wiped out.

Why would Noah have stayed on the Ark for over a year if the Flood were localized? Even a massive flood of a localized area wouldn't have lasted for an entire year to the extent that Noah couldn't have landed somewhere. Sure, smaller areas may have been unlivable for a year (valleys or low-lying areas that couldn't drain very quickly), but the Ark would have been very mobile and followed the prevailing flow of water which would have been toward drainage areas. Sure, the Ark may have gotten caught in a valley system or a newly-created lake, but that certainly wouldn't necessitate Noah and his family to stay on the Ark for an entire year-plus.

I realize it is a small hope that someone with the necessary views reads this post, but if anyone does, could you please comment? If you feel it needs a large essay to deal with and don't want to put it all in a comment, let me know and I'll send you my email address.

Just for giggles

And, if you can giggle over this, you're nuts. However, I am putting it up here just for giggles.

Want a wonderful little topic to debate at Bible study, one that isn't a "safe" topic? I'm not talking about Calvinism, End Times, or even Creationism. Sure, those all might make a heated argument, but there's precious little chance that they'll destroying one's faith. Despite the claims, doubts about God making the world ex-nihilo aren't a common cause given for leaving Christianity or for people to reject Christianity. Try this one on for size, from the InternetMonk:

Open Thread Discussion: Group Punishment/Blessing in the Bible
December 11th, 2008 by iMonk

In my Bible classes, I often will come up with a topic that relates to what we’ve been studying, and I’ll ask the students to prepare to debate either side of a proposition related to what we’ve learned.

I thought this week’s topic would make for an interesting topic of discussion. Our students, like any group of students, really dislike group punishment. So now that we have completed most of our study of the Old Testament, I’ve got them working on debating the following proposition.

“God’s use of group punishment and group blessing in the Old Testament is inherently unfair.”

Groups in this case are families, cities, nations, tribes, even the whole world.

So, what do you say? What would be your criticism, defense, questions, examples or insight? What would you contribute to our discussion?