Have you checked out The Worship Cafe lately?
If not, you should. I’ll be posting there this Sunday, so check it out, read, comment, discuss, learn…it’ll be good for you!
So what topic do you think I should address?
March 1, 2007
February 23, 2007
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So in the middle of the school day, I’m sitting at a park bench outside. It’s sunny. I like it.
I even have a laptop with wireless internet access. Can life get better?
I posted an update on my other blog. I don’t think I have time to do a real update for this one, but please check out the other one. I currently have about 5 readers, and that includes myself! I added an email subcription box a couple months ago, where you can put your email address and get updates as they’re posted. I promise it won’t send you spam, unless you consider my blog spam.
February 20, 2007
February 12, 2007
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According to the Global Rich List, I’m the 885,757,221 richest person in the world. Now, that may not seem very impressive, except that that puts me in the top 14.76% of the global economy. See how you score at http://www.globalrichlist.com/
I was watching a sermon on discipleship by Craig Greschel recently (from www.LifeChurch.tv), and he cited some interesting statistics.
- 1.3 billion people in the world don’t have clean drinking water
- $6 billion could provide basic education for everyone in the world
- $6 billion is the approximate income of Starbucks annually
- Half the world’s population lives on less than $2 per day
- Water, basic health care, and nutrition for everyone alive would cost about $20 billion
- The approximate amount of money spent on ice cream in the US every year is $20 billion
About 29,000 people around the world die every day of starvation according to World Vision.
My youth group at church is participating in a national event known as the 30 Hour Famine. We’re all going to fast for 30 hours to raise money for World Vision’s work overseas. The goal? Feed the hungry, and maybe learn what it’s like to go without food. If you’d like to make a contribution, message me or leave a comment and I’ll get you contact information. Oh, by the way, the government has stepped in and provided grants to World Vision, offering to quadruple the money raised by the 30 Hour Famine project. That means that if you donate $360, you won’t just be feeding one person — you’ll be feeding 4!
Why am I doing this? Am I just trying to annoy people and make them feel guilty with statistics and stories? I hope that’s not what I accomplish. I’m not trying to pry your wallet from your fingers. I’m trying to show you a need where, if you feel led, you can make a huge difference in someone’s life.
I guess I have more reason to care than some people. Most people around here don’t know a lot about me, but I grew up in a third world country. My family did ministry in areas where people’s houses were made from cardboard and scrap metal. We knew people whose children died of starvation and sickness. We worked in communities that were amazed at what God’s people were doing for them. Having seen what a little bit can do in a place where people have so little, I can’t help but want to do things like the 30 Hour Famine.
If you don’t feel led to give, do something better. Pray. Starving children need spiritual food just as much if not more than physical food. It’s better to starve to death knowing God than to live in luxury and die hopeless. Pray for the people that don’t know Him — not just the starving physically, but all those who are starving spiritually, craving something that will give them satisfaction and hope.
- 1.3 billion people in the world don’t have clean drinking water
February 8, 2007
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I was thinking about doing like Isaac (isaacrw) and just posting a smiley face as an update, but I figured y’all would respond with even fewer comments than you do normally.
(I did subtly throw in a smiley face with my update, though)
Not a whole lot of philosophising going around my brain these days. It’s been said, “Classes will dull your mind; destroy the potential for authentic creativity.” I’m not sure who said it, but I saw it on ronlawhouston’s site, and was very happy to be agreed with. Maybe he himself said it…I’m not sure. What’s really important is that it’s true. Last summer, I got into debates over highly specific (but by no means trivial) issues that, when I transcribed only the major points, came out to several pages in length. Now, I go weeks without having ideas for a single post. The difference? I’m in class more now! Classes do indeed dull the mind, at least in highschool. I visited some college classes a few weeks ago and found them packed with inspiration, though, so I’m just gonna have to wait for college this fall, I guess…
You know why you’re bored right now (if you’re not bored, you should be)? It’s ’cause I have no inspiration. Here’s the kinds of debates I have now:
Caleb: So I was thinking about nothing the other day, and it was really pretty interesting. I figured out what color it is, and what it tastes like, etc.
Katie: Wouldn’t it taste like nothing?
Caleb: You’d think so, but actually no. It tastes really, really good.
Katie: Um…why?
Caleb: Well, nothing is the opposite of something, right? So if something tastes bad, you know definitively that nothing tastes really good.
Katie: What if I tihnk something tastes good?
Caleb: Then your entirely deductively logical conclusions contradict my entirely deductively logical conclusions, and so you’d obviously have made an error somewhere along the way. You probably just thought it tasted good, when in fact it didn’t.
Katie: What am I holding in my hand? [holds up empty hand]
Caleb: A mixture of oxygen, nitrogen, helium, carbon di–
Katie: Quit being so literal. I’m not holding anything in my hand. See, watch…[turns to other kid] What am I holding in my hand?
Other kid [looking confused and frightened]: Uhhhh…air?
Katie: Say “nothing.”
Other kid: Nothing?
Katie: See? I’m holding nothing in my hand.
Caleb: I disagree, but what’s your point?
[bell rings]Yeah, so that’s why I haven’t updated in a while. It’s why I probably won’t update again for a while, at least not with anything good.
February 5, 2007
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TRANSCRIPT:
Host: “Hello, and welcome to the program this morning! We’re privileged to have with us today Dr. Terry Tommyrot, who’s going to be talking to us about his latest book, The Dawkins Delusion. Thank you for joining us, Dr. Tommyrot; it’s a pleasure to speak to you again.”
Dr. T: “Thank you, Richard. It’s good to be here.”
Host: “Now, Dr. Tommyrot, you are famous for declaring in no uncertain terms that you are not a believer in Richard Dawkins — you don’t think he really exists. Now why is that?”
Dr. T: “Well, I think it’s so simple, Richard. You shouldn’t ask sensible people to believe in something unless you’ve got evidence for it. If there is a Dawkins, why hasn’t he shown himself to me?”
Host: “In your opinion, then, are people who believe in Dawkins just a little bit dim?”
Dr. T: “Well, in a way, I can understand the mistake. Simple people pick up a handful of books claiming to be written by Dawkins, and since a Dawkins seems to be a sufficient account for how they got to be there, for the similarities in all the texts and so on, they stick with common sense and fallaciously conclude that this Dawkins, which they have never seen with their own eyes, actually exists.”
Host: “Of course, some people do claim to have seen Richard Dawkins and even shaken his hand.”
Dr. T: “Yes, if you can believe them.”
Host: “You think they’re all lying?”
Dr. T: “I didn’t say that. Of course there’s no shortage of liars in the world, and undoubtedly some of these people who claim to have had these ‘Richard Dawkins experiences’ are deliberately telling fairy stories; but you know the human brain is a very, very complicated thing, and conjuring up an imaginary Dawkins would be child’s play for it. Christopher Robin had Binker, I had the slimy custard man…I suspect that something very similar is happening with people who claim to have seen a Richard Dawkins, or heard his voice, or felt his touch. But the books aren’t evidence for the existence or Richard Dawkins, either — no, of course not! As a scientist, it is no answer to the problem of ‘where did this enema rubbish come from?’ to stick a label on it that says ‘Richard Dawkins.’ Each book is a rearrangement of only twenty-six letters. Even a child should be able to see that with a little random shuffling of vowels and consonants on a computer, one can arrive at all sorts of patterns like that. Working out how each letter got into the place it did is the business of science. Claiming that Dawkins did it puts an end to an enquiry that promises to give us a full and satisfying explanation of how these books came to be — without the need for invoking a discredited, superstitious, Dawkins-of-the-gap type hypothesis.”
Host: “But some people might point to the fact that the letters are arranged in definite patterns, spelling out sophisticated chains of arguments, and that this is a clear mark of intelligence, not random accident.”
Dr. T: “If there was some kind of intelligence behind these books then, judging by their contents, it was obviously a pretty poor one. We would not really lose much worth having by not believing in Richard Dawkins or in what his books have to say. The scientific view of the matter is beautifully simple and invigorating: the works of Richard Dawkins are nothing but a bunch of fortuitously ordered As, Bs, and Cs, recombined from previous patterns. There is the Latin alphabet; there are the nonsense poems of Edward Lear, and there are the works of Richard Dawkins, and the one developed from the other through a series of random typing errors! …Though admittedly, we haven’t got all the details just now.”
Host: “You admit that science hasn’t got the answers to where they come from, then.”
Dr. T: “I haven’t got the answers; science is working on it.”
Host: “But can you be sure that science will get all the answers?”
Dr. T: “If science doesn’t have the answers to where they came from, then sure as hell Richard Dawkins’ religion doesn’t! If a Dawkins designed the books, then who designed the Dawkins? Just tell me that!”
Host: “Moving on now, Dr. Tommyrot. In your book, you have described the Dawkins revealed in the literature as an ostentatious, acrimonious, supercilious, pusillanimous, calumnious, censorious, vituperative, querulous, embittered, obsessive, and bombastic bully.”
Dr. T: “Yes. That seems fair enough to me.”
Host: “Now some people might say that that’s going a bit over the top.”
Dr. T: “Read you Richard Dawkins if you think that. Just read it. Read A Devil’s Chaplain. Aside from finding no evidence whatsoever for an intelligence hiding somewhere beneath the paragraphs and the mystical realm of blind faith, you will discover, on the other hand, plenty of intolerance and bigotry in every chapter. All of these very good reasons to have nothing whatsoever to do with this Richard Dawkins religion.”
Host: “Dr. Tommyrot, you have described this widespread belief in Richard Dawkins as a ‘dangerous delusion.’ But what’s especially dangerous about people believing in the existence of Richard Dawkins if it makes them happy?”
Dr. T: “Well, for one fairly obvious reason, these people believe any book which has Dawkins’ name on the cover, and these books say a lot of very silly things. Belief in Dawkins has been responsible for filling the internet with nonsequiters, caricatures, straw men, and vitriol. Dawkins’ disciples are militant, they are organized, and they’re out to convert you and me. Yes, I would certainly call this a dangerous delusion. If there is a Richard Dawkins, he has a lot to answer for.”
Host: “In summary, then, Dr. Tommyrot, what would you say is your main objection to the Richard Dawkins belief?”
Dr. T: “My main objection is simply this: People are following a delusional Dawkins who is telling them what to think and believe, when they should be following me.”
Host: “Well, our time’s up. Thank you very much, Dr. Tommyrot, for joining us this morning to talk about your latest book, The Dawkins Delusion, published by Banter & Twaddle, and available on our website.”
January 21, 2007
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So many thoughts, so little time!
2Ch 15:1-15
The Spirit of God came upon Azariah the son of Oded, (2) and he went out to meet Asa and said to him, “Hear me, Asa, and all Judah and Benjamin: The LORD is with you while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you forsake him, he will forsake you. (3) For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without law, (4) but when in their distress they turned to the LORD, the God of Israel, and sought him, he was found by them. (5) In those times there was no peace to him who went out or to him who came in, for great disturbances afflicted all the inhabitants of the lands. (6) They were broken in pieces. Nation was crushed by nation and city by city, for God troubled them with every sort of distress. (7) But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.” (8) As soon as Asa heard these words, the prophecy of Azariah the son of Oded, he took courage and put away the detestable idols from all the land of Judah and Benjamin and from the cities that he had taken in the hill country of Ephraim, and he repaired the altar of the LORD that was in front of the vestibule of the house of the LORD. (9) And he gathered all Judah and Benjamin, and those from Ephraim, Manasseh, and Simeon who were residing with them, for great numbers had deserted to him from Israel when they saw that the LORD his God was with him. (10) They were gathered at Jerusalem in the third month of the fifteenth year of the reign of Asa. (11) They sacrificed to the LORD on that day from the spoil that they had brought 700 oxen and 7,000 sheep. (12) And they entered into a covenant to seek the LORD, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and with all their soul, (13) but that whoever would not seek the LORD, the God of Israel, should be put to death, whether young or old, man or woman. (14) They swore an oath to the LORD with a loud voice and with shouting and with trumpets and with horns. (15) And all Judah rejoiced over the oath, for they had sworn with all their heart and had sought him with their whole desire, and he was found by them, and the LORD gave them rest all around.Isa 26:8
In the path of your judgments, O LORD, we wait for you; your name and remembrance are the desire of our soul.
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