Blind lead the blind

Check out this completely irrational, unhistorical diatribe by a leading Muslim. Click here.

Movie, Fantasy, Pumpkin

Well, It's officially Halloween. Want to know more? Here's the origins, customs and other little-known facts.

I won't be participating in Halloween. But I will be participating in Open Dorms! Yes, it's that time of year again, the time where members of the opposite sex may legally enter each other's rooms! Oh boy! What fun!

So, on Friday night Amy and I went over to Abigail's apartment on good ol' Walnut Street. Abigail is one of Amy's best friends. And Walnut Street is where I spent my first not-quite-three-years. And we carved pumpkins, something I hadn't done in a LOOOOOOONG time. Apparently, Amy is a professional pumpkin-carver (which could turn out to be quite profitable if they ever add "Pumpkin Carving" to the list of events for the annual Outdoor Games) and finds it a test of her perfectionism. She carved very precisely and made sure that I did a much better job of cleaning out the inside of the pumpkin. It was fun carving, but the big payoff came after Amy cleaned, roasted and salted the seeds for general consumption. Mmmm. . . Yeah, they were yummy.

Tuesday is the day I have been waiting for since last April. Yes folks, it is finally upon us. The beginning of the NBA season. Meaning: THE BEGINNING OF FANTASY BASKETBALL!!! I know that you are all overjoyed and thinking magnanimous thoughts toward my time stewardship. Not to worry! This year, Dwyane Wade, Yao Ming and Chris Bosh will lead me to a fantasy championship, making the hundreds of hours I spend over the next six months totally worth it.

Well, as you can see from the title, I was going to talk about a movie, but alas, I must retire to my comfortable bed. Ta ta for now.

p.s. I justify my last sentence with the following:
If it's good enough for Tigger, it's good enough for me.

Interesting Quote

"For my own part I tend to find the doctrinal books often more helpful in devotion than the devotional books, and I rather suspect that the same experience may await many others. I believe that many who find that 'nothing happens' when they sit down, or kneel down, to a book of devotion, would find that the heart sings unbidden while they are working their way through a tough bit of theology with a pipe in their teeth and a pencil in their hand."
—C.S. Lewis

Appeasement and a Second Holocaust

Maybe you never thought about it this way, but here's a great (short) blurb on current Western appeasement of Muslims.

Happy, Walt, and Mickey

Saturday was probably the most fun I've had on a single day in quite some time. Why? Because I was at the happiest place on earth! That's right, Disneyland! By the way, why is Disneyland the happiest place on earth and not DisneyWorld. Or EuroDisney. Or that Disney park somewhere in Asia (Japan?)? I guess you can only have ONE happiest place on earth.

Anyway, the day started with a rugged 12-6 win over Oak Manor (our second straight win against them, probably the toughest team in the league). After a shower, some food, and a fire alarm evacuating Hotchkiss (very timely, don't you think?), Amy and I picked up Jaclyn (Travis' new girlfriend) and drove to Oak Manor to pick up Travis and his roommate Kyle. Amy and I were in the front seats and the backseat consisted of three people 6 feet tall and up! That's why I drive a spacious luxury vehicle.

We finally got in the park around 1:30pm and immediately headed down Main Street to Tomorrowland. I was like a little ten-year-old in the park for the first time! I was trying to remember where everything was and what things I had done before. Oh yeah, I forgot to say that I hadn't been to Disneyland since I was ten! The first thing we did was grap FastPass tickets for the newly refurbished Space Mountain. Then, we backtracked and got in line for Star Tours. Man, I loved it! I love screaming and trying to scare little kids. . .oops, guess that's not too nice of me.

The Buzz Lightyear ride was pretty fun. It's basically just a competition with the other person sitting in the car with you. You try to shoot targets faster than the other person. That being said, I smoked Amy! It's good to know that all those years of playing guns with my cousins and brothers helped for something.

OK, well I'm not going to bore you with all the details, but I will highlight some things:

1. Finding the "center of Disneyland was fun." When the park was first built, Walt Disney put a bronze plug to mark the EXACT center of the park. See the pictures for this.
2. Pirates of the Caribbean is classic! I wanted to go on it again and again. Doesn't that song make you want to ditch what you're doing and become a scalawag and say cool things like, "Arrrr. . ."?
3. Buying overpriced food!
4. Screaming on Thunder Mountain Railroad.
5. Going on the Jungle Cruise and barely escaping the flesh-eating piranhas. Phew, we barely made it.
6. Eating an awesome tri-tip dinner in the VIP group eating area.
7. The maniacly good fireworks show. The whole entire park shut down and people were seated everywhere to see it. It was amazing; easily the best fireworks show I've ever seen.
8. Spending the day with Amy and simultaneously celebrating our one-year anniversary of dating.

That's the day in a nutshell! Comments are welcome, defamations discouraged but not prohibited.

Just because

I got a new Mach 3 razor blade tonight.














I also said goodbye to an old friend. That's right, the Mach 3 I've had since I turned 18. It was old and just not reliable anymore. And I decided I needed to spice things up with the red. No one else has red, so now I can never lose my razor. Of course, I haven't yet, but just in case I did, I'll know the red one is mine, and so will everyone else.

The Holy Spirit

Right now I'm reading for my Introduction to Philosophy class. The book is The Passion of the Western Mind by Richard Tarnas. Tarnas communicates abstract thoughts and difficult material very effectively and simply. Anyway, I'm in section three: The Christian Worldview. It's a history of the beginnings of Christianity and its evolution. This man is clearly not a believer and it is sad to see how he misunderstands Scripture and even the history of the Church. Take this passage on the Holy Spirit:

The notion of the Holy Spirit as a divine principle of revolutionary spiritual power, immanent in the human community and moving it toward deification, diminished in Christian belief in favor of a notion of the Holy Spirit as solely invested in the authority and activities of the institutional Church.

I guess this illustrates the absolute need for faith, "but without faith is is impossible to please him, for he who comes to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him" (Hebrews 11:6). Without belief, human reason cannot come to grips with the Almighty God and his exclusive plan of salvation.

Liberal Arts

I know it's been awhile . . . sorry.

I've been thinking recently that I am woefully deficient in my knowledge. I Peter 3:15-16 says: "But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts, and always be ready to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed" (NKJV). Siona (the Resident Director of Hotchkiss, my dormitory) has really been focusing on this verse this semester. I keep reminding myself to become a more well-rounded person, a more well-rounded Christian. That's what the point of a liberal arts education is! Just because I don't "take" to a subject, or I'm not "naturally" good at something, doesn't mean I throw it out the window and ignore that particular discipline.

Another reason this has been on my mind is the fact that after I graduate, I very well may have a job in the secular workplace. Actually, I've been praying that that's where God would place me. However, that has burdened me with the knowledge that I've been protected all my life from the world. I haven't exposed myself to it, and I have rarely had to defend any of my beliefs. I don't know how unbelievers will argue or reason with me.

So, because this has been weighing a little heavy on my heart, I picked up J.P. Moreland's Love God With All Your Mind from the library to get a better understanding of nurturing my mind to the glory of Christ. I'm only sixty pages in, but I can already recommend reading this book. It documents the evangelical anti-intellectual slide that began in the early 19th century. I can see evidence of this slide here at The Master's College. We are so focused on grace, that we let too many things slide. Do we abuse our eternal security by pretending that this life on earth doesn't matter so much now that we have been saved from eternal hellfire? You might want to examine your own life and dwell on that. I have now read 35 books in 2005. I don't say that to boast of my achievement. I say that to challenge myself to read more books and to read a bigger variety of books. Fiction, non-fiction, history, science, politics, religion, philosophy, and so on. I leave you with this challenge:

“Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body.” – Sir Richard Steele

Let's not be mentally fat. Work out!

Piper

In the past five months, I've read two books by John Piper, listened to a few of his messages, and gleaned wisdom from his website. This past Wednesday, I, along with a few dozen TMC students, traveled an hour down the 210 freeway to Azusa Pacific University for their morning chapel service to see John Piper speak. I figured that it might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I skipped TMC chapel and a class to go. It was worth it.

The song time was different from what I'm used to, both at my church and here at TMC. It was much more "fluffy," with much ambivalent language toward God. It was in no way heretical, but it was not very substantive. Also, the song leader was probably the most talented college-aged male singer I've ever personally heard. Not only was he an amazing talent, but he had great stage presence and could ad-lib very well. But . . . it just seemed to be a show with so much solo work going on by the singers on-stage. I can't tell you how much it irks me to sing the same words over and over and over. Repetition in worship songs is very overdone and, I believe, unnecessary.

APU's chapel is only from 9:30-10:30, so Piper was only given about 25 minutes to speak, well below his "usual" message length. He talked of, what else, the supremacy of Christ in all things! Specifically, he challenged us to understand "Being Loved By God For God's Sake." He said that the love of God to me is NOT to to make me feel good or better. Rather, it is to make much of him. Just our exaltation of God is to be loved by him. God's love to me frees me to make much of him for the rest of my life!

The trip was short, but definitely worth it. I was spurred to read more of Piper's books. The two I've read (The Pleasures of God and Don't Waste Your Life) are so incredibly focused on the supremacy of Christ in all things and approach issues from angles I've never even considered or thought possible. For anyone reading this blog, please, do yourself a favor and pick up a Piper book.