"Years ago my mother used to say to me, she'd say, "In this world, Elwood, you must be" - she always called me Elwood - "In this world, Elwood, you must be oh so smart or oh so pleasant." Well, for years I was smart. I recommend pleasant. You may quote me."Amen, Elwood. Amen.
Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Quote from Harvey
Will God literally keep His promise to Abraham?
"The Lord took him outside and said, “Gaze into the sky and count the stars – if you are able to count them!” Then he said to him, “So will your descendants be.”" Genesis 15:5 (NET)
That is God speaking to Abraham. Do you expect Him to keep this promise literally?
At the judgement, can you see God say to Abraham?
There are about 7 billion people alive today. That's 7,000,000,000.
Assuming a purely Darwinian world view ("humans" have been around for about 50,000 years, etc.) will give you the largest possible number of humans who have ever lived. I found one reasonable article that gives that number at 106,456,367,669.
I tried to take the nifty chart from that reasonable article and extrapolate how long it would take to make 1022 people. I futzed with Excel for nearly an hour (at 1am). It's harder than it might seem. (If anyone knows how to do that math please let me know. See the chart in the middle of this article for a starting point.)
But to get from 100,000,000,000 to 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 has got to be something on the order of hundreds of thousands of years.
But that is assuming that every human who lives is a descendant of Abraham. There were people who lived before him, but not really that many, especially compared to the huge numbers we are talking about. But we have to decide who all counts as descendants of Abraham.
Biological descendants probably includes everyone of Middle Eastern descent, at this point. Spiritual descendants would include all Jews, maybe all Christians, and maybe all Muslims--all three religions call Abraham 'father'. Either way would limit you to counting only some portion of the total population. That means that you need tens of thousands more years to get enough descendants.
Do you believe that the Lord could tarry that long?
That is God speaking to Abraham. Do you expect Him to keep this promise literally?
At the judgement, can you see God say to Abraham?
"Abraham, come and look in my left hand and see that there are 102,503,329,470,927,138,981,467 stars. And now look in my right hand and see that you have 118,954,304,761,927,724,647,301 descendants. I was true to My word, spoken to you so long ago. I fulfilled My promise to you."I googled for 'how many stars are there', and I found several articles that all said that our best estimate is between 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That is, "something like 1022 to 1024 stars in the Universe."
There are about 7 billion people alive today. That's 7,000,000,000.
Assuming a purely Darwinian world view ("humans" have been around for about 50,000 years, etc.) will give you the largest possible number of humans who have ever lived. I found one reasonable article that gives that number at 106,456,367,669.
I tried to take the nifty chart from that reasonable article and extrapolate how long it would take to make 1022 people. I futzed with Excel for nearly an hour (at 1am). It's harder than it might seem. (If anyone knows how to do that math please let me know. See the chart in the middle of this article for a starting point.)
But to get from 100,000,000,000 to 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 has got to be something on the order of hundreds of thousands of years.
But that is assuming that every human who lives is a descendant of Abraham. There were people who lived before him, but not really that many, especially compared to the huge numbers we are talking about. But we have to decide who all counts as descendants of Abraham.
Biological descendants probably includes everyone of Middle Eastern descent, at this point. Spiritual descendants would include all Jews, maybe all Christians, and maybe all Muslims--all three religions call Abraham 'father'. Either way would limit you to counting only some portion of the total population. That means that you need tens of thousands more years to get enough descendants.
Do you believe that the Lord could tarry that long?
Thursday, July 15, 2010
I write like.....
I've never read Dan Brown. But he has sold lots of books, so I guess it is a good thing.
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
How do I interpret the captivity?
We studied Psalms 106 in my men's Bible study this morning. This psalm sings out the metaphor of the nation of Israel as the man of God.
God is faithful. The nation and the man are unfaithful. God pursues. The nation and the man flee. God promises. In their time of need, the nation and the man call out to God for help. God saves. The nation and the man quickly forget. God punishes. The nation and the man repent and praise God again. God blesses. The nation and the man focus on the blessing and forget the source of the blessing. God calls. The nation and the man turn again to their sin. And the cycle repeats.
This metaphor was true during the Old Testament times, when the psalmists were writing. And the metaphor holds true today, in the era of Christ and the adoption of Gentiles. Psalms 106 lays out the story of the nation in chronological order. I was following the metaphor just fine until I hit verse 47.
We don't talk about the metaphor explicitly very much. But the metaphor is clearly the primary interpretative guide that we use to apply the lessons of the Old Testament to our modern world:
* God's promise to Abraham is like the covenant that He made through Christ.
* I spurned that covenant and got myself enslaved in Egypt.
* I called out to God from my captivity, and He miraculously saved me from Egypt--my personal experience of receiving the salvation that He provided for long ago with His promise.
* I went through a period of learning to obey Him in the wilderness.
* Mostly I rebelled and He was forced to discipline me, before I finally reached a point where I could enter into the promised land of His blessings in this current life.
* As a card-carrying believer I continue to sin, allowing the bad kings to make bad decisions, as it were. And He continues to discipline and forgive me when I repent.
* And then He sent the nation into captivity.
My own current situation (unemployed for 10 months) leads me to want to interpret the captivity as simply a period of extreme testing. That interpretation would be comforting to me. But it doesn't sit well. I am afraid that is a self-serving (and thus incorrect) interpretation.
In it's context, the captivity is a punishment for continued sin. Many of the punishments were localized in the nation. Like the rebellion of Korah, when Korah, his conspirators, and their families were swallowed up by the earth (Numbers 16.) The whole nation was punished, but the individuals that led the rebellion bore the brunt of the punishment. The individuals whose primary sin was failure to stop the rebellion were punished less severely. And it should be noted that not every individual in the nation was sent into captivity. A small remnant remained, and barely survived as a nation. And only a small remnant chose to return from captivity.
The Babylonian captivity was different from the Egyptian captivity in an important way. Egypt is abject slavery. The slaves had no freedom, but they were ignored in terms of their religious practices. The Egyptians simply did not care who or what the Hebrew slaves worshiped. If the slaves bowed to the Pharaoh, or a statue of the Pharaoh, it was treated as merely the obedience of slaves and not held against them as religious rebellion. Babylon is relative freedom. The individuals are carried there as slaves, but they have a tremendous amount of freedom in their slavery. And individuals can earn their freedom and Babylonian citizenship. In Babylon, bowing to the statue of the king is a sin.
The story of the nation is the story of a child growing up. Over time the child is given more and more freedom and responsibility. By the time of the Babylonian captivity the nation has been walking with God for centuries and should be very spiritually mature. They have been through the rebellion-punishment-repentance cycle many times. The prophets are calling out their sin and predicting the punishment even while the Babylonian army is making camp outside of the city. The nation should have been mature enough at that point to repent and avoid the punishment of captivity.
Could it be that God treats us adopted children this way? If we continue in our sin for too long, does He actually send us away?
We're interpreting a metaphor, so we have to be careful not to treat the metaphor too literally. Not every believer experiences the rebellion of Korah in the same way; or the pride of Saul; or the unfaithfulness of Ahad; etc. We are each individuals. But the general path of the story is true, even if the details differ for each of us.
It might be going too far to say that most, but not all, believers will sin sufficiently to experience their own captivity punishment. And it might be too much to say that many of those who are sent into captivity will choose to stay there instead of returning to close fellowship with our Father. Maybe that is beyond the interpretative scope of the metaphor. But it feels right. Sad, but right.
I have never been taught that the majority of Christians will continue in their sin for too long, and God will send them away into disconnected spiritual captivity. They might choose to continue to go through the motions of the Christian life, without experiencing the power. Or they might get their Babylonian citizenship and just go back to living like a pagan. But a small remnant will realize what they lost and return to vibrant fellowship. I have never been taught that. But it sounds accurate.
Am I wrong?
Please tell me I'm wrong.
How am I supposed to interpret the captivity?
Or, if I'm right, what should we do with this knowledge?
Can we bring them back from captivity? Can we do something differently in order to keep so many from being sent into captivity?
God is faithful. The nation and the man are unfaithful. God pursues. The nation and the man flee. God promises. In their time of need, the nation and the man call out to God for help. God saves. The nation and the man quickly forget. God punishes. The nation and the man repent and praise God again. God blesses. The nation and the man focus on the blessing and forget the source of the blessing. God calls. The nation and the man turn again to their sin. And the cycle repeats.
This metaphor was true during the Old Testament times, when the psalmists were writing. And the metaphor holds true today, in the era of Christ and the adoption of Gentiles. Psalms 106 lays out the story of the nation in chronological order. I was following the metaphor just fine until I hit verse 47.
"Deliver us, O Lord, our God! Gather us from among the nations! Then we will give thanks 1 to your holy name, and boast about your praiseworthy deeds." (Psalms 106:47, NET translation)This verse seems to indicate that this was written after the fall of the northern kingdom. It could be from the period during the exile of Jerusalem in Babylon. Either way, it got me thinking about the captivity experience in light of the metaphor of the nation of Israel as the man of God.
We don't talk about the metaphor explicitly very much. But the metaphor is clearly the primary interpretative guide that we use to apply the lessons of the Old Testament to our modern world:
* God's promise to Abraham is like the covenant that He made through Christ.
* I spurned that covenant and got myself enslaved in Egypt.
* I called out to God from my captivity, and He miraculously saved me from Egypt--my personal experience of receiving the salvation that He provided for long ago with His promise.
* I went through a period of learning to obey Him in the wilderness.
* Mostly I rebelled and He was forced to discipline me, before I finally reached a point where I could enter into the promised land of His blessings in this current life.
* As a card-carrying believer I continue to sin, allowing the bad kings to make bad decisions, as it were. And He continues to discipline and forgive me when I repent.
* And then He sent the nation into captivity.
My own current situation (unemployed for 10 months) leads me to want to interpret the captivity as simply a period of extreme testing. That interpretation would be comforting to me. But it doesn't sit well. I am afraid that is a self-serving (and thus incorrect) interpretation.
In it's context, the captivity is a punishment for continued sin. Many of the punishments were localized in the nation. Like the rebellion of Korah, when Korah, his conspirators, and their families were swallowed up by the earth (Numbers 16.) The whole nation was punished, but the individuals that led the rebellion bore the brunt of the punishment. The individuals whose primary sin was failure to stop the rebellion were punished less severely. And it should be noted that not every individual in the nation was sent into captivity. A small remnant remained, and barely survived as a nation. And only a small remnant chose to return from captivity.
The Babylonian captivity was different from the Egyptian captivity in an important way. Egypt is abject slavery. The slaves had no freedom, but they were ignored in terms of their religious practices. The Egyptians simply did not care who or what the Hebrew slaves worshiped. If the slaves bowed to the Pharaoh, or a statue of the Pharaoh, it was treated as merely the obedience of slaves and not held against them as religious rebellion. Babylon is relative freedom. The individuals are carried there as slaves, but they have a tremendous amount of freedom in their slavery. And individuals can earn their freedom and Babylonian citizenship. In Babylon, bowing to the statue of the king is a sin.
The story of the nation is the story of a child growing up. Over time the child is given more and more freedom and responsibility. By the time of the Babylonian captivity the nation has been walking with God for centuries and should be very spiritually mature. They have been through the rebellion-punishment-repentance cycle many times. The prophets are calling out their sin and predicting the punishment even while the Babylonian army is making camp outside of the city. The nation should have been mature enough at that point to repent and avoid the punishment of captivity.
Could it be that God treats us adopted children this way? If we continue in our sin for too long, does He actually send us away?
I'm not thinking about a believer losing their salvation, but I can certainly see how others would get there. I'm thinking about a spiritual loss of connection where God is just no longer reachable. If a believer continues to sin, could God disconnect them from His power and just leave them going through the motions of their Christianity on their own?
We're interpreting a metaphor, so we have to be careful not to treat the metaphor too literally. Not every believer experiences the rebellion of Korah in the same way; or the pride of Saul; or the unfaithfulness of Ahad; etc. We are each individuals. But the general path of the story is true, even if the details differ for each of us.
It might be going too far to say that most, but not all, believers will sin sufficiently to experience their own captivity punishment. And it might be too much to say that many of those who are sent into captivity will choose to stay there instead of returning to close fellowship with our Father. Maybe that is beyond the interpretative scope of the metaphor. But it feels right. Sad, but right.
I have never been taught that the majority of Christians will continue in their sin for too long, and God will send them away into disconnected spiritual captivity. They might choose to continue to go through the motions of the Christian life, without experiencing the power. Or they might get their Babylonian citizenship and just go back to living like a pagan. But a small remnant will realize what they lost and return to vibrant fellowship. I have never been taught that. But it sounds accurate.
Am I wrong?
Please tell me I'm wrong.
How am I supposed to interpret the captivity?
Or, if I'm right, what should we do with this knowledge?
Can we bring them back from captivity? Can we do something differently in order to keep so many from being sent into captivity?
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Reconsidering Star Wars IV in the light of I-III
This article is from 2005, but I just found it. As a wanna-be writer, it amuses me to no end. As a Star Wars fan it warms my heart that someone found a plausible explanation for many of the stupid plot-holes.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Watch full screen
Watch this video full screen. Turn the sound down if you don't like AC/DC. But don't turn it off completely.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Want!
Toshiba's answer to the iPad.
It needs Bluetooth and a 3G or 4G adapter. Then I wouldn't need a separate phone.
It needs Bluetooth and a 3G or 4G adapter. Then I wouldn't need a separate phone.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Self-fulfilling prophecies
The real problem with depression is the self-fulfilling prophecies that come with it. I've identified two distinct prophecies. Neither are helpful, but the second one is the real killer.
Generally speaking, depression is something that I feel coming on. Sometimes it comes slowly. Sometimes it comes quickly. But at some point before I really am depressed I say to myself, "I can feel a depressive funk coming on."
The fact that I know it is coming should give me the opportunity to do something about it. But it doesn't work that way. That feeling of foreboding only happens after I have crossed the event horizon. That makes the feeling of depression coming a depressing thing in and of itself.
That's the first type of self-fulfilling prophecy. The feeling of depression coming soon make me depressed. It's annoying, but tolerable.
The second type of self-fulfilling prophecy is much harder to live with.
Depression is filled with all sorts of negative self-talk. For instance:
And because of the depression these things are more true than they would be otherwise. Depression is a dark cloud that permeates the room where the depressed person is. No one wants to be around that.
I've been pretty depressed for the last couple of weeks. I've noticed something and done some experiments on myself during this time. It's just one data point, but if it bears out then this could prove a large part of the negative self-talk.
I have a little hand-held chess computer. I play 2-3 games a day, and I have been playing that often for the last several months. The game has 100 or more skill levels. Before this last bout of depression started I reached a point where I was beating level 60 almost every game. I moved up to level 61, and I was winning about half of the games.
Once the depression set in my chess skills cratered. I've been lowering the skill level, trying to find a level I can beat. I'm on 48 and still losing every game.
Part of chess is imagining what the other player is trying to do (even the chess computer has an idea of what moves it would like to play next.) I feel like that part of my game is what is failing me. I can't think through what the computer wants to do so I can avoid it. I'm not sure if it is just concentration that I'm lacking. Or maybe it is some sort of conceptual-thinking region of my brain that is out to lunch.
I have a dozen blog posts started on some interesting topics. The oil spill. The debt crisis. The coming digital economy. But I can't finish them. I can't think well enough to complete the arguments. Oh, I can write sentences. But I can see that the ideas are clearly incomplete. And I can't finish them.
Generally speaking, depression is something that I feel coming on. Sometimes it comes slowly. Sometimes it comes quickly. But at some point before I really am depressed I say to myself, "I can feel a depressive funk coming on."
The fact that I know it is coming should give me the opportunity to do something about it. But it doesn't work that way. That feeling of foreboding only happens after I have crossed the event horizon. That makes the feeling of depression coming a depressing thing in and of itself.
That's the first type of self-fulfilling prophecy. The feeling of depression coming soon make me depressed. It's annoying, but tolerable.
The second type of self-fulfilling prophecy is much harder to live with.
Depression is filled with all sorts of negative self-talk. For instance:
- "I'm not very smart."
- "No one wants to be around me."
- "They're not going to hire me."
- "I'm not going to do well on this interview."
And because of the depression these things are more true than they would be otherwise. Depression is a dark cloud that permeates the room where the depressed person is. No one wants to be around that.
I've been pretty depressed for the last couple of weeks. I've noticed something and done some experiments on myself during this time. It's just one data point, but if it bears out then this could prove a large part of the negative self-talk.
I have a little hand-held chess computer. I play 2-3 games a day, and I have been playing that often for the last several months. The game has 100 or more skill levels. Before this last bout of depression started I reached a point where I was beating level 60 almost every game. I moved up to level 61, and I was winning about half of the games.
Once the depression set in my chess skills cratered. I've been lowering the skill level, trying to find a level I can beat. I'm on 48 and still losing every game.
Part of chess is imagining what the other player is trying to do (even the chess computer has an idea of what moves it would like to play next.) I feel like that part of my game is what is failing me. I can't think through what the computer wants to do so I can avoid it. I'm not sure if it is just concentration that I'm lacking. Or maybe it is some sort of conceptual-thinking region of my brain that is out to lunch.
I have a dozen blog posts started on some interesting topics. The oil spill. The debt crisis. The coming digital economy. But I can't finish them. I can't think well enough to complete the arguments. Oh, I can write sentences. But I can see that the ideas are clearly incomplete. And I can't finish them.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
Best news I've heard in a while: breast cancer vaccine entering trials
Fox News provided the story, via Fark. They have only prevented a handful of mice from developing breast cancer so far. But these are mice that were bred to be prone to breast cancer, so 100% prevention is better than the placebo effect.
I wonder if lab rats are subject to the placebo effect?
Anyway, this sounds really promising to me.
I wonder if lab rats are subject to the placebo effect?
Anyway, this sounds really promising to me.
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