Fatwa!

It is human tendency to generalize. I guess when we generalize about someone other than us, it makes it easier to categorize, package, and label them, so that we know why we're not them, and we tell ourselves that's why we're better than them. But it's rarely that simple in reality is it?

Here's a great example. Just saw this news article and it made me chuckle. While strongly differ with the Islamic belief system, I don't have to argue through generalization, that just alienates people. After all it stings when those same kinds of generalizations come back around our way.

Muslims issue fatwa against terrorism.

Cricketer of the Year

For anyone who's been following the IPL (Indian Premier League) 20-20 cricket series, I have just found the Most Valuable Player of the tournament, as far as I'm concerned.

It's got nothing to do with cricket, and everything to do with having the most creative parents ever. I don't even know if he's actually played an official match yet off the bench. Ladies and gents, I give you... the one, the only...


Napoleon Einstein

No, I don't know if he's related to the Dynamite clan.

Skinny Contemplations on Art

Is it just me, or does it seem that the more immersed an artist (regardless of field) is in a particular art, the further away from truth about God that artist seems to get?

Maybe I'm generalizing from my own limited experience, but it just seems that eccentricity and moral ambiguity seems to be directly proportionate to serious art, and it makes me wonder...

Edit:
On further thought, I applied this to audio-visual media: entertainment, movies, books, music... and the prognosis isn't good. Art in general does not deal with the righteousness of God. Having realized the secular-humanistic (and therefore godless) perspective of the entertainment industry as a whole, it becomes obvious that the morality present in these art forms will be fatally flawed. Not because it is always necessarily immoral or amoral (as many times is the case) but because even any morality that is sourced in humanism is limited by its very man-centeredness. Holiness is not the measure, and therefore God is not the standard; social relationship is.

In sum, be it the most inane work of art, what is presented about love, about romance, about human relationships, about service, about politics, about violence, about peace, about sexuality, about business, about anything you can think of, even religion, all this is ensconced in a man-centered world-view. Man is the focus of the universe. The godlessness of it all is not explicit, but subtle.

The themes of good vs. evil, or the goodness of man, or the love between human beings all become a facade that subtly encourages the ignorance of God's perspective and ultimately the abandonment of true religion. Morality by itself is damning, a religion that in reality despises God.

All that to say guard your heart. Protect the gates. Know what you watch, read and listen, and don't inform your morality or practice from entertainment or art, ultimately, set God at the center and inform your life with His Word at the center. Let that center inform all pursuit of art.

I will ponder the way that is blameless.
Oh when will you come to me?
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;
I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.
Psalm 101:2,3

The "Diabolical" Devil

With reference to Genesis 3, the question arises how Satan could successfully manipulate a perfect human being, untainted by sin and in perfect union with God to willfully fall into disobedience of God’s simply and clear command. In the narrative of Genesis 3 the serpent’s diabolical genius is at work. And from it we learn about why he keeps "getting" us.

First, the serpent gently led Eve to progressive departure from implicit trust in God. Satan did not start with outright denial of God’s Word. Instead, he led her gently into a process of doubting God’s purpose (3:1), to contradicting His Word (3:4) to actually doubting that God had her own interests at heart (3:5).

Second, the serpent aroused in Eve a desire for fulfillment apart from God. Having fractured her trust in God, the serpent implied to her that there was something she lacked, by telling her, “Your eyes will be opened” (3:5b). He then opened to her a potential world of knowledge; again with an indirect statement about God’s supposed secret fear, “you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (3:5c). He had led Eve toward a thought process of obtaining fulfillment apart from God. However, his real genius is seen in his final step in the procedure.

Finally, the serpent stepped back to allow Eve to foment in her own lust. Having done his work in putting the seed of doubt in Eve’s mind and arousing her own desires, the serpent is then interestingly not a part of the further narrative that leads up to and past the fall of Eve and Adam into sin. In 3:6, it is Eve’s thought process alone that led to her sin. The serpent’s work was done, and he shrewdly distanced himself from interfering in her final individual plunge into sin, knowing “each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire” (James 1:14). In fact, the serpent did not make Eve sin, he just encouraged her doubt and made it seem the reasonable course of action. Eve rationalized progressively that “the tree was good for food” (3:6a) – that firstly it would provide bodily nourishment; God indeed desired Adam and Eve’s wellbeing (2:16,17). She then rationalized that the tree was “a delight for the eyes” (3:6b) – God indeed had created trees for this very purpose, “God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food” (2:9), and therefore partaking would fit in with God’s express desire. Finally, she saw that “the tree was to be desired to make one wise” – and such a result would only be in the center of God’s will.

The serpent brought Eve to sin, not by making her choose sin over obedience, but by helping her paint in her own mind her need to think independently of God and thus see what actually was sin as the expedient course of action.

Let this reminder ring a warning bell in our own hearts. Don't try to wrestle with the devil. Resist him.

Welcome to the Brave New World

As always, it's like something from a comic book, but it's real. A robotic exoskeleton for soldiers. Eventually it will be part of a complete suit unit.



That's crazy.

OK, let's balance the last post

A woman is like a tea bag. You never know how strong she is until she's in hot water.
Eleanor Roosevelt

Mother

This mother's day, a secular, cynical, depressing, non-autobiographical song.

Mother
Pink Floyd

Mother, do you think they'll drop the bomb?
Mother, do you think they'll like this song?
Mother, do you think they'll try to break my b****?
Ooooo mother, should I build a wall?

Mother, should I run for president?
Mother, should I trust the government?
Mother, will they put me in the firing line?
Ooooowaa is it just a waste of time?

Hush, my baby. baby, don't you cry.
Mommas gonna make all of your nightmares come true.
Mommas gonna put all of her fears into you.
Mommas gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She wont let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Mommas gonna keep baby cozy and warm.
Oooo babe.
Oooo babe.
Oooo babe, of course mommas gonna help build a wall.

Mother, do you think shes good enough,
For me?
Mother, do you think shes dangerous,
To me?
Mother will she tear your little boy apart?
Ooooo mother, will she break my heart?

Hush, my baby. baby, don't you cry.
Mommas gonna check out all your girlfriends for you.
Momma wont let anyone dirty get through.
Mommas gonna wait up until you get in.
Momma will always find out where youve been.
Mommas gonna keep baby healthy and clean.
Oooo babe.
Oooo babe.
Oooo babe, you'll always be baby to me.

Mother, did it need to be so high?

Mothers: don't build it too high, I guess.