Cheyenne, my home town, is in flames

Check it out!

And in movie rumors "Choose again!!!"

Dan Simon's amazing Hyperium series is going to be made into a movie! Very good news for we Simons fans!
Peace,
Chris

Mr. Missouri Synod knows something about quakes

Check out his Q+A session about the quake. Also, seeing as China and Russia are going to be doing joint war games next year around January or so I think I'll release my 10 broad based plans of how to keep America on top with China breathing down our necks.
Peace,
Chris
PS the waves are going to hit Kenya where I might be going next year.

In light of the waves let's talk about the Israel Palestine issue

Well, I was going to unveil my 10 possible plans as to how America can stay as the only Super Power even with an emerging Asia, but as Asia has recently been hit with deadly waves I feel it would be in poor taste to do so. Luckly for you folks reading my blog I recieved an email from Kyla Knutson, the Gnostic who doesn't have a blog (as far as I know). It is about the new Geneva Accord for Israeli-Palestinian peace. If you feel like signing the petition here is the address.

As for me I need to research it further. There are things I still need to look up when I get back to Eugene were I recently found that the University of Oregon library has all the UN records from it's inseption.
Anyways, briefly here are the things I don't feel informed enough about to support.

1."Affirming their deep belief that the logic of peace requires
compromise, and that the only viable solution is a two-state solution based on
UNSC Resolution 242 and 338;
-I think a 2 state solution is the only way to keep Israel from becoming undemocratic and give the Palestinian people a voice, but I don't know the specifics of Res. 242 and 338.

2. "Declaring that this Agreement marks the historic reconciliation
between the Palestinians and Israelis, and paves the way to reconciliation
between the Arab World and Israel and the establishment of normal,
peaceful relations between the Arab states and Israel in accordance with the
relevant clauses of the Beirut Arab League Resolution of March 28,
2002;..."
-once again, I don't know what Res. March 28 is about.

3.* Israel will create a corridor for travel between the West Bank and
Gaza, which will remain under Israeli sovereignty and under Palestinian
administration and run in accord with Palestinian law
-This seems a bit messy, Israeli sovereignty but administered by the Palestinians.

4.* Jerusalem will become capital of both states. The Temple Mount and
East Jerusalem will be under Palestinian control and the Wall and West
Jerusalem under Israeli control. The Old City will be open, weapons
forbidden, free travel inside to all sectors guaranteed.
-I just wanted to mention that Tom Clancy advocates this in one of his military pornos (I'm demeaning his work in case you couldn't guess, like calling starwars a "space opera").

Anyways, if there is anyone out there with a strong opinion about this issue be sure to post away.
Peace,
Chris

Merry Christmas

The Christ child is born, the resurrection story begins, the world's salvation is set into motion.
The peace of the birth,
Chris

Our new Fearless leader! and brief update

Here is the best quote of the piece.
"And here's another story from Reid's tenure as chairman of the gaming commission: A man named Jack Gordon, who later married LaToya Jackson, tried to give Reid a $12,000 bribe. Reid let the FBI videotape Gordon offering him the bribe, and then, according to a Las Vegas Review-Journal account, he "put his hands around Gordon's neck and said, 'You son of a bitch, you tried to bribe me.'" That's right, Senate Democrats are being led by a man who once tried to strangle LaToya Jackson's future husband-manager. You call that boring?"

Also, I'm in Hayseville NC now,finally re-united with Baby, my lovable 8lb Yorky-poodle mutt! What can I say, a boy and his dog.
Peace,
Chris

I was at Jimmy's house!

Jimmy Carter that is! Man, Plains Georgia is a kickin' town, well, at least their number one resident is pretty kicking. I checked out his house, his school, and his campeign headquarters! It felt really good. I ended up buying a button and a T-shirt, yeah, I'm a politics dork, but after this last election I needed to go "back to bam, back to who I am" so to speak. Jimmy was a really good Democrat!
Peace,
Chris

PS Look what's out on Video!!!

Forgot to mention

I saw Hemingway's house in Key West! It was pretty cool, he raised 6 toed cats, and there are still about 60 of them on his property. Oh, and I didn't mean to make Goldwater's relitive out to be fanatical anti-Clinton, he was a Philosophy teacher and seemed really bright.
Peace,
Chris

Back from the Ship

Well, road around the Atlantic for the last 7 or so days, talked with Barry Goldwater's Nephew (he was kind of fixated on Clinton's failure in Rwanda), the owner of some expensive handbag company and so on. Found out Champeign isn't my friend. Saw Mexico, the Bahammas, and a bunch of Mayan Ruins. Now I'm in Daytona Beach, going to see JIMMY CARTER's place sometime this week! Then going to my aunts in South Carolina. I checked out my grades, got an A- in Islamic Mysticism, an A in Jacksonian History as well as Creative Writing, and got a B in the Cultural History of the Enlightenment. Finished Last Temptation of Christ, Amazing book. Reading Living Jesus, by Luke Timothy Johnson (he spoke about Paul at Central a while ago), basicly it is a defense of traditional Christianity against the Historical Jesus movement. Long short of the argument is that because Jesus is raised and present in the church Jesus is still revealing his will, and therefore the "historical" thing is not a closed book yet. Very interesting, I'm liking it.
Peace,
Chris

Well, I'm off at 6AM, I'll blog after Christmas

I'm flying out at 6AM in the morning to Orlando Florida, my parents are already there. I'll leave you with an online Christmas quiz.

You are 'Hark! The Herald Angels Sing'. You take
Christmas very seriously. For you, it is a
religious festival, celebrating the birth of
the Saviour, and its current secularisation
really irritates you. You enjoy the period of
Advent leading up to Christmas, and attend any
local carol services you can find, as well as
the more contemplative Advent church services
each Sunday. You may be involved in Christmas
food collections or similar charity work. The
midnight service at your church, with candles
and carols, is one you look forward to all
year, and you also look forward to the family
get together on Christmas Day.


What Christmas Carol are you?
brought to you by Quizilla


Merry Christmas to all. May our Lord's birth be good to you all.
Peace,
Chris

The best Lutheran comedy magazine ever

Finished my interview final for Islamic Mysticism, did pretty well, though I ended up biffing a question about Al-Arabi. I think I'll end up with an A in that class.
Peace,
Chris

A really bad joke in poor taste

The following is supposedly an actual question given on a University
of
Washington chemistry mid-term. The answer by one student was so
"profound" that the professor shared it with colleagues, via the
Internet.

Bonus Question: Is Hell exothermic (gives off heat) or endothermic
(absorbs heat)?

Most of the students wrote proofs of their beliefs using Boyle's Law
(gas cools when it expands and heats when it is compressed) or some
variant.

One student, however, wrote the following:

First, we need to know how the mass of Hell is changing in time. So
we
need to know the rate at which souls are moving into Hell and the
rate
at which they are leaving. I think that we can safely assume that
once
a soul gets to Hell, it will not leave. Therefore, no souls are
leaving.

As for how many souls are entering Hell, let's look at the different
Religions that exist in the world today. Most of these religions
state
that if you are not a member of their religion, you will go to Hell.
Since there is more than one of these religions and since people do
not
belong to more than one religion, we can project that all souls go
to
Hell.

With birth and death rates as they are, we can expect the number of
souls in Hell to increase exponentially. Now, we look at the rate of
change of the volume in Hell because Boyle's Law states that in
order
for the temperature and pressure in Hell to stay the same, the
volume
of Hell has to expand proportionately as souls are added. This gives
two
possibilities:

1. If Hell is expanding at a slower rate than the rate at which
souls
enter Hell, then the temperature and pressure in Hell will increase
until all Hell breaks loose.

2. If Hell is expanding at a rate faster than the increase of souls
in
Hell, then the temperature and pressure will drop until Hell freezes
over. So which is it? If we accept the postulate given to me by
Teresa
during my Freshman year that, "it will be a cold day in Hell before
I
sleep with you, and take into account the fact that I slept with her
last night, then number 2 must be true, and thus I am sure that Hell
is
exothermic and has already frozen over. The corollary of this theory
is
that since Hell has frozen over, it follows that it is not accepting
any more souls and is therefore, extinct...leaving only Heaven
thereby
proving the existence of a divine being which explains why, last
night,
Teresa kept shouting "Oh my God."

THIS STUDENT RECEIVED THE ONLY "A"

A piece from Sojourners

Don't put a restraining order on God
by David Batstone

In Cupertino, California, a public school teacher ignited a cultural powder keg this semester when he supplemented the standard-issue history book with materials backing up his contention that religion was central to the founding fathers.


In New York City last week, several major television networks banned a paid advertisement produced by the United Churches of Christ. The commercial features a core value of the UCC church - that it welcomes with grace all people into its community regardless of an individual's background.


These recent, high-profile events give us a clear view into the often muddled moral values debate that rages from shore to shore in America today. They show both cultural conservatives and cultural liberals using the same arguments to restrict public conversation. More pointedly, each side of the polar (as in cold...war) divide is happy to ban a message from the public square if that message does not align with its own cherished beliefs.


I expect a spirited debate from both ends of the spectrum, so better to address the assumed frontline counterattacks. Liberals claim they are upholding the cherished separation of "church and state" when they put a restraining order on God from entering public schools. The Constitution, however, nowhere stipulates that religion should be deemed a taboo subject in public life. The state (and by extension public schools) is prohibited from the establishment of religion, indeed. But that's a far cry from outright exclusion.


Steven Williams wants to teach his fifth-graders how deeply Christian values shaped early America. So he passed out to his class William Penn's "Frame of Government of Pennsylvania" in which Penn wrote, "Government seems to me a part of religion itself, a thing sacred in its institution and end."


Talk about crossing the church-state wall! With that kind of pedigree, we should kick Pennsylvania out of the Union posthaste. Wait a minute, put Delaware on that list as well. A list of religious clauses in the 1776 Delaware state constitution requires officeholders to "profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son."


To ban any reference to religious conviction in the early history of America would be rewriting history. So that's ridiculous. But the complaint goes deeper in the Cupertino case, because Williams is a practicing Christian who wants his students to realize that faith in God continues to be an important element in government. A parent of a student at the Cupertino school complains, "This is not about teaching history, this is about indoctrination."


I honestly do not know if Williams is directly proselytizing in the classroom. I bet not, though I would not be surprised if he hopes that a seed of faith might be planted in his students' lives. For most secularists, it does not matter. Any teaching about religion in history or contemporary life is akin to "indoctrination."


Cultural conservatives likely are standing atop their chairs cheering at this point. But why don't they apply that same enthusiasm to defend the right of the United Church of Christ to proclaim its message on national television? It's because they are no less interested in legislating their own narrow stream of moral values. They, too, want all Americans to be converted into their own image.


After reading all of the hype about the "controversial" commercial, I went to view it on an Internet site. I was totally shocked at how innocuous it was. In my opinion, it also captured the gospel stories of Jesus accepting into table fellowship those very people that his society deemed as "unclean." Like it or not, UCC theology and ethics has a firm grounding in the biblical tradition of grace and freedom.


The commercial does not address gay marriage as much of the conservative media would lead you to believe. It does not even address the gay lifestyle, beyond showing two men who fit the stereotype approaching the church steps and being turned away by a bouncer. At another point, two women standing together smile broadly at the camera. I suppose that's the offensive "lesbian" moment.


But even if the United Church of Christ did promote more directly its theological position that God blesses gay people, even to marriage together, is that sufficient reason for censoring its message? I hope you agree with me that it is not, for I would like to reserve that same open platform for other faiths and other values. Surely, we could all come up with extreme, destructive viewpoints that do not merit public access, whether they offer divine justification for their values or not (the KKK comes to mind). But that's not the case here.


Maybe the toughest challenge of living in a democracy is to respect the freedom of other people to live according to values that are not your own. Real freedom, however, does not thrive in a moral vacuum (the ardent secularist) or a moral straightjacket (the ardent theocratic). What does my ideal of democracy look like? I can sum it up in a single sentence: A person arrives at faith freely, practices it openly, and uses dialogue with others about their own life path to deepen their understanding.

And we snub the world again

At the beginning of this year's conference on global warming, the head of the Climate Change Convention had seemed to be offering an opening to the US.

It was suggested that in the next phase of action after 2012, countries might be able to pursue different routes towards a similar end.

The US mantra has been that it is committed to addressing climate change but has simply chosen a different path.

But if it was an olive branch, the US has brushed it aside.

Dr Watson, who is leading the American delegation here, told a news conference that this was not the moment for the US to reassess its policies.

The questions for Wednesday

The questions
1. Miracles. Do you believe in them? Do they change your outlook on the cosmos in any way?
2. Without using entrenched religious rhetoric describe God. Can you?
3. What is the point of the book of Job? Is Job a real guy or a parable?
4. If Jesus is the perfected Adam, as Paul says, then is he still of the flesh or spirit only?
5. How should we take Song of Songs? Is God the lover and humanity the beloved? or is it a song between two humans? If both how?
6. What is up with all the sacrifice and such pre-Christ? Did God ordain those things or is it something else?