What's the Real Question

During my freshman year at college I went to a debate at the University of Regina on Evolution vs. Creation. The actual debate part of the debate was fairly friendly, but not too great. Both sides were a bit weak. At the end the floor was opened for questions. There were not many questions. Most people got up and tearfully told the evolutionist that no matter what he said he was not going to tear down the faith of those who believe, and basically calling him an evil person. That fundamentally disturbed me, and I think about it often with great sadness.
Last year, when I was in Germany I read a book that was 'debating' the old earth movement against the new earth movement (people who believe the earth is millions of years old, even if God created it vs people who think the earth is only a few thousand years old). I say 'debate' because it was written from a pro young earth point of view. The book was very scornful towards the old earthers, even attacking them for being unable to explain a certain point and for saying that they did not yet have an answer. Later in the book, when discussing the young earth position, the author mentioned an issue that the young earth position could not explain, but people were certainly exploring the issue and a reasonable explanation would be found soon. I had to read that twice and then check back in the book to see if I had read it correctly, and I had. Basically, "when they do it, it's wrong. But when I do it, it's okay." By making those two points, he completely invalidated any other argument he had because I couldn't trust him. It was a silly book.
I bring up these issues because of the sermon we heard at church today. We are doing a series called "Ask Anything". People submitted questions and now they are answering them. Last week the question was "Aren't all religions basically the same?" Next week the question is "Does God send people to hell even if they have never even heard of Jesus?" This weeks was "How can you support creation when there is so much science for evolution out there?" The questions are pretty standard.
I really liked what was said today, probably because it is very much what I've thought for a long time. If I could boil it down to one sentence, it would be: God created the world somehow, and now we need to show people His love. He said he had an issue with how christians tended to handle the whole evolution/creation question. The text of Genesis chapter one is a narrative text, not meant to be taken literally necessarily. Even though 'there was evening and there was morning" every day, there was nothing to make the evening or morning (no sun/moon/stars) until halfway through. As he explained it, the narrative was collected to combat the idea that the sun was a god, and the moon was a god, and the wind was a god, and the sky was a god, etc, ideas they had been taught and immersed in when they were slaves in Egypt for hundreds of years.
He also said that when you go to someone and essentially attack their beliefs, they get defensive and try to prove themselves right and other people wrong. It's a natural tendency and everyone falls prey to it. I know I do. But that seems to be the way that christians approach the debate. They get angry and confrontational. They don't try to see the point of view of someone else, but they throw the bible in their faces and point to Genesis one as being literal. There is no attempt to listen, no attempt to understand that many people are brought up believing otherwise and that thinking about someone creating the world instead of it 'just happening' is difficult to do. In the same way, for people brought up in the church, it is amazingly hard to believe that the earth could be millions of years old because that is not what we are taught.
The problem is, how the world was created is not the issue that the Bible talks about. The narrative is concerned with ensuring the reader knows who created the world and that humanity was the peak. God is God: He could do it however He wants. He is outside of time and matter, so we can't constrain Him to creating in seven days. But because christians seem so hellbent on proving the world is young and was created in seven days, they seem to forget to listen, to forget to show people that God loves them and that is why He created the world. That cannot happen when the only question that seems to be raised is how He did it.
Sometimes I think that getting to the truth of the wrong question is as bad as ignoring the truth of the right question.

I Have No Words

I have never got into American Idol (I maybe watched half of the Reuben season). These people are my opposites. Also, a girl in Number four uses the 'word' 'tremoring'.

I am worried about society.

Ah, rememberies

I just remembered an assignment I did in elementary school (perhaps in grade five). We were given graph paper and we could draw a picture of anything we wanted. It is possible that it wasn't so much an assignment as it was something to do when I was done my work. Either way, it was definitely graph paper. Oddly enough, that detail is not important at all, but I remember it clearly.
So I started to draw. As a young man, I was naturally drawn to tanks. I drew the barrel of a tank gun at the edge of the paper, like the tank was just too far to the right to be on the page, with a shell being fired from it. I then drew buildings that had been blown up. Across the top of the page I wrote the word "Sarajevo" in large block letters, which I intended to colour in. After I coloured in the 'S', I had a sudden change of heart, deciding that perhaps such a major event was not something to be handled so lightly. So I erased everything.
Everything except that 'S'. It was coloured in with marker. I didn't want to throw out my paper. So instead, I wrote 'San Jose Sharks' across the top of the page and drew a picture of a hockey player in the water. He was so scared that his hockey equipment had come off of him like clothing (and sometimes skin) tends to do in cartoons. His eyes were also bugging out of his head. The reason he was scared was because there was a shark swimming towards him, having already eaten his stick.
I don't know why I remember that.

Early to Bed...?

I normally work from 9:30 to 6:00. That means I don't have to get up until 8:30 in the morning. I'm fine with that. This week, I had a three day weekend (Sunday, Monday, Tuesday) because of the May long weekend, so I usually slept in until 10, which was nice. And then I had to work at my usual time on Wednesday, which was fine. And then I worked at 7am today, which, since that is when the store opens, meant that I had to be there closer to 6:30 than to 7. It is a bit of a shock to the system to go from late slumber to early rising. I didn't get home until 11pm and then I definitely didn't go to bed right away, so it was a rather short night.
The weirdest part was that I didn't feel tired at all today until about a half hour ago (it is 10:00 now). Yet I often feel very tired when I get more sleep. Some days I just can't figure my body out.

Now go Grasp the Nettle.

The Brake Pedal is on the Left

On Friday I went for lunch with my parents, brother, and sister-in-law (aka, mom and dad, Jeff, and Cat). We had just finished enjoying our meal at the Kelsey's when there was a loud bang. My first thought was that someone in the kitchen had fallen and dropped an oven on himself (it was a really loud bang). But as I looked around I realised that it had come from behind an outside wall, so it couldn't have come from the kitchen. Also, everyone along that wall was now rushing outside.
So we followed people outside and learned that someone had ran into the wall of the Kelsey's. With their car. They had pulled up to the parking spot and then hit the gas, jumped the curb, smashed through the glass patio wall (thank goodness no one was sitting out there) and ran into the building. There was a large crack in the wall where the car had hit, and there were also scattered bits of car everywhere. Also also, someone had witnessed the whole thing, including getting the licence plate number, so fleeing the scene was somewhat pointless.
Oh yeah, and the car had missed hitting mine in all of this by a couple of feet at the most.
This is the second time since I bought that vehicle in January that it has been within feet of a serious accident and not gotten a scratch on it. I am trying to figure out if that means it is a lucky car, or if it is an unlucky car. Things happen around it, but not to it. I guess that would make it lucky for me, unlucky for others.
I'm okay with that.

Boom baby

Well, I got my computer back, and it seems to be running better. It's been a while; I almost forgot to update Grasp the Nettle. And then I remembered.
And then I did.

This Joke Will Never Get Old

AWOL

All right, I am updating Grasp the Nettle early this week because I am planning on taking my computer in to get de-FUBARed. It has been running really slow on me lately and having stupid errors, which could just be a Windows thing. Also, my email has been sending out massive amounts of stupid spam. I'm not sure if that is a computer issue as I am using hotmail and not something like Outlook Express (or whatever that mail program is) so nothing is really stored on my actual computer, I think. I'll be honest, I don't really know. Hopefully this will fix things so that I'm not sending out those messages anymore. If it doesn't fix it, then I will have to get a new email address, which is sad because I've had this one for more than ten years.
Ah well, either way, I'm sure my computer needs some fixin', so that will hopefully get done and I can have a computer that works normally (for a Windows product, anyway). But I don't know how long it will take, so I may be incommunicado for a while.
In the meantime, enjoy your weekly dose of Thunderfunk the Superchicken.

1, 2, 3, 4...

Today, I was involved with an inventory for the first time. We counted everything in our store. Luckily, there are inventory services (which somehow seems...wrong...) which send people to help with the counting. Basically we could scan each item with a little scanner, type in how many of that item there are, and then move on. It took us just over an hour after closing. It was not hard, but I'm glad we don't have to do it often. It's kinda boring.
Anyway, I updated Fools of us All today.

And a little sore.

I find it funny that some people still look at those who use their cell phones in public as trying to seem important or cool. There was a time when only a select few had a cell phone, so it was a status symbol - if someone pulled out their brick, I mean cell phone, in public and began talking (loudly, probably because reception could not have been great back then), it was a way of getting people to notice that they were important enough to afford a cellular telephone, and busy enough to have to use it in public. Now, even elementary school children have cell phones. I could go down to the mall and for under a hundred bucks I could be talking on a phone (cheap cell, pay-as-you-go 'plan'). So, while it may be annoying to have people talking on their phones in public, usually now it is because they are loud and obnoxious. I think it is safe to stop mocking people for trying to look important by having a cell phone. That's what expensive sports cars and trophy wives are for.
Yesterday (Saturday) I spent the day in Banff. It was good times - we climbed Sulphur Mountain (which is much scarier than it sounds) and I remembered that I've basically stopped doing anything physical at all, ever, and spent the rest of the day apologizing to my body for abusing it so much. I also decided to go without sun screen (aka I didn't think of it at all), so now, from the neck up, I look like Bob the Tomato wearing a blond wig. Of course, the rest of me looks as pale as Casper (the friendly ghost)(boo), so it's an interesting contrast. Ah well, I least I don't have the swine flu.
I would show you pictures of my Banff day, but, of course, I didn't take my camera. I had a reason this time, though. I don't really have batteries for it anymore. Or, more accurately, I don't have charged batteries for it. I used to have a battery charger, but at some point it disappeared on me. I have lent my camera to Jeff a couple of times, and at least once I think I gave them the charger, and now I don't have it. That means either a) Jeff lost it (or it's in his house somewhere), or b) I lost it somewhere along the way. At the moment I am leaning towards option b simply because I moved three times over the summer and I'm not exactly an organised mover. Combine that with the fact that my memory is fuzzy on whether or not I actually gave Jeff the charger, or if I just thought about it and then didn't bother, and I'm inclined to think I lost it. However, just to be on the safe side, I'm going to be a little bitter towards Jeff. But only for a while.
As a Christian, I understand that fasting is one of the spiritual discipline to which I am called. I get it, I'm okay with it, but I am really lousy at actually doing it. The problem is, about two seconds after I start fasting, the only thing I can think about is how much money I save by not eating. Call me crazy if you want, but I don't think that should be the focus. I guess I'll just have to keep trying until I get it right.