Da Vinci facts Jun 6, 2006
Here are 3 quick facts related to the Da Vinci Code:

1.  The Priory of Sion is a fake organization created in 1956 (not 1099 like the DVC claims is a "fact") by a French guy name Pierre Plantard.  He used forged documents to establish a link to older secret societies. 

2.  The Gospel of Philip was most likely originally written in Greek and later translated to Coptic, which means it didn't have any Aramaic words in it.  The word translated as companion is from the Greek word koinonos, which means a companion or partner, not a spouse. 

3.  If the painting of the Last Supper shows 13 people, and one of them is Jesus and one of them is Mary, why are there only 11 disciples?  One conclusion is that the feminine-looking one can't be Mary; it's John.  Da Vinci also portrayed John the Baptist (different from John the Apostle) as a girly man. 

These 3 facts don't prove anything.  But I wanted to list them here for "posterity".  (What does that mean?  I don't know.) #religion
The Da Vinci Debacle May 26, 2006
In January of 2005, I read a book that presented a bunch of arguments against the Da Vinci Code.  A year and 4 months later, I actually read the Da Vinci Code.  I'm completely backward.  I think the book was great:  A great story, a page-turner, easy to read, had short chapters, presented interesting ideas.  And I never read books, let alone fiction.  I'd like to see the movie too, though I've heard it got bad reviews. 

Without getting into the nitty gritty, I have two main objections to the book as a whole: 

1.  Primary effect.  I think that a certain percentage of people that read the book or see the movie (maybe 20%) will believe everything in the book as if it were pure fact.  They won't question where the facts came from.  They won't investigate on their own.  They'll accept what it says and use it to develop their own continually changing worldview.  These people probably didn't believe in Christianity to begin with, so the book was just icing on the cake.  It presented a few good ideas that could easily prove the absolute fallibility of Christianity. 

2.  Secondary effect.  I think the other 80% of people will understand that the book is fiction, so they'll read it as a work of fiction.  They might be unsure of the existence of Jesus' ancestors, but they don't see it as a bad thing if his ancestors actually did exist.  And while all the right-wing sword-toting Christians (I'm one of them, minus the sword) systematically disprove every argument against Christianity in the book, the book will serve a much less obvious purpose:  Raising doubt.  Whether or not Jesus was married isn't the issue.  The issue is whether or not the church might have possibly withheld information over the course of 19 centuries to make us believe something that wasn't completely true.  The issue is the idea that a secret society knows some things that would knock religion on its butt, and if these things were made known publicly, the entire world would be changed. 

So I think it has less to do with the actual content of the book and more to do with the general idea.  If Christianity was disproved (some think it already has been, even without the Da Vinci Code), it would open the door for other religions to be disproved.  And I think this would make certain people happy. #religion
Little preacher May 23, 2006
Terry Durham is an 8-year-old "minister" of a church in Florida.  He's the grandson of the previous minister, and he's been preaching since he was 4.  He wears "an oversized suit and alligator shoes" and "kicks his right leg up in the air as he sings and shouts".  I'd like to see this kid.  (via News of the Weird) #religion
A sign May 19, 2006
When talking about Christianity, a lot of people say something like, "If God really wants me to believe, he should show me some sort of unmistakable sign.  That way, there'd be no way I could doubt the existence of God."  The official response to that question is this:  God already did that.  But people didn't believe the sign, beat him up, and killed him.  The typical re-response to that is something along the lines of, "Well that was 2000 years ago.  How about something recent?" 

The thing is, I don't think some people will believe any sign, no matter how convincing it is.  The people in Jesus' day didn't believe the things they saw him do on a daily basis.  Today's Our Daily Bread talks about this.  It talks about a passage from John, right after the story of Jesus feeding over 5000 people with a few loaves of bread and a few fish.  After this miraculous event, Jesus took a boat to the other side of the lake, and a bunch of the people came after him.  Jesus calls them out, saying (basically), "You're trying to find me so you can benefit from these cool miracles I'm performing.  You should really be trying to find out about God and eternal life." (vs. 26-27).  In response, the people ask him to perform a miracle so they'll know he's legit.  If that wasn't bad enough, they mention a story from several thousand years in Israel's past where God provided bread (manna) for his people to eat while they were living in the desert.  So in other words, the people saw Jesus perform a miracle, and then they asked him to basically perform the same one again. 

My point is this:  People ask for a sign, but they've historically rejected or denied that sign.  So maybe a sign isn't what it's gonna take.  Maybe what God says is right:  "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."  Or maybe that cover-all "Christian cop-out" called "faith" is where it's at:  "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." #religion
Cults Apr 5, 2006
One thing I've been noticing more and more is that cults (and Christian people involved in cases of major moral failure) have really given Christianity a bad name.  When people are slightly interested in Christianity and start hanging out at Bible studies, they're always cautious about not spending too much time or effort there because some of the people's actions "seem a little cult-ish".  Yes, Christianity can look a lot like a cult because a lot of cults have been modeled after Christianity.  But the difference is that cult leaders usually assume a position higher than God and/or they convince their followers to do things that defy reason and sound judgment.  [Some may argue that Christianity in itself defies reason and sound judgment.  I won't address that point.]  But the real shame in all this is that people are really scared of devoting time to God and the Bible because they think any amount of extreme devotion is akin to cultism.  A leader of a Bible study hadn't seen one of the new attenders for a few weeks, so she said, "Hey, we haven't seen you in a while.  Where have you been?"  The new attender took this to mean that he had to give an account as to why he hadn't shown up in a few weeks.  He felt this was very cult-like and it made him uncomfortable.  When I was in college, I was trying to explain to one of my friends why I had made certain changes in my life and why I no longer did certain things.  I referenced several Bible verses that explained why I did things and how I felt, and he took that to mean that I had drunk the proverbial Kool-Aid of my school's Christian cult.  Since when do Bible verses mean I'm in a cult?  Another time in college, I was in a Bible study that met at a professor's house.  We met weekly, and we also met several Fridays or Saturdays during the semester.  Many people took this to mean that the group was a cult because we spent so much time together. 

In conclusion, cults have given Christianity a bad name.  Thanks a lot, ya buncha jerks. #religion
Left-handed Mar 27, 2006
I read a cool thing in the Bible this morning:  There was a guy named Ehud (Judges 3:15) from the Benjamite tribe of Israel, and he was left-handed, as were many people from the tribe of Benjamin (Judges 20:16).  In those days (around 1300 B.C.), being left-handed was considered a handicap or a deformity.  But Ehud used this to his advantage:  He reached for his weapon on his right thigh with his left hand.  If he had been right-handed, he would have reached for his weapon on his left thigh with his right hand, and his actions would have been easily detected.  But he was able to get a hold of his weapon without being suspicious.  The reason this is cool is because God used an abnormal person to do a big thing which brought about Israel's freedom.  The lesson is that God doesn't use normal people; he uses weird people. #religion
Crying church babies Mar 12, 2006
Sometimes when I'm at church, babies cry.  They're known to do that, so it's not that big of a deal.  But how long should a mother wait before she leaves the church service because of her crying baby?  My lack of children (and understanding) forces that number to be about 10-15 seconds.  If the baby doesn't stop crying or making noise in that amount of time, the parent (not necessarily the mom) should leave.  And lots of churches have "crying rooms", which are sound-proof booths that have a view of the pastor and speakers piping in the sound.  Unfortunately, many parents have a different point of view.  They try their unsuccessful techniques, like saying "Shhh shhh", rocking the baby back and forth, or forcing objects into its mouth.  Most of these techniques fail because the baby knows it'll get what it wants if it just keeps making noise.  It's worked in the past; it'll work again.  So the parent waits around for a while and hopes that these noises will stop. 

I hate to sound selfish, but I pretty much am.  When babies make noise, it's distracting both for me and for everyone in the room, including the pastor.  I suppose some people can block out this noise, but like I mentioned, I lack children and understanding.  So I think the parent should take the baby out of the church service for the benefit of everyone else in the room.  Maybe it's just not a good idea to have young children in church services.  Or maybe these people should take advantage of the almost always prevalent "child care".  Whatever the case, the number is 10-15 seconds, and that's what I'm sticking with. #religion
Bible census Mar 2, 2006
I was reading from the book of Numbers this morning and learned something I didn't know before (yes, new things can be learned from the book of Numbers):  In chapter 26, a census is taken of all the men 20 years old or more who are able to serve in Israel's army.  This number turns out to be 601,730.  I flipped back to the other census taken in chapter 2, where it said the total number was 603,550.  I thought it was kind of weird that there were less people for the second census, seeing that this census was taken about 40 years after the first one.  Then I continued reading in chapter 26:  "Not one of them was among those counted by Moses and Aaron the priest when they counted the Israelites in the Desert of Sinai." (Numbers 26:64).  This is because the people got sick of waiting for God and complained about living in the desert.  So God said he wouldn't let any of those people enter the promised land (Numbers 14:21-23).  When this second census was taken some 40 years later, none of the same people were there.  So God's promise held true, and the Israelites weren't completely wiped out.  I was always confused by the part where God said he wouldn't allow the people to see the promised land.  I wondered how anyone would have seen the promised land if they were all wiped out.  Now I get it.  He was only talking about the men 20 years old or more who could serve in the army.  That doesn't include the women and the children ("Won't someone please think of the children?").  And it doesn't include the generations of people produced in the span of 40 years. #religion
Ladies Against Feminism (3) Feb 23, 2006
Ladies Against Feminism is a site full of women-authored articles that go against feminism.  It's written from a very conservative Christian perspective, which is a nice change from the norm.  It's also cool that this site probably offends people.  I sort of like when people are offended. #religion
Christian music (4) Feb 3, 2006
As a Christian, I'm sort of expected to listen to Christian music.  And this is for a good reason:  Christian music doesn't talk about butts or sex or violence.  It talks about God and Jesus and other related good things.  The messages in the music are almost always very positive and encouraging and sometimes even teach you something. 

The problem is the music part of Christian music.  When I wrote about my taste in music, I didn't mention anything about nice voices or a song's message (though I do like the rockstar voice).  That's because I don't care what a song says.  The first thing I listen to when I hear a song is the music.  After that, I hear and sometimes inadvertently memorize the words.  So my problem with Christian music is that the music is usually lacking something.  That something is called substance.  You can strap on a guitar and sing a pretty little song about Jesus, and you're suddenly in the Top Five at 5 on Star 99.1 (Christian radio station).  What I want to hear is something that impresses me; something that catches my attention and makes me want to listen for more. 

Third Day is a Christian band that almost does this for me.  I say almost because they're kind of like the band Jet:  They play a few cool songs to pique my interest, then they totally let me down with a bunch of sissy songs.  I'm not saying that all slow songs are bad.  I'm saying that there are slow songs, and then there are sissy songs.  There's no better way to ruin my groove than to play a sissy song. 

So in the end, I'm still searching for some Christian music that can attract and keep my attention.  There's a band called Casting Crowns that seems so have some cool songs, but I'm skeptical; I've obviously been let down in the past. #religion