Aaaaaargh!

Yes, as the (capitalized) title suggests, I am unhappy and frustrated. This is because people are frequently stupid.

Let me tell you about someone I know. We'll call him Timmy, because Timmy is not his name.

Timmy lives in a Christian home. He goes to church and hears about Jesus, Heaven, Hell, etc. frequently. He believes in God and all that goes with this belief. Or at least, that's what he says if you ask him directly.

But look at the evidence. He lives entirely in the pursuit of fulfilling his desires. He's full of rudeness, anger, bitterness and everything that makes him not fun to be around. A good way of summing him up would be this: Timmy lives in the Moment, for the Moment, and is constantly searching for a way to make the Moment more intensely pleasurable.

I don't understand this mindset at all. How can a person believe in God and the eternity that goes with Him, and still live for the Moment--for what's happening here and now.

It's like this:

Imagine Alaska. Alaska is a cold place for most of the year, but for a few months, the weather turns beautiful, and hovers at a constant comfortable. This is how the seasons work: cold, warm, cold.

Now imagine the people of Alaska. Personally, if I lived in a cold place, I would want warm clothes, a warm house, and a really nice guitar (I'd like that last one anywhere I lived). So here you are in your warm clothes and warm house, playing your nice guitar, and you realize that the weather is warm.

"Hallelujah!" you say. "It isn't cold today!"

In excitement and jubilee, you put on shorts and flip-flops, and burn your jackets and fur coats. Then you knock down your warm house, and sit outside in the grass to play your nice guitar. Then the winter comes. The temperature drops well below zero, and then where are you? Frozen solid.

That's what Timmy is--and many others are--doing right now. This life is a season. It's a moment. It's a vapor. Nothing. In God's eyes, your life is shorter than a yard to Usain Bolt. So why, Timmy, do you insist on doing so many dumb things in this life? Don't you get it?

In eternity, there is no measurement of time, because there is no way to measure infinity. I can't even put it into words. Please, stop for a moment and think about it.

And then change.

since when...

Since when did it become cool to stop using correct punctuation and/or capitalization? For example, most "cool" people use lowercase i instead of uppercase I. Or they forget to capitalize the beginning of a sentence. Or don't capitalize their titles. Yes, I have, at times (such as in this post), done the same thing, but I think it's time things changed around here.

From this day forward, I will strive to use correct punctuation, spelling and capitalization. This is my solemn promise.

Something Interesting

Read this. You will be astonished and amazed.

Mr. Obama

You may have heard about some guy named Barrack Obama recently. In case you haven't, he's running for president right now. I agree with just about nothing that he says. I think he's probably a communist, and he is going to be the worst president that America has ever had.

So this prompts a question. How can I remain loyal to both this country and my God?

In Matthew 22, Jesus is tested by the Pharisees. They ask him basically the same question. They ask "is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" He responds that we should give to the government what is theirs, and give to God what is His. Also in other places we are instructed to respect authority and the laws of our country.

So if I disagree with everything said by our country's leader, is it morally right to support him through my loyalty?

Jesus, who was kind of an expert on morality, said yes. But this is no simple yes--it's not exactly "support everything your leader does."

Remember, we as Christians are not of this world. We belong to the Kingdom of God. However, we still live here, and so we still have to function in this place. If I decided to stop paying taxes so that my support doesn't go to a failed government, I'll probably go to jail.

We have to obey the law as a matter of survival, but we still have to place God and His Kingdom first.

I haven't signed out this way in a long time, but,

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Better Than Drugs

Today, I got out of bed with the intention of spending my entire morning playing the guitar solo in the song Better The Drugs. I've played it at least one hundred times so far, and my fingers feel like they've been playing with knives. I am so envious of Skillet and their guitar skills.

In case you're unfamiliar with this song or this band, here are the lyrics:

Feel your every heartbeat
Feel you on these empty nights
Calm the ache, stop the shakes
You clear my mind

You’re my escape
From this messed up place
‘Cause you let me forget
You numb my pain

How can I tell you just all that you are
What you do to me

You're better than drugs
Your love is like wine
Feel You coming on so fast
Feel You coming to get me high

You're better than drugs
I'm addicted for life
Feel You coming on so fast
Feel You coming on to get me high

Feel you when I’m restless
Feel you when I cannot cope
You’re my addiction, my prescription, my antidote

You kill the poison
Ease the suffering
Calm the rage when I’m afraid
To feel again

How can I tell you just all that You are
What You do to me

You're better than drugs
Your love is like wine
Feel You coming on so fast
Feel You coming to get me high

You're better than drugs
I'm addicted for life
Feel You coming on so fast
Feel You coming on to get me high

How can I tell You just all that You are?
What You do to me

Feel Your every heartbeat
Feel You on these empty nights
You’re the strength of my life

I like this song, and not just because it has an awesome guitar solo that I can almost play. It also presents God in an unusual way.

I consider this to be a worship song. In fact, if I can learn it, I'll be using this song in a worship service. Most people are surprised by the fact that I think of it as worshipful. They say "how can you talk about drugs and still be worshipful?" Well, it's not really talking about drugs. It's talking about the fact that God is beyond comparison to anything else in the world.

Wouldn't it be cool if there were more songs that don't just say, "You're glorious, o majestic Savior," and said something meaningful? We have these words that we use to describe God in worship. Things like powerful, glorious, marvelous, etc. But "better than drugs?" Yes, this is an awesome worship song.

I have to now quit writing so that I can play the solo a few more thousand times.

Haiku

I wrote a haiku today.

Top number's rising
Bottom is inching along
I hate buying gas

Coming Up Short

One time, somebody said the following paragraph:

"The biggest problem with most people is that they won't admit their flaws. I would admit mine, if I had any."

This is funny, because it is obvious that everyone has flaws, and so he really does have something to admit to. I'm sure you've figured that out. Except for the second sentence, this is a true statement. No one wants to admit where they come short of perfection.

Why is that? Well, of course, because no one wants to look less than perfect. But in fact, admitting to a mistake doesn't actually make a person appear less good. Everyone is imperfect, and everyone knows that everyone else is imperfect. So just because you don't mention your imperfections doesn't mean that people think you don't have them.

Here's the truth: if you can humbly admit to the places where you come up short, other people will actually think of you in higher regard because you can admit to flaws.

This doesn't mean you should walk around telling everyone everything you've ever done wrong, but it does mean that there is no reason to be afraid of telling the truth. Of course, that's easier for me to say since I don't ever make mistakes, right?

The Difference Between Us

On Saturday, I spent a large amount of time at a memorial service for a relative. At this service, I observed some things.

Everyone was united in one area, which is that all of them were sad. This makes sense of course, since death is an unhappy thing. Everyone pretty much agreed that this relative was a great guy while he was alive. But after that, things start to break down.

See, this group of sad people were subdivided into two seperate groups. One group consisted of people who said "he was a great guy, I really liked being around him." The other group had people that said, "he was a great guy, I'm really looking forward to seeing him again."

I've been part of one church or another for my entire life, so God and Christianity are both pretty embedded in my way of thinking. I'll admit, I don't entirely understand other viewpoints. But I can see how they work, and it seems to me that the one major difference between the two involves death and how it affects us.

Viewpoint 1 says that death is just the end of the body, but the beginning of something very different and vastly better.

Viewpoint 2 says that death is the end of everything.

Personally, I like viewpoint 1 a lot better. This doesn't mean, of course, that this one is more accurate than the other. It's just more attractive to me.

I have a lot more to say about these viewpoints, but I'd rather keep this post short. Maybe I'll ramble some more about it at a future point in time. Probably not.

Apologies

I must apologize. I have not blogged in a long time. I haven't even been that busy, I've just been not blogging.

But now things are changing, because I have things to blog about. So now I close to go write something more useful.

americans are all wrong

I met an American today, and he was a jerk. He was loud, rude and pretty much annoying in every way. I was so annoyed by him, that I've decided to just drop the whole "Declaration of Independence" thing. If Americans are all so annoying, why should I believe the same thing that they believe?

Yes, this is a stupid thing to say. I know that. But the same idea carries over into religion all the time. For example, "I don't believe in God. It's not like Christians are any different anyway."

That is stupid. Whatever I do, God is the same. God was here before me, and God is always going to be bigger than I am. So don't judge God based on my actions. If you should choose to use the logic written above, I can't stop you. But I can sure tell you that it's not a good idea.

Be smart. Use uncommon sense.

Paradigms

In case you've missed it, the term smart people use for changing your point of view is "paradigm shift." The word "paradigm," so I've been told, should be pronounced "paradime," but someone decided to insert a silent G. I don't know why, but this is interesting, and here's why:

To correctly pronounce that word, you have to go through a paradigm shift, because otherwise you would pronounce it phonetically, instead of correctly.

I Give Up

I'm giving up on my plan to solve every major social problem in the world. This is not because I can't, but because it's tedious to outline every single problem when the answer is so obvious.

See, I thought of lots of different problems that all started out different, but then they all started to blend. It turns out that every problem has the same solution:

Jesus.

So when I realized this, I decided that it was time to start something new. I'm going back to my old ways of just writing whatever pops into my head.

I'm sorry to those of you who were relying heavily on these posts to solve your problems, but I get bored easily.

Global Warming

Really, the biggest problem we currently have is Al Gore, the creator of human-driven global warming. It sure wasn't the factories that did it.

forgetfulness

The next problem involves not remembering. This is not, however, the kind of thing that can be fixed easily with some ginkgo. This is a different sort of forgetting.

There are actually two kinds of forgetting. There's simple and complex forgetfulness. Simple is easy enough to figure out. This is when you don't make a list, and end up not buying cheese at the grocery store. The other, complex forgetfulness, is more about when you forget only some of the details.

This is a much more select kind of forgetfulness. It's typically found in conversations between two people about another who is not present. It's when person A says to person B something about the non-present person C, but doesn't mention certain details. This means that person C sounds worse than he really is.

This is called gossip. Most people say gossip is about people exaggerating, but I disagree. I think it's more subtle than that. Exaggeration very quickly becomes unbelievable. It tends to grow faster than dandelions, but most people can figure out that it's been exaggerated. But missing details are worse. It's all about missing the good things about someone in order to stress the bad things.

The solution is hard. Don't say anything negative about other people.

Proverbs 10:18He who conceals his hatred has lying lips, and whoever spreads slander is a fool.

Notice, it says whoever conceals his hatred, not whoever has hatred, is a fool. Get it out. Talk to the person you don't like. That will work a whole lot better than harboring your anger.

being happy

I think happiness is a huge problem. Not, of course, for the people who actually are happy, but for the people who aren't. These people, who may have sad and pathetic lives or may be billionares, see other people who are happy, and realize that they are not. "So what's wrong with me?" they wonder, but there seems to be no reason for their unhappiness.

The problem is widespread, but mostly only in countries such as the United States. Because the source of the problem is not really happy people, because happy people are annoying to non-happy people, but in fake-happy-people. This is very similar to the first problem of false saviors. We see actors on TV who are not really as happy as they appear. So then, from there, it's easy to leap to the conclusion that we are missing something.

We aren't missing something because we're not as plastic as an actor.

Because the problem is so similar to the first, the solution is too. It involves thinking mentally in your mind. Being self aware. If you know what happiness is, you won't be fooled into thinking you don't have happiness. So I have a challenge for you:

Look in your Bible's concordance for the words "happiness" and "joy." You'll find a lot there, and it all involves God. Like most problems, God has the only answer. (I think I just gave away most of my solutions.)

Here's a start:

Ecclesiastes 5:19Moreover, when God gives any man wealth and possessions, and enables him to enjoy them, to accept his lot and be happy in his work—this is a gift of God.

Happiness is the gift of God.

Also, happiness is about enjoying what you have, not having stuff.

Trust me, studying happiness is a lot more interesting and enjoyable that watching fake happiness on TV.

Seeds

This one is a major problem. It's the problem of watermelon seeds. Imagine it--there you are on a hot summer day, and eating a wonderful, perfect watermelon. But there in the center, creeping into your beautiful enjoyment, is a small black seed. And another. And another. And another after that. And then another sentence starting with "and."

We need to eliminate this problem. I think this should be done by burning all watermelon plants in the world. No watermelons means no watermelon seeds. Easy solution.

The False Savior

As it turns out, I didn't post yesterday. Internet went temporarily down, and I am currently writing as fast as possible so that I can get this post out. So here it is. . .

One of the biggest problems in America right now is that of false saviors. I'm not, however, referring here to an anti-Christ. I'm talking about what some might call "smart marketing." I'm talking about a method of advertising that involves a rather obviously subtle deception.

Here is what I'm talking about:

Imagine you see an ad on TV. This ad is for the newest Ford truck. On this ad they talk about how much better it is than anything that has ever come before.

Or maybe an ad for a cell phone companies. They talk a lot about how with their newest plan, you'll be able to talk with friends, relatives, etc for much cheaper. This will make you happier.

The list goes on, but the point is just that marketing almost universally involves saying that whatever it is you have is not as good as what they're trying to sell you.

So now, let's imagine that you go out and buy the truck, cell phone plan or potato peeler. You drive in it, call with it or peel with it, and yes, you are happier while it's new. But the problem is, the truck gets dirty and dented. The phone becomes obsolete, and the potato peeler breaks. And you're in the same place you were before. Your smile isn't as big as the smiles on the faces of the people on TV.

These corporations are not saviors. They're salesmen. We may know that intellectually, but we don’t know it. We may not claim that the truck is our salvation, but we feel like it is. Our feelings, so typically, have lied to us.

Although I had claimed yesterday that I was going to hide the answers, I changed my mind. Instead, I’m putting the solution to this problem at the bottom of the page. Here it is:

Because the problem is more personal than not, and we can’t stop the company from changing their ads, instead we have to find our own way out of this one. Basically, we have to somehow realize that we don’t need this new truck, and that even if we do get it, we won’t be made instantly happy.

That’s the best I can offer. Be aware that nothing is going to change just because you have a new thing. If I bought the best guitar in the world, and the best amplifiers and strings and everything else, I still wouldn’t be the best guitarist. I would be a mediocre guitarist with expensive stuff. Similarly, If your life is miserable, it has nothing to do with what you own (there are exceptions, maybe, but I’m willing to guess that if you have access to this blog, you’re not homeless.)

So there you are. This is all I’ve got. You can stop reading now.

My List of Problems

I used to go to a church where the pastor did a lot of series. His series typically lasted for years. I'm going to start my own series now, but I don't think it's going to last for years. I'm not good at stretching a subject out very far.

The subject of this series is problems. Some are vast, worldwide problems and some are small, lonely problems. However, I'm going to do more than give a multi-week list of problems. I'm also going to give the solution, because I think every problem has a solution.

Really, the main reason for reading these (sometimes) depressing posts is the solutions. So I'm going to hide the solution. It will be obvious enough if you read the post, but this way you can't just skip to the bottom of the page.

So get ready, because tomorrow I'm going to talk about false saviors, and the difficult solution to the problem.

Skillet

In about 24 hours, I will surrounded by a very large crowd of people, who are all observing a group of people standing on a stage holding guitars. This group of people is known collectively as "Skillet." Skillet is classified as a Christian metal band, meaning that they like thick distortion on their guitars, play mostly in minor keys, and talk about Jesus in a positive light.

In the place where I live, many people consider this style of music to be evil. I am not one of them.

I have been writing this blog for a whole six months and still haven't said that. Realizing this, I am ashamed. So here is a list of things I haven't admitted:

1: I don't think that the King James Version of the Bible is the only correct one.

2: I don't like the song Peace Like A River, and in fact I don't like the majority of the hymns that I know.

3: I don't believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit died with the last of the apostles (in my defense, there is absolutely no biblical backing for this).

4: I don't think that it's wrong for a woman to wear pants.

5: I don't think it's wrong for a woman to speak in church.

6: I don't think that you're going to hell if you've been to a Catholic/Methodist/Church of Christ church.

That's all I can think of for now. If you've never heard any of these things said, good for you. If you believe any of these things. . .this is probably the wrong blog for you.

P.S. A little before I see Skillet, I'll see a band called Demon Hunter. I really wish I had thought of that name first so that I could use it for an acoustic/bluegrass band.

Update: I made an error. In no. 5 I missed the word "don't." I don't what I said I did think. This is what is called "the works of the foolish man," I guess.

Also, Skillet was great, Demon Hunter was. . .not as good. However, I would love them forever if they did a version of Peace Like a River.

the internet

The internet is an astonishing and amazingly useful device. I don't know what I would do without it. I get most of my information of the internet. Most of my communication is through the internet. Most of my entertainment is found on the internet. So what would happen if the entire thing suddenly crashed and was gone?

I would have to learn to use the library. I would have to write letters. I would have to figure out how to read books that I had not just ordered/downloaded off of the internet.

If the internet were gone, a lot of things would go with it. Most of it is just small (or large) conveniences, but we've become very reliant on these conveniences.

For example, when you go to Wal-Mart and swipe your credit card, the information that is transferred from the card to the computer has to go through the internet. If the internet went down, that would be over.

Most of our money processes rely heavily on the internet. If the internet vanished tonight, the entire United States economy (what's left of it, anyway) would collapse into dust. The government would be lost for at least six months, trying to figure out how to communicate from sea to shining sea. Someone would probably figure out how to use snail mail, but that takes about 10,000 times longer to send a piece of information from New York to Los Angeles. And then it would take just as long to send a reply.

I could go on and on about how terrible it would be if the internet went out. But what if God decided to stop receiving prayers? How many people would notice? My estimate: twenty-two people. If I were a mutant, I could count that on one hand.

Well, the number may be a little higher, but the point is the same: Christians rely a lot more on the world (internet) than they do on God, who is a lot bigger and a lot safer than the internet. And with God, you don't need virus protection and you don't get spam.

P.S. To you ancient people who remember a time without the internet, is it like the equivalent of your libraries? What would you have done if someone burned down all your local libraries?

humility

I just went to Google Blogs and did a search for "Controlled Disorder." I found myself. It was cool.

I was very proud for a few seconds, until I realized that no one is ever going to do a search for such a random thing. After pondering this fact, I also realized that even if someone does find my blog, most likely he is going to immediately click the "back" button in his internet browser. So I am humble again.

Well, not really. To be humble is kind of hard (what an understatement). To be humble, I have to pretty much not think about myself at all. This means that if I think of myself even in derogatory terms (something I would never do), then I am still not humble. In fact, it's just as arrogant to think of myself as stupid as it is to think of myself as the smartest genius in the universe. This is simply because I am thinking about myself.

Arrogance is self-obsession. So to be obsessed with my supposed stupidity is to be arrogant.

So don't be arrogant. Think about someone else. Like me.

where is Heaven?

According to the Bible, Heaven and Hell are real places. They are where people go when they die. So what I'm wondering is, where are these places? Here are some ideas:

A: On another planet

B: In another universe

C: Heaven is a state of mind

What do you think? Is it one of these, or something else?

Confidential

random

For some reason, the word "random" has seized hold of our culture, and is refusing to let go. It is the adjective of the decade, the wonderful word used by everyone who is anyone. To be cool, you have to use the word "random."

Did I say use? I'm sorry, I meant overuse. Below is the above paragraph translated into the language of the modern American:

For some random reason, the word "random" has randomly grabbed our --no word exists for culture in this language. Maybe "universe"-- , and randomly won't let go. It's pretty much the most randomly awesome word, and all the cool people use it, in like, random ways. You've gotta randomly say "random" to be cool.

You may have noted that there is no word for "culture" in the language of the modern American. This is because the modern American doesn't understand that there could be more in this world than our culture. Therefore "culture" is synonymous with "everything that could possibly exist."

Anyway, back to random. "Random" means this: proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern.

Our entire world is random. Maybe that's why so many people like the word. Right now, everything is proceeding with no definite aim, reason or pattern. Since we love ourselves over God, we obsessively use words like "random," because that means that in everything we say we refer back to ourselves.

And that's why I do my very best to avoid using that word. Maybe tomorrow I'll describe my anger over obsessive use or misuse of the word "ironic."

having nothing (part three)

So if we can't be free by having everything, the only option is to have nothing. This is nearly as hard to do--impossible, in fact, as long as we are alive. Life equals desire and possession. That's why Paul talks about dying to himself.

Basically, freedom comes when we admit that we are stuck in the perpetual mistake, and give it up.

But here's where the next big problem arises. Life is not entirely to blame for our captivity to sin. The imperfections of the body have ruined the soul as well. And so, to die to ourselves, it's the soul that has to die.

However, if a thing is dead, that doesn't mean it's free. It's just dead. It also has to be reborn. And so, the path to freedom is found in being reborn in to a new life, which is life in Christ.

And that is the end of my thoughts on freedom.

freedom (part two)

Only three people in the entire history of the universe have ever been free. Two out of three only stayed that way for a short time. Freedom is an extremely hard thing to get a hold of, but there are two ways to do it.

One: have everything.

Two: have nothing.

These two things are both all but impossible to achieve. To have control of everything is incredibly hard, and only one person has ever attained that: Jesus (by "person," I am referring to human beings, meaning that God is ruled out).

The second is just as hard. A homeless hobo hobbling his way through the streets may look like he has nothing, but appearances are exceedingly deceiving. He still is constantly desiring more than what he has. I know this because it is human nature to want more that the possessions readily available to us. So really, everyone who has nothing actually has a desire.

The other two people who had perfect freedom were Adam and Eve. They had nothing, not even clothes, and didn't know the difference. But then they were confronted with a choice: eat the fruit of knowledge or not? They said yes.

When they took that bite, they lost their freedom. At this point, God gave control of the earth over to Satan; while God brings freedom, Satan brings captivity.

So if they lost their freedom, did they have free will anymore? No. And no one afterwards did either. Everyone is acting out the exact same decision (meaning, the wrong one). But there's more to the story, and I will continue tomorrow.

earth-shaking decisions (part one)

What is a big decision? When we think of earth-shaking decisions, we typically think of things such as large, round tables and concerned middle-aged men in ties debating amongst themselves. We think of the Oval Office, or of Parliament (depending on your country), or even of the executive offices of a large business.

But the decisions made in these places are not earth-shaking or earth-shattering. They help move along the reals decisions, but are themselves not much at all.

The real decisions are made on a much smaller scale, at first glance. The real decisions are made by the soldier on the battlefield--should I pull the trigger or not? That may not, at first, seem earth-altering, but it is. World War One exploded when Gavrilo Princip deciding to pull the trigger and assassinate Archduke Ferdinand. The American Revolution grew from distrust to war when four or five men decided to pull a trigger and shoot some soldiers across the field.

Now, both of these situations were already volatile; both wars were intently seeking a way out of the conference rooms and onto the battlefield. However, who's to say they would have found that way without these men making decisions?

But Gavrilo Princip's decision was shaped strongly by his environment. It's possible that he could truly see no other option but to shoot the Archduke. But someone made the decisions that shaped his environment. And their decisions were shaped by those of their predecessors. And their decisions were shaped by those of their predecessors. And their decisions were shaped by those of their predecessors. And their decisions were shaped by those of their predecessors. And yes I did write that line four times.

The ultimate decision goes back a long way. Even before humanity existed. The ultimate decision goes back to God. He literally shaped the environment in which Adam was created. So everything goes back to God. He made the earth in the way He made it with full knowledge that Princip would shoot the Archduke. So why did He make it that way?

Because He gave us free will. But what does it mean to have free will? What exactly is freedom?

Tomorrow, I will do my best to answer that question.

Happy Mother's Day

If you are reading this today (Sunday, May 11), and you are a mother, then happy Mother's Day. If you're not a mother, and yet you're reading a blog post with such a mother-directed title--shame on you.

Shovels

Shovels are useful tools. So are power-drills.

an amazing thing

Every time that I learn something new about the Bible, it becomes just a little more astonishing and amazing to me. I just recently learned one of this things, and now you too will have a chance to learn this thing.

In the Jewish culture some 2,000 years ago, a boy at the age of twelve became a man. At this time, he was allowed to begin learning his father's business. For example, if his father was an ironsmith, he would begin learning how to work with metal. If his father was a carpenter, he would begin learning how to build tables. He would be about his father's business.

So from the age of twelve, he would start learning. When he turned thirty, he had the knowledge to begin his own trade. His father would take him around to those he worked with and those he was friends with. The father would introduce the son by saying, "this is my son, in whom I am well pleased."

If something sounded vaguely familiar in these paragraphs, it means you've probably heard two rather largely important stories in the Gospels. When Jesus was twelve, he and his family went to Jerusalem and visited the temple. On their way home, Mary and Joseph discovered that, in fact, Jesus was not with them. So they went back to Jerusalem and spent three days searching for him. When they found him, he was in the temple discussing theology with the priests.

When they asked him what he was doing, he said, "you should have known that I'd be about my Father's business." Hmmm. . .

When Jesus was thirty (remember that number?) he was baptized by John the Baptist. When this happened, the clouds opened up and a dove descended from the sky. And a voice said, "this is my son, in whom I am well pleased." Hmmm. . .

New Month Day

Happy New Month day. Today is the very first day in the month of May. Everyone shout hooray and say, "hey! This is the way to June!." May your day be colorful and lacking in gray, because they say that the way to be happy is to force it that way.

I've run out of words that rhyme with May, but I'll be back soon. Keep reading, okay?

Mitchell

things that don't make sense

In the town that I live in (Coleman, Texas), there is an interesting thing that has been done with the streets. Intersecting Commercial Avenue, we have First through Thirteenth Street. However, intersecting these streets is Fifth Avenue. Fifth Avenue and Fifth Street intersect with each other. How did this happen?

Well, however it happened, it did. When I first encountered this, I was shocked speechless. Both signs said "5th" in large letters, and I failed to notice the tiny letters saying "st." and "ave." After a while, I got used to it. I don't really notice the strangeness anymore, I just keep going.

Christians tend to do that also. There will be some incongruity that doesn't quite fit, that doesn't make sense with the things we've been taught. However, our lives are much to busy to spend all our time trying to think through these things, and so we just push ahead. Eventually, we just forget about it.

Here's one of them:

Look up at the stars. These tiny points of light are massive balls of flame billions of lightyears away. A lightyear is the distance it takes light to travel in one year. So if the earth is only a few thousand years old, as it is according to the Bible, how could the light have reached us yet? How can this be?

At some point in the future, I will write about my theory as a comment to this post. However, in the meantime, I would like to hear your ideas, because they could (probably) be better than mine.

A Story

Today I'm going to tell a story.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Jimmy. Jimmy, when he was very little, went to church every Sunday. In Sunday-school he learned all about Jesus. Jesus was a friendly-looking man dressed in bright colors who lived in drawings populated by other bright and colorful people. For some reason, every once in a while, those pictures were less bright and more gray. The Jesus person looked sad in those pictures, and was usually nailed to the wooden thing at the top of the church steeple.

Then, Jimmy got bigger. He moved up to the next Sunday-school class, were he began to memorize verses from the Bible. He memorized things like, "for God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten son, so that whosoever believed in Him would not perish, but have everlasting life." He didn't really know what it meant, but it sure sounded nice. It was often abbreviated with things like, "God so loved the world," when the pastor noticed people getting bored.

Jimmy kept growing, and one day he realized that he was supposed to be actually doing something, and not just memorizing Bible verse. So he found one of his friends in school, and invited him to church. He was immensely proud of his good deeds, and decided he should do even more.

When he got into his teenage years, he graduated from Sunday-school to the Youth Group. The Youth Pastor there was always talking about "witnessing to the lost." So he decided to try it out, since that's what a godly person should do.

So Jimmy told one of his friends about Jesus. This friend was an atheist, and told Jimmy so. "But why?" Jimmy asked.

His friend had lots of convincing arguments. Jimmy just laughed and said, "well, you're wrong. The Bible says that--"

"Wait, I don't believe in the Bible," his friend said.

Then Jimmy was confused. Now what should he say? So he went to his Youth Pastor, who showed him several verses in the Bible that demonstrated how true it must be. Jimmy, once again armed to the teeth with knowledge, went after the unbelievers once again. But once again, he was conquered. The fact that he was using the Bible to prove itself for some reason didn't work.

So Jimmy began to have doubts. If there was no good reason to believe in the Bible, why should he believe it? He also started to realize how much better life could be if he didn't have to follow all those silly rules. This, of course, meant the end of Jimmy's time in church. He looked back upon it as his "religious phase," and laughed at all those people who actually still believed such an old-fashioned idea.

The big question is, why is this story so common? What are we doing wrong? I think the answer if fairly simple: the church is only teaching the easy things. We say, "this is what the Bible says," because that's easy. But we don't explain why we should believe the Bible, which is a necessary piece of knowledge in order to survive in this world.

Maybe it's time to figure this out.
Mitchell

Leading Worship

I have begun a new thing (for me). I now lead worship for a very small group on Saturday evenings at a not-quite-church. This is the reason why I got the electric guitar shown in a previous post. This is a thing I have wanted to do for a long time, and only in the last few weeks have actually started.

However, I have discovered a problem with our current system that we call "worship." Basically, it's the fact that we have "worship leaders." You see, this term implies that there is someone "leading" the worship, which is true. However, then we look at the worship leader. In order to be accurate, the leader of worship has to be God, but the worship leaders we have are only humans.

So here's a better term: "worship helper." All they really do, after all, is give people someone to look at while praising God.

Somehow, though, I don't think that it's going to catch on.

Information

We are living in the communication and information age. At this time, communicating with a person on the other side of the globe is as easy as talking to your next-door neighbor. It's about as easy to gather information as it is to gather oxygen. It has become as the song says "it's a small world after all." Plus, the invention of jets allows us to get to anywhere on the planet in two days, three at the most.

This has done a lot of things for the planet. For example, the information increase has allowed us to learn faster and easier than ever before, which makes knowledge available to nearly everyone. And when everyone has a basic understanding of the workings of the world, this helps prevent superstitions and false cures for disease that lead to worse ailments.

But there is also a problem with this constant flow of information. It has deculturized our world (I just made that word up, by the way. It means to remove all culture from something). Because we can get anywhere quickly, we have begun thinking that everyone is like us. This is not so. The cultures of the countries across the ocean differ from ours in sometimes enormous ways.

One thing in particular is often forgotten: Jesus was from one of the cultures differing the most from ours. The Middle East is nothing like the United States. The Middle East today is different than it was 2,000 years ago. So to properly understand Jesus, the culture He came from has to be understood.

I can't give you a good understanding of this. There's too much to learn, and I don't yet know a tenth of it all. But I can give you a little piece of information about His homeland.

Jesus was a Jew. The Jewish people have a complex history, which can be found in the Old Testament and the Apocrypha (as I said in another post, the Bible is the word of God. However, it is debated whether the Apocrypha is "inspired." Either way, though, it has been shown to be an accurate historical document). About one hundred years before His birth, there was a large war between the Hebrews and everyone else over how they could worship God. This can be read about in first and second Maccabees. Somehow, I must think that this was as important to them as our wars are to us.

What does this mean? Well, it's sort of like this: imagine that Hitler had won World War II. His grandson is ruling the world, killing people he doesn't like, destroying forests and causing many other problems. This is the kind of world Jesus was born into.

So what can be done with this? I don't really know, this is just what I wrote. Hopefully one of you can make some use of it.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

The Reason For The Cow

Objections have been raised by several people about the picture I have used for my profile. It is a cow formerly owned by my family and formerly named Sarah. Currently, this cow is in our freezer, fridge and stomachs. The objection is over the fact that the picture is one of a now-dead thing.

However, this is why I don't think it matters:

The picture is supposed to be one of me, not that of a cow. So if it were merely a cow, the picture would be flawed. But this cow is one that I have assisted in eating. So actually, various parts of the cow are now a part of me. So really this picture, when it was taken, could be captioned "future Mitchell."

So that is why I have a picture of a deceased cow on my blog.

The Most Important Question In The World

Whose side are you on?

Christians

Now that I have proven Christianity (to my own satisfaction, at least), I will make the following statement: Christians are stupid. They are not universally stupid, but many are foolish nonetheless. This can be summed up in the phenomena of evolution.

I don't personally believe in evolution. I don't think that the evidence supports it. I think that scientists should carefully search through what little evidence there is, and carefully reconsider the theory. However, many Christians have a better idea how to disprove it.

"The Bible says the world was made in six days, so evolution is wrong."

What a brilliant idea. It's sort of like being your own witness in court. If the Bible is the thing in question here, then how can we use it as evidence? Christians are killing themselves with their stupidity. Those of us who think (yes, I am including myself in the thinking group) don't want to be lumped together with the others, but we are anyway. We're technically part of the same religion, and so therefore we must be as stupid as the rest.

So let's start thinking, and stop saying "I want it to be this way and so it is." All we're doing is making ourselves look like two-year-olds.

Islam and Christianity

This really is the final comparison. So far, no problems have been seen in Judaism, and enough evidence has been put forward to let us rely on it for the moment. So now, let's look at Christianity and Islam.


First of all, Christianity is the completion of Judaism. In Judaism, there is prophecy of a Messiah, the Son of God who will come to rescue the earth from sin. Christianity fulfills that prophecy through Jesus. Since you (the reader) probably know at least a little about Christianity already, I don't feel the need to explain in great detail who Jesus was. Let's just leave it at this:


In the Torah (the Jewish holy book, in the Bible the Old Testament), there are over three hundred prophecies of the Messiah, what He will do and how He will do it. These prophecies are very specific. Jesus fulfills every one of them. Unless shown otherwise, Christianity fully completes Judaism.


The problem, however, is Islam. Islam was founded by a man named Muhammad. He claimed to be a prophet--the last prophet, in fact--and that he was given the ultimate revelation from God. Basically, the revelation was that Christianity and Judaism were all wrong. Their supposed "words from God" had been distorted somehow, lost in the translation somewhere.


He claimed to be restoring the way of the old prophets, such as Noah, Abraham and Moses. One of the core beliefs of Muhammad was that there is only one God. The Christian doctrine of the Trinity is considered blasphemous by Muslims, as is the fact that we claim Jesus is the Son of God (they belive Him to be a prophet, but not God).

So Islam has a strong objection to the deity of Jesus by claiming that the Torah is inaccurate. This would mean that the prophecies concerning Jesus are irrelevant.

Islam and Christianity were both built on the foundation of Judaism, so they should be proved by the same way Judaism was proved. Judaism's proof came through its moral law, so if one of its branches is correct then the moral law should be just as relevant to us as the Jewish law. Christianity fits with this: Jesus Himself stressed many times the importance of the law.

Islam does not fit with this. Their law, in several cases, is nearly the opposite of Judaism. In other places it contradicts itself. So in this regard, Christianity is superior, and Islam doesn't make it. If a branch differs from the root, the branch is in error. Does this conclusively prove anything? No. But it is, however, enough for me. So I remain happy with my religion. However, I'm not going to even start on denominations.

The Final Three

I am now on my final post of this whatever-it-might-be on various possible truths. This will be the largest and most complex of them all--Judaism, Christianity and Islam. I have put the three together for a good reason: Christianity and Islam are both derived from Judaism, and thus the proving-wrong of Judaism would cancel out both of those. Their purpose, essentially, is to complete Judaism in some way (this is less accurate of Islam than Christianity, but more on that below).

So, to begin, Judaism must go under the lights. Let's look at what it is first of all:

Judaism was the first strictly monotheistic religion in history. According to their beliefs, God existed when there was nothing. He then created the universe out of nothing. This God, according to their belief, is actually three in one. This is characterized in the use of the word "Elohim" to describe Him. This is a pluralized word, in Hebrew, meaning that there is more than one.

The next part is that this God takes part in the lives of humanity, by giving them laws to obey, and then rewarding or punishing them according to their obedience to these laws. Because no one is able to follow the law perfectly, sacrifices must be made in order to appease the wrath of God and take the punishment deserved by us.

No problem, so far. No flaws so far, but also no evidence in favor. So let's compare it to life.

First of all, the idea that we are imperfect. This is not a strictly Jewish belief, but it lines up very well with what we can see in our own lives. Where do you think the phrase "only human" came from? We recognize without being told that we are missing something. But if we are imperfect, there must be a standard.

What is that standard? The standard, according to Judaism, is the Law. Interestingly, upon looking at the book of Leviticus, everything makes perfect sense. For some reason, it seems natural to us that it is wrong to kill. Why? If we came about by chance, we would need to kill simply to survive. Yet this makes sense. Or how about this: the Sabbath. Although some say the Sabbath is no longer relevant, this doesn't matter. The Sabbath makes perfect sense.

In the Soviet Union, at the height of Communism, their leaders decided to change a week to the length of ten days. The seven-day week comes clearly from the Bible, and they wanted an atheistic country. To make a long story short, they had to go back to the seven-day week. Nine days between each break doesn't work. Neither does it work to have four in between each break. The only system that works is a seven day week.

So the law fits with what works in our lives. This fits with the fact that the designer of the law is the same as the designer of humanity. So this is a rather strong point for Judaism.

As it turns out, this is not the last post in this set. Due to the current length, Islam and Christianity will be brought up tomorrow.

Myths

A few days ago, I talked about Hinduism. I was going to talk about Buddhism next, but there's really no point. Buddhism is merely another step in Hinduism. It came from the other religion in a way not entirely unlike Christianity coming from Judaism. It's the completion of an earlier religion. However, since Hinduism is problematic anyway, Buddhism has no foundation.

So next was going to be Islam, but that will be saved for later. For now: how do we know that the gods of various ancient civilizations weren't the right ones? These are what we refer to as "myths." Most cultures had some kind of god, all had some kind of creation story. Also, all that I have ever heard have possessed two major flaws.

1. The world existed as it was created.

If an egg hatched and out came the world (as one African culture believed), then something already existed before the world. Where did it come from? What is this egg that the earth hatched from? On a similar note, their beliefs conflicted strongly with what we know now. If the world were a flat disc resting on the backs of five elephants who stand on a giant turtle, then something is wrong somewhere.

(However, to this I will add one thing: in the Middle Ages it was commonly believed by Christians that the earth was the center of the universe, and the sun orbited around it. This is not a part of Christian belief, however, and was added later. Therefore the second point is not necessarily accurate. These ideas could have come along later and we just don't know.)

2. Every aspect of the world is ruled over by a different god

There's a problem here as well. A god is an ultimate power that rules everything. This means that the various little gods can't be gods. Some cultures solve this by refering to them instead as "spirits," and by having a "great spirit." I'm using Native American terms, but the same idea is in several other religions. However, this leads us to the original problem: where did the world come from? There has to be a god, not merely spirits. Spirits can't create a universe--that takes a god.

So upcoming is the largest of the challenges: Judasim, Islam and Christianity. The three largest religions in the world.

Mitchell

Hinduism

I was going to post this yesterday, but I never finished it. Instead, I ended up looking at expensive guitars. I want this one. I don't know if I'll get it or not. What do you think--is it worth getting?

Basically, my next task, in order to show which religion is correct, is to go over all major religions and analyze them. I'm going to begin with Hinduism, because it's the easiest.

Hinduism has never been standardized. It's basically a term that describes a very large collection of religions. It generally contains at least one god, and more often hundreds. The atheistic aspect of it, of course, doesn't work because there must be a god. However, the theistic part has a problem too.

Like I said above, Hinduism has no standard belief. One of their traditional stories is as follows:

Five blind men are standing in an empty courtyard. As they stand here, an elephant is brought in. They here it, and decide to figure out what it is. One feels the tusk. He says, "it is like a spear." The next feels its tail. "No, it is like a rope," he says. The third feels its leg. "You're both wrong," he says. "It is like a tree." Then the next feels its ear. "It's like a fan," he said. Finally, the fifth feels its side. "You're all wrong," he says. "It's like a wall."

All were, to an extent, correct. But they only felt a part of the elephant. In this way, according to Hinduism, everyone is right but no one is completely right. But there's a problem with this.

Hinduism itself, because of its non-solid nature, often is cantradicted by the beliefs of two different Hindus. For example, one may believe that there are no gods, and another believes in two hundred different ones. How can both be right? The two cannot exist simultaneously.

So basically, Hinduism is a collection of mysticism that no one really understands. It's not nearly organized or coherent enough to bother applying much logic to. If you (the reader) happen to be a Hindu and I have drastically misrepresented your religion, let me know. This, however, is Hinduism to the best of my knowledge.

Mitchell

Cause and Effect

One of the more important aspects of logic is the idea of cause and effect.* In case you don't know, cause and effect is when one thing causes another to occur. For example, if I type the letter E on my keyboard, an E appears on the screen. If I play an E on my (musical) keyboard, the resulting sound will be the E note.

However, there's more to cause and effect than is commonly realized. Basically, it proves the existence of a god. Not necessarily any specific god, but simply that there must be a creator. It does that in this way:

In the above example, I press an E on my keyboard, and so it appears on the screen. Pressing the E is the cause. However, I pressed the E for a reason. This means that the cause had a cause of its own. For example, I want to finish the word "the." Why do I want to write that word? Well, because it's part of a sentence I want to finish, which is part of a paragraph, which is part of a chapter, which is part of a book that I want to finish. So why do I want to write the book?

This can keeping going further and further back, all the way to the beginning of time. This is the clue: "the beginning of time." All of reality had to have a cause. That means something had to intervene in the middle of all the emptiness in order to cause the world to exist. Several qualifications are required to do this.

1. that thing must have existed perpetually, therefore having no cause.

2. that thing must be powerful enough to be a cause

Coincidentally, these happen to be two important attributes of a god. So there must be a god. The question is, what god? Is it possible for us to begin to grasp this god, or does our perception make sense?

More on that tomorrow,
Mitchell


*If I get "effect" and "affect" mixed up, I apologize. Just go ahead and comment on it so that I can be publicly embarrassed.

Happiness

Have you ever wondered how to be happy? Here's the answer:

How happy are those whose way is blameless, who live according to the law of the LORD!
Happy are those who keep His decrees and seek Him with all their heart.
They do nothing wrong; they follow His ways.
You have commanded that Your precepts be diligently kept.
If only my ways were committed to keeping Your statutes!
Then I would not be ashamed when I think about all Your commands.
I will praise You with a sincere heart when I learn Your righteous judgments.
I will keep Your statutes; never abandon me

These are the first eight verses of Psalm 119 (if you don't believe me, look it up. This is from the Holman CSB, in case you were wondering). I've read Psalm 119 several times before, mostly because I wanted to know what the longest chapter in the Bible had to say. However, I've never really read it very closesly.

This first eight verses speak massively beyond what they sound like at first. It tells us everything that everyone has always wanted to know. It gives us the key to happiness. Look at the first verse. "How happy are those whose way is blameless, who live according to the law of the LORD."

How happy. Do you want to be happy? Become blameless. Follow God. Do what He says. That's all there is to it.

When I first read this, I made a realization: life is a thing that matters. The number of people who question this fact is small, I think, compared with those who don't. I've never questioned it, but these verses made me realize how true it is.

If God has given us an entire book--or rather, an anthology of 66 books--on how to be happy, and how to live well, then life matters.

And there's yet another fact to be learned from this: it is vital to study the Bible. It is absolutely vital a relevant life on earth. The more you study God's Word, the better your life will become.

That's all I have to say,
Mitchell

Traffic Laws

A lot of things in the church today can be illustrated by various traffic laws.

1. Legalism

Legalism is like this: imagine that you are driving along the road. You come to a stop sign. You come to a complete stop, look both ways, and then go. You don't, however, wait for the other cars to get out of the way. That's legalism: following a set of rules to the letter, but forgetting their actual purpose.

2. Hypocrisy

Now, you are driving on a stretch of road where the speed limit is sixty mph. You decide, instead to drive at sixty-five. This is illegal, of course. A few minutes later, a car passes you, driving at seventy mph. So you begin to complain loudly to anyone who will listen about how that person who passed you is a horrible law-breaker. Although you were speeding too, he was going even further above the speed limit.

I thought of others also, but these are the two clearest illustrations. So this is what I wrote.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

what we need

Matthew 4:4 But he answered, "It is written, "'Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.'"

Matthew 7:11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

These verses aren't typically put together. However, once put together they form an interesting bit of knowledge. Here's what it is: God provides for us everything that we need. What we need, more than anything else, is God. So therefore, God provides Himself for us. He will give Himself away to anyone who asks.

So there you are. All that you wanted to know.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Illuminating Shadows

I heard a song today on the radio. In the first verse, there was a line sort of like this: "it's hard to shine/when the shadows are closing in." The point of the song was how much we need Jesus, but this particular line. . .isn't quite accurate.

Think about it for a second. Imagine you have a flashlight. You're standing outside on a clear day, in full sunlight. You turn the flashlight on, and because it's so bright outside the flashlight makes no difference.

Then, you take the flashlight outside on a cloudy night. There is no moon, and the clouds dim even the light of the stars. Now turn on the flashlight--suddenly, it makes a tremendous difference. In the daytime, the world is so saturated in light already that the flashlight does nothing. In the night, the flashlight stands out more than anywhere else.

So, the point is this: we (christians) can't make a difference surrounded entirely by other Christians. The light has already filled this place. This isn't a bad thing, of course, which is not to be implied in any way.

But, there's more to this parable. The flashlight will make a larger difference if it's outside, but not if it's turned off. The object itself is as darkened as everything else, until it's turned on. Until an electrical current is running to and from the bulb, there will be no light in the night.

Point 2 is this: we can only make a difference among the lost, and only if we choose to reveal our light. The question is, what's the best we to reveal our light?

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Two Lists

Things that will not get you to heaven:

1. Killing people

2. Lying and being deceitful

3. Committing any form of adultery

4. Telling people about Jesus (what? this doesn't get you to heaven?)

5. Going to church (what are you talking about?)

6. Giving everything you own to the poor (this is in the wrong list, right?)

Things that will get you into heaven:

1. The blood of Jesus

2. . .

*********************************************

We'll have to wait on number 2, until our weapons become advanced enough to knock down the gates of heaven, or we figure out how to splice perfection into our DNA.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Him That Pisseth Against the Wall

The really funny part is that he's serious.

Goodbye, valiant watcher,

Mitchell

On Being Free

Why are small children (and sometimes not-so-small children) commonly afraid of the dark? What's scary about darkness? Have you ever noticed how strange this is? Really, there is nothing about the dark that should inspire fear. A tiger is scary, because it can kill you. A falling boulder is scary, because it can also kill you. Darkness, however, doesn't even have deadly potential.

I think that the reason is simply that we can't see in the dark. If we could see, the darkness wouldn't be scary. If we were like owls, however, and became blind in the light instead, I imagine that the daytime would be scary.

If we can't see, we have no control of anything around us. I think that humans are instinctively afraid of anything we can't control. The things that control us, therefore, are hated and feared universally. That's why freedom is so longed for by our species, and also why control of others is such a powerful desire.

However, we also have a problem. Along with the instinctive fear of being enslaved, we also seem to have an instinctive feeling of enslavement. Look at all the religions that have formed over the last few thousand years. All of them have a common thread: something powerful exists in a realm not quite visible, and it has the power to control us.

This is seen in all religions, major and minor. The aborigines of Australia belief in several types of spirits, which control every aspect of their lives. Hindus believe in hundreds of gods, all of which must be kept happy at all times. Even Buddhism, an atheistic religion, contains this thread. They believe that freedom comes from breaking out of the cycle of death and rebirth and death and rebirth and death and rebirth and so on.

There is only one religion which offers freedom. This is Christianity. However, Christianity offers freedom in a most unusual way: by becoming a slave.

Numerous times, Jesus refers to us as becoming slaves of God. Nearly every New Testament author makes the same reference. This, also, is how we become free. So maybe, freedom is not what we think it is. Maybe what we feel isn't a lack of freedom, but a lack of function. Instead of being free, what we need is to be part of something else.

Freedom, this means, is not what we think. Real freedom is control by something ultimately stronger than we are. This is an interesting paradox. I hope you thought so too.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Our Problem

Below is a quote from an interview with Luis Palau, a South American Evangelist, who is now a missionary to the USA.

"When I was in Chicago doing launch rallies for 'Say Yes Chicago,' a taxi driver took me to a press conference at Grant Park. The driver was a Muslim from Sudan, very talkative and eager to make me a Muslim. He was trying to convert me in the course of a ten-minute drive. I told him I was a Christian, which began a quick discussion about Jesus Christ. After a few minutes, he said, 'Islam is going to win in America. And we're going to win in the world. You Christians do not really believe Jesus Christ is the only answer and the only One.'

"I said, 'Of course we believe that.' He said, 'No, you don't. I've been here for six years, and I've hardly met a single American that believes Jesus is the only One and the only way and the only answer.'

"I was amazed, moved, rebuked, and ashamed. Here was a foreigner in America unashamedly trying to convert me in ten minutes. And meanwhile, we Christians beat around the bush. We are not convinced that people without Christ are truly, truly lost forever. If we did, we wouldn't be able to rest. We would jump at the chance to be part of a citywide crusade. If we believed that people were irrevocably lost without Christ, we would take advantage of every chance to preach the gospel."

That's a frightening thought, isn't it? That's all I have to say, since it's getting late and I need to sleep. By the way, I hope you had a happy Leap Day. As far as I'm concerned, it's definitely the best of all the holidays. Thanksgiving doesn't hold a candle to it.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Ten Commandments Minus One

It was my intention to talk some more about faith today. But instead, I'm going to talk about something else. As I mentioned very briefly, faith without works is dead. So what are works? This is important to determine before we can decide anything else.

Works means two things. The first is doing what God wants us to do, such as telling others about Jesus and such. The second is simply not sinning. So here's where ther question comes up: what does it mean to sin?

Sin is determined by the Law. The Law states what is sin, and the most commonly known part of the law is the Ten Commandments. Here's a list of the Ten Commandments (found in Exodus 20)

1 You will have no gods before The God

2 You will not have any idols (i.e. things that you place before God)

3 You will not misuse the name of God

4 Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy

5 Honor your parents

6 Don't murder

7 Don't adulterate

8 Don't steal

9 Don't lie

10 Don't covet

Which one is hardest to keep? I would say number 2. It's hard to focus more on God than on anything else. Which one is kept the least often? This one, interestingly enough, is also the easiest to keep. It's number 4.

What is the Sabbath? The Sabbath is the seventh day of the week (Saturday), which is intended by God to be a holy day. On the Sabbath, we are supposed to do no unnecessary work and spend our time worshipping God. How often do we do this? The not working part is easy--plenty of people manage to just do nothing on Saturday. However, we don't do the keeping-holy part of it.

The Law shows us what sin is and isn't (I'm not even talking about the complexities of sacrifice and the Feasts--just the Ten Commandents). If the Law says to do something, then not doing it is a sin, and vice-versa. The Law says to keep the Sabbath. So why don't we?

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Note: I have a new label for my posts. Important. This is for things that simply need to be said, regardless of their depth.

Faith

Last night, I watched a movie. In this movie, one of the characters was a Catholic priest (who actually mentioned God a total of zero times), and at one point he was talking about faith. He defined faith as a belief in a thing larger than yourself. I have also heard it defined as a belief in an unseen thing. This means that faith is a specific kind of belief--I believe in the sun, but I don't have faith in it because I can see it.

However, that isn't what faith is. Hebrews chapter 11 is all about faith, and the first verse says something important about it: "faith is the evidence of things unseen." If faith is the evidence in things unseen, it can't be merely a belief in it. Evidence is proof. A belief is not proof of anything.

If I tell you that I believe that I am the best writer in the world, would that convince you? I strongly doubt it. I would have to show you a sample of every single writer in the world, and then demonstrate my own writing. That would be evidence, either for or against me.

So if faith is evidence, then that means it has to be more than belief. However, faith is belief. Hebrews 11 describes faith later on as being belief. So was the writer of Hebrews completely wrong? I don't think so--I think that we are lacking something when we define faith as belief in the unseen.

Here is my definition: faith is a belief in the unseen inspired by the unseen thing. This means that faith is a belief in God that is created in us by God. So how about this one: if faith without works is dead, then do the works justify the faith, or does the faith create the works? But that's a question for tomorrow.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Language Reform

The idea of grammar is interesting to me. Who came up with it? And spelling. When did spelling become standardized? Did someone decide one day that our language needed to work like this, and not like that? If so, he didn't do it very well. I'll admit that grammar usually works well, but spelling does not.

Look at words like "eight" and "bomb." They don't sound like they look at all (and why do we have to have words for numbers? Why not just write it 8?) Standardized spelling is good, but why not make it a little more sensical. English, supposedly, is written phonetically. Wouldn't it be great if that were true? "Facade" should be written "fussad," and the letter K should be eliminated, since it's redundant to C. As for letters:

G should no longer share a sound with J.

C should cease to share with S.

X, Q and K should be removed from the alphabet.

The sounds Sh, Th and Ch should be replaced by, respectively, Q, K and X.

And those are my thoughts for the day.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Reply

The other day I wrote down a very brief thought concerning sacrifice and Jesus. Today, I will finish the thought.


The sacrifice by Jesus was not human sacrifice. I made an error in my logic. If I made anyone worry and fret and lose sleep (I probably didn't), then you can be at rest once again. The human sacrifice mentioned in the Old Testament is entirely different than the one performed by Jesus. The main thing is that the Old Testament human sacrifices were not voluntary.


One of the more popular false religions in the time of Moses and the Judges was the worship of Molech. One of the central parts of Molech worship concerned human sacrifice--more specifically, the sacrifice of infants. When the various Prophets decried Israel for "allowing your children to be passed through the fire," this is what they were talking about.


Jesus was very different. His sacrifice was entirely voluntary. What Jesus did was sort of like a soldier stepping in the way of a bullet to save a friend. This is sacrifice, in a technical sense, but who would say that it's a bad thing?

What Jesus did was a glorious and heroic thing; involuntary human sacrifice is a disgusting and pathetic thing. Rest easy: His sacrifice is still entirely valid, and there is nothing anyone can do to make it less so.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Sacrifice

It's been a few days since I've said anything, which is rare for me. However, even though it was my small and rather sad goal of having a post for every day of this month, I have so far come much closer to attaining the goal than I did in January. I imagine that the month that I actually attain the goal, someone in an office somewhere will shut it down and kick me off the internet.

I don't have much to say today. I have simply been reflecting upon this two-part thought:

1. God forbid human sacrifice in the Old Testament.

2. Jesus is the sacrifice for our sins (He also happened to be human).

What does this mean? If He was the sacrifice for our sins, He was a human sacrifice, which is sin in itself. I'm going to have to study this a little more, because I don't have an answer.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Unreality

As anyone who's heard me knows, I am an exceedingly good guitarist. I am, if I do say so myself, one of the best to ever live. Although there are many who would disagree, they're probably just jealous.

There is a game that is popular among many people called Guitar Hero. It's basically a simulation of playing guitar. The controller is a small plastic guitar with five buttons on the neck. On the body, where a real guitarist would strum, there is a small plastic piece on a hinge. This simulates the strum.

I can't play Guitar Hero. I am the worst Guitar Heroist ever. However, I am an awesome guitarist. Guitar Hero has a fraction of the complexity of guitar, so the ability to play guitar should make Guitar Hero exponentially easier.

There's actually more to it than that, but for now let's stick with what I've just laid out (I'd rather not bring up how bad I am at sight-reading). Reality is easier than the simulation, which, based on casual observance, is backwards.

Looking back, this isn't a very good way of getting my point across. So before I fall deeper into my mistake, I'll just state my purpose.

It's a lot easier to maintain the truth than to keep up a lie. There are two reasons for this, neither of which really have anything to do with guitars. The first is memory, the second is backup.

Lies are easier to forget than the truth. A lie is made up entirely of words, and words can be easily forgotten. The truth is made up of actual events.

Other people can also easily and inadvertently cause your lie yto be disproved. Sometimes a casual comment that doesn't match up with a false story can destroy the false story.

Don't worry, this worthlessness I just spent all this time writing will not recur with too much frequency. My inspiration is only slowly returning, but it's coming. Maybe I'll say something worth saying tomorrow.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Another Day

I still have inspiration deficiency. However, I also still want to have a post for every day in the month, and so I am writing.

That's all. I'll probably have something real to say tomorrow.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Help Wanted

I can think of nothing good to talk about. I wish that I did. So here's what I want you, the valiant reader, to do for me. You've been sitting there reading my hard work for all this time. It's time for you to do your part. Here are your instructions.

1. Click below where it says "comments."

2. Write something in the box contained therein. This something can be whatever you think could be relevant and helpful. This could be a Bible verse, a theological statement, a non-theological statement, or the beginnings of the trace of an idea of something.

3. Post the comment.

This really isn't just a ploy to show how many people are reading my blog. If that's what it was, I know that I would be horribly disappointed. I just have run low on inspiration.

I hope to hear from you shortly,
Mitchell

A Step Closer to 29

To understand the reason behind the above title, read the post from ten minutes ago.

To understand something more interesting, continue reading.

There is a doctrine concerning God that is generally accepted by most Christians. This doctrine is referred to as the Trinity. Basically, here's how it works: God consists of three beings--Father, Son and Holy Spirit. These three beings are one being, yet they are simultaneously seperate. This is not understood by most people, myself included. However, that is the belief.

A lot of people do not believe in this, however. These people are wrong. I'm not going to spend a lot of time talking about that particular subject though, because that isn't what interests me at the moment. I am more interested in the Trinity itself.

I have tried to think of something on earth that can compare to the Trinity, but can think of nothing. A well-known illustration was given by St. Patrick of Ireland, referring to a clover. He said the the clover was similar to the Trinity: The clover has three leaves, but is still one plant. This, like all analogies, is flawed.

If you tear a leaf off of a clover, it can still survive. It doesn't matter that much if there are seperated. God cannot be seperated. It isn't that we don't know how to do it--the three parts of God are so inseperable that they are essentially one.

C. S. Lewis (yes, him again) mentioned the Trinity in Mere Christianity. I'm going to borrow (and never return) his idea on the Trinity.

God the Father is the source of God the Son. The Son is constantly brought forth by the Father. This doesn't mean that the Father existed first. They both have existed in this relationship since forever. They are so closely connected though, that their relationship creates a third being--the Holy Spirit. Again, this doesn't mean that He came after the Father and Son. They have all three existed since time began.

For a much less concise and more complex explanation, read Mere Christianity. C. S. Lewis can state his thoughts much better than I can. I have nothing new to say, but I hope this was as interesting to you as it was to me.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

29 - 1 = Incompletion

I have ruined everything. It was my goal to have post everyday in the month of February. But I missed yesterday, and now all hope is lost. I can do two posts in one day, which will bring the total for the month to 29 (since it's a leap year), but I can never fill the gap that will be left.

There is now a hole in Controlled Disorder. Please, watch your step and don't fall through it.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Part 2

Yesterday I was talking about a big question that comes up due to John 1:1-5. Why, if we must die to ourselves to enter Christ, would anyone want to enter Christ? If everyone in the world were to become Christ, that would be the end of individuality, right?

Well, not really. The question is somewhat flawed, as I will explain. First of all, let's be consistent. Let's continue to refer to Jesus as the light, and us as the darkness. When He illuminates us, we cease to exist. This is how the question came up in first place, but I have to admit that the premise is all because of a mistake.

I said that we are the darkness. This isn't quite true. We are in the darkness. For my initial purpose, this didn't matter. However, because this question came about, I must correct myself. Regardless, the question still remains from other sources. When God looks at us, for example, what He sees is Jesus.

To explain why th question is flawed, I will use a simile. Imagine that there is a world with an atmosphere so thick with clouds that only the tiniest amount of light can enter. The people on this world can only barely see, and so of course no one can clearly see what other people look like. They have never seen a bright light, however, and so they don't know how poorly they can see.

Then, one day, a hole breaks through the clouds, and full sunlight shines down. One curious darkness-dweller steps into this beam of brightness. Several others follow behind him. When they look at each other, they are shocked to find that they all look nearly identical. They quickly return to the darkness, where they have their own faces again. The light, they decide, just makes everyone look the same.

They thought they all looked the same, but this is because their eyes had not adjusted to the light. If they had stayed for a little longer, they would have discovered that the light clarified their features. Jesus, in the same way, clarifies our lives. When I entered into Christ, I became more myself than I was before.

But we have been living in the darkness of the world. We believe that individuality is acting unlike other people, and Christianity seems to destroy that by forcing everyone to live by a single code of laws. What we don't realize is that it gives us boundaries in which to create ourselves. God's laws are like the structure of a building. We have a sturdy, well-tested frame, but beyond that, the architecture is up to us.

That's all I have to say.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

John 1

"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made. In Him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it."

This is the first five verses of the first chapter of the gospel of John. There's a lot of fascinating stuff in these verses, but I want to talk about the last verse (The lights shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it). Other versions say that the darkness "has not put [the light] out."

The light shines in the darkness. The light is Jesus. The Word mentioned earlier in the first two verses is also Jesus. These verses describe Him as being the Word, the Light and the Creator of life. These are all important attributes. Because He is the Word, He is entirely truthful. Because He is the Creator, well. . .He created us.

Because He is the light, he shows us the way we need to go. In Psalm 119, it states that God is a light to our path. The darkness is the world--us, the people that He gives light to. The darkness us the world, and it is an undeniable fact that we are humans, and therefore a part of this world.

Darkness is the absence of light. The world, therefore, being darkness, is the absence of God. God is absent from us.

Here I will make an assumption. Most of you currently reading this are Christians, because otherwise the repeated mention of "God" and "Jesus" would probably have sent you running to a less theological page. So, from this point forward I am going to be speaking to those who are Christians, and have been "saved," to use church-words.

For a person to be saved, Jesus has to enter him. This means that the Light is coming into the darkness. If darkness is the absence of light, and light enters it, what is the darkness? Nothing. The darkness is destroyed. In the same way, we are destroyed the moment Jesus enters into us. Darkness cannot fathom light, because the moment it conceives of the idea, it's gone. To glimpse light would be suicidal to darkness.

When Paul said that anyone in Christ is a new creation, he was being very literal. The moment Jesus comes into us, we cease to exist.

This is a somewhat frightening thought. We either cease to exist, or we go to hell when we die. Those are our options. We will still exist, yes, but not as ourselves. So why would anyone ever want to be brought into the light with Jesus?

That question will be answered either tomorrow or later today. I'm going to go eat something. I hope that something is food.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

The Tortoise and the Hare

Long ago, in a land far away (from my current location, anyway), there was a man named Aesop. He told a lot of stories that had nothing to do with reality, and included a less than subtle message about how people should be good. These stories were called fables.

One of the most famous of these is called the Tortoise and the Hare. I'm going to retell it (not, of course, that I wish to show myself a better storyteller than Aesop. This is not my intention, nor is it my intention to prove myself wiser. This might be the results anyway, but if so it is not my fault.)

Long ago, in a land far away, there was a tortoise. This tortoise was named Tortoise. He was the slowest and weakest of all the animals in the world. A hare, who happened to be named Hare, was constantly making fun of Tortoise's slowness. You see, Hare was the fastest.

One day, Tortoise got sick of this. "I'm sick of this," he said to Hare. "I challenge you to a race."

After the laughs died down, everyone realized that Tortoise was serious. An awkward silence settled over those present. Hare stared at Tortoise with a confused grin. "Well, okay," he said.

So everyone immediately placed all their money on the victory of Hare, except for one wise old man. This wise old man slowly sized up the odds, then quietly muttered something to himself. "Slow and steady wins the race." He was nearly drowning in wisdom.

Tortoise and Hare lined up at a large, imposing baobob tree. Tortoise suggested that their destination be another tree about a hundred yards away. "No, how about that one?" Hare said, pointing to one on the distant horizon.

"Okay," Tortoise said with a shrug. The possum named Possum shouted "Go!" The race was off.

Tortoise began to slowly plod along the path. Hare watched him go for a few seconds, then scratched his armpit and started running. Hare, as the fastest of all creatures, rapidly passed by Tortoise. He then preceded just as rapidly to reach the baobob tree on the distant horizon. Everyone cheered as he burst across the finish line.

Everyone was happy, except for the Tortoise and one wise old man.

Moral: Aesop was a little out of touch.

I think this story more adequately describes life as we know it. The losers lose and the winners win. God, however, tells a different story. He says that the first place champions will be nothing, and the losers will rule the world. He, however, is not out of touch with life. Aesop was eventually thrown off a cliff. God is still running the universe, and will continue in this infinitely.

So here's how the world works: everyone gets about seventy to eighty years to show his colors. Then, when that time is up, God decides whether that person has bright enough colors to make it into the ruling class. (Arrogance and apathy towards the lowly, by the way, are not the kind of thing He wants.)

I hope you enjoyed this new revision of The Tortoise and the Hare.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell the depressing (but not depressed) writer

The Flood

It is commonly believed among Christian communities that, at some point in history, God caused a flood to cover the entire world. Everyone on earth was killed--with the exception of a man named Noah--because they were evil. Noah, Noah's wife, and his three sons survived because they built an enormous boat.

I'm going to add a little to that story. First of all, the flood came because of water pouring from the sky in the form of rain. This is commonly accepted by those who believe in the flood in the first place. But this has deeper meaning. Preceding the day of the flood, it had never rained before. Noah had never seen rain before. Also, at this time, the world consisted of a single, massive continent which is referred to as "Pangea." The flood broke this apart into the continents as we now know them. Noah lived in about the center of this continent.

So Noah had never seen rain before. He'd also never seen an expanse of standing water. Water came up from the ground in a fine mist, which gave life to the plants. So maybe, at the best, he had seen a puddle.

I would speculate that Noah rarely even looked at the sky. Because the globe was surrounded by a giant ice canopy (which compressed the atmosphere to create the enormous plants and insects found fossilized today), and so the light of the sun would be dispersed such that it wouldn't seem to be a single ball of light. If Noah ever looked up, he probably saw nothing of interest.

So when God said "Build an ark, it's going to rain," that's the equivalent of Him saying today "build a jugrin, it's going to bezhrull."

Noah had no clue what was going to happen, but he did what God told him. That's the first point.

Here's the second: As most people know, God left a symbol that He would never flood the earth again. This is what we now call a rainbow. But He also left another symbol, which is not actually one He mentioned but one which is there just the same.

The rain is a symbol, just like the rainbow. Whenever you see a rainbow, remember that God will never flood the world again. When it rains, remember that He can.

God is going to keep His promise. But He doesn't have to. He can destroy us all, if He wants to. He can flood the world again, and the best we could do is tread water as long as we can. He can destroy every human being on the planet with a thought.

But He doesn't. He continues to be patient--infinitely so. So next time you think that God is being unfair, or just allowing evil to run rampant, remember the flood and the mercy he has shown us by not doing it again.

God is love, and love is merciful. He will give grace to anyone who asks--and this will be needed by all, because the world will be destroyed again. But this time it will be by fire, instead. I hope these dark thoughts have brightened your day.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Color

Color is light. Light is not color. In fact, even though color is light, the two things have opposite purposes. While light assists vision tremendously (without it there would even be vision), color can hinder it just as easily. The whole purpose of paint is to hinder vision. If a wall has a big stain on it, just paint over the stain and it vanishes. Though the stain is still there, it can't be seen. The color hinders sight.

Color is much like religion. Light is like Jesus. Religion is an aspect of Christianity, much like color is an aspect of light. Religion will logically follow from Christianity, like color comes with light. The problem is that sometimes people try to make religion the whole thing. Religion without Jesus is like color without light--which is the same as darkness.

Jesus can't jut be integrated into religion. He has to be more than the sculpted figure on the cross or the man on the poster holding a lamb/child/little dog. He is everything. So when we attempt to do anything in any church, no matter how good it may sound, but Jesus is not behind it, the result will be inevitable. It will end with a fight and a division.

So church leaders: keep Jesus central. For all of you who are not church leadership: keep Jesus central. For those who don't even know who Jesus is: find out.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell.

Today

Today is the only day that can be changed. Yesterday is permanent, and tomorrow doesn't really exists. Because it hasn't happened yet, tomorrow is just a figment of the imagination. So the great Today is the only thing that matters.

However, Today is strongly influenced by yesterday. Most of the things done Today are because of what happened yesterday. The rest are in preparation for Tomorrow. This doesn't make sense. Why does it work that way? I can't answer, because I live completely in the moment. But for one of you living in a moment that isn't this one, please tell me. Why are you worried about what you can't change? By worrying, you can't change a single hair on your head.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

Prayer

Yesterday I mentioned (briefly) the miracle of prayer. I believe I devoted the second half of a sentence to it. Today, things are different. Today, I’m going to spend a whole post talking about it.

Prayer is a thing that we think very little about. Most Christians pray on occasion, usually when they want something, but don’t think about what it actually is. In an earlier post, I devoted a lot of words to praying, but I never said what exactly it is.

Prayer is a form of communication. It’s the spiritual equivalent of the phone, except that you can only call one person using prayer. That person (God) is always listening, and you don’t need any kind of phone to talk to him. It’s as simple to use as vocal cords, with one principal difference. Prayer is anything but natural, entirely unlike talking.

God is infinitely patient, and will listen to anything you have to say. Again, this is completely unlike the phone. To prove my point, let’s do an experiment.

Go pick up the phone, and dial the number of someone you know well. It doesn’t matter who—just call someone. Begin the conversation like you normally would, and then ask for some money. Or ask for something else. Whatever it is that you want. Now, come back and report your findings.

Most likely, the discussion did not go well from there. God is not like that. God will keep on listening to whatever you have to say to Him. That’s part of the miracle.

The other part of the miracle is that we can talk to Him at all. We humans are obsessed with our senses. We rarely rise above them to grasp at our potential. God doesn’t have any potential—He could be no greater than He already is. That’s why we capitalize the word “He” in reference to God.

Prayer is an incredible miracle. Prayer is the natural talking to the supernatural, and not even bringing the dead to life could be so amazing.

So, do more miracles more often. It’s good for you.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell

The Bible, part 2

Yesterday I showed (sort of) that that Bible must be God-inspired, meaning that it is correct. I'd like to add one point to that: our observations back up that statement. The historical parts of the Bible are repeatedly proved to be correct, based on every reliable historical source that can be found.

So we know the Bible is true, but is it complete? This is debated by various theologians, and there is a large range of opinions concerning the truth. The debate, essentially, is this: does God convey messages outside of the Bible?

We know the Bible is the truth and nothing but the truth, but is it the whole truth? I would say that it most definitely is not.

Anything that is good comes from God. The truth is good. So all truth comes from God. If the Bible is the complete word of God (the complete truth), then there can be no truth outside of the Bible. That means that right now I could not say "I'm wearing a shirt that says 'I SEE DUMB PEOPLE' in red letters on the front. I couldn't say this because it's true, and it's outside of the Bible.

So the Bible isn't the complete word of God. It is the true word of God, but it can't be complete. But now you're wondering, "what does this have to do with anything?" The Bible isn't complete, because to be complete it would have to be so vast a book that no one could ever possibly read it in a million trillion years. But that does not mean that it's worthless.

The Bible acts as a sort of test to determine what is true and what isn't. If someone makes a claim that is contrary to the Bible, it's not true. If someone makes a claim that goes closely with something in the Bible, it's true. If it's somewhere in between--it doesn't go against the Bible, but isn't necessarily mentioned therein--then something more is required. This something more is God.

God is still fully capable of revealing to us what is true and what is not. So if a question comes up that can't be answered by the Bible, perform a miracle: communicate with a being with a mind more vast than you could fathom.

Goodbye, valiant reader,
Mitchell