For your reading pleasure

I have replaced the About page with Five things the Den loves.

You can’t win if you don’t play!

Richard Dawkins may think his reply to the question “What if you’re wrong?” is a clever one, but is it really? If religion is a raffle in which only the ticket with the winning number gets the prize, it seems the religious are holding one onto ticket more than Mr. Dawkins is! Granted, none of us can really say what prize we are playing for–72 virgins? eternal frolics in fields of lilies? a cordial handshake with Saint Peter? reincarnation as a believer of an altogether different religion?–but I am sure whatever it is is just nifty.

You do kinda feel bad for those poor souls who purchased their tickets during periods in the history of religion when the winning number was not even being handed out. If the Great JuJu at the Bottom of the Sea is the deity we should all be worshipping, everyone who lived before the Juju faith originated (not to mention homo erectus, homo habilis, etc, assuming species which went extinct before the raffle was invented are technically allowed to play) has a 0% chance of winning. The suckers!

But one thing that YOU should be absolutely confident–no, faithful–of is this. Out of the thousands?/tens of thousands?/hundreds of thousands? of numbers that have ever been sold in this sacred raffle, YOU were definitely born into a time, place, and culture where YOURS will be the number that wins it. That miniscule chance which you should be utterly certain of is definitely something to build one’s life around. So be sure to pray without ceasing, kindle no fire throughout your habitations upon the sabbath day, etc, or however the accident of your birth dictates you should worship.

Now what do we do about all those people cheating to increase their odds?

Mr. Deity

Yeah, I’m still AWOL but I will be back. Meanwhile, here’s some Mr. Deity.

We should all be ashamed for having offended this poor man

Sudan is angered by genocide claims.

The Sudanese government has responded angrily after an international prosecutor accused President Omar al-Bashir of genocide in Darfur.

Well, Western civilization, what do you expect when you go barging in the front door of other nations’ homes haughtily telling them how to run their affairs? How would we like it if a North African nation shoved its nose into our business, picked said nose with its finger of scorn, and pointed at us the booger of blame?

What deeply worries me about the way we go on offending other nations like this is the senseless loss of trust and goodwill from those who never did anything to us. Is bickering and arguing over who committed genocide against who really the way to move forward?

A certain wise man once said, “Judge not that ye be not judged” — a clear call for an end to all punishment, justice, and even the very recognition that any action taken by any other person can ever be wrong. No one embraced his wisdom then and no one embraces it today. This country is brimming with self-righteous snoots who claim to follow the advice of that wise man, but who, were I to plant a garden sickle in their backs as they sleep, burn their houses down and murder their families, would accuse me of all manner of wickedness. If that isn’t hypocrisy then what is?

Sam Harris claims God’s all-powerful powers for himself

Consider the second commandment “Thou shalt not erect any graven images”. Is this really the second most important thing upon which to admonish all future generations of human beings? Is this as good as it gets ethically and spiritually? ….

The truth is that almost any precept we would put in place of the second commandment would improve the wisdom of the Bible. How about “Don’t mistreat children”? How about “Don’t pretend to know things you do not know”? Or what about just “Try not to deep fry all of your food”? Could we live with the resulting proliferation of graven images?

Ah but Sam, you miss the point. The second commandment was inscribed in stone by the divine finger of God Almighty! You CAN’T change it, so that defeats your whole argument!

Scripture study

Today I would like to share with you a few verses from the true account of Genesis, as recorded by John Launer. Please study with a prayer in your heart that what you read may fill your understanding and enrich your soul.

1. These are the generations of man. In the beginning was deoxyribonucleic acid which begat more deoxyribonucleic acid, like unto itself.
2. And Lo, there were rays from the heavens, and mutation came to pass. And the deoxyribonucleic acid begat unicellular organisms, which we call prokaryotes. And there was variation amongst them, and competition, so that some thrived; but others vanished from the earth, which we call natural selection.
3. And prokaryotes multiplied upon the face of the earth: the true bacteria and also the mitochondria and the chloroplasts; and the archaebacteria. And the mitochondria and chloroplasts knew the prokaryotes, and they cleaved to one another. And together they begat the eukaryotes, which were nucleated cells. But the prokaryotes are the inheritors of the earth to this day.

Read the rest.

Following Jesus easier than following orders

This story doesn’t sound like it could be the first time you’ve heard it:

A U.S. soldier who said his Christian beliefs compelled him to love his enemies, not kill them, has been granted conscientious objector status and honorably discharged, a civil liberties group said on Tuesday.

Capt. Peter Brown — who served in Iraq for more than a year and was a graduate of the elite U.S. military academy West Point — said in a statement issued by the New York Civil Liberties Union that he was relieved the Army had recognized his beliefs made it impossible for him to serve.

“In following Jesus’ example, I could not have fired my weapon at another human being, even if he were shooting at me,” said Brown, who plans to continue seminary classes he began by correspondence while in Iraq.

The case proves two things.

One, that the ACLU fervently believes in the adage “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” (or else they’re not out to hound Christians as much as some claim)

Two, if this were what true Christianity truly compelled us to do, then Islam damn well deserves to prevail.

A sci-fi great

I don’t have time to blog this week so if you’re looking for something stimulating to read that you will not find anywhere else, I have just the thing.

The Great Assembly made waves in the literary world when it was first released in 2005. It is the critically acclaimed short story that tells a deep and profound message about love, and about life. Readers come away having learned something new about their own humanity. It was written by a friend of hydralisk’s with some help from hydralisk. (I came upstairs with a glass of water every hour, and I found a couple spelling mistakes, I think) Enjoy!

Insipirational OT verses pt. 2

2 Kings 4:40  So they poured out for the men to eat. And it came to pass, as they were eating of the pottage, that they cried out, and said, O thou man of God, there is death in the pot. And they could not eat thereof.

2 Kings 6:28 And the king said unto her, What aileth thee? And she answered, This woman said unto me, Give thy son, that we may eat him to day, and we will eat my son to morrow.

29 So we boiled my son, and did eat him: and I said unto her on the next day, Give thy son, that we may eat him: and she hath hid her son.

Psalms 56:8  Thou tellest my wanderings: put thou my tears into thy bottle: are they not in thy book?

Psalms 78:53  The fire consumed their young men; and their maidens were not given to marriage.

Proverbs 19:13  A foolish son is the calamity of his father: and the contentions of a wife are a continual dropping.

Proverbs 19:20  Hear counsel, and receive instruction, that thou mayest be wise in thy latter end.

Well that’s as far as I ever got in the Old Testament. No doubt I’m missing a lot of great stuff that comes afterwards.

Inspirational OT verses pt. 1

Numbers 21:6 And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

Deutoronomy 25:11 When men strive together one with another, and the wife of the one draweth near for to deliver her husband out of the hand of him that smiteth him, and putteth forth her hand, and taketh him by the secrets:

1 Kings 20:30 But the rest fled to Aphek, into the city; and there a wall fell upon twenty and seven thousand of the men that were left. And Benhadad fled, and came into the city, into an inner chamber.

1 Samuel 25:22 So and more also do God unto the enemies of David, if I leave of all that pertain to him by the morning light any that pisseth against the wall.

1 Kings 14:10 Therefore, behold, I will bring evil upon the house of Jeroboam, and will cut off from Jeroboam him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will take away the remnant of the house of Jeroboam, as a man taketh away dung, till it be all gone.

2 Samuel 1:26 I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.

2 Kings 2:23 And he went up from thence unto Bethel: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head.

24 And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.

Sometimes I think we don’t appreciate just how lucky we are that a book this rich somehow managed to survive into the present day.