Code Steroids

Today’s favorite… Code magic

more about "Code Steroids", posted with vodpod

Treasure Fingers

Huzzah! Good stuff here.

more about "Treasure Fingers", posted with vodpod

Things I wish I would have done in Europe

I’ve been realizing that my life in Europe was a one-time gig. Never again will things be that simplistic, that easy and that free. With the time constraints on my life being a husband and a father, living in Europe again seems like a pipe dream. I’ve been pondering things that I regret not doing while I lived there:

1. See the Berlin Philharmonic
2. See an opera in a really old opera house, like Paris, Frakfurt or London
3. Travel more eastward, visiting the Holy Land, Asia, India
4. Travel southward, visiting Africa

That’s what I’ve been bumming about today. Hope I get the chance to live once again over seas in a more interesting place.

Crucifixion

(work in progress…)

Sitting around the lunch table with my coworkers yeilds some of the most interesting conversation that I get to have. Everything from libritarian plans of taking over the USA and new revolutions to the Flying Spaghetti Monster. This particular day, the day after Easter Sunday, when Christians celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, we were talking about none other than him. One claimed that many people believe that Jesus wasn’t even crucified, rather he died in another fashion and the part about the cross was just post-mortem elaboration by his followers. Another asked the question of whether it is important that he died on a cross, or if he just died and was risen from the dead? What if he were to have died in some other way, like “eating bad fish.” I was silent for a while, just taking it in, but I couldn’t sit further when images of Peter denying his friendship with Jesus filled my head. So I spoke up.

To assert that Jesus of nazareth was not, in fact, crucified is a wild claim, for several reasons.

First of all, the New Testament itself is firm in it’s teaching that Jesus was crucified, on a cross on a hill called Golgotha after intense suffering at the hands of Roman soldiers in the capitol city of Jerusalem in the Roman province of Judea. You can find this teaching through out the entire New Testament. Secondly, 1 Corintians, which can be dated between 55 and 57AD, roughly 25 years after Jesus’ death, give or take, claims that Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to more than 500 people at one time, most of whom were alive at the time of authorship. While his resurrection is not what is being questioned here, the eye witnesses Paul mentions leads us to believe that if Jesus was, in fact, not crucified, Paul wouldn’t have been able to get away with preaching that he was. He would have been a laughing stock! Who would believe his wacky religion!?

Secondly, secular history confirms the crucifixion of Jesus the nazarene.

Tacitus, the historian who was a heathen, wrote in the year A.D. 55, detailing  passages about the crucifixion of Christ and his sufferings.  Furthermore, the Roman historians Pliny the Younger and Seutonius, along with non-Roman historians Thallus, Phlegon, and the satirist Lucian of Samsota, refer to the crucifixion of Jesus in their writings.  (Martin Hengel’s book, Crucifixion in the Ancient World, gives more details.)
The Greek historian, Lucien, who lived around A.D. 100, was an outstanding writer.  he told of the death of Christ and the growing group of Christians.  He was an Epicurean who could not understand the faith of Christians and their readiness to die for Christ.  In his writings he ridiculed the Christians’ belief in the immortality of the soul and their longing for heaven.  He looked on them as a deceived people clinging to uncertainties after death rather than living for the present.  One of the most significant allusions to the subject of Christ in his writings is this:  “The Christians continue to worship that great man who was crucified in Palestine because he brought a new religion to the world.”

Flavius Josephus, a secular historian, says about Jesus:

Now there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man; for he was a doer of wonderful works, a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews and many of the Gentiles. He was [the] Christ. And when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men among us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him; for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him. And the tribe of Christians, so named for him, are not extinct at this day.

[references to follow shortly!]

Thirdly, it would also seem that if Jesus did not in fact die by Crucifixion that this would be a major stumbling block for academics in other world religions. However, much to the contrary, they don’t make any argument at all about the crucifixion of Jesus, rather try and explain it in different ways. For instance, the second century Marcenites believed that Jesus’ crucifixion was an illusion. Note that they did not deny the manifest crucifixion itself, rather said that what you have seen was an illusion. The Talmud (Talmud, b. Sanhedrin 43a) even acknowledges that Jesus was crucified. It would seem the only world religion to deny the Crucifixion of Jesus is Islam.

According to Dr. William Lane Craig’s paper, “Who is the real Jesus, the Jesus of the Bible or the Jesus of the Qur’An”,

According to L. T. Johnson, a New Testament historian at Emory University, “The support for the mode of his death, its agents, and perhaps its co-agents, is overwhelming:  Jesus faced a trial before his death, was condemned and executed by crucifixion.”3

And,

Perhaps the single most egregious historical error found in the Qur’an is its claim that Jesus was not in fact crucified.  Not only is there not a single shred of evidence in favor of this remarkable hypothesis, but the evidence supporting Jesus’ crucifixion is, as Johnson says, “overwhelming.”  Those of you who are Muslims need to appreciate that no one who is not already a Muslim believes that the historical Jesus was not crucified.  The crucifixion of Jesus is recognized even by the sceptical critics in the Jesus Seminar as–to quote Robert Funk–”one indisputable fact.”4 Indeed, Paula Frederickson, whose book From Jesus to Christ inspired the PBS special by the same name, declares roundly, “The crucifixion is the strongest single fact we have about Jesus.”5

[3 Luke Timothy Johnson, The Real Jesus (San Francisco:  Harper San Francisco, 1996), p. 125.

4 Jesus Seminar videotape.

5 Paula Frederickson, remark during discussion at the meeting of “The Historical Jesus” section at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature, November 22, 1999.]

As to the question of whether it is critically relevant that Jesus died in the manner of crucifixtion, I’ll have to address this another time.

… this is currently an article in progress and I’m pulling references together for it.

Fatherless Children

Taken by Michael Mistretta (courtesy of Flickr)

I read the mission statement of the UNFPA today after reading about President Obama’s decision to rescind the Mexico City Policy (a previous policy that said any NGOs receiving U.S. Federal dollars could not perform abortions in other countries) and restore United States financial support to the UNFPA [bold-italics added by me]:

UNFPA, the United Nations Population Fund, is an international development agency that promotes the right of every woman, man and child to enjoy a life of health and equal opportunity. UNFPA supports countries in using population data for policies and programmes to reduce poverty and to ensure that every pregnancy is wanted, every birth is safe, every young person is free of HIV/AIDS, and every girl and woman is treated with dignity and respect.

UNFPA because everyone counts.

What sticks out to me is the claim to encure that every pregnancy is wanted. How can that be done honorably and with integrity? I’m going to play the devil’s advocate and argue that this is virtually impossible.

Wanted by whom? It could be argued that there is someone who wants the newborn that will be disregarded by the natural mother. Parents unable to naturally give birth to babys wait for newborns to adopt them. Taking the anti-abortion side, I’d also argue that the baby wants the pregnancy. Would you have wanted to be disregarded?

With all the talk about social justice these days, shouldn’t we be investing in the justice of the unborn, rather than merely preventing births? If the government is going to spend money to “care” for women by providing them abortions if they merely don’t want their baby, or for the inevitable rape victim, I’m going to stand up and say that we should invest it instead for helping women through pregnancy and into adoptive families! Why not brainstorm about how we can support women through a difficult pregnancy and support a transition of the baby into families that want a baby that is not their own? Spend money in a caring way, Obama, please! These women have no idea how abortion will affect their lives! Let’s also spend money in family education, in ads through popular media that inform children what a loving family looks like so that they know if their family is hurting and where they can get help. Come on, people, let’s do some good, not harm.

Finally, what about women that get pregnant for a myriad of reasons except to have a baby? I know some women personally who have gotten pregnant to hang on to their man, to feel validated, to feel loved, to feel secure, to feel wanted. What about addressing the needs of women so that they don’t sleep with scavengers? These problems start at home for these girls and need to be addressed at the family level. Fathers need to be attentive to their wives lovingly so children feel secure. Fathers need to be attentive to their children so that they feel secure in love. Orphans need to be adopted and cherished.

Writing this furthers my heart toward adoption with my wife, even though we are fully capable to have a child. I ask myself as I write this that given God’s heart toward orphans and unwanted children (a smattering of the Bible below), shouldn’t I as a married, follower of Jesus take at least one orphan into my home and make them welcome as one of my own? That is the echo of the Father’s adoption of me into his own. How can I not?

For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome, who shows no partiality and accepts no bribes.  He defends the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the alien, giving him food and clothing. (Deuteronomy 10:17,18)

At the end of every three years, bring all the tithes of that year’s produce and store it in your towns, 29 so that the Levites (who have no allotment or inheritance of their own) and the aliens, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns may come and eat and be satisfied, and so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands. (Deuteronomy 14:28,29)

Do not deprive the alien or the fatherless of justice (Deuteronomy 24:17)

But you, O God, do see trouble and grief; you consider it to take it in hand. The victim commits himself to you; you are the helper of the fatherless. (Psalm 10:14)

You hear, O Lord, the desire of the afflicted; you encourage them, and you listen to their cry, defending the fatherless and the oppressed, in order that man, who is of the earth, may terrify no more. (Psalm 10:17)

Granted, this is not a complete expository article on Justice in the Bible, nor of orphan treatment of Old and New Testament Jews and Christians. There are many more examples to cite. I’m just looking into a few really poignant examples. It should be noted on a tangent that the Deuteronomy examples also make statements about giving justice to foreign peoples.

Real Change

24-7 Prayer's Pete Greig

Prayer in America = Real Change. Read about it.

Introduction

Disappointed with Blogger now for some years and seeing the phenomenal product which is WordPress, I’m officially moving my blog. Oh, yeah and it comes with a new discipline of posting once a week, mainly so that I can develop my writing proficiency as well as keep my creativity up. I’ll post stories of my childhood, my adult childhood, my travels, thoughts, maybe even some code, but for the most part, I don’t want this to turn into yet another place for just sharing links I find on the internet. This is going to be about my life, not my links.

I had blogged while I lived in Germany because things were interesting, even the mundane, so it was easy. Going to the grocery store held as much potential for curiosity as, say, riding down the freeway on a shiny, galloping horse. Who wouldn’t write about that? After I moved back to the U. S. A., things didn’t appear so interesting anymore. Life was more or less routine, especially in Minneapolis. I never happened upon a protest on my way to Lockheed Martin in my shiny, red Golf. Confusion over which toothpaste to buy when there are literally hundreds at the store was about as interesting as things were.

What I failed to notice was that life here is interesting. The quirks of my thoughts are certainly interesting enough and my adventures with Becky are wild enough that I think people will get a kick out of listening to them. My insight into things and my attention to detail is missing in this world of tweets and blips and facebook updates. I take time to savor, I should take time to devulge it.

That is all for now. Thanks for listening. Enjoy the rest of this.