Parachuting past disability – 89-year-old amputee Fred Winter made his first jump. I used to attend the same church as Fred. I last saw him when he was 83 and working out at the YMCA. He is a truly engaging and inspiring person.
“I didn’t do this for the thrill of it,” he added. “I did it to inspire other people who have lost limbs.”
Check out the video. This makes me want to sky dive . . . when I’m 89. I figure if I wait until then I won’t have risked as much of my life.
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Opus gets banned for some gentle digs at Islam. Gotta love the “brave” journalists who made that choice.
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How much do the rich pay in taxes? More than you might think. See this update by Next Stop Lauderdale. Here’s a sample: “Among the richest 5% of taxpayers the actual taxes paid equaled 56.2% of all income taxes versus 50.2% had the tax rates not been changed in 2003.”
Think about that: The top 5% pay more than half of the taxes. Seems like the Lefty politicians should be sending them (us?) thank-you cards instead of villification.
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This should be interesting. Ben Stein has a movie coming out called Expelled, which is:
. . . a disturbing new documentary that will shock anyone who thinks all scientists are free to follow the evidence wherever it may lead.
Ben Stein, a pop-culture icon who is also a lawyer, an economist, a former presidential speechwriter, author and social commentator, “uncovers a long line of biologists, astronomers, chemists and philosophers who have had their reputations destroyed and their careers ruined by a scientific establishment that allows absolutely no dissent from Charles Darwin’s theory of random mutation and natural selection.
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Good analysis of the CNN report on “God’s Warriors.”
“God’s Warriors” is quite an equivocation in the CNN series because Christian activities are fundamentally different than radical Islam.
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Have you patronized blasphemy lately?
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Filed under: Weekly roundup
On the “blaspheming God” story, they said:
Hollywood is no longer restricted by the code. Many of today’s movies don’t simply blaspheme the name of Jesus. They go one further. For example, the award-winning Blow, directed by Ted Demme, is a typical R-rated film. The name of Jesus Christ is blasphemed eleven times in the movie.
I’d point out that blaspheming God’s name is more than just rudely using the expression God ***** (fill in the blank). That’s vulgarity perhaps. Not blaspheming.
Blasphemy is a misrepresentation of God (ie, “God wants us to kill all babies…” “God wants us to hate our enemies…”), not just vulgarly using the word God in a phrase.
Seems to me.
On Opus: It’s called “editing.” I’m an editor of a topical newspaper section related to business. I keep out syndicated columns and wire stories about national trends that are totally at odds with what’s going on in my city, and that do not make clear that what’s going on nationally is not reflected in all local markets. (Those stories that do, I do let in). I decidedly act to affect the community’s understanding of what’s going on around it. To keep it from being mislead by whsat amounts to misinformation, if it’s not clarified. That’s the gatekeeper function of an editor. I don’t work with expression of opinion, but I have before and I know it’s a lot dicer. I defer to the judgments of my fellow editors. Unlike the Internets, a local newspaper is not a democracy.
On radical Islam and Christianity: I have my problems with Christian fundamentalism, which — note this, yall!
— I define as insisting that the way YOU believe about the faith is the way I MUST believe about the faith; I do not begrudge or complain that fundamentalists hold to the things they hold to. Just do not insist that yours is the only “true” way of interpreting our inherited traditions, viewing the holiness of the Bible, or living the Christian life and trying to follow Jesus. …
There went my train of thought. …
Oh, I wish when ANYone who makes any comparisons between radical Islam and Christianity, they would actually compare radical apples to radical apples:
The KKK, Aryan Nations, the old Covenant, Sword & Arm of the Lord and other armed, violent groups who misuse Christianity are the only fair comparisons to radical Islam.
Neil said: I like your “radical apples to radical apples” line. I promise to send you a $0.05 royalty every time I use it.
On scientists: I am more wary of corporste influences on scientists than I am “the science club,” although, of course it exists. I used to want to go to law school to “defend the family farmer.” I used to joke that I’d go to Texas Tech Law School to do just that, come out with an ag econ degree in one hand and a law degree in the other, and be so far in debt I’d take the first job Dow Elanco had to offer.
As for other influences: I also am a part-time historian (got my M.A. in history in 2004, at age 40, thank you!
— and I know that all academic disciplines have a majority “under the bell,” as it were, and outliers that always are held in disdain, and discriminated against, because they are outliers — at the edge of the herd.
So, no one should be surprised at peer pressure put on scientiests. But take heart: Outliers are the ones who change paradigms. In Western American history, for example, it was Walter Webb who first shifted the center of the bell away from Frederick Jackson Turner, and more recently it was Patricia Limerick who staked out a new general direction for the study of Western U.S. history. Webb and Limerick both started out as outliers to the rest of their sectors of the academy. Today’s outliers are tomorrow’s leaders, and the cycles of academic life rock on.
Good round up… and wise decision about jumping out of airplanes..
Blessings
“Hollywood hates Christianity”?
I think Hollywood is in love with itself, and is indifferent to Christianity.
I’m all for turning off the TV and I’m all for choosing not to patronize entertainers and entertainment we disagree with or find offensive. I accept boycotts and economic pressure on producers.
But I think it’s a waste of time and resources. It’s unnecessarily divisive. It’s an attempt to change society from the board rooms down, rather from the hearts up.
Therefore, I am a concientious objector in the so-called Culture Wars.
Oh, and I agree that blasphemy is more complicated than talking the Lord’s name in vain — which, BTW, I believe is an accurate description of those who are constantly, and unthinkingly saying “Praise God,” “Thank you Jesus,” and so on, using such phrases as punctuation rather than thoughtful expressions of praise or gratitude. It means nothing. It’s in vain.
I also think it is dangerous to over-spiritualize things and say, “God told me this or that.” Maybe He did speak to them directly with specific guidance, but that isn’t the Biblical norm.
If someone is quoting the Bible, that is one thing. But Deuteronomy 18 has some strong warnings for those who claim that God gave them special revelation.
Whoa. What a tangent.
Deuteronomy is talking about false prophets, fakers, among Israel, in the time of the prophets, not about believers in 2007 who may be mistaken about what they earnestly think they hear from God.
Neil said: The earnestness of the person is irrelevant. I think that while the punishments from Deuteronomy 18 may not be relevant, there is still an application in that it is a really bad idea to claim God told you something if 1) you aren’t completely sure of it and 2) haven’t tested it against scripture. I’m not saying that it can’t happen, just that frequent special revelations for believers is not a Biblical motif.
Of course, I don’t think we can ever be completely sure of anything. I disagree that the earnestness of a person is irrelevant; earnestness is a measure of honesty, even if the thing one is being earnest about is inaccurate. But I agree with you generally, adding a comparison — not a “test” — against tradition, as well.
You know, I don’t think God has ever told me anything special — that is, that God isn’t also saying to everyone else (I mean outside the narrow particulars one one’s own life, as in “I think God wants me to go to this college rathet than this one over here.”). I do believe that the things I have heard God saying have been added to over the years — and honestly, I’ve never decided later that something I thought was coming from God actually was not. My ideas of God and Grace have expanded over time, in other words, as I’ve learned to better distinguish, I think, between what God is saying and what man, or a particular human bean, is saying. Which, actually, is how I interpret the “God is still speaking” theme of the UCC: God isn’t saying anything different; the task for us is to listen anew, again and again, as we gain “ears to hear.”
Wow. I just realized that my going from science to talking about a law degree, above, is a total nonsequitur. I was thinking about the pressures corporate America puts on any professionals in their hire. It’s the same whether it be scientists, lawyers or whatever. But I didn’t make the connection. My bad.
On taxation. I think the amount paid by a certain percentage is a meaningless number without the amount earned by that same percentage: the wealthy pay a lot in taxes, but they also earn a lot of wealth. According to Wikipedia, a source who tends to be less reliable on political matters, the top 1 percent owns 38 percent of this country’s wealth, and the article you cited, Dan, quotes their taxes paying 36% of income taxes. That’s not quite an apple-to-apple comparison, but the numbers compare reasonably well.
What bothers me is the rate of taxation: no matter how it’s actually taxed, the federal government alone taxes 20% of the GDP and spends about 23%. When military spending is only 6% of GDP even a time of war, that’s entirely too much.
I know that people will say that wealth is too unevenly distributed: wealth isn’t distributed, it’s generated and earned, particularly in a society with classes as fluid as ours. The idea that things would be better if wealth wasn’t so concentrated is valid, but forcing that from above would so distort the economy (i.e., via unintended consequences) that it’s not worth trying, and coercive wealth “re”-distribution strikes me as fundamentally immoral, to boot.
On blasphemy. Dan, I think you’ve chosen deliberately to stop commenting on the thread about being born gay, but it still remains jaw-dropping that you think part of the Old Testament is actually evil, that passages command evil acts. Would it be safe to say that, by the definition you gave — one with which I agree — you think the Mosaic law is guilty of blasphemy?
Is an example you gave of deliberately killing babies a reference to what you believe is an OT command to commit genocide?
If you do and if it is, I must say that it’s hard to think of a way to “abolish” the law of the Old Testament any more emphatically than to accuse it of blasphemy, so drawing this conclusion entails either denying Matthew 5:17 or concluding that Jesus spoke in error. I do wonder how one could conclude that the OT includes truly evil passages in the face of Jesus’ own words about the OT and then appeal to the rest of what Jesus said for moral guidance. And I struggle to conceive of another moral standard by which a Christian could determine that passages of the Bible itself can be ignored and should even be discarded as blasphemous.
To what authority could a Christian appeal in order to claim that the Bible misrepresents God? Where is the more accurate representation of His message?
(And, as a complete aside, I have no idea why you picked the official Mormon site for that link.)
On extremists. I certainly acknowledge that there have been men who have committed evil acts in Christ’s name, but I believe they have done so in defiance of the clear teaching of the Bible. For instance, they coerce when the Great Commission is simply to preach.
But a dark thought often strikes me: what if the Muslims who try to impose their faith by coercion are doing so, not in defiance of their authoritative texts, but in obedience to them?
We are a pluralistic society and so we are rightly hesitant even to contemplate a religious war, but a religion that converts by the sword threatens that pluralism. If small-o orthodox Islam is such a religion, then we may have no choice but to limit pluralism long enough to defeat Islam and thereby preserve pluralism for non-coercive faiths. I’m not sure we’re capable of this. And if we are, the events that force our hand will be terrible indeed, as will our response.
For an assessment of what some consider to be the immorality of some of Scripture, see http://www.amazon.com/Sins-Scripture-Exposing-Bibles-Reveal/dp/0060778407/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3/103-4662083-4763810?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1188116749&sr=8-3
Neil said: I’m pretty liberal about what comments get posted (seriously, I hardly ever delete anything), but please don’t link to a book of Spong’s! That guy is a poster boy for frauds. For him to call himself a Christian when he not only denies but mocks the essentials of the faith is just sickening. I wish he would take that collar off (”Look at me, I have a collar on. So you just know I’m a legitimate Christian!”). I bet he wears it in the shower.
As I believe Bubba alluded to, it isn’t like we just figured out in the 21st century that there are some troubling passages in the Bible. There are all sorts of difficulties that the early church could have “cleaned up” if they wanted to make the message more palatable for public consumption. But they didn’t! Spong is a classic case of making God in your own image.
Well, the days when I will be in that top 5% of tax payers won’t be far off. Just 4 more years and I’ll have a full professorship (hopefully) and my wife will be teaching with quite a lot of experience.
The big question is whether we can find a BIG way to put away a very modest amount for retirement (to avoid being a burden on the state) while doing as much as we can for those in need in our community and our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ abroad. Luckily we still have time to pray and think on this issue.
OK. No more Spong links! I read the book, and several others of his, and I think he’s worth considering.
Hi TotalT – I always taught in Junior Achievement classes the 10%/10% model – give away 10% and save 10% for retirement. With reasonable investments in the stock market (mutual funds, not trying to pick individual winners) and being riskier when young and less risky as you mature, you’ll end up with a reasonable amount to retire on. Blessings to you for looking out for others first!
What I really want to do is build a substantial personal library attached to my working farm/ranch and turn it over to a charity when I leave this world to be with my savior.
I hope the farm/ranch can function on long after I die in multiple charitable capacities. Some of the ideas we have are…
*Free farm products (eggs, milk, etc.) delivered throughout the community to at need families.
*A program where we take in at-risk youth to work on training rescued dogs and/or horses as a way to learn discipline and responsibility.
*A place for missionaries to come between assignments for some downtime.
*And of course taking whatever profits we generate from sales and sending them overseas to our persecuted brothers and sisters. (I really want to get more involved with Voice of the Martyrs).
Those are just some of the ideas we are working with.
Erudite…….. Just do not insist that yours is the only “true” way of interpreting our inherited traditions, viewing the holiness of the Bible, or living the Christian life and trying to follow Jesus. …
Give me a break here, what ever anyone believes, if they didn’t believe it was “truth” it would be a little silly to consider it an ernest faith. If I believed that you must be “born again” in order to be redeemed by God and then said, …….”but I don’t necessarily think that it is the only TRUE way” it would be kind of silly within the context of faith. People that have expressed their faith the way you seem to be saying it have impressed me as lacking faith at all……..steve
Erudite………”I think Hollywood is in love with itself, and is indifferent to Christianity.”
Wrong again, but I guess that we be little old me expressing my view as being true. Let me appologize….steve
No reason to be a smart-aleck, Steve. I’m not out to make fun of you or anyone else. I’d appreciate the same.
As for your comments themselves: If our shared faith had very much to do with a list of assertions of fact, that might be valid. And, I suppose, that if you *are* right, and that certainty is the heart of our relationship with God, then you might have a point. But, I believe certainty and faith are discrete notions, if not opposites. But I could be wrong, because I don’t have to be right, to trust God through Christ, whether one uses the phrase “born again” or (pick a concept of) atonement, or whatever. I faith, which is a verb, not a possession, and a gift of God itself, so I feel no need to defend it.
As for Hollywood: If Hollywood thought it could make more money by kissing up to Christianity, than by slapping it around, it would kiss up to it. Hollywood, like every other industry enamored of an unfettered free market as a birthright, worships mammon above all.
Oh, and call me ER.
Michael Medved has illustrated many times how Hollywood makes great dough on Christian and family themed films. It doesn’t change their tune, however.
Neil,
Thanks for the piece about the Amanpour feature. Turns out I wasn’t missing a thing by not watching. One could see her perspective coming for a mile.
Er says: On Opus: It’s called “editing.”
Editing by one man is censorship by another. The difference is your point of view. I’m not saying that’s bad, I censor the stuff that comes into my house all the time. As the editor of your topical newspaper, you have the right, no, the RESPONSIBILITY to edit/censor the content.
Neil has the right/RESPONSIBILITY to edit/censor the content on his blog (and he does a mighty fine job of it too).
My point is this. We all censor material. Some of the folks on the left just don’t admit it.
Well, I have a finer definition of censorship: If a government does it, it’s censorship. If a press owner or his-her representative (that’d be me), does it, that’s the press being free: editing. But I know most people don’t define censorship so narrowly.
I googled the definition of censorship and found several interesting definitions including one from Princeton including one that said “counterintelligence achieved by banning or deleting any information of value to the enemy”.
I like to use the word censorship instead of editing. As a self admitted right-winger, I’m often accused of censorship and I freely admit it.
But I also like to point out that censorship is done by left wingers also.
That’s how you get “spin.” You emphasize one point of view and deemphasize others, to give an unbalanced picture. And everybody does it.
TT:
They say the first million is the hardest. Dad always said it is the first hundred thousand; if you can develop the discipline for that, the first million is easier.
Seriously, if you have not done so already, check out Crown Financial Ministries.
ER
On spin, yes I suspect everybody does it, sometimes without even realizing it.