teremy

8 Ways to Not Procrastinate

pxpushr — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 11:25:34 -0700

8 Ways to Not Procrastinate:

Time management doesn’t have to be painful. Here’s how to finish (fill in the blank).

Christmas Comes But Six Months a Year

pxpushr — Sun, 23 Oct 2011 16:24:03 -0600

Christmas Comes But Six Months a Year:

Who is buying Halloween candy and eggnog?

Why Christians are Not in a Culture War

pxpushr — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 12:00:05 -0600

Why Christians are Not in a Culture War:

It is implied that Christians should be countercultural regardless of what values are upheld by the culture. But acting in that way only encourages pride, stunts the growth of the Church and ignores the Spirit of God at work among all peoples. In fact, the Church can learn a lot from non-Christians—and if non-Christians agree en masse about something, that’s called culture. And sometimes non-Christian culture is right.

Jesus and

pxpushr — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 12:00:05 -0600

Jesus and:

Lately, I’ve noticed a slow but steady change. People are beginning to realize that not all believers subscribe to the same culture.

The Top 5 Lies Christians Believe

pxpushr — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 10:47:05 -0600

The Top 5 Lies Christians Believe:

We are all susceptible to believing lies at any given time. The world is magical at presenting it’s counterfeit products as the genuine article. One would assume that because Christians are followers of the Truth, that we would be less susceptible to such lies.

"Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will..."

pxpushr — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 13:47:05 -0600

“Your real, new self (which is Christ’s and also yours, and yours just because it is His) will not come as long as you are looking for it. It will come when you are looking for Him. Does that sound strange? The same principle holds, you know, for more everyday matters. Even in social life, you will never make a good impression on other people until you stop thinking about what sort of impression you are making. Even in literature and art, no man who bothers about originality will ever be original whereas if you simply try to tell the truth (without caring twopence how often it has been told before) you will, nine times out of ten, become original without ever having noticed it. The principle runs through all life from top to bottom, Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end submit with every fibre of your being, and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself, and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.”

-
C.S. Lewis

One on our short list of mutually loved songs!

pxpushr — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 13:36:06 -0600

One on our short list of mutually loved songs!

"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him:..."

pxpushr — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 13:06:06 -0600

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on a level with a man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse…But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”

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C.S. Lewis

New Office

pxpushr — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 10:03:48 -0600

Yesterday afternoon, we rearranged all of my office space. Almost all 30+ people are sitting in new locations… desks, computers, everything moved. I’m trying to find a muscle in my body that’s not hurting… maybe my smile muscles? :)

I’m excited to sit somewhere new: if you’re crossing Broadway at Pearl in Boulder, wave up at me!

A Bible Quiz

pxpushr — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 18:25:22 -0600

A Bible Quiz:

How well do you know your Bible? Take this True/False quiz to find out!

"If God ‘foresaw’ our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not..."

pxpushr — Wed, 21 Sep 2011 21:32:04 -0600

“If God ‘foresaw’ our acts, it would be very hard to understand how we could be free not to do them. But suppose God is outside and above the time-line… You never supposed that your actions at this moment were any less free because God knows what you are doing. Well, He know your tomorrow’s actions in just the same way—because He is already in tomorrow and can simply watch you. In a sense, He does not know your action till you have done it: but the moment at which you have done it is already ‘NOW’ for Him.”

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C.S. Lewis

Woooo vicodin!

pxpushr — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 07:16:00 -0600

Woooo vicodin!

Surgery’s over, and I’m feeling pretty good! Just have to hang out here till tomorrow...

pxpushr — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:55:00 -0600

Surgery’s over, and I’m feeling pretty good! Just have to hang out here till tomorrow around lunchtime, then they’re sending me home. YAY!

Surgery will actually be at 4:30 today. One more mostly-long day of “hanging out” in a...

pxpushr — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 08:51:00 -0600

Surgery will actually be at 4:30 today. One more mostly-long day of “hanging out” in a hospital room…!

Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning. I should be allowed to go home afterward — pray...

pxpushr — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 12:31:00 -0600

Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow morning. I should be allowed to go home afterward — pray for a quick recovery! I can’t afford to miss more work for this!

Ice chips aren't that tasty.

pxpushr — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 23:07:00 -0600

I’m stuck overnight at Exempla St. Joseph’s hospital; finally (hopefully) they will do something drastic to solve the constant stomach problems I have been having for the past year! Just giving you all an update before the drugs make me extra loopy and I fall asleep. Pray that they will decide on surgery so we can fix this once and for all — I DON’T want to be sent home with another “band-aid” solution! Yawn…

I just did a recount… I have over NINETY mosquito bites....

pxpushr — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 07:58:00 -0600

I just did a recount… I have over NINETY mosquito bites. Benadryl doesn’t help much! :(

Ugh.

pxpushr — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 21:17:00 -0600

I think I just surpassed my childhood record for most mosquito bites in less than an hour. I love gardening, but there’s hardly any leg showing between the bumps!

Life is Fatal

pxpushr — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 16:45:00 -0600

The following blog posting was written by my mom for her website, Compost. I loved it so much (it hit home for multiple obvious reasons), that I felt the need to share it with all of you. Enjoy!

Life is fatal.

Just by being born, we know that one day we are going to die. And while none of us knows the exact number of our days, there are some things we can do, or not do, that might affect when we succumb to our mortality.

More specifically, some of us are risk takers, while others of us prefer to be more conservative with our lives.

One of our daughters works at a design company. The owner is pretty much fearless. He travels to parts of the world most of us would be happy to avoid. And once there, it seems that he looks for trouble. While he has some pretty amazing stories, he’s not the travel companion most parents would wish for their 28-year-old daughter.

However, since this is a design firm, creativity is a requirement. To get his designers thinking outside the box, the owner likes to shake these mostly young and single artists out of their comfort zones. Recently, this email was distributed to a number of employees:

February 11th, 2010

We are going on a trip to an undisclosed location in South America.

This trip is a voluntary trip that is not a requirement of your job. If you would like to stay in Colorado, you are free to do so.

On this trip, you may be damaged, bruised, itchy, banged-up, busted, or hurt in one way or another. You may be robbed, kidnapped, killed, abducted or possibly arrested. Your name may even be sullied. You may have a whole host of problems as a result of this trip.

I agree that I am voluntarily going on this trip, and that anything that may happen to me as a result of this trip is entirely my own responsibility.

I do not hold [company] and/or [boss] responsible for anything that may happen to me as a result of this trip.

If I want to be safe, I should live in a padded room.

Signed: _________

As Mom, I was relieved that my daughter did not accompany her co-workers on this particular outing. (Her new husband had something to do with this decision.) But it made me think. How much risk is acceptable? I don’t want to squander the life God has gifted me with—but neither do I aspire to life in a padded room.

In mulling this over, I realized that there are different kinds of risks, and what may seem dangerous to one person is no big deal to another.

For example, I love to go scuba diving, and feel very comfortable underwater. Yet, a good friend considered it a huge step for herself the first time she was brave enough to jump into the deep end of a swimming pool—at age 45!

On the other hand, I do not do well on narrow roads with plummeting drop-offs. Colorado’s Mosquito Pass summits at 13,000 feet, and you can look straight down the switchbacks into the backyards of Leadville 3,000 feet below. While one daughter cheerfully exclaimed over the panoramic view, our other daughter and I were curled up on the floor of the car, gibbering.

Those two examples are of physical risks, and are fairly obvious. But most risks we are faced with threaten our security or comfort more than our lives. Do we risk starting a new career? Do we make that move to another state… or another country? Even “little” things can seem daring. Do I, an introvert, sign up for that small group at church, even though I don’t know any of the other people in it? Are we willing to risk our reputation, our income, our pride?

God frequently asks us to risk ourselves for His sake. We may have sincerely told Him, many times, that we want to “die to ourselves” and live for Him. It all sounds great when the inspirational worship music merges with our heartfelt desire to please our Lord. But it all becomes real, not on Sunday morning, but Wednesday evening when the Holy Spirit nudges us to buy dinner for a homeless person, or Saturday afternoon when we know God wants us to invite our crotchety old neighbor to church.

Seventeen years ago God told Pete and I to sell our house in Silicon Valley, give up a reliable, steady income, and move to Colorado to begin full-time ministry. Was it a risk? Of course. The “what ifs” immediately moved in and tried to take control. What if no one supported us? What if the ministry failed? What if our kids (in 3rd and 5th grades at the time) couldn’t make new friends? What if we hated Colorado? (That seems ridiculous now, but I studied marine biology in college, and the thought of living more than a thousand miles from the coast was pretty daunting.)

I’m so grateful to God that he reassured us over and over that this was His will for us. By focusing on Him, we were able to dismiss all the other voices clamoring for attention, and move in the assurance that we were doing the right thing. Now, looking back, we can see God’s faithfulness in every area of concern.

While I may not eagerly sign up for a backpacking trip through the jungles of Columbia (which was what my daughter’s co-workers found themselves doing on that particular adventure), I hope I’m always ready and willing to sign up for whatever God has in store for me. It won’t always be fun, easy, or safe. I might get damaged, bruised, itchy, banged-up, busted, or hurt in one way or another. I may be robbed, kidnapped, killed, abducted or possibly arrested. My name may even be sullied. I may have a whole host of problems as a result of obeying God. But I don’t want to face Him in eternity and explain that I chose to be safe, and live in a padded room.

What risks has God asked you to take? Did you do what He asked? Why or why not?

Threshing Fact from Fiction: An Ignorant Christian's Views on "Religulous" Part II

jeremygosse — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:39:00 -0600

Why is faith a good thing?

To many people, the above question is an odd one. Of course faith is a good thing. Why question that? However, in “Religulous” it is one of Maher’s chief objections to religion (particularly Christianity).

The question is first raised by Maher after he asks the pastor of a small truck stop chapel how any rational person can believe in a talking snake in a garden 5000 years ago. The pastor responded by saying that, “It’s a faith thing,” to which Maher replies, “Yeah, but why is faith good?”

His argument is that a person who’s life is in danger or who is going through hard times would be justified to believe God, but for anyone else faith is pointless. This objection is that of many other skeptics: faith is unfounded and breeds comfort, but isn’t useful. I disagree.

Maher’s beliefs are incorrect for two reasons: first, he assumes that all faith is blind faith, and second, he thinks faith is not relevant. Although these two aspects of faith are inter-connected, I’ll begin by explaining the difference between faith and blind faith.

“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,” says Jesus in John 20:29 (NIV). It seems this statement alone supports Maher’s belief that faith is blind, as Jesus was rebuking Thomas for not believing that He had risen from the dead until Thomas saw Him with his own eyes. However, when the rest of the story is read, Jesus’ harshness towards Thomas is justified.

John 20:19-20:29 describes how Jesus had already appeared to the other eleven disciples, and how these men, upon seeing him, believed immediately that Jesus had risen from the dead. These eleven men, who before seeing Jesus had locked themselves in a house out of fear of being found by the Jewish authorities, then met with Thomas and explained the whole situation to him. Nearly a dozen men, who went from being afraid for their lives to leaving their hideout, tried to convince Thomas of what they saw, but he refused to believe it. He insisted that he would need to stick his finger in Jesus’ wounds before he believed. He wouldn’t even believe if he “just” saw Jesus. Turns out he got his wish, but Jesus was not pleased with his lack of reasonable faith.

Were I in the same situation as Thomas, I think that I’d be more inclined to listen to 11 of my trusted friends, all of whom knew Jesus personally. Mortal men don’t normally rise from the dead (although the disciples had seen Jesus raise people from the dead), but as they already believed Jesus was God, it shouldn’t have been that unreasonable a task for an omnipotent deity (remember, too, that Jesus predicts his death and resurrection three times). Besides, lies and fanciful stories don’t breed heroism from cowardice. Had the other disciples not actually seen Jesus, it is unlikely these men would have risked their lives to tell their friend about what they saw. As usual, proper context is key in understanding what Jesus is actually promoting.

Still, one may argue that Thomas was an extreme example. Jesus still said that those who believe without seeing will be blessed. Sounds a lot like blind faith, right? Wrong. First, we should realize that Jesus physically appeared to the other eleven disciples— He didn’t leave their belief hanging on speculative conjecture. They had undeniable proof that Jesus had actually risen from the dead.

If Jesus wanted them to believe without seeing, He probably wouldn’t have appeared in front of them. Instead, He wanted credible witnesses who could testify to others that they had actually seen Him alive, rather than leave the matter up to blind faith, which could be extremely misleading. Richard Dawkins has a famous quip about how there’s no more reason to believe in the God of the Bible than there is to believe in the flying spaghetti monster (FSM). Either Dawkins has a lot of good historical and archeological evidence to support the existence of his FSM, or he is sadly mistaken. Call me crazy, but I’m leaning towards the latter option.

Although Jesus does say that those who believe without seeing Him will be blessed, He does not say that people must believe in Him without good reason. When approached rationally, the Bible presents a very solid case for its historical reliability, leaving us with good reason to believe. As it turns out, Jesus wasn’t a proponent of blind faith anymore than Maher is.

Speaking of Dawkins, he has (inadvertently) provided a great example of a problem with Maher’s argument. I once listened to a radio broadcast debate between Dawkins and Oxford professor of mathematics, John Lennox, about Dawkin’s book, “The God Delusion.” Dawkins, of course, did what Maher does and mocks faith as being something completely irrational and juvenile. Lennox’s response was terrific: “Professor Dawkins, do you have faith in your wife?”

Not only did this make Dawkins very uncomfortable, but it proved a very important point: everyone has faith in something. In fact, most of us put faith in a lot of things. We have faith that our car will start in the morning and will get us to work. We have faith that we will still have our job once there. We have faith that our employer will pay us for our work, that our spouses will stay with us, that we won’t die in our sleep, and that Armageddon is not likely going to occur today. Different people put their faith in different things, but we all put our trust in things which are not known for sure. What matters is whether or not we have a good reason to put our faith in certain things.

Maher’s second objection— that faith is only good in bad circumstances—is victim to another problem. If faith is an absurd concept, it should be absurd under all conditions. That means a man who is lying on his deathbed waiting for the cancer to finish him off is just as much a fool for believing in God as is any other schmuck. In fact, it may be even more foolish for the dying man to believe, as his faith would simply give him a false sense of hope. It may provide some comfort for him, but only in an “ignorance is bliss” kind of way, and is tantamount to a denial of his condition. Wishful thinking remains wishful thinking and reality remains reality, regardless of your circumstances. If you’re going to die, suddenly having faith in a God who otherwise doesn’t exist isn’t going to change anything for you. Faith in God is either always absurd, or always beautiful. There cannot be a middle-ground without contradicting yourself.

While I’m on the topic of inconsistent faith, I have a question for Maher: If you go your whole life as an unbeliever, but then have faith only when you’re sick or going through hardship, why should God care, provided He’s real? If He doesn’t exist, your faith is futile, just like I said above. But if He does exist, you’ve just treated him like the student who only speaks to his parents when he needs money. God has become your cosmic genie whom you call upon when you need Him, then ignore and deny when you don’t. It’s the mark of the spoiled child, the insincere friend, and the coworker who uses his colleagues for personal gain.

Although it’s possible, the likelihood of this kind of “faith” being genuine is not good. I honestly believe the God of the Bible would response were your faith real, but I do not think an omniscient being would be so dumb as to fall for false faith and heal you just to be ignored again. It’s a double-standard to say God does not exist and then call upon Him when you need Him.

Even worse is that many people will blame the supposed non-existent God for not giving them what they want when they ask for it. Although I cannot rightly judge anyone’s heart, I can understand why God would find the idea of, “faith is only good when you’re sick,” even more ludicrous than I do.

Once again, Maher has left himself with no ground to stand on. He confuses rational faith with blind faith, and denies faith any legitimacy, despite expressing his conviction of strict naturalism throughout the movie (which requires faith). Unfortunately for Maher, a self-refuting point is not a point at all, so his argument collapses. Perhaps someday he will escape his prejudices and honestly evaluate his opinions before presenting them as fact.