I have been away from my blog for a few days….trying to keep my head above water. I still don’t have much time to write, but wanted to put up a link to one of the finest messages I have heard in years.
Bill Dembski spoke in chapel at SWBTS last week and here is a pdf. of his message on “The Reach of the Cross.”
It is important that you take time to carefully note the precise language that he is using, or you may not understand exactly what he is saying.
I found this sermon by W.A. Criswell on The Difference Between Kingdom and Church. I think you will want to check it out.
“I’m not afraid of death. It’s just that I don’t want to be there when it happens”
…..Woody Allen
I always thought that it was just an urban legend that wintergreen lifesavers will spark when you bite down on them. But it is true. At least, according to Willa Larsen at Science I.Q.
Next time you’re bored, grab a pack of Wint-O-Green Lifesavers® and lock yourself in the bathroom. Shut the blinds and make sure the room is pitch black. Allow your eyes to adjust and open the pack of lifesavers. Bear your teeth and bite a Wint-O-Green Lifesaver® in half. Bite the Lifesaver® some more, and try not to get them wet. Did you see sparks? Wow!
When light flashes due to a material being fractured or deformed, it is called triboluminescence; tribo meaning ‘friction’ and luminescence meaning ‘to emit light’. For almost three hundred years, scientists didn’t know what was causing these sparks to occur. Now, they attribute it to an asymmetry in a crystal that shifts or relaxes when the crystal is crushed or deformed. The energy given off when this asymmetry relaxes comes in the form of light.
Wint-O-Green Lifesavers® are made from sugar and wintergreen flavoring. The sugar forms a crystal, and the wintergreen flavoring is the impurity needed to give the crystal an asymmetric structure. Other materials do this too, such as adhesive tape and sugar cubes. So, next time you want to freshen your breath, remember, you are also creating electric sparks!
Stops Along Life’s Web Journey
Made me Laugh
Books, Books, and Books
Please Pray For:
On Amish Faith
Two Very Different Viewpoints on Catalyst
Photos
How I Got Drawn Into the Lordship Debate – By Phil Johnson
I get mentioned on Pyromaniacs, but for something that I have barely started. Phil, wait awhile and send a few of those folk back over HERE when I make more of my posts live.
I don’t get to watch much TV these days, but when I do, Monk is one of my favorite shows (along with House, Psyche, and Numbers — does anyone see a pattern?) Well, you can go HERE to get Monk’s cleaning tips.
.
A few years ago I had a …well, disagreement with Gene Weingarten and the Washington Post Magazine thought my letter was worth publishing. I was even more frustrated afterwards because they cut out the funniest parts of my attack on him.
Oh, well. I have to say, Gene, all is forgiven. Here I am thinking about humor and you write something that makes me laugh harder than anything I have read in a long time.
Gene, I no longer plan on spitting tabacker juice on ya’.
Here’s a link to the article that made me laugh.
* * * * *
I also found some pretty funny stuff on this blog. I especially liked the pick for “The last photo I ever took” contest.
I hated to hear those words in the title above when I was a kid. They made me cringe. I would be humored by something, share it with a friend, and they could crush my enjoyment (and ego) with seven words or less.
Recently I heard that in a poll men said that humor is the most important thing they are looking for in a gal. Yeah, right. While I don’t buy that for a moment, it is unquestionable that we all value humor. And, it is just as certain that we all have different things that strike our funny bone.
My wife and I always record and watch This Week With George Stephanopoulos. Yesterday during the Memoriam portion they shared the death of cartoon artist Ed Benedict who created Fred Flintstone, Yogi Bear, and Huckleberry Hound. I can’t say I was ever a big fan of any of these cartoon characters. Huckleberry Hound was a nice southern boy next door kind of character, but I just didn’t find anything humorous about it. As, for Yogi, his self-centered behavior irritated me even as a child. And, Fred Flintstone was just a cartoon version of a situation comedy and I have never really liked any situation comedy that I can recall. I know that I am sounding like a sour-puss, but I’m really not. I like to laugh more than most people. My point is that there must have been a large number of people who found these shows humorous or at least entertaining, but I found them to be neither. Why?
I am fascinated by the question of why some people find something funny and others do not. Cognitive scientists have been able to isolate certain hot-spots in the brain including a religious experience hot-spot. Is there a humor hot-spot in the brain?
If there is a humor hot-spot in the brain, I think it must be shriveled up and malfunctioning in those people who actually enjoy reading Marmaduke.
I used to work retail with a guy who was a stand-up comedian by night. The first hour of the day was slow and he would spend it trying out his new material on me. I would laugh till I hurt. He was not only one of the funniest people I ever met, but also one of the most intelligent people I had ever met. Both of his parents were PhDs and that apple didn’t fall far from the tree. He once gave me a detailed lecture on what makes something funny. If someone knows of a book on this topic, or other resources I would be grateful for the bibliographical information/details.
And, now to share the joke that my son told me earlier today.
“What time is it when you run out of ice cream.”
“It’s time to buy more ice cream!”
Ha. Ha. You almost made me laugh.
If you liked the quotes regarding “women” in the previous post, you simply must go to Women: Know your limits. It is a riot.
If you did not think the previous quotes regarding women were interesting. . . then, never mind.
Quotations noted this week:
Life’s too short to read a book you don’t love. At age 50 and younger, give a book 50 pages to see if you like it. Over 50, subtract your age from 100 and that’s the number of pages to read before you bail on a book you’re not enjoying. And when you turn 100, you get to judge a book by its cover.
— Nancy Pearl, librarian and author of Book Lust, as quoted on M(urf)!’s Starbucks coffee cup.
Let me put the issue plainly. If the unborn is not a human person, no justification for abortion is necessary. However, if the unborn is a human person, no justification for abortion is adequate.
— Greg Koukl, quoted by Wayne Shih
To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical.”
— Thomas Jefferson, quoted by Pierre Augustus Triot, Esq.
Why is it, do you think, that people get married? … Because we need a witness to our lives. There’s a billion people on the planet, I mean, what does any one life really mean? But in a marriage you’re promising to care about everything — the good things, the bad things, the terrible things, the mundane things. All of it. All the time. Every day. You are saying, “Your life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it. Your life will not go unwitnessed because I will be your witness.” You can quote me on that if you would like.
— Beverly Clark, a character played by Susan Sarandon in the movie “Shall We Dance?”
* * * * *
And, here are the Friedrich Nietzsche quotes I said last week I would post (most of them are unpleasant):
A married philosopher is a figure of comedy.
— The Genealogy of Morals
There are no eternal facts, as there are no absolute truths.
— Human, All Too Human
(My question, “Is that statement an eternal fact or absolute truth, Mr. Nietzche?” If not, why should I listen to you. If it is, then your original statement cannot be trusted because there is not eternal facts and absolute truths.)
Whatever does not destroy me makes me stronger.
— The Twilight of the Idols
Woman is unspeakably more wicked than man, also cleverer.
— Ecce Homo
When a woman turns to scholarship there is usually something wrong with her sexually.
— Beyond Good and Evil
* * * * *
And, those last two quotes of Nietzsche sent me scrambling to find some quotes I had noted awhile back regarding the female of our species. I couldn’t find them all, but I did find a few.
A woman is only a lesser man.
— Plato, in The Republic
The whole education of women should be relative to men. To please them, to be useful to them, to win their love and esteem, to brink them up when young, to tend them when grown, to advise and console them, and to make life sweet and pleasant to them; these are the duties of woman at all times, and what they ought to learn from infancy.
— Jean Jacques Rousseau, Emile
Women are wiser than men because they know less and understand more.
— James Stephens, in The Crock of Gold
Women have tongues of craft, and hearts of guile, /
They will; they will not; fools that on them trust; /
For in their speech is death, hell in their smile.
— Torquato Tasso, in Jerusalem Delivered
Men at most differ as heaven and earth, /
But women, worst and best, as heaven and hell.
— Alfred, Lord Tennyson, in “Merlin and Vivien” line 812
And do you not think that each of you women is an Eve? The judgement of God upon your sex endures even today; and with it inevitably endures your position of criminal at the bar of justice.
— Turtullian, in On Woman’s Dress, bk. 1, ch. 1
* * * * *
If you are looking for quotes that are more pleasant than these, I suggest you make your way on over to Sage’s blog where he does a weekly quote post, also.
I used to be a tie guy. I had a tie for every occasion. And then….I got married.
Well, it isn’t as simple as that. When Susan and I married I had the greatest long-haired cat in the world – Pokey. I would sleep with him nestled up next to my head (great for my allergies) and he was never more than a few feet away from me.
But, when Susan and Pokey met it was like gas on flames. Neither cared for the other at all. The battle for my attention ensued. When we moved to a new apartment I had not organized my closet and had about $600 worth of ties lying on a box in the closet floor. Between the Susan-Pokey cage match and the residence move I guess Pokey found it necessary to mark his territory – all over my ties. It was a total loss.
Well, since that time I have always had some nice neckties but not like I once did.
Well, this week I witnessed a conversation between two acquaintances as they jested about the religious attire of another religious group. They really weren’t being mean, and they would have never even considered saying such things if they thought it would hurt someone’s feelings. It was just friendly banter.
The catch? They were both wearing their own religious attire in the form of neckties – one with a religious emblem and one with a religious message.
I have several ties like this myself. In my closet I have a tie that quotes from 1 Cor 13, one that quotes from John 3:16, one with small crosses on it and one with a Vegie-tales character on it.
Three of these ties were given to me by congregants in a church that I pastored. I like them and will continue to wear them. However, I have often wondered how neckties with Christian images and messages are perceived by those outside of the church.
I think that most people who wear them do so in order to give a form of silent witness to the sentiment of their heart just as do those who wear neckties with their favorite football team on them. Do you think that ties with a religious motif are effective as a silent witness? Or, do you think that somewhere there is a conversation going on between two friends bantering about the religious attire (neckties) of the Christians that they know?
