Monday, March 31, 2008

The Evolution of Kaleb

At one point in my son's development we were wondering if he was related to Canadian Political Analyst, Mike Duffy:


Now we have a new comparison...

Anyone remember Tintin and his dog Snowy?

Well, what do you think?

For those of you who need a little nostalgic reminder of Tintin:


Tuesday, March 25, 2008

Yay! 7 More Sins!!

Some of you may have seen this on the news recently:

On March 9th, 2008 Bishop Gianfranco Girotti published 7 new sins on behalf of the Vatican. Of course many of us are familiar with the '7 Deadly Sins' as listed by Pope Gregory the Great in the 6th Century. There are also '7 Cardinal Virtues' which counteract the sins.


The original Sins and Virtues are:
1. Lust - Chastity
2. Gluttony - Temperance
3. Greed - Charity
4. Sloth - Diligence
5. Wrath - Forgiveness
6. Envy - Kindness
7. Pride - Humility

Apparently, thinking that we didn't already have enough lists, the Vatican has now supplied us with this new list of sins for a new era:
1. Environmental Pollution
2. Genetic Manipulation
3. Accumulating Excessive Wealth
4. Inflicting Poverty
5. Drug Trafficking and Consumption
6. Morally Debatable Experiments
7. Violation of Fundamental Rights of Human Nature

What do you think of the new list?
Is there any point in making these lists at all?
Why do we all know about the original '7 Deadly Sins' but no one knows about the 7 Virtues?

Thursday, March 20, 2008

Next PC Trailer

Please continue discussing the post below...

I just thought you all needed to see Reepicheep and Trufflehunter:)

Wednesday, March 19, 2008

A Brand New Sport!

"Claiming the status of victim has become the new multicultural sport..."

As you can all see from the side bar, I've been reading N.T. Wright's "Evil and the Justice of God". The above quote comes from the opening chapter. One of the basic premises of this book is that because we (in the Western world) so rarely encounter the horrors of evil we usually react to it in immature ways (like invading the 'evil' country and replacing its 'evil' government with a 'good/Western' democracy... but that's a topic for another post).

Another one of these immature reactions is this:


"We can project evil out on to others, generating a culture of blame: it's always everyone else's fault, it's society's fault, it's the government's fault, and I am an innocent victim. Claiming the status of victim has become the new multicultural sport, as people scramble for the moral high ground in which they can emerge as pure and clean, and everybody else is to blame" (Wright 29).

See more reasons why you should all be reading N.T. Wright: here.

We all live in a multicultural society. Do you agree?

What examples can you think of?... without being too "politically incorrect"

Is it true that we react to evil in immature ways?

Why hasn't anyone donated to my Wii fund?

Monday, March 10, 2008

Hiir our Plii

This wiik wii discovered that wii niid a Nintendo Wii.

Well, riily it's just... uh, Kaleb... yeah, Kaleb... that wants... I miin, niids a Wii.

Here's where you come in. For the low, low, price of $20 iich you can contribute to this... uh, necessarii... um, ministrii. Yes! A Wii Ministrii.

Also, if you contribute to my... I mean Kaleb's ... new Wii Ministrii, I will stop spelling all of my 'ee' sounds as 'ii'. Until then I am holding 'ee' hostage.

Pliise send all cheques and monii orders directlii to mii. Pliise make them out to mii (Kaleb doesn't have a bank account yet). I will make sure that the moniis are spent properlii. You can count on mii!

Moms, Dads. Hiir's what you would look like as Wii 'miis':
Grandma and Grandpa B:

Grandma and Grandpa S:
You too can criiate your own 'mii'

Forgive mii if this post wasn't verii diip.

Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Fact: 2+2= Truth?

As I've been going through my 'Christian Apologetics' class at Bethany I've been mulling over this thought, and I'm not quite sure what to do with it yet so help me out a bit:

Have we confused facts and the idea of absolute truth?

Now, don't worry, I'm not bringing absolute truth into question. I just wonder if we've done some dangerous blurring of the lines.

Christian Apologists will often attempt to prove that absolute truth exists by pointing to some easily demonstrable 'truth.' For example, CS Lewis (among others) often points to mathematics: ie. 2+2 always makes 4. I recently watched a video where Charles Colson referred to dropping a pencil: ie. due to gravity, it will always fall.

Because of these demonstrable facts they say that this proves the existence of absolute truth. The reason that I think this is so dangerous is because this method is clearly flawed. Facts change all the time.

Poor Pluto. It used to be a planet.

Back in the good old days when I was growing up there were 9 planets in our Solar System. Then, just a little while ago, they kicked Pluto out of the club.

His size wasn't quite right, his orbit wasn't quite right, blah, blah, blah. It used to be a fact that Pluto was a planet. Now the facts have changed. But Truth hasn't.

But what about mathematics. Surely this should be a safe indicator of absolute truth, right?
Well, maybe:

According to (the always authoritative) Wikipedia:

When dealing with certain measurements in Physics "...unless otherwise specified, "2" has only one significant digit, which means it represents a measurement with a margin of error of 0.5, which means the actual value may lie between 1.5 and 2.5. When adding such measurements together, the margins of error are also added, so 2 ± 0.5 + 2 ± 0.5 = 4 ± 1.0"

So, in some situations, 2+2 might actually make 5! ... or 3!

It looks like Orwell may have been right after all.

Facts are not the same as Truth. Let's not confuse the two. It's too easy; too simplistic.

The person who is TRUTH cannot be put in a box.

Christ is too big to be pinned down to gravity or mathematics.

Truth is a mystery. Knowing truth is a relationship not an equation.

So, what do you think?
Have I gone off the deep end this time?
Are there any better examples or proofs of truth that you have run into?