Thoughts on Expelled

I am not posting a comprehensive review of the movie. I know that my post of the movie will not be sufficient, compared to the dozens upon thousands of well-written posts on the movie. I do have some strong thoughts about the movie i do want to share:

First I thought that movie to be very thought provoking! It was put together very well.

The movie made me mad. Several occasions through-out the movie, I was ticked off and wanted to do something about it. I still do.

I do not know why the movie got such bad reviews. In my opinion that movie was not at all biased. Sure it was propaganda, and effective propaganda, but the movie did not start out biased and was not bluntly one-sided. Sure there is no way to prove that the people who were fired were fired for the reason of Intelligent Design (I.D.) solely. But the movie barely tipped the ice-burg mentioning just a few of the people have been affected becuase of an association with I.D. the movie started out.

What strikes me the hardest is the fact that this movie is more about Intellectual freedom than being about I.D. or Creationism. The irony is that all of the big wigs who were agianst the movie before they even knew what it was about, would have nothing to do with this movie. Other big wigs who do know about the movie, and maybe even seen the movie, continue the sick cycle of elitism. They are not allowing intellectual freedom. they are not allowing ideas of I.D. in Universities.

I.D. is NOT a water-down version of Creationism. I will post more about this later. But they are not the same at all. I.D. guys are not even religious for the most part. And most religious, (especially Christians,) people are Creationists. Most are NOT I.D. supporters. Many "fundamental" Christians do not even know what I.D. is all about. More about this later, I promise.

What makes me mad is that our Universities and education system is not allowing true free thought. It is not being intellectually wise or even politically correct. It is not truly scientific. If we are seeking truth and knowledge. We should have the freedom to study all aspects and all research all of the evidence, no matter what topic we are looking into. And if the evidence points to evolution, so be it. If it points to something else, then we should be able to look at that, with or without religion. In fact, religion should be a non-issue. Be willing to look at the evidence and let it guide you. If it leads you to I.d., then so be it. If it leads you to God in your personal life then, so be it. But I am upset that Universities are not open to the evidence and allowing studies on I.D. and the evidence that exists.
There is a way to look at the evidence without worrying about religion. Despite personal religous views we can all coloborate tpgether publically and civilly even if all of the scientist have different diverse religious views. Why can't we study the evidence. Why can't we have free thought? Why can't we collaborate together and put religious beliefs aside?


Also I have a lot of thoughts on Darwinism and evolution....but I will post more about these topics later also. And remember that Dawkins is technically a proponent of I.D. too. (He said o himself and then later disclaimed it, but it still happened.)

a world without diversions

I recently finished reading Living With Questions by Dale Fincher. It was a good read. Dale is an apologist and speaker to youth (high school aged). The book looks like a systematic theology book for Teenagers on the front cover because of the image (seen to the right.) But it reads like an apologist wrote it, as is the case. Dale eventually covers each of those questions, but not systematically, chapter-by-chapter. Instead he covers large chunks of questions and answers the questions with-in each chapter and uses a lot of real life stories and examples to help bring home the points.

I am forgetting where exactly Dale covers this but at one point early on, he talks about diversions in our life and in our faith and in our culture. Every one of us has diversions to reality. We use something to distract us from the pains and issues we do not like in real life. For example trends and music. People follow fashion trends and keep up with the latest clothing lines. People feel like they must have the latest look. They feel good when they do.
I want to imagine what would this life look life without diversions? What if we all knew we had a real purpose in life? How awesome would that be? We would not need distractions from the real thing. We would be living our dreams, our faith, and our lives with meaning and purpose. We would understand God's love for our lives. We would live with purpose and meaning.

Love/Hate relationship with the "As" in software

I swear these Cooperations are going to take over the world and/or ruin it:

I love and use these company's softwares, but at the same time I hate them and never know what to expect:

Apple - even if you don't own a Mac, almost everyone has Itunes. It is easy and convenient. Come on, it just passed Walmart in Music sales! That is kick-butt. But the Apple software updater on my computer wants me to but Safari on my computer...I do not own a Mac, and I don't want Safari. Also Itunes takes up a lot of RAM and memory, so it can be difficult to leave open if you are running several programs or doing something else that requires RAM.

Adobe - I love my Adobe and all my software (Cs3, other web building/designing software) - it is great. But sometimes it kills my computer. Adobe has weird cookies and hidden programs running in the background randomly and sometimes these strange Adobe files disable other Microsoft or Apple software from working properly. Then when I turn off the computer the Adobe files are exposed (Program still running "CAP"- or whatever it is)

American Online - No I do not even have an account with American Online, but like many Americans (lol) I have AIM (American Online Instant Messenger). The recent editions of AIM have actually been pretty good and have not interfered much with my computer, but this is not always been the case. Some days AIM will just decide not to work at all. By the way AIM and AOL are owned by Time Warner - who really is taking over the world.

I am surprised that they all start with "A" but maybe I shouldn't be. maybe the "A" is a curse, in that case I (Alex) am in trouble.

7 things 2 learn in college

I read an article recently from TrueU.org it was about 7 things you should learn or will ahve a chance to learn about in college.

I agree. I did learn quickly how to get out of bed, since I showed up late for work once and almost got fired. Then I learned how to deal with stress when I had three exams in one day. I learned a lot about myself, who I am and what I believe, that is one reason why college was so fun. In life I think it is important to continue going through life asking hard questions and studying things that challenge thinking.

I struggled to learn:
How to use a credit card wisely. I am still learning, but have a bit more debt than I am proud to admit, fortunately I am not head under.
And I did not learn how to stay organized. I have my own system, which is not very organized, but it works for me. lol.

And I am always learning to say "No," but it is not easy. It is all about priorities.


Unfortunately though college can do just the opposite if we are irresponsible, you will learn the hard way if you are not responsible, do not take care of yourself, and are too easily persuaded.

Core Training #2 - Bite Back

Bite Back campaign is mobilizing youth around the country to purchase mosquito nets to protect African children from malaria. Many people don't know but malaria is killing more children in Africa than AIDS. Malaria is extremely preventable and not very expensive to remedy.

This campaign gives us all a social issue to fight for. It gives us hope. It gives us a chance to be responsible as God's blessed children and share these blessings with others.

Bite Back is easy and anyone can do it. For just $10, you can provide a bed net to protect a child for about three years. But you are also paying for insecticide, and medications. That is a lot for just $10. I would encourage everyone to fight for this! You can make a donation today here. Or you can become an activist and spread the word about this campaign with the resources at this website.

To learn more about Malaria - here are a few more informative websites.

Here is a video from Youtube about Bite Back:

Chapter and Verse numbers NOT inspired

Have you ever been reading a passage of the Bible and you come up to the end of the chapter or verse and you are distracted by the abrupt ending? Or you are confused why the chapter stops? OR you are left still wondering, "what happens next," then you begin the next chapter and it all makes sense?
Have you ever heard someone, maybe even with good intentions, read you a verse (maybe even their favorite verse of the Bible) but when you hear it you know that it is COMPLETELY pointless without the context around the verse?

The truth is that the Verse and Chapter numbers are not really inspired by the Holy Spirit, like the actual content of the Scriptures are. Sure the are helpful in many ways in organizing the text and helping us find our ways to certain passages. Imagine a sermon taught at a church on the Book of Romans without chapter and verse numbers!!! AHHHHHHHHH!!
" Now folks we are looking at Paul's third thought here in the first sentence of paragraph three...."
This would not work for several reasons: Not all translations are aligned the same way, not all Bible use paragraphs.
Anyway there is a whole lot more to the story relating to chapter and verse numbers. I just felt like ranting about the topic.
There some interesting reads about how they came about:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chapters_and_verses_of_the_Bible
http://www.bible-researcher.com/chapter-verse.html
http://www.biblebelievers.com/believers-org/kjv-stats.html
http://www.fuller.edu/ministry/berean/chs_vss.htm

Sad Times call for Real Action

I am calling on us as Christians living in America - all of the comforts, blessings, and entitlements to take a step back for just a few minuets read my post and ask God a question. And deal with what He might be calling you to do.

Recently with in the past 2-3 weeks- 2 Asian countries have been dealt with by nature in some incredible ways. First in Myanmar/ Burma:

On May 3, 2008, Cyclone Nargis devastated the country when winds of up to 250kph (150 mph) touched land in the densely populated, rice-farming delta of the Irrawaddy Division.

Recent reports estimate that more than 130,000 people are dead or missing from Cyclone Nargis that hit the country's Irrawaddy delta. Shari Villarosa, who leads the U.S. Embassy in Rangoon, said the number of dead could eventually exceed 140,800 because of illnesses and injury. Adds the World Food Programme, "Some villages have been almost totally eradicated and vast rice-growing areas are wiped out."

Then not long at all and not very far away from Myanmar another horrible event took place in China:

The 2008 Sichuan earthquake (Chinese: 四川大地震), at a magnitude 8.0 M_s/ 7.9 M_w, occurred at 14:28:01.42 CST on 12 May 2008 in Sichuan province of China. In China, it was named the Wenchuan earthquake (Chinese: 汶川大地震), after the earthquake's epicenter in Wenchuan County in Sichuan province. The epicenter was 80 kilometres (50 mi) west-northwest of Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan, with a depth of 19 kilometres (12 mi)^] The earthquake was felt as far away as Beijing (1,500 km away) and Shanghai (1,700 km away), where office buildings swayed with the tremor. The earthquake was also felt in nearby countries.

Official figures (as of May 19, 12:00 CST) state that 34,073 are confirmed dead, including 33,570 in Sichuan province, and 245,108 injured. The Chinese government warned that the death toll could soar to 50,000. Tens of thousands are missing, approximately 14,000 of them buried, and eight provinces were affected. The earthquake left about 4.8 million people homeless. It was the deadliest and strongest earthquake to hit China since the 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed over 240,000 people.

Does your heart not break? Mine has.
I am asking you to do one thing:

Pray

1. Pray for the victims, victim families, governments, aide to come, etc

2. Pray asking God how you and your community of friends, family, etc can help

There are a lot of aide based groups, a lot of financial groups you can donate money to, other groups where you can donate food, clothing, and create aid boxes to ship over seas.

and if you are called, there are groups who need volunteers to go overseas to help.

My point is that we as wealthy Christians SHOULD do something. We are called by God to do something. We are called by God to share our blessings that we do not even realize we have - come on we live in America- we have EVERYTHING. At the very least please, pray.

versions of the Bible

Word for Word -------------------------

NASB KJV NKJV NET RSV ESV AMP


Optimal Equivalence-

HCSB NRSV NAB TNIV NIV NIrV NJB REB


--Idea of Idea--------Paraphrase

NCV CEV NLT LB Message


This is a chart I created to give you an idea about (generally) where a lot of the main versions/translations of the Bible line up. Sure itis challengeable if you want to do so feel free to question it, edit it a little. But here is generally where I get my ideas from along with my own experience:

Team Hammer's Musings: Bible Translations : Translation Philosophy

apologetics.com radio show: :Bible Alphabet Soup

Bible Translations

cool chart with lots of information

another great chart