Coolness

Pete Townshend has a blog (thanks Jive). Today he has a post showing some of his studio gear.

That is a picture of the Neve 1066 used to mix Live at Leeds. Coolness.

Goring Gore

Al Gore is under fire for apparently failing to practise what he preaches, spending $30,000 on gas and electricity at his Nashville estate last year – 20 times the national average.

Thanks to that pesky Freedom of Information Act, we discover that, last August alone, Gore used 22,619 kWh – more than an average American family uses in a year. Since the release of Gore’s hand-wringing documentary, his personal energy consumption has increased from an average of 16,200 kWh to 18,400 kWh a month.

Gore is reportedly installing solar panels on the roof of his mansion. How much bloody electricity can one man use, for God’s sake? He may have invented the Internet, but it now looks as if he’s running the whole thing from his house.

Via

OK, that last comment about the Internet was hilarious. However, this story only gives part of the truth.

"As the spokesman of choice for the global warming movement, Al Gore has to be willing to walk [the] walk, not just talk the talk, when it comes to home energy use," Johnson said.

Gore’s power bill shows, however, that the former vice president may be doing just that.

Gore purchased 108 blocks of "green power" for each of the past three months, according to a summary of the bills.

That’s a total of $432 a month Gore paid extra for solar or other renewable energy sources.

The green power Gore purchased is equivalent to recycling 2.48 million aluminum cans or 286,092 pounds of newspaper, according to comparison figures on the electric company’s Web site.

Via

So, is Gore a hero of the environmental battle or a hypocrite? I think the answer to both questions is probably yes. Funny how that happens isn’t it? What is even more ironic is that if we were honest we would admit that Gore is just like the rest of us. All of us are walking contradictions at the end of the day. It is like we have this battle going on inside us between the part of us that wants to save the world and the part of us that wants to call in sick to work and sit on the couch in our underwear eating chips and watching Girls Gone Wild.

We are all capable of great acts of love and terrible acts of violence. Sometimes we perform both within minutes of each other. I kiss my kids, pat my dog, and get in my car to drive to work. On the way someone cuts me off and I speed up beside them to give them "the look." What a slobbering mess I am. The only thing that I can try to do is balance it so that I do a little more good in my day than bad. This isn’t done to earn salvation or curry God’s favor, fortunately I don’t have to do either of those things. The reason to try and do more good than harm is so that I leave behind more positive than negative in my time here.

Don’t be too hard on our buddy Al. He needs us to be patient and understanding with his contradictions, just like we need the people around us to be patient with ours. I mean, aren’t we all just a bunch of slobbering messes anyway?

Underwhelmed

i’m tired of nice churchy people. i’m tired of Christians that are so
bored and timid on the outside AND the inside. I am convinced that if
any average non-believer walked into most conferences, youth retreats,
and church services they would be just as underwhelmed with our version
of Jesus as we are.

Via

Wow, I couldn’t have said it any better myself.

 

In memory

Recently some fans erected a memorial to the late, great Cliff Burton.

Pretty cool.

And now for something completely different

Honda has unveiled its innovative new livery for 2007, with a huge image of the earth replacing the traditional sponsor logos on its RA107 car.

The team launched its environmental campaign at a special livery launch at London’s Natural History museum on Monday, with the aim of the initiative to raise awareness of the climate change issues facing the planet.

As part of the scheme, the Japanese manufacturer squad has set up a website at www.myearthdream.com, giving anyone the chance to get their name on the car if they pledge to make a lifestyle change and a make a donation to an environmental charity.

Via

What a cool idea. Click the image above for a larger picture of the car. Not only is it one of the best looking Formula One cars I have ever seen, but it is a truly an innovative concept for race car sponsorship.

I understand how some may scoff at the the idea of a car racing team trying to bring attention to the issue of global warming. On the surface it does seem like an oxymoron on the level of military intelligence. However, the reality is that many of the innovations that allow our road cars to be as efficient as they are came from Formula One. Over time technology trickles down and finds its way under the hoods of our grocery getters. Unfortunately, the same can’t be said for my beloved NASCAR, it was only in the race this last weekend that they switched to unleaded fuel!

I think I will look into what exactly it is I have to do to get my name on that car. Granted, it won’t be big enough for anyone to see without a microscope but the environment is a cause that is close to my heart. Plus, it might give me a little more incentive to follow F1 more closely. After all, I would have to see how "my" team is doing.

What do you think? UPDATED

This morning my cousin sent me an email with a link to this story.

A Canadian documentary filmmaker will reveal at a news conference Monday that he has strong evidence a group of burial boxes unearthed in Jerusalem belonged to Jesus Christ and his family.

The discovery could have profound implications 2,000 years after the boxes were placed in the ground, shaking the foundations of modern faith and raising Da-Vinci-Code-like speculation that Jesus had a child with Mary Magdalene.

I actually first became aware of this story yesterday through this post over at The Daily Jive.

Frankly, I’m not the least bit frightened by this sort of thing. The Discovery Channel has a website devoted to the show with a page focused on the "Theological Considerations." Those considerations aside, it simply comes down to my faith not being based on any evidence other than my own experience, both of the bible – and the times and ways I have ‘met’ God through it – and the constant and evolving experience I have of God in my own life. ‘Proving’ the existence of God or Jesus through any means of logic whatsoever is a fool’s errand. This is, after all, called ‘faith’, and that faith has had a profound meaning and value in the course of my life.

Over the last few years I’ve discovered that not just my heart and mind but my entire life have been a dialogue with God. He has been present in every facet, on every level an in every dimension of my life. My life’s journey, it seems, has increasingly become a quest to find a means by which I might share his presence with others, and I am constantly searching for a way to articulate how he moves in me and I through him.

If this discovery does in fact turn out to be true, it really won’t hurt my faith in any way. As far as I am concerned it doesn’t matter whether Jesus was married or not. It doesn’t matter to me if Jesus was assumed into Heaven. It is cool if He was, but either way it doesn’t change anything for me.

Jesus introduced the world to God in a very unique and profound way. More than that, Jesus has introduced God to me in a very unique and profound way. My experience of God trumps anything that any scientist or theologian can show me.

Now those who devote themselves to Christian apologetics are going to be very disappointed in hearing me say that. They spend their time trying to convert people to Christianity by "proving" that Christianity is true. I don’t think it is possible for anyone to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that any religion is the "true" one. Christianity is not exempt from this reality.

What we have to do as believers is get beyond the need to have an infallible Bible. If we can begin to accept the mythical for what it is we can get to what is really important, what do these passages mean? The fact that we have built the entire house of cards that we call faith on the existence of this "perfect" book means that we will always be susceptible to having it overturned by scientific discovery.

Come to think of it, maybe it would be a good thing if this discover turned out to be true.

Regardless, I think Rob Bell said it best in his book Velvet Elvis.

What if tomorrow someone digs up definitive proof that Jesus had a real, earthly, biological father named Larry, and archaeologists find Larry’s tomb and do DNA samples and prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the virgin birth was really just a bit of mythologizing the Gospel writers threw in to appeal to the followers of the Mithra and Dionysian religious cults that were hugely popular at the time of Jesus, whose Gods had virgin births? But what if as you study the origin of the word virgin, you discover that the word virgin in the gospel of Matthew actually comes from the book of Isaiah, and then you find out that in the Hebrew language at the time, the word virgin could mean several things. And what if you discover that in the first century being "born of a virgin" also referred to a child whose mother became pregnant the first time she had intercourse?

I affirm the historic faith, which includes the virgin birth, and the Trinity and inspiration of the Bible and much more. I’m a part of it and I want to pass it on to the next generation. I believe that God created everything and that Jesus is Lord and that God has plans to restore everything.

But if the whole faith falls apart when we reexamine and rethink one thing then it wasn’t that strong in the first place, was it?

UPDATE: Ben Witherington has an interesting post on this story.

Yet another reason why…

…Canada is a great country.

Holding secret trials to deport foreign terror suspects is
unconstitutional, the Supreme Court of Canada said Friday in a ruling
that ordered the federal government to rewrite a law that it has
defended as a key tool in fighting terrorism.

The court, while acknowledging national security is a pressing concern
to counter terrorism, said the government cannot run roughshod over the
Charter of Rights with a system "that is not in accordance with the
principles of fundamental justice."

Via

This is totally the right decision. Stealing people’s civil rights doesn’t make us safer, it just makes it that much easier for our own civil rights to be stolen.

 

The idiocy of lent

How is that for a harsh and controversial post title? Thanks for your compliments in advance. I thought of it myself.

I remember when I was a kid every Fat Tuesday (Shrove Tuesday was what we called it) we would have pancakes for dinner. My mom would hide things in them. It was great fun. How could you go wrong when having pancakes for dinner and discovering treats hidden inside them?

The next day everything was downhill. Being good Catholics we were expected to give up something for Lent. Chocolate was a popular choice, as was pop (soda to my friends below the 49th parallel). Just like your New Year’s resolution, this Lenten sacrifice usually lasted only a few days. What you ended up with was a bunch of guilt over not actually following through with your promise.

This is why our religion is so fucked up. Is there anything more incongruous than making people feel really bad about themselves right before Easter? Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection is supposed to be what removes any guilt from our heads and fear from our hearts. Far from us feeling bad, this should be a time of great celebration. We have been saved! We are free! Yes, Good Friday (could that day have been given a more ironic name?) is a day of somber reflection. But does a guilty conscience really show any kind of respect for Jesus?

Lent is idiocy because it shows that in our hearts we don’t really believe the Gospel is as good as we say it is. Instead of fully trusting in the Easter sacrifice, we try to add to it by first denying ourselves something and then psychologically flagellating ourselves when aren’t able to keep it up for forty days. It’s like we think that this exercise is enough for us to earn our free gift of salvation.

This year I resolve to give up Lent. It isn’t like I have practiced it anytime in the last few years anyway. I am going to have the occasional pint, eat what I want, and sleep with my wife (sorry mom, you probably didn’t need to read that). More than that though, I am going to go into the Easter season with gratitude in my heart instead of guilt.

Egyptian blogger jailed for insults

An Alexandria court convicted an Egyptian blogger on Thursday for insulting both Islam and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and sentenced him to four years in jail over his writings on the Internet.

Abdel Karim Suleiman, a 22-year-old former law student who has been in custody since November, was the first blogger to stand trial in Egypt for his Internet writings. He was convicted in connection with eight articles he wrote since 2004.

Suleiman, a Muslim and a liberal, has not denied writing the articles but said they merely represented his own views. His lawyers said they planned to appeal the verdict, and one member of the defense team described the trial as unfair.

One of Suleiman’s articles said that al-Azhar in Cairo, one of the most prominent seats of Sunni Muslim learning, was promoting extreme ideas. Another article, headlined "The Naked Truth of Islam as I Saw it", accused Muslims of savagery during clashes between Muslims and Christians in Alexandria in 2005.

He has also described some of the companions of the Muslim prophet Mohammad as "terrorists", and has likened Mubarak to dictatorial pharaohs who ruled ancient Egypt.

"I was hoping that he would get a harsher sentence because he presented to the world a bad image of Egypt. There are things that one should not talk about, like religion and politics. He should have got a 10-year sentence," said lawyer Nizar Habib, who attended the trial as a member of the public.

Via

Catholics and condoms

Since July, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital in Humboldt has not performed tubal ligations because the surgery is not in line with Catholic teachings on contraception. A tubal ligation severs a woman’s fallopian tubes, so eggs cannot travel from the ovaries to the uterus to be fertilized. In December, the hospital revamped its policy, saying sterilization could be performed when the primary purpose is to "benefit the total health of the person."

Family physicians Dr. Carrie Levick and Dr. Jackie Bourgeois resigned in response, saying that a Catholic health ethics guide the new policy refers to places limits on their practice they aren’t comfortable with.

"It’s beyond the tubal ligation policy now," Bourgeois said Tuesday. "We just want open access to care. We’re not allowed to prescribe birth control pills from the hospital. We’re not allowed to give the morning after pill."

Via

Humboldt, Saskatchewan is getting a new hospital. The only question is, should the facility be a publicly run one or should they continue the tradition of a Catholic health care facility in their town? It appears that they are leaning towards a publicly run facility due to the issues outlined above. Doctors do not want to have their hands tied and people want to be able to have access to the health care they need.

Catholic teaching says that the use of artificial birth control is a grave sin. I find myself questioning whether the Catholic Church can be taken seriously when it comes to any teachings regarding morality. It isn’t so much that the church had pedophile priests in its ranks, I can understand how that would be difficult to control. The problem is that they knew they had these priests in their ranks and didn’t do anything about it. Preferring to move priests from parish to parish rather than actually dealing with them. That is one of the great moral failures of any Christian institution and makes anything they have to say about morality and sexual ethics sound like the height of hypocrisy.

The reality is that statistics show the majority of Western Catholics use some form of birth control, regardless of church teaching on the subject. For the church to expect couples to produce more children than they are able to financially or emotionally support is irresponsible. For the church to continue to stand against the use of condoms in the battle against AIDS is behavior that borders on the criminal.

What is behind the church’s stance against contraception? Any scriptural basis they have for it is an exercise in taking scripture out of context. "Be fruitful and multiply" is a blessing, not a commandment. The cynic in me wonders if this teaching is a way to guarantee that Catholic Churches, and their collection plates, will always be full. Regardless of the motivation behind this teaching, this is not the words of God. It is the commandments of men.

The Catholic Church, like most churches today, refuses to move into modernity. They say that this is how they stand up for what is holy. Unfortunately, what they don’t realize is that this only increases their slide into irrelevance. God is no longer a distant stranger to the average believer. We know God on an intensely personal level. You cannot scare us into thinking we are sinning against God when we are not. You don’t have power over us anymore.

I talk to Him every day.