Hey all,
Thank you for supporting this endevour these past few months. I especially want to recognize those that take the time to reflect and comment on the topics in a regular or semi-regular time (that does not seem to be the right word, but I can't think of the word I'm looking for).
Some of these folks include, but are not limited to: Tracy, Russ, Shellie, Kwame (always challenging me to think a bit more-and spell correctly), my mom, Shawn and David from Soli Deo Gloria-(check out their blog) Christy and anyone I am forgetting. I also want to thank those folks that read regualrly, but like me on other blogs-don't always have time to post comments.
It has been fun and I hope that it has been encouraging, funny, thought-provoking, whatever else it may be. Keep commenting and I'll do my best to keep posting interesting/bizarre things.
Love you all,
Derrick
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8 comments:
1023 visitors when I last checked. Yaay!!! Let's have a party!
(P.S. Did you see Lou Dobbs Tonight on CNN when The Daily Press made Dobbs' honor roll for reprinting one of the offensive Muhammad cartoons that have been in the news lately? That's classic.)
Shellie, I saw that. Thank you. I always enjoy reading your comments especially when you say nice things. :-)
Kwame, no I missed that. That is pretty interesting. It is interesting that, like I mentioned in a previous post, many newspapers have no problem offending Christians, but forget it when it comes to offending Jews or possibily suffering violence when offending some Muslims.
I was hoping that you would respond, as you did, about the Muslim religion (not about the misspellings), and its propensity for violence and its history and teachings.
I am certain you have done more study in this area than myself [and not 'cause your name sounds Muslim-ish -is that a word?-but just from our previous talks] Hey do you remember Thomas and Steve from Christian Club? I wonder what they're up to.
Derrick
“Muslim-ish” is a word if you use it as you would any other word; may be a word that you just made up like Shakespeare, but there is no doubt about it: it is a word. :D
Anyway, I know next to nothing about Islam, but one thing that is interesting is that if you check out some of the info at answering-islam.org you’ll find not only info on Islam but also that the site offers articles from authors with differing perspectives. (Gilchrist’s charity article is good, for he calls into question what seems to be certain Christians’ wanting Allah not to be identical with God, regardless or irregardless of the evidence. OTOH, Gilchrist apparently does make a mistake in his article by taking a Quranic quote out of context when he argues that early Muslims attempted to identify Allah with the god of Christians; I say this because I actually read that particular passage of the Qur'an for myself. So caveat emptor.)
Okay, now the last time I heard anything about Thomas--and this was three years ago--he was both still in the Navy and still stationed in Oklahoma (go figure). Steve would know anything and everything about Thomas if you can contact him. Before I was sent into exile about 8 months ago I tried to call Steve’s house, and I guess it was his mum who answered the phone, but it sounded like she just hung up the phone on me, so I’m like: “Um, okay, why bother right now?” So I haven’t heard from him for a while. BUT, when I did run into him at the movie theater in May he had stopped going to the one Campbellite church we used to go to, and he started going to the Calvary Chapel on Eucalyptus. Yeah, seems he took some time during summer or what-not, got a bunch of books from Al or the library or whatever, and convinced himself that he had the 1,000-megaton H-Bomb of all Greek-language arguments against baptismal regeneration and stuff (it’s actually far from being such a thing) and decided it was time for him to move on.
And I don’t how much of this you know, but he ended up marrying the girl from church that he used to joke about and they have a daughter who is probably like 2 years-old by now; he also got a teaching job right there in Apple Valley, so you two need to start networking with one another.
So from the Victor Valley to great state of Oklahoma, life goes on. And this is more than I can say for the place where I am. People asked me where I was going when I said I had to leave home; I told them “to hell.” And that’s exactly where I am: the topmost ring of hell, with all its green grass, farm land, heavy winter snowfall, and so on, but still in hell. But hey, thanks be to God: I’m still in contact with people from home.
-Kwame
You’re two thousand miles from home, and you’re in toll roads country. Are you sure you know where you are going?
Are you in Iowa or Kansas? I've never hears hell was so green and snowy. Has hell frozen? :-) Sorry brother. Sometimes I can't help myself.
I was aware of some of the things about Steve, though I did not know about Thomas. I remember he had that Eddie Murphy-type laugh and he didn't seem to care what people thought about it.
Anyway, thanks for the update.
Derrick
<< Are you in Iowa or Kansas? I've never hears hell was so green and snowy. Has hell frozen? :-) Sorry brother. Sometimes I can't help myself. >>
Eh, I’m not sure that any biblical personalities ever wrote or said literally that hell was hot and had horrible flames. (It also doesn’t say, “Hell is separation from God,” but anyway....) So, yeah, there are places in this world worse than Iowa and probably worse than Kansas, but I am in neither Kansas nor Iowa.
In fact, just imagine a world in which the people talk like complete idiots or someone who has suffered brain damage and is now relearning to speak. Imagine a world in which you do far less wear and tear on your car and its suspension system by driving on dirt roads instead of the “paved” roads in the area. Imagine a world in which you are charged money for the supposed privilege of using extensions of these “paved” roads. Think of a world in which road signs bearing street names are not used consistently and city grids are poorly-planned such that one’s becoming lost during a road trip is a common occurrence. Fashion within your mind the concept of one’s having to stoop to eating McDonalds food--with all its gristle and bone fragments--or Taco Bell food--with its bone fragments--or food from the convenience store when one needs to eat on the road, because there ain’t no Del Taco, Jack in the Box, Bakers, Carls Jr., Hardees, etc. Imagine still that you are in a place the government of which has not mandated that breaks and lunch breaks be given at intervals which promote good health and the ability to return to the work place the next day. Meanwhile, you will have imagined yourself being in a place where state law treats you like a baby and tells you that your car is unfit for the road unless you pay money to have your car pass the non-smog inspection and pay money to repair your broken windshield which will only end up being cracked again four weeks after you put $300 down for the first replacement. While you’re at it, just imagine that it takes 1 hr. 30 min. to drive just eighty miles because a lot of the roads are lame, circuitous country roads that wind around people’s farm plots. Meanwhile, your people are nowhere nearby, your reason to live is cut off from you, and the people responsible for your having been exiled could not really care less about you. I want nothing more in life than to get out of this horrible place and go home, and be established there--that’s saying a lot as you consider how many important and other things a person could want.
<< I was aware of some of the things about Steve, though I did not know about Thomas. I remember he had that Eddie Murphy-type laugh and he didn't seem to care what people thought about it. >>
Wouldn’t say he laughed like Eddie Murphy. Instead, an outburst of Thomistic laughter is like turning a loudspeaker or an amp up to 11 right when you’re playing the loudest, most abrasive record you can find, the effect of it all being that whoever tripped and fell or accidentally farted or whatever it was to make Thomas start laughing will in fact end up feeling about two inches tall. Thomas is a danger both to himself and to others.
Kwame,
That does sound pretty bad. No Del Taco...Ahh, man. So, where are you really besides the seventh level of hell?
How would you say hell is characterized in Scripture?
"Thomas is a danger both to himself and to others."
LOL, you crack me up sometimes. heh heh.
Derrick
<< That does sound pretty bad. No Del Taco...Ahh, man. >>
You joke now, but later in life maybe even you will find yourself completely unfit to deal with the absence of things which others may find trifling or insignificant. I have not even mentioned all the things wrong with this place, and even now I am considering just selling mi car, getting a van, and just getting out of this place right away.
<< So, where are you really besides the seventh level of hell? >>
Its periphery, the name of which I will tell you in an e-mail.
<< How would you say hell is characterized in Scripture? >>
It may be fashionable and popular to say “Hell is eternal separation from God,” yet it hardly seems as though anyone who says this has paid at least half a thought to the issue or as though they have done anything more to rush through a reading of the New Testament. Lawless people and those who do wrong are already separated from their creator; meanwhile, hell and/or the lake of fire is presented as being a place (or something analogous to a place), not a state or a condition. Ergo, hell is not eternal separation from God and some people would do well to restrict their philosophical enterprises to those strictly of biblical exegesis. On the other hand, search the passages of the New Testament with an open mind and you may find within that there is talk of vengeance, retribution, and anger from on high. Search again and you may find that some will be destroyed sans any attendant and supporing evidence that the same will be annihilated. Search even further and other pertinent information may be uncovered, such as that of Judas Iscariot’s having better died at birth or been a stillborn (I do not remember what exactly was said) or of such a miserable condition that there will be crying and gnashing of teeth--the sorrow and the pain, or simply the pain.
Of course, these ideas should be foreign to the ears of no one in Christendom, yet what are the results of a culture in which man is exalted above God and sin is deharmatialized to this end?
<< "Thomas is a danger both to himself and to others."
LOL, you crack me up sometimes. heh heh. >>
Well, he is. I went to MEPS in L.A. a few years ago, and during one stage of our processing there was a Navy guy there who, you could surmise, was obligated to read a long, copious disclaimer printed on the copies that they passed out to him and to the potential recruits. (I suppose it was a medical disclaimer or something.)
Well, the guy apparently did not feel want to read this text aloud. And so he is standing there, and he starts talking, and then half the stuff coming from his mouth becomes some sort of muddled babbling and murmuring while the other half that did have real words didn’t even match the text that he was reading from. And he was trying to read fast too, and at one point I just started to bust out laughing, but I had to keep myself in check lest I laugh out loud and create a weird situation in front of everyone. Of course, it seems like the harder you try not to laugh, the more you have to laugh; so it was a real work-out to try to control the violent muscular reflexes that were trying to embarass me right there in that classroom at MEPS.
Now, if this had been Thomas instead of me, I don’t know: things might not have gone well. And if you are the sort of person who will laugh at your superiors when they do something unintentionally funny or stupid, you are really in trouble if you have a laugh like Thomas’.
Kwame,
I have not done a study of the doctrine of hell myself; though I know enough to know that it is not a place that I want to go to.
---Yeah, I can see how the laugh might indeed produce harmful consequences such as in the situation you illustrated.
Derrick
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