Wednesday, May 21, 2008

Church Celebrity Deathmatch

http://blog.christianitytoday.com/outofur/archives/2008/05/church_celebrit.html
This URL says it loud and clear for this old man.

Natural Men/ Women are so vulnerable to the deadly poisons emanating from celeb focus, and wary of the health that arises from letting the giftedness in all of us be expressed while remaining humble before a great God. Celebs are just like us - mistaken! gifted! unhappy and happy! We need something beyond celebs, maybe celebs who live simply.. and encourage us to see the uncelebrated potential celebs around us.

My brief comment -
Jesus Christ is.
Denominations are a necessary evil,
Doctrines are a necessary evil,
Truth is the key,
Courage is the power
Humility is the gate.


Happiness is the core legitimate goal. What else?

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Relevant or Irrelevant to an Atheist - Scripture?

This atheist Jew from New York took up the challenge of living by the Bible for a year - a life-changing experience!
http://www.christianitytoday.com/le/2008/001/18.17.html

Saturday, April 5, 2008

Facing the fire

This road sign is just visible ahead in the first one.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

The Wright Way

http://blog.preachingtoday.com/2008/03/interview_with_n_t_wright.html

Pappi is usually in the war-zone in terms of theology - has three tin helmets, one for conservatives, one for liberals, one for atheists. He is clearly wrong about everything...

The above connection speaks strongly into Pappi's happiness - not only the freshness of the insight for Resurrection (Pappi has to come out of the closet and acknowledge he is a convinced, although very incorrect, Christian) but more so the quality of the discussion following the posting.

There are two attempts to make Wright out to be a raving liberal by those who like to do things like that, and they are quickly reigned in by men of their own persuasion.

Also the following posting is really interesting:

"Jere, regarding the "burning up" of the earth, there is an alternative reading, explained in this quote from Steven Bouma-Prediger in his book "For the Beauty of the Earth" (p.76):
"Only the relatively recent Dutch translation (Niewe Vertaling 1975) faithfully captures the meaning of the best Greek text: “and the earth and the works upon it will he found (en de aarde en de werken daarop zullen gevonden worden).”
To put it bluntly, this verse represents perhaps the most egregious mistranslation in the entire New Testament. The Greek verb in question here is heurethesetai, from heureskein, “to find,” and from which we get the English expression “eureka.” In other words, the text states that after a refiner’s fire of purification (v. 7), the new earth will be found, not burned up."
Something to think about."


Pappi discovered that "egregious" means outrageous, flagrant, etc.

Monday, March 17, 2008

Sir Gawain Revealed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Gawain_and_the_Green_Knight
When Pappi was in his last year at high school, the English teacher read "Sir Gawain and The Green Knight" to the class, but the term ended before the story was finished, and Pappi was left in suspense until he discovered JRR Tolkein's version of this story a few years ago. It is a very intriguing story, although not particularly easy reading to a modernist fed on Readers Digest rules for writing popular literature (About this horror, more another time).

Anyway, on visiting the Wikipedia site this morning before 5 a.m., Pappi discovered the above reference and analysis of the story, and found it really rivetting. He will read the story again, in time. In the meantime, you should take a peek..

Thursday, March 13, 2008

Evil Males, or just Evil People?

In the BBC story today, about the way landlords in Paris demand sex in return for accommodation, and the response of some women to the story (pasted below), men come through as animal, callous and selfish. Pappi's question to his readers (of whom there seem to be none nowadays) is, Is this peculiar to males, or is it a description of people in general - that a particular proportion of all people, irrespective of gender or race, take unfair advantage when they are in a position of power? This is a critical issue, since it strikes at the heart of the real nature of racism, sexism and every other kind of discrimination.

Pappi thinks that there are few things more dehumanising than adopting a position that pidgeon-holes whole groups of people as either "rubbish" or "supreme". There's treasure in each one, but darkness as well. Let's just get agreement on good and poor values, rather than OK and not OK people groups. People who exploit others for sex, or money, or power are doing wrong. The exploiters can be male or female, black or white, rich or poor, religious or atheist, but they are wrong to do these things.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/crossing_continents/7290139.stm
Have you been affected by the issues in this story? Have you or someone you know experienced a landlord requesting sex for rent? Have you encountered these issues outside of France? Send us your comments using the form below.

Of course single women in UK / England have these problems. I have a few female friends who sell sex in order to put a roof over their heads. Women give birth to children, have to juggle their home and working lives, take a career/job break, can't get up the so-called career ladder, and all this culminates in less income. Nothing is different in this country.Angelina, Birmingham
This is not just happening the EU for the last 15 years that I know of single mothers (divorced, widowed, separated) have been exchanging sex for rent. twice I have been approached by landlords looking for sexual favours in exchange for lower or no rent, I have been fortunate enough to be able to tell them to shove it but not every mother I know has been able to do that. Now point to a time in history that women have not been exploited in this way and I will fall over in amazement have you read the stats. by the UN on the status of women.lesmis, brisbane australia

This country is male dominated. Even the majority of foreign males follow the same perverted ethics as the local males who will not move on any issues unless they get paid by sex.Marie Cosgrove, Saitama Japan

Wednesday, March 12, 2008

Males More Intelli-Gent?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/101079
This article from newsweek is worth taking in, as it helps lay some of the dust around leadership and teaching issues between men and women. Pappi's position is that if people are properly focussed, they are more concerned with receiving the best wisdom wherever it comes from, than trying to work out whether they are cleverer or dumber than the source.

Men being generally more dominant than women due to issues of body size, depth of voice, physical strength and hormonal conditioning, have a natural advantage in calling the shots. They should therefore be particularly sensitive to their tendency to overshadow the wisdom and valid point of view of the women. Strength should be used to nurture others, not to oppress and silence them!