Thursday, December 14, 2006
My New Condo
I bought a condo! Actually I bought it in January, and am just now moving in, cuz it just got finished being built. Maybe I'll upload pics later. I've changed the look of the Web site a little as well! Ok, I'm going to go play NWN 2 now. It's all sort of awesome. Maybe I'll post my own review later.
Friday, October 6, 2006
Freedom Under Attack? It's Not The Just the Radicals.
I've edited my last post, read that if you thought it sounded wierd before.
I kept a close eye on the comments made by the Pope last week (Cumberland-news), and what I find to be the most frightening is that it isn't just the Islamic radicals. A perfect example can be found on Time.com's Web site: "Did a critic of Islam Go Too Far?". It explains the current problems facing a 52 year old author who recently published a piece about the militant history of the founder of Islam. The poor guy has been forced into police protection, and is being moved around constantly. Apparently, you're taking your life into your own hands if you critize Islam. Sure it might be the "militant radicals" who are actually trying to practice what Islam preaches (ie: murder), but the "peaceful majority" is just as much against freedom as the radicals, read this: (note: Boubakeur is rector of the Mosque of Paris and president of the French Council of the Muslim Religion)
Boubakeur deplores what amounts to the further coarsening of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. "This helps the radicals on both sides," he says. "The Islamist radicals say, 'See, they're still insulting Islam,' while the anti-Muslim extremists see Islam's propensity for violence confirmed." Boubakeur wants to see more active prosecution of what he calls "acts that provoke religious hatred." The French authorities, meanwhile, are more interested in finding the people who have threatened to kill Redeker.
2 huge things to note here: 1) He wants to make it illegal to critize someone's beliefs if doing so provokes them to attack you, and 2) If you speak against them, you are an "anti-Muslim extremist." Gee I wonder just how many religions have a violent tendency when being criticized. If you criticize a fundamentalist Christian, he'd still be willing to hug you and tell you God loves you. So, does that make me a "anti-Muslim extremist?"; watch out, you might just get a hug. And remember God loves you.
"Aren't all religions pretty much the same?" -- Clearly not. Sure Islam preaches some "good things", but can you pick apart what you like and don't like about a religion and still claim you believe it? The answer is no. And Christianity is something unique. Christianity is based on true love. A love so enduring that God became man so that he might be a perfect sacrifice for our sins providing a way for us to stand before God and not be condemned.
A powerful lie is almost true -- Their is a fine line between truth and fiction. And a believable story is based on truth, but that little bit of lie invalidates the whole story. So be careful what you say and what you believe lest you be led astray from truth as was Eve and Adam in the garden of Eden. Eve says in Gensis 3:3
"but God said, ' you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.' " But the Serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
And so Eve believed the lie told her, and her eyes were indeed opened when she ate the fruit, for her and Adam realized they were naked, and they were ashamed for they had done evil. And, as God told them, they eventually died, and so has every man and woman (save Enosh and Isaiah) since that day.
Today, God has laid out his plan for mankind that includes our redemption through the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ, the man who was God.
I kept a close eye on the comments made by the Pope last week (Cumberland-news), and what I find to be the most frightening is that it isn't just the Islamic radicals. A perfect example can be found on Time.com's Web site: "Did a critic of Islam Go Too Far?". It explains the current problems facing a 52 year old author who recently published a piece about the militant history of the founder of Islam. The poor guy has been forced into police protection, and is being moved around constantly. Apparently, you're taking your life into your own hands if you critize Islam. Sure it might be the "militant radicals" who are actually trying to practice what Islam preaches (ie: murder), but the "peaceful majority" is just as much against freedom as the radicals, read this: (note: Boubakeur is rector of the Mosque of Paris and president of the French Council of the Muslim Religion)
Boubakeur deplores what amounts to the further coarsening of relations between Muslims and non-Muslims in Europe. "This helps the radicals on both sides," he says. "The Islamist radicals say, 'See, they're still insulting Islam,' while the anti-Muslim extremists see Islam's propensity for violence confirmed." Boubakeur wants to see more active prosecution of what he calls "acts that provoke religious hatred." The French authorities, meanwhile, are more interested in finding the people who have threatened to kill Redeker.
2 huge things to note here: 1) He wants to make it illegal to critize someone's beliefs if doing so provokes them to attack you, and 2) If you speak against them, you are an "anti-Muslim extremist." Gee I wonder just how many religions have a violent tendency when being criticized. If you criticize a fundamentalist Christian, he'd still be willing to hug you and tell you God loves you. So, does that make me a "anti-Muslim extremist?"; watch out, you might just get a hug. And remember God loves you.
"Aren't all religions pretty much the same?" -- Clearly not. Sure Islam preaches some "good things", but can you pick apart what you like and don't like about a religion and still claim you believe it? The answer is no. And Christianity is something unique. Christianity is based on true love. A love so enduring that God became man so that he might be a perfect sacrifice for our sins providing a way for us to stand before God and not be condemned.
A powerful lie is almost true -- Their is a fine line between truth and fiction. And a believable story is based on truth, but that little bit of lie invalidates the whole story. So be careful what you say and what you believe lest you be led astray from truth as was Eve and Adam in the garden of Eden. Eve says in Gensis 3:3
"but God said, ' you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.' " But the Serpent said to the woman, "You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
And so Eve believed the lie told her, and her eyes were indeed opened when she ate the fruit, for her and Adam realized they were naked, and they were ashamed for they had done evil. And, as God told them, they eventually died, and so has every man and woman (save Enosh and Isaiah) since that day.
Today, God has laid out his plan for mankind that includes our redemption through the sacrifice of his son Jesus Christ, the man who was God.
Wednesday, October 4, 2006
Holy Cow Another Post
It's Wednesday night, 6:00 PM and Eric (Network Admin) is taking the servers down. I'm headed to church in about 10 minutes, so what better to do than post a blog.
Today, I'm going to lay down why I think Net Neutrality is a good thing. Here's why: forcing large companies who can afford to pay the big bucks to allow customers speedier access will create a hurdle for under-funded start-ups. It's easy to imagine a world in which the large corporations pay a premium to have their content provided faster than poor start-ups. Microsoft would have undoubtedly been a much bigger player in an enviroment providing such an advantage to high paying content providers.
Let's say some computer nerds come up with a great idea for a site that would topple eBay overnight. They go about coding it, and manage to pull it off brilliantly. Then, however, they cannot get any customers to stick with them because downloading their homepage along takes twice as long as ebay's. The end result: the new company dies and innovation is stifled.
It's being able to have that small barrier to entry for new companies that has allowed the technology/internet industry to grow so quickly, and be so innovative. It's brought the American inventitve genius out of the swamp and provided a huge economic boom to the our country and the world. Perhaps every industry is guaranteed to stagnant once the "big players" have emerged, but I think we should fight that so called "maturity" and provide as much incentive to the American innovater as possible in every industry possible.
Today, I'm going to lay down why I think Net Neutrality is a good thing. Here's why: forcing large companies who can afford to pay the big bucks to allow customers speedier access will create a hurdle for under-funded start-ups. It's easy to imagine a world in which the large corporations pay a premium to have their content provided faster than poor start-ups. Microsoft would have undoubtedly been a much bigger player in an enviroment providing such an advantage to high paying content providers.
Let's say some computer nerds come up with a great idea for a site that would topple eBay overnight. They go about coding it, and manage to pull it off brilliantly. Then, however, they cannot get any customers to stick with them because downloading their homepage along takes twice as long as ebay's. The end result: the new company dies and innovation is stifled.
It's being able to have that small barrier to entry for new companies that has allowed the technology/internet industry to grow so quickly, and be so innovative. It's brought the American inventitve genius out of the swamp and provided a huge economic boom to the our country and the world. Perhaps every industry is guaranteed to stagnant once the "big players" have emerged, but I think we should fight that so called "maturity" and provide as much incentive to the American innovater as possible in every industry possible.
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