Don't Back Down

I've always found it interesting how when you go to church (a Christian church, I mean) and the pastor leads a response where he says Christ is risen and the rest of the church says Christ is risen indeed.

As if just saying that "Christ is risen" isn't enough, he has to really be risen. I don't know. You'd think that someone coming back from the dead would be enough. Heck, you'd think that being the Son of God, born of a virgin would be pretty darn good too. Risen from the dead is just icing on the cake. That indeed just throws a big, whopping cherry on top.

Of course, you may not believe that there is a God, you may not believe that Jesus is His son, you may not believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, that He died on a cross for everone's sins or that he rose again on the first Easter. And that's okay. You are, as they say, entitled to your opinion. Whether you believe it or not does not mean that it did or did not happen.

And with that, I leave you with an interesting essay by Scott Adams, the author of Dilbert.

In this essay, Mr. Adams speaks to Respecting the Beliefs of Others, which of course we should do, right? What if their belief says that they should kill themselves to follow a comet (yes, this happened)? Do you still respect them? What if they believe in a Flying Spaghetti Monster delivering the gospel? Does your answer change in the face of these alternatives? Perhaps it should, perhaps not.

Happy Easter.

Read an article in the paper this morning about Christian Throwback Jerseys, a company who provides sports jerseys, but instead of team names you get books of the bible. So look twice at that Michael Jordan 23 you see while you're out - it might say Psalm instead of Bulls.

So Jessica Simpson and Nick Lachey have actually broken up. Is anyone surprised? Not me. In their words: "After three years of marriage...we have decided to part ways". That's just pathetic.

Read "Jess and Nick in Splitsville" »

According to Douglas Gresham, stepson of C. S. Lewis, the clearest image of Lewis' Christianity came one day when a beggar asked for some change. Lewis dug into his pockets and gave the beggar all that he had. The person with them (perhaps J. R. R. Tolkien) suggested that the beggar would just spend it on drink, and that Lewis' effort was wasted. Jack's response to his companion? "Well if I had kept it, I would have only spent it on drink." Heh. (via, thanks)

So it seems that another supreme court justice is on the way in the person of Harriet Miers. I find it interesting that she is very public about her Christianity (or at least, the news media is). This isn't a bad thing by any means, and it is certainliy refreshing, even if you don't happen to share her views. All too often it's more about the mud they can dig up than the positive things. In any case, one of the first results on Google (if not the first) talks about her acceptance of Jesus in 1979.

Now I don't know much about her other than this, but it strikes me as a bit odd that this appointee is in her 60s (this is based on the article saying that she was in her mid-30s in 1979, which was 26 years ago, I have done no other research). It would seem that appointing someone a bit younger might make for a more sensible choice - if indeed the idea is to keep the justices on the bench for their full life.

That said, I don't wish her a short life, and women do live longer than men, so we may see her for a while yet if she does get confirmed to this post.

So he's not Paul. Rat, from Pearls Before Swine, can occasionally give him a run for his money when it comes to words of wisdom. This time is no exception. After running through a laundry list of faults from his neighbors (house color, barking dogs, car alarms, mowing lawns), he declares "Whoever said 'Love Your Neighbor' never could have foreseen the idiots that live on our block".

How true. And how utterly ridiculous at the same time. We tend to overlook the larger issues - sparing the lives of murderers, forgiving crime after crime against our neighbors. But paint your house the wrong color, or skip mowing your yard? That's simply too much.

Read "From the Mouths of Rats" »

On Friday night, we found a puppy down the street on our way home from Vacation Bible School. Being the saps we are, we promptly stopped and talked to her. As it turned out, she's not a puppy at all, at least in the sense of being young. While I don't know her exact age, she is at least a few years old. Nonetheless, we were on our way out of town on Saturday morning, and had nowhere to keep her. So we took her with us.

Yesterday morning I went to the vet and they found that she had a microchip, and we obtained the phone number for the owner. Turns out that they live just down the street from us (not too far from where we found the dog). So I called, leaving all sorts of numbers, and waited patiently to hear from them. Nothing.

Denise and I went out to dinner, then a movie. Still nothing. Wanting to do the Right Thing, we hitched our newest family member (dubbed Princess by then) to her leash and took a walk to the address in question. There was a car pulling in, and out came a youngish couple and a friend. Looked like they had just pulled in from dinner or something, and they seemed very excited to have their baby back safe and sound.

We came home, a bit saddened that Princess was gone, but still happy that things had worked out - she had found her way back to her family and all was right with the world. Of course, that wouldn't make for much of a story.

This morning, a neighbor calls to say that she thinks she just saw the same dog on the loose, a bit further down the street. Beging the aforementioned sap that I am, I quickly jumped in the car and went looking. Not too long thereafter, I found her, taken in by a friendly neighbor who had seen her poking around.

At this point you have to wonder. After having your beloved pet back for just a few hours, you let her out again, and she's on the loose? That's just wrong. It's not that these people want to have her wandering - that isn't it at all. But they seem unable to grasp the concept of keeping their dog under their control. We had minor problems throughout the weekend, but nothing that would have kept us from preventing her to escape again - demonstrated by the fact that we came home with her again.

Now Princess (actually Ruby) is back home again, we wonder how long it will be before we see her on the road again. And even more importantly, what do we do then?

I've recently finished reading several books by Larry Burkett, including Debt-Free Living: How to Get Out of Debt (And Stay Out), Investing for the Future and The Coming Economic Earthquake. Each of the books, as I'm sure you may surmise, has to do with economics and (personal) finances.

Most are relatively dated, not only because he died a couple of years ago, but because many of the books I found were at the thrift store, meaning they've been on someone's shelf for a while, until someone - perhaps the same person, perhaps not - decided to pass them along to someone else, which is where I come into the story.

Read "Larry Burkett Financial Reading" »

When speaking of legality and morality, it's a given that we all have differing opinions (perhaps on both counts). What to do, but to find someone who's put together a tool to help you better define those opinions on some sort of common scale? With that said, check out the Taboo Quiz, originally designed for Philosopher's Magazine and updated in some way or another for this implementation.

This short quiz asks only a handful of questions, and then asks for more information on your answers, in order to classify your responses. If you don't want any sort of spoiling, try the quiz, then come back and read my scores below.

Your Moralising Quotient of 0.20 compares to an average Moralising Quotient of 0.28. This means that as far as the events depicted in the scenarios featured in this activity are concerned you are more permissive than average.

Your Interference Factor of 0.00 compares to an average Interference Factor of 0.16. This means that as far as the events depicted in the scenarios featured in this activity are concerned you are less likely to recommend societal interference in matters of moral wrongdoing, in the form of prevention or punishment, than average.

Your Universalising Factor of 0.50 compares to an average Universalising Factor of 0.42. This means you are more likely than average to see moral wrongdoing in universal terms - that is, without regard to prevailing cultural norms and social conventions (at least as far as the events depicted in the scenarios featured in this activity are concerned).

No surprise, really. I tend to see right and wrong in fairly straightforward terms, many of which are based on my Christian faith, so they are more universal and not necessarily dependent on who catches you in the act. Just because no one saw you steal that car doesn't make it right.

It's also very unlikely that I'd recommend that society get involved (at least in the questions posed) as it is none of society's business. While we could certainly stand a bit more moral fiber today, I don't think it's the government's job to provide it by adding more and more laws, where they already have trouble enforcing the ones we have.

Strangely enough, we seem to often lump the three together - namely that what is legal is moral and correct and what is correct is legal and moral. But that may not always be the case.

For instance, take a look at this story about a teacher dissecting a live dog. Is it legal? I would assume so, since the teacher hasn't been arrested - and since it was done "clinically", it probably doesn't have the malice that I think is necessary for animal cruelty. The animal was also apparently sedated.

So is it moral? We are told in Genesis that we are to rule over the earth and all creatures in it. That seems clear enough. If we rule over something, we can pretty much do what we want.

Which brings us to correctness. Is such an action correct? That's another question entirely. First, let's say that the dog is a family pet picked up on the way to school. I think most would agree that this isn't correct. Next, let's look at the process in terms of scientific research. I think most would still agree, though obviously there are those who don't like animal testing.

Finally, let's look at this particular example. A dog, apparently slated for eutahanization anyway, is sedated and dissected while still alive. That alone might still slip under my radar. But when you consider that the reason for the dissection is to show a class of high school students a working digestive system? That steps over the line.

I love animals - and specifically I love dogs. And I can see some examples where an argument might be made for such an incident, but to do it in front of a class of high school students? I'm not old enough that I've forgotten high school, and any teaching benefit will be vastly overridden by the sheer "yuck factor" of cutting up a live dog and the possibility of class clown opportunities - making jokes, lifting a stomach, whatever.

Though the principal says that "students are learning", I'd be interested to see some hard facts that support the argument that students learn from this lesson in particular. I suspect that most could do equally as well - and perhaps some even better - by looking at a non-living digestive system.

Bob Parsons (of GoDaddy) talks in his blog about the arrival of dirty words in the English language. Dirty words are present in the piece, though they are offered in an educational manner. You have been warned.

I have no idea about Bob's qualifications for such an argument, but it sounds logical to me. I think what it makes me think about, however, is that it seems to me words such as these, considered dirty by many, are often considered sins by those in the church. I've always had trouble with this argument, because nowhere in the bible does it say Thou shall not use vulgarities.

In fact, the only approximation of such a thing is the command that tells us that we Shall not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain. That's an entirely differnt story. Taking a name in vain means to use it in an irreverent or disrespectful manner.

So saying the words Jesus Christ during a prayer is okay, but saying Jesus Christ! when some moron cuts you off on the freeway is probably toeing the line a bit.

In speaking of idols, it occurs to me that, while catchy, a name such as American Idol for a television show might be a little over-the-top. Well, it is Fox, so it probably is over-the-top.

But is this what we have come to? Creating idols on television? A lot easier than carving them from stone, to be sure. And while I understand that the winner of the show will not necessarily be an idol in the strictest sense of the word, it seems to me that we very much approach idolatry in our world on a very regular basis. Maybe that isn't such a good thing.

Another thing that made me wonder about it is the recent death of the pope. Don't get me wrong - I have nothing against the pope, or people honoring him for his life, or even against Catholicism in general. I just wonder about the millions who rush to see his body. How many of those millions do you suppose think of his life, his death and their loss? Probably most.

Now how many of that same group do you think consider not these things, but His death? I'd be willing to bet that the number is smaller, and that's a shame.