Happy New Year!

Blessings to you all for 2008!

Snorting Sleep and other news

There are a few News stories that I find interesting today. This is serious buisness.
I will be back with the regular blog soon. Love you all and I hope you are having a safe holiday. Don't drink and drive! Wear your seat belt. Pay attention! Don't be stupid!



Snorting sleep:

In what sounds like a dream for millions of tired coffee drinkers, Darpa-funded scientists might have found a drug that will eliminate sleepiness.

A nasal spray containing a naturally occurring brain hormone called orexin A reversed the effects of sleep deprivation in monkeys, allowing them to perform like well-rested monkeys on cognitive tests. The discovery's first application will probably be in treatment of the severe sleep disorder narcolepsy.

The treatment is "a totally new route for increasing arousal, and the new study shows it to be relatively benign," said Jerome Siegel, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA and a co-author of the paper. "It reduces sleepiness without causing edginess."

-Wired

Test Tube Universe

A "universe in a test tube" that could be used to assess theories of everything has been created by physicists.

Time is running out - literally, say scientists" Are we missing a dimension of time? Are dark forces at work in space? The test tube, the size of a little finger, has been cooled to a fraction of a degree above the lowest possible temperature, absolute zero, which is just over 273 degrees below the freezing point of water. Does one of these test tubes hold a baby Universe? Inside the tube an isotope of helium (called helium three) forms a "superfluid", an ordered liquid where all the atoms are in the same state according to the theory that rules the subatomic domain, called quantum theory. What is remarkable is that atoms in the liquid, at temperatures within a thousandth of a degree of absolute zero, form structures that, according to the team at Lancaster University, are similar those seen in the cosmos. "In effect, we have made a universe in a test tube," says Richard Haley, who did the work with Prof George Pickett and other members of the "Ultra-low Temperature Group." The Holy Grail of physics is to establish an overarching explanation to unite all the particles and forces of the cosmos. But one of the complaints commonly levelled at a leading contender for a "theory of everything", called string theory, is that it is impossible to test.

UK Telagraph


Raw Milk Ban

(AP) -- Many raw milk consumers are opposing new dairy standards set to take effect next week in California, saying they could outlaw some of their preferred products.
The new law does not create an outright ban on raw milk, but producers believe it could dry up supplies by setting new bacteria limits they say are difficult to meet.

Mark McAfee is founder of Fresno-based Organic Pastures Dairy Company, the larger of two raw milk producers in California. He said consumers "are fed up with the government being in their kitchens, and they want to be able to make their independent choices about food they want to eat."

State officials, on the other hand, say producers should be able to meet the standards, which they maintain are necessary for consumer safety.

Merry Christmas With the Hoff

Christmas or Indigestion? The Savior is Born!

“Glory to God in the Highest Heaven, and on earth peace to people whom He favors.” This is the message of the angles that came to announce the birth of Jesus, the savior of the world, who was on Christmas night born in a barn of all places. It is a message of hope and wonder, and it makes a much better Christmas card than the message of John the Baptist, “Repent you brood of vipers!” Yes, one is a hallmark moment and the other is not.

But, in their own way, each is announcing something wondrous. Something so unexpected and so strange, that shepherds came to see if it was true. Was the Son of God, this Jesus really lying in a barn, or had the dried sheep meet they had eaten for supper gone bad, leaving them with a hallucination that was both astonishing and terrible to behold? Chances are good that they were betting on the bad dinner.

These shepherds in the field were as an unsavory lot 2000 years ago as they tend to be now. Oh, not bad guys mind you, but they did things in a very earthy way. They spoke with earthy language, using words that were not polite. They had an earthy aroma about them and they were known to drink too much and fight with knives. To me, sounds like business as usual on the range in Montana. Nevertheless, having an angle appear to you has an unsettling effect, no matter how tough you are. Assurances of, “Be not afraid,” tend to sound a bit hollow when you are seeing the glory of the Lord. Such times probably call to mind all the sins you have been committing gleefully in the last month or so… maybe even longer. But instead of the smiting with lightning, or burning with fire or something a person in such a situation might expect; (after all God is suddenly paying personal attention to you, and that cant be good right?) the news is good. A savior is born. The shepherds were blessed.

How odd indeed. Not the priests, not the city council or some other important people, but shepherds are told that God has come to earth to save us. Odder still, He is born in the barn between here and the next town over. What could you do but go find out if it was true or if it was simply dinner food digesting badly?

We all know how the story goes, the shepherds get to the barn and the whole thing turns out to be true. They are so baffled that they tell everyone that will listen what happened to them. Mary treasured the words of their story and they praised God. After all, who couldn’t?

We can be sure that none of them really had any idea what it would all mean, but one thing was for sure, God was doing something and it was something unexpected. Things were going to be different now. God was born in a barn and talking to shepherds, yes, the world was going to be in for a shock. Christ had come and right away, He was changing everything. If God favored shepherds, then things were going to be ok. Merry Christmas, for Christ has come to bless us all, and He is changing everything.

Age of the Universe

There is a discussion that I mostly try to stay out of, but seems to keep finding me. Maybe it is because of my combination of theological and scientific training.

Just how old is the universe? Those of the scientific persuasion say 4.5 billion years, give or take a billion. Those of the religious persuasion say 6,000 years, give or take a hundred.

I can defanatly say, without a doubt, that I have no damn idea.

That being said, the religious camp looks silly in this situation. 6,000 years was the end of the last ice age and the birth of human civilization for certain, so for all practical human history purposes, that was our beginning, but the universe??

When I ask about the dinosaurs, I get some kind of nonsensical response like how they were put in the earth by Satan to trick us into thinking the universe is old. OK, and once we are tricked then what? Is this plan is related to the underpants gnome plan of profiting off the theft of children's underwear.

Or sometimes I get the even stranger tale that dinosaurs were around when humans were, up until about 1,500 BC. OK, then how come the Egyptians and Babylonians and all didn't paint and carve statues etc. about dinosaurs? They made images of everything else!

4.5 Billion years? I don't know. It sounds good enough to me, at least until a better idea comes along. But I wonder why it is a problem to religion? Is your faith so weak that you cant handle the idea of God being able to live for 4.5 billion years? Are you so self centered that you demand that God follow your rules of physics? Are you pissed off that the Bible isn't a physical science and natural history text?I would personally find the ideas that physics presents to be an amazing addition to conceptions of God.

If Steven Hawking is right. Time does not exist apart from the physical mass of the universe, meaning that God created it all "right now" on God time. So I guess you could say that the universe just started from God's standpoint. Interestingly, Augustine said the same thing in his "City of God."

I think that this leads into another point that I will write about soon: The nature of fundamentalism. I am not just talking religious fundamentalism either. I have seen fundamentalism come in many shapes and sizes. But that is for another post.

Remember, I'm out there lurkin, and I'm just gettin stronger!

Prepare the Way ...

The Advent message of prepare is one that we understand far better than the message of waiting. We do so many things to prepare for Christmas that preparation for anything is something that is easily taken into our routine. However, when we hear the message of “Prepare the way of the Lord,” the mistake is made that we are to prepare by figuring out what it is that we are going to do to the said coming Lord, or perhaps what we are to do for the coming Lord. After all Jesus will need me to do something to or for him right? Wrong my friends, completely wrong.

Preparation for the coming Lord is preparing for what Jesus is going to do to you. The God in the flesh, Jesus, the coming Lord, whom John the Baptist warns us to prepare for, is coming because of what people are already doing and have done, not because of what we do for him. This truth is what we remember in Advent.

Forgiveness is coming at Christmastime and during Advent we remember that forgiveness is what we are to prepare for: being forgiven and freed from death. In Scandinavia there is a tradition on Christmas Eve that North Americans find shocking. The people go to the cemetery on Christmas eve, in the darkness because there is no sun during that part of the winter, and put eternal candles on the graves of those who they love, or if there is no one they love buried there, in the center of the cemetery. The entire cemetery is eventually lit up with the light from the candles on the tombs, graves and common area. The candles represent the presence and forgiveness of Christ to those who are present and those who are dead. It is to help them remember that the Son of God died because he did the one thing that people could not tolerate: forgave them. This Christmas practice of the Scandinavians is also a reminder that you are already forgiven for the failings in your life and humanity so death is not the final word to life.

Christmas is prepared for by being ready to accept the gift of the savior to the world, God who came in the flesh to forgive all and save them from death. Advent is a solemn time because of this remembering of the consequences of sin and of being saved: death to us, and death to our savior at the very hands of the people He came to save. But the joy of Christmas is that we know that this savior is a gift for us and that on Easter morning we learn that death no longer holds us in its clutches.

Something happens when we begin to remember what happened at Christmas. Perhaps we become angry. After all we don’t want help, forgiveness or any of that! We want to prepare to do something to or for Jesus, or our family in Jesus name. Or perhaps we want to do something for the world in Jesus name, wouldn’t that be great if we could make peace in some troubled part of the world and do it for Jesus? Or would we know in our heart that we were distracting from our own guilt? Trying to make up for what we know is not right in ourselves? Or simply being a theologian of glory instead of understanding the theology of the cross. As one of my colleagues once screamed in my face while pounding her fist on the table, “Jesus doesn’t come to this church until I bake the Christmas ham.”

Ready or not here Jesus comes. Bringing a gift that is as often unwanted today as it was 2000 years ago, forgiveness. Remember, like the Scandinavian Christmas celebration reminds us, that without this gift, death awaits as a permanent condition. Remember, and be thankful, for in remembering this, peace will be with you.

Truly Senseless

Perhaps I don't have anything to say today that makes any sense, or maybe I am just feeling perverse, but I was thinking about some commercials from a few years ago that were both amazing and terrible to behold. The first time I saw one of them I was very sick and on strong meds. I thought I was having a very messed up hallucination. If only that had been the case...
Enjoy!




And another!

Advent Articles

Some years ago, I ran a series of articles for a newspaper during advent. I am going to do that on my blog this year. Tune in every Sunday now till Christmas to see whats up in the religion section.

Advent has rolled around again. Once again this year I am forced to endure the same tired messages and sermons that I hear every year at advent. They all go something along the lines of “We are a people waiting alone in darkness and fear…” or “Don’t rush advent, wait for the coming savior …” or my all time favorite, “Naughty, naughty, you are commercializing Christmas!”

Let’s look at the facts. No one is waiting for anything except the next holiday sale at Sears, Target, or wherever. We only fear nothing from our shopping season and we most certainly rush-rush-rush, the same way we do for every event the rest of the year. Christmas is already so commercial that there is not one thing that anyone could do to make it more so. After all, Christmas items went on sale roughly at the time of Halloween.

So what is it that I propose that we do to change the world? Simply stated, we do nothing. The world is much the same now as it was over 2,000 years ago. People are coming and going, so absorbed in their own things that they cared practically nothing for what was happening in the lives of others. The government was doing something stupid that was making the lives of its citizens difficult. Poor people were doing their best to survive while those with money lived extravagantly. This is the world now and this is the same world that the Savior was born into.

What then is left? Remember. Remember the state of this world, then and now. Remember that this world needed a savior so badly that God sent one into the mess with nowhere to be born in a world that barely noticed. Born in a barn with ox and burro, to animals who are notorious for relieving themselves when and wherever they see fit. Slobbering all over their trough, where the Son of God would be laid down after his birth.

Remembering during this time of year that the Son of God was born in a barn; born to die, in order that a world of people who care more about the next sale at the mall than the spirit of the season. Remember that the Son of God died because he did the one thing that people could not tolerate: forgave them. Remember that you are already forgiven for the failings in your life and humanity. Remember, and be thankful, for in remembering this, peace will be with you.

Quote for Today

I have always liked this quote:

"I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study
mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and
philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture,
navigation, commerce and agriculture in order to give their children
a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary,
tapestry, and porcelain," John Adams.

Pretend to be a Time Traveler Day

Now this is a holiday that I can really get behind! However, there is not much difference in the Dystopian Future and how I normally dress and act. Hmmm....

What Norse God?

You scored as Odin, You are Odin. You are the leader of the Norse Gods. You are the wisest and always fight evil. You sacrificed your eye for knowledge, as well as hanging for 9 days with a spear in your side. You are the God of Philosophy and Poetry. You will lead the Gods into Ragnorak (the end of the world) Odin 88% Tyr 85% Freyja 73% Thor 68% Baldr 35% Loki 33%

Which Norse God Are You?
created with QuizFarm.com

What Superhero Am I?

I took one of those quiz things that are online, about what am I like...
Tell me this result is a supprise, I dare you.

You Are Batman

Billionaire playboy by day. Saving the world by night. And you're not even a true superhero. Just someone with a lot of expensive toys!

Peanut Butter Clusters

In a Saucepan:
1/4 cup sugar
1 Cup Corn Syrup

Bring to a boil. After boiling for about 1 min. Add:
1 &1/2 cup peanut butter.


Heat until the peanut butter is melted and mix well.

Add 4 cups corn flakes and mix well.

Drop by teaspoons on wax paper or foil or ... whatever.
Let them cool.

Eat! Yummyness

Fan Death

Image removed due to it spamming my blog.


This is so funny I don't even know what to say about it. It is on par with the people here that tell me that when the temperature gets below 60F that they cant take their babies outside anymore because their lungs will freeze.

Stupidity continues to rule the world.

Fan Death

Human Destruction and the Noble Savage

A reoccurring theme in the liberal political think of western culture is the myth of the Noble Savage. The idea of a Noble Savage is that somewhere out there in the world, there are these savage people that are so much better than the western civilized world. These noble savages live in harmony with nature and they don't have any crime or violence in their society and they are not greedy or any number of other ills that plague use horrible horrible western people. These wonderful savages live long healthy happy wonderful lives and the only time they have problems is when we westerners come in and corrupt them with our horrible horrible culture.

Of course there has never been any savages that are actually that noble, but liberal thinkers are convinced that it is true and one day we will see the error of our ways. This thought has been documented as far back as the Roman Empire. If you would like to read an example of the myth of the noble savage in Roman thought click here, and you will be directed to a paper examining the phenomenon.

We see the myth of the noble savage again in our modern world in a new incarnation. Now the noble savages are couched in the trappings of being so environmentally friendly that we westerners are pure scum for not following their righteous example.

For instance, our astronomy and research into physics and the physical sciences are killing the universe by looking at it. The article I am referring to is in my last post, but can also be viewed by clicking here. The answer therefore is to stop astronomy and physics research. We must return to the more savage state that is much more noble and stop this madness. Our western values are destroying the universe!

This rolls over to discussions of global warming as well. We must not use air conditioning, no matter how hot we are, because we are killing the planet! We must not use heat no matter how cold we are because we are killing the planet! The noble savages without heat or AC have it right! Sheryl Crow tells us that we must not use toilet paper, or maybe 1 square or 3 squares at the most. Ah those savages who just use their hand to wipe must be so very noble indeed.

I have a different view on the matter. I see savages, not as noble, but (get this) SAVAGE! Instead, I believe that western culture and science needs to do what it always has done. Drag the rest of the world, kicking and screaming, out of savagery and continue to advance medicine, science and general quality of life. There is a reason that savages want the things that we have. The reason is that we really are better. Life with heating and AC really is better! Really, I promise it is!

One final thought on the matter in two parts.
1. It is the hight of human arrogance that we think we can destroy the planet let alone the universe. Whatever pollution we put on this planet will kill us long before it destroys the planet completely. The planet will go on even if we do not.

2. The idea that we can end the universe by observing dark matter is extreme jackassery. Only one of the most ignorant of scientific principals would accept this as a good theory. The uncertainty principal only applies to things on the subatomic level because the difference in size of the observation and that being observed is so large as to alter the small particle. When we the human observe something infinitely larger than ourselves, the effect (in calculus terms: the rate of change as x goes to infinity, is zero) is to have no effect on it at all. We are not killing the universe.