Our family had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, so here are some pictures and videos. I hope everyone had a great day. Enjoy!
Friday, November 28, 2008
Happy Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Recursiveism
I really like this comic for some reason, although I know the author is essentially reducing God down to infinite space and time and that is not what I believe.
Source: A Bunch of Rock
I do believe God is infinite but not solely manifest as infinite space and time. God is more than that.
This comic helps illustrate how it can be hard for some people to believe in God. The author is saying that if you have a person with above average intelligence, let's call him Randal, who is immortal and has access to infinite space and time, then Randal is indistinguishable from God.
And here, Randal is simulating the visible universe. He only really needs to simulate what we can see, right? So only the perceivable chunks. He also only needs to simulate a chunk of time. As far as we're concerned, time could have started 10 minutes ago, but we have planted memories from years ago in the simulation.
Randal can even make mistakes. If he does, he could rewind and try it again, if he wants. Things can happen in his simulation that he is not fully aware of. All he's doing is maintaining a simulation that with rules for physics on particles. He's not necessarily paying attention to everything nor does he have control over everything. Furthermore, it's just a simulation to him, so he doesn't even have to care if a human or a kangaroo suffers. It's just simulated deterministic suffering and he's above it all.
But does this idea disprove God? Not at all. All it does is push the question back a layer. Someone created Randal, after all. You could say the cosmic comic author decided to abstract his creation to a sub-creator, call it an inkling.
If you want to suggest that Randal was created by a super-Randal, ad infinitum, then you've really just decided to replace one unbelievable concept with another.
Which one is easier to believe? Infinitely abstracted Randals or God? I'm just saying.
Monday, November 17, 2008
God's Judgment on America?
If you think God is judging America by appointing Obama and plunging her into financial ruin, you don't understand a few things.
America has just as many resources as ever. The natural resources and human resources are abundant, it's the man-made financial turmoil that is making everyone wig out right now. I know it's a big deal when my pastor tells everyone they're going to see hyperinflation which will ultimately herald the anti-christ.
And, Obama is not the anti-christ. Or, if he is, I don't care. I am a Christian and my job is to point to Jesus, not some anti-jesus behind every bush.
Nowhere are believers told to watch for the appearance of the anti-christ. On the contrary, we are told to watch for Jesus Christ. In Titus 2:13Paul says we are to live "looking for the blessed hope and theappearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus."Likewise, Peter urges us to "fix our hope completely on the grace to bebrought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:13). Johncompletes the apostolic chorus by similarly urging us to "fix our hopeon Him" at His appearing (1 John 3:2-3).
God has not abandoned us. He is right here in the midst of this, along side us. Our Paraclete to the end.
There is a huge transfer of wealth going on, that is true. But if we pay attention during the reconstruction, we can do some major good. If we don't give up and we avoid acting like this is some kind of prophesy, we Christians can do a great amount of good for the glory of God.
It reminds me of the Northridge (California) Earthquake in 1994. Back then, a wise man told me how God could use this earthquake to move people around. It had the net effect of placing non-believers in the same house as believers where a lot of good could happen. Hurricane Katrina has a similar effect.
This economic turmoil has been compared to a natural disaster by a great many people. It has a lot of similarities. People are being uprooted, resources are needed. People need to be loved. The fact that this turmoil has a human cause doesn't change the fact that there are innocents involved. Very few of us will encounter anyone who caused this, so we should focus on the innocent.
If you think sub-prime caused this mess, you are mistaken. Sub-prime was the proverbial "canary in the coal mine." The human heart was the cause of this mess. We are experiencing the natural consequence of unbridled greed. That greed lead to unlimited liquidity, which lead to this mess.
Another cause of this mess is lethargy. In that way, We The People are to blame. Although there were people who purposefully directed us into these problems, we sat back and expected Superman or Batman or Ron Paul to step in and fix it. They are not going to do that. They can't.
Then again, maybe I think I see lethargy because I don't have a $300kretirement account that went to $250k, then $175k. That would bepretty stressful to watch if it was happening to me, and I most certainly wouldn't be lethargic.
Even Ron Paul knows the only way out is by active participation of the people in their government. We have to take an active role and educate ourselves. Instead, we have let the government go unchecked. We have to fix that. If we expect one person or a group of people to take care of us, we'll be right back here in no time.
The only exception to what I said about not expecting one man to fix everything is Jesus. When Jesus comes back to judge the living and the dead, all bets are off. I have put my faith in that one man and I have no doubt He'll come through. But until then, we have a role to play in taking back our life, liberty, and private property. Join me.
By the way, a lot of people are confused by this rapture event. It's related to Jesus coming back to judge the living and the dead, but probably not what a lot of you've been taught. Here's a quick explanation of the rapture in less than two minutes:
America has just as many resources as ever. The natural resources and human resources are abundant, it's the man-made financial turmoil that is making everyone wig out right now. I know it's a big deal when my pastor tells everyone they're going to see hyperinflation which will ultimately herald the anti-christ.
And, Obama is not the anti-christ. Or, if he is, I don't care. I am a Christian and my job is to point to Jesus, not some anti-jesus behind every bush.
Nowhere are believers told to watch for the appearance of the anti-christ. On the contrary, we are told to watch for Jesus Christ. In Titus 2:13Paul says we are to live "looking for the blessed hope and theappearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus."Likewise, Peter urges us to "fix our hope completely on the grace to bebrought to us at the revelation of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:13). Johncompletes the apostolic chorus by similarly urging us to "fix our hopeon Him" at His appearing (1 John 3:2-3).
God has not abandoned us. He is right here in the midst of this, along side us. Our Paraclete to the end.
There is a huge transfer of wealth going on, that is true. But if we pay attention during the reconstruction, we can do some major good. If we don't give up and we avoid acting like this is some kind of prophesy, we Christians can do a great amount of good for the glory of God.
It reminds me of the Northridge (California) Earthquake in 1994. Back then, a wise man told me how God could use this earthquake to move people around. It had the net effect of placing non-believers in the same house as believers where a lot of good could happen. Hurricane Katrina has a similar effect.
This economic turmoil has been compared to a natural disaster by a great many people. It has a lot of similarities. People are being uprooted, resources are needed. People need to be loved. The fact that this turmoil has a human cause doesn't change the fact that there are innocents involved. Very few of us will encounter anyone who caused this, so we should focus on the innocent.
If you think sub-prime caused this mess, you are mistaken. Sub-prime was the proverbial "canary in the coal mine." The human heart was the cause of this mess. We are experiencing the natural consequence of unbridled greed. That greed lead to unlimited liquidity, which lead to this mess.
Another cause of this mess is lethargy. In that way, We The People are to blame. Although there were people who purposefully directed us into these problems, we sat back and expected Superman or Batman or Ron Paul to step in and fix it. They are not going to do that. They can't.
Then again, maybe I think I see lethargy because I don't have a $300kretirement account that went to $250k, then $175k. That would bepretty stressful to watch if it was happening to me, and I most certainly wouldn't be lethargic.
Even Ron Paul knows the only way out is by active participation of the people in their government. We have to take an active role and educate ourselves. Instead, we have let the government go unchecked. We have to fix that. If we expect one person or a group of people to take care of us, we'll be right back here in no time.
The only exception to what I said about not expecting one man to fix everything is Jesus. When Jesus comes back to judge the living and the dead, all bets are off. I have put my faith in that one man and I have no doubt He'll come through. But until then, we have a role to play in taking back our life, liberty, and private property. Join me.
By the way, a lot of people are confused by this rapture event. It's related to Jesus coming back to judge the living and the dead, but probably not what a lot of you've been taught. Here's a quick explanation of the rapture in less than two minutes:
Sunday, November 16, 2008
Pumpkin Guts
Karen is going to make pumpkin pie, so we have to gut the pumpkin. A perfect project for the kids, right?
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Aquarium of the Pacific
Today, we packed up the family plus Uncle Gilbert and Grandma Sue and spent the day at the Aquarium of the Pacific. Karen and I had been there once before during a diner party thrown by Borland for BorCon 2001.
This trip was specifically for Benjamin. He loves fish. Whenever he comes over to me, if I'm on my laptop, he asks to see the fish screen-saver. So naturally, we would take him to the "Disneyland of aquariums" down in Long Beach. In fact, he most certainly enjoyed this trip more than any other trip to any attraction you could think of, including Disneyland.
The minute we walked in, he saw the first aquarium. So we unbuckled him from his stroller seat (yes, a five-year-old fits nicely into a stroller seat, where "nicely" is defined roughly as "extensively scrunched"):
To peal him away, I put him on my shoulders and stood there a bit. Then I ran away with him to the next aquarium. That worked nicely.
We eventually made our way to the seal and sea lion tank. That's one impressive tank. They actually had both seals and sea lions, but I didn't know which one was which. Hey, I'm just a software developer.
At first, Benjamin didn't notice the animals swimming around in the tank above. He was very interested in the curved "glass" itself.
You really can spend a good chunk of your day at this aquarium. I won't enumerate the kinds of fish there are. To someone like me, fish are fish. But Benjamin clearly liked the tropical fish the most. He didn't know what to do with himself when we got to that part of the aquarium. My previous trick, when it was time to leave, wasn't even working. He was very upset when we had to finally leave. But he was also tired from literally running back and forth and back and forth. What's a kid to do?
Was it because they are brightly colored? Probably. They use a UV light to ensure proper exposure to what they normally get in nature. In doing so, they show up very brilliantly.
Hannah really loved all the "Dory" fish and the "Nemo" fish. She would point them out every chance she got. She loved the big fake whales suspended from the sealing. I believe they were intended to be scale, but I'm not sure. She also had an incident with a tiny crab that came charging toward her. Her mother assured her that it couldn't get her, but you never know if these things scar kids for life or not.
We got there a little after noon and stayed until four. When we got into the van, Hannah immediately started snoring. Benjamin still wanted to see the screen-saver when we got home.
This trip was specifically for Benjamin. He loves fish. Whenever he comes over to me, if I'm on my laptop, he asks to see the fish screen-saver. So naturally, we would take him to the "Disneyland of aquariums" down in Long Beach. In fact, he most certainly enjoyed this trip more than any other trip to any attraction you could think of, including Disneyland.
The minute we walked in, he saw the first aquarium. So we unbuckled him from his stroller seat (yes, a five-year-old fits nicely into a stroller seat, where "nicely" is defined roughly as "extensively scrunched"):
To peal him away, I put him on my shoulders and stood there a bit. Then I ran away with him to the next aquarium. That worked nicely.
We eventually made our way to the seal and sea lion tank. That's one impressive tank. They actually had both seals and sea lions, but I didn't know which one was which. Hey, I'm just a software developer.
At first, Benjamin didn't notice the animals swimming around in the tank above. He was very interested in the curved "glass" itself.
You really can spend a good chunk of your day at this aquarium. I won't enumerate the kinds of fish there are. To someone like me, fish are fish. But Benjamin clearly liked the tropical fish the most. He didn't know what to do with himself when we got to that part of the aquarium. My previous trick, when it was time to leave, wasn't even working. He was very upset when we had to finally leave. But he was also tired from literally running back and forth and back and forth. What's a kid to do?
Was it because they are brightly colored? Probably. They use a UV light to ensure proper exposure to what they normally get in nature. In doing so, they show up very brilliantly.
Hannah really loved all the "Dory" fish and the "Nemo" fish. She would point them out every chance she got. She loved the big fake whales suspended from the sealing. I believe they were intended to be scale, but I'm not sure. She also had an incident with a tiny crab that came charging toward her. Her mother assured her that it couldn't get her, but you never know if these things scar kids for life or not.
We got there a little after noon and stayed until four. When we got into the van, Hannah immediately started snoring. Benjamin still wanted to see the screen-saver when we got home.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Head Desk
Our so-called "representative," Senator and Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd:
We want to see more progress from our friends in the financial sector -- more progress in foreclosure mitigation, in affordable lending, and in curbing excessive compensation, and if that progress is not forthcoming, we are prepared to legislate.
Source: CNN
Got that? What did the banks do to cause the sub-prime mess? They "made progress" in easy credit. Easy credit was the whole problem. What is Dodd's solution? Easy credit. Head? Meet desk.
Got that? What did the banks do to cause the sub-prime mess? They "made progress" in easy credit. Easy credit was the whole problem. What is Dodd's solution? Easy credit. Head? Meet desk.
The Good Old Days
Here's a video from Summer 2007 when we only had a budget deficit of approximately $9 trillion and we could still laugh about it. Those were the good-old-days.
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