It has just come to my attention that Answers in Genesis Speaker, Mike Riddle, will be the guest speaker at a local church a week from Sunday –and you know I’ll be there.  Actually, I’m considering live-blogging the event.  Stay tuned!

Watch this. No, really–watch it. If I can get you to watch nothing more, do yourself a favor and check out the second video at about 5:45.  Awesome, purely awesome.

1st video

2nd video

3rd video

4th video

5th video

I’m sick and school is being a pain, so between increments of taking cold medicine and sleeping, I headed over to Atheist Central only to find this video posted. I might differ with half of what Ray Comfort says, but I will give credit where credit is due –that and the fact that this video is rather hilarious.

Note: this converstation centers around a post on Tony Miano’s blog, “The Lawman Chronicles”. As discussed below, he has deleted the original post, but the google cache still remains (Link). Tony Miano is an affiliate of Ray Comfort’s Living Waters organization. Upon reflection, I thought this conversation was particularly interesting considering the hat Tony Miano wears in his home page portrait. “Ask Me” it reads, yet… he never answers my question. Oh, the irony of it all.

Tony Miano,

I believe you misplaced this. No matter, that’s only part of why I’m emailing you. Rather, [and unfortunately] I find occasion to call account of a deed of your’s which I do not see as at all Biblical (quite the opposite, as I hope to convince you). Namely, your carrying of a gun.

First of all, please understand where I’m coming from. As something like a red-neck myself, I completely empathize with you for carrying a gun. I simply don’t believe you have the right. Did the Apostle Paul make any effort to defend himself? Or what of Steven? Or any of the other apostles? Yet their scenarios were far worse then your own, my friend. Rest assured you have the law on your side. Paul didn’t, but he by no means undertook to defend himself.

You talk enough about hell and judgment –you ought to be more practical about it. Could you honestly and deliberately take the life of an unbeliever, knowing very well where that person was going? Might I ask, whatever happened to turning the other cheek? Or is, perhaps, your ministry truly only about yourselves?

Provers 9:8 says “Rebuke a wise man, and he will love you. Rebuke a fool, and he will hate you.” I think you get the point.

Sincerly, your brother in Christ,
Jonathan Brennecke

——————————————-

Tony responded in kind:

Jonathan,

You close your e-mail with “Sincerely, your brother in Christ.” Yet the tone of your e-mail, young man, is anything but brotherly or Christian. While you ask some legitimate questions, the manner in which you ask them smack of sarcasm. If you are looking for a rational and respectful conversation, then I welcome it. But I don’t abide the disrespect of my children (some who are older than you), so why would I accept it from you?

So, if you are a Christian, then approach me the way a young Christian man would approach an older Christian man. Change your attitude and maybe we will have a conversation. “Do not sharply rebuke an older man, but rather appeal to him as a father” (1 Timothy 5:1a).

One of the reasons I removed the article you referenced is because I came to realize that it might be a cause of stumbling for some. You validated this by the tone and content of your e-mail.

Again, I welcome your questions, so long as you can behave in a respectful manner.

I am in the middle of a conference, at the moment. So, if you do decide to change the tone of your rhetoric, we may be able to continue the conversation in a few days.

——————————————-

“I am young in years and you are very old,
Therefore I was afraid
And dared not declare my opinion
I said, “Age should speak,
and multitude of years should teach wisdom.”
But there is a spirit in a man,
And the breath of the Almighty gives him understanding,
Great men are not always wise,
Nor do the aged always understand justice.

Therefore I say, “Listen to me,
I also will declare my opinion…”

Job 32:6-10

Tony Miano,

I’ll be the first to admit that my tone was rash –is rash– but love is rash. Love is audacious. Love is uncompromsing. If you must glean nothing more from my words than that, so be it.

I will tell you what love is not. Love is not patronizing, not derisive, not condemning.

I may be young enough to be your son, but I am not your son –don’t patronize me. The future belongs to the young, Tony. Get off your high horse already and recall that Jesus said to come to him like a child.

Jon,
Pesharim

——————————————-

Once again, –and finally– Tony’s response:

I may answer your questions in a future blog post. But until your attitude changes, this will end our conversation.

I saw Fireproof tonight in Spokane… but, no, I’m not going to write an exhaustive review about it. It is, however, likely the best movie I’ve seen by a Christian film group (Sherwood Pictures) –which arguably isn’t saying much. In any case, if you expected a rather well done family film with impressive cinematography and plot, and decent acting, this is it. The story is everything you’ve already heard about and anticipated. Nothing particularly novel there. Nothing old either, just exactly what I’d expected –and well done. So, go see it already.

Dear Moderators,

You can’t imagine how frustrating it is for me, as a longtime commenter and reader of Ray Comfort’s blog, to find that where before there were a ridiculous amount of rules, there are now, effectively, none. Rules one can abide with, but leaving comment moderation up to subjectivity of a unknown third party is the ultimate detractor to commenting. Even Ray’s own subjective commenting was better than this. At least we knew him and could anticipate to some extent how our comments would be received, now that is up to you, –who we don’t in the least bit know, who may as well be the devil of our comments. You might be an angel as well. But that’s the problem, you see, we don’t know where you stand or what your rules are. So we’re left to assume the worst.

Ray’s blog has always been about toeing the line. Now the line is undefined and the readers are left standing here wondering where to stand. We have no idea what to do. Do we want to comment? Yes, of course, but we must ask ourselves,”Is it even worth it to bother commenting? Will my comment be allowed through moderation? What does it take to be banned? If I am banned, will I even be notified?”

I for one, have not commented on Ray’s blog since the change in comment moderating. And I’ll admit that, having not commented, I don’t have any first hand experience with the new moderators. However, I’ve heard enough from other people to be well established in my doubts. I hope you’ll forgive me for assuming the worst.

As a blogger myself I’ll give you a little advice, commentors are to be respected. You as moderators should not be looking only for their respect to you, but should take into consideration how you can return that favor. Having people comment on Ray’s blog should be held as a privelege among you. Don’t take me for an egoistic fool for saying this, please, but you are graced our presence and especially by our comments. Considering that, I only ask you to hold us in enough esteem to tell us what the new rules are.

Thank you sincerely,
Jonathan Brennecke
from the blog Pesharim

Note: This is a sticky post, and will remain at the top here until I get some answers (hint, hint). So, if you’re wondering why I don’t have anything new up, scroll down.

This morning I looked deep into this terra incognita they call thought. Here’s my idea: for the next couple weeks (or longer), I’m going to blog a series of mini-essays on a certain topic (as if school was never time consuming enough). Only, you decide the topic.

Guidelines: I want it to focus on a specific, non-hominid fossil group, such as a previous essay I wrote and posted here on Archaeopteryx lithographica, or, even as broad as Synapsids and the evolution of Mammals. The idea is just that you provide the fossil group in questoin –be it Cetaceans, Plesiosaurs or whatever you like– and I do the research and writing. I only ask that it be a vertebrate of some sort.

Blogging is all about frequent updates, (something I constantly grapple with) so the end result will be a series of mini-essays. However, as the project nears its end, I’ll also write a compilation of each mini-essay into a single, final post. Moreover, I’ll post a sticky (and continually updating) post of references, to function as a bibliography for the entire project.

Wordlview is inescapable, naturally. But while I intend to explain both the creationist and evolutionist standpoints, I’m not pitting them against each other. Also, the focus of the research will remain open, so once the general topic is decided, you still have a voice in what specific aspects to consider (by way of mini-essays) and which to ignore.

Sounds good? Cool, now give me your suggestions in the comments. Majority wins.

Note: To aid your suggestions, here’s a couple relavent lists from Wikipedia:

List of Prehistoric Vertebrates

List of Transitional Fossils

Distant Starlight and Genesis: conventions of time and measurement, is an excellent article from Robert Newton (Pseudonym). I’m not at all an astrophysicist so I won’t bother trying to summarize. Check it out for yourself.

“There are two useful conventions to define the time an event occurs: calculated time and observed time. Although calculated time has become the standard convention, it may not be the convention used in Scripture. This paper serves not to introduce any new astrophysical ideas, but rather to clear up a common misconception—a mismatch of conventions of measurement. Once this misunderstanding is eliminated, it becomes obvious that distant starlight does not prove that the universe is billions of years old, and neither is it a legitimate argument against the Genesis account of Creation.”

Kudos to Ben for linking me to this. *tips hat*

I was just looking back on the previous post. Then I scrolled down to the post beneath it. Oh.

“In communication, in general, passion and apparent intelligence are inversely proportional. Such that… the more passionate you seem, the less intelligent you appear. The art of communication is in the synthesis of the two.”

Well great, I doubt the slightest speck of intelligence made it through the passion in that post. So much for making that point.

Perhaps, or perhaps not –in a way it made my point.

You see, if you look at that post analytically, well, it isn’t pretty, and it certainly won’t make any sense. You simply have to look at it passionately. It’s passion or nothing this time around. Hopefully the former.

I feel fine, and it’s a strange place to find myself. Rather, a strange place to lose myself. There’s the rub –I feel lost. Like the muscle fibres of my soul are atrophied. Like I’ve found the secret of all wisdom but I don’t know what it is. It’s like knowing you stand before the greatest crossroads in life –but seeing only one path.

I’m afraid that if I write a word further I will go mad. I’m afraid that –now that it is written– I am mad.

I know exactly what to do. But I don’t know anything at all. I feel desolate. Empty. I feel lost –horribly, miserably lost.

In a word, I feel fine.