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I have a problem.
I’m addicted to lattes. I go to starbucks almost every morning, so much so that they know my name.
“Triple venti caramel latte please.”
“Ok Matt, drive around.”
Then onetime I sent someone else to get my latte, they asked her if it was for me and wrote “hey matt!!” on my cup.
I have a problem…
(true story, but I wrote it to test out a mobile publishing app on the iphone)
a couple thoughts
You may have missed it, but Bush talked about high prices on both food and oil in a news conference out on the front lawn today. He made a few good points, and a few poor one.
The most striking point he made was that we should buy from LOCAL farmers, I wholly and totally support this idea (but I’ve yet to put it in full practice…).
But he also talked about Ethanol and touted it as a solution to the fuel crisis, but I think that idea has been sufficiently debunked. The usage of corn based Ethanol as an alternative fuel source is, in large part, a cause for the current food problems throughout the world. He also stated that we need to be exploring oil sources at home, or in other words, we need to be drilling for oil in Alaska.
I haven’t really formed a full opinion on drilling in Alaska, I’m leaning against it right now, but I could be swayed the other way if I read a compelling argument for it. I do think that we need to be exploring alternate (alternative) fuel vehicles, not just hybrid vehicles. Drilling for more oil is not going to solve the problem in the end, but lessening our dependence on oil (not just foreign oil) via alternative sources of fuel.
But I’m really only speaking what has already been said, and I’m likely only “preaching to the choir,” I just wanted to give a few quick thoughts on his news conference today.
He did make one other point (just now- the conference is still going on, I wanted to essentially live blog it because I doubt that there will be a full transcript) about how hard it is to fight against men who strap bombs to their chest and blow up innocents to achieve their objectives, I guess there’s a big difference from dropping bombs from the sky that kill innocents.
I might edit this as the conference continues, but as of now… that’s all folks.
Ok, EDIT: Just read that the Indian Taxi Fund is already at $1000 (in less than a week), and there is one more spot available for the free* Red Cowboy Design job. Also, still looking for that donor match if anyone’s willing, contact me via email.
my love hate relationship with the internet
It’s one of the greatest inventions of all time. It revolutionized the sharing of information; similar to the way Guttenberg did with the invention of the printing press. It’s literally changed the way we gather information, we interact with each other, and even in many cases, the way we date people.
I’ll straight up say it, it’s awesome, but… I hate it.
And, I love it.
Why?
The internet has brought great things into my life, without the internet I probably would have never discovered Emergent, without Wikipedia I would have probably shot myself from boredom at my last job (I came away with a ton of pointless information), without the iTunes I would have no where near the same amount of exposure to music that I do. It’s brought great changes in my life, and I know that I wouldn’t want to go back to a stage where I didn’t have access to it. Honestly, I could write an entire blog about how it has impacted my life for good, but where’s the fun in that.
But at the same time I have to acknowledge the problems brought about by its incorporation in my life. The main one? A lack of relationships.
Think about it.
My personal network of people I’m acquainted with and, even moreso, the number of people I consider friends, is far higher than it would likely be if I didn’t have access to the internet. Web 2.0 applications like Facebook, Myspace, and Xanga (if you want to get old school) enable us to meet people we’d likely never see in our “real” lives. Even through the outlet of blogging I have discovered people I am nearly positive I’d never see in real life. (Andrew Martin for instance, a frequent commenter on this blog, and a great blogger himself).
At the same time my “network” is growing, the depth of these new relationships is about the same of the latest Hannah Montana song.
The same problem is popping up in our personal lives. We now have the ability to carry on friendships that we make in person both over the phone and online. In fact, when my wife and I started dating, we really never saw each other too much, but we talked on the phone for hours (a few times all night- but who hasn’t done that?) and on-line (AIM not iChat, that was the dark ages before I met my first mac). In a sense the internet made interactions between the two of us easier, and was probably the best way for us to interact, considering, that at the time, we were too young to drive and thus couldn’t see each other face to face without the cumbersome act of convincing a parent to drive us. While the internet enabled my wife and I to have a relationship before we could drive to see each other, real depth came through face to face interaction.
Another issue that I’m struggling with surrounding the Internet is conversation. One of the greatest parts about face-to-face conversation is fluidity. While there are certainly breaks in conversation, topics flow naturally from one to another. Face-to-face conversation also allows for thought to be expressed as it is happening. So when a friend and I are discussing a subject we can both keep the conversation going from issue to issue within a shorter course, and bring up items as they flow free form into our thought processes.
Not so with the Internet. Instead conversations are often disjointed, with breaks in ideas, or multiple people carrying different conversations at the same time on the same forum (Forum meaning chat room, actual forum, blog comment section). Then there’s the problem where conversations are not happening now, they are happening over a long course of time, which is a frustrating experience when you are so enthralled with what you’re discussing.
I feel like I’m getting long winded, but I wanted to get some of this off my chest, as always your thoughts and comments are appreciated.
a question
I’ve spent something like 12 years attending churches, that may not be a lot to most but since it’s about half of my life, it’s some time to me. In all of those years, I have heard just one lesson on apologetics, and it wasn’t until this past year that the lesson was taught.
Really, I probably couldn’t tell you which languages the Bible was originally written in just a few years ago. This all despite spending a year in a private Christian school that prides itself on the Bible. Along with bible thumping churches throughout that period. Why was the history of the Bible never actually taught? Sure we’d get in depth as to the history presented in the Bible, but getting to the actual textual history just never came up.
Of course I didn’t really think to actually ask the question regarding the text, so I guess I’m partly to blame, but I don’t really buy into that idea. The church should be educating it’s laity as to different aspects of their faith. I’m not talking about systematic theology (which is just plain awful) nor theology itself. Really, I think, before we dive into theology we should get some grasp of what we’re reading.
The greatest irony of all the time that I spent in church, the general theme that I got from the influential characters in my church life was essentially to question everything via the Bible, yet never question the Bible itself.
So all of these thoughts have been brooding in my head over the past few months (since the whole crazy emergent train ride began), when the proverbial straw that broke the camels back came in the form of a podcast.
About a week after the plague I was listening to the Nick and Josh Podcast from March 22nd interviewing Timothy Paul Jones. Jones had written a book discussing and in some cases refuting an earlier work written by Bart Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus.
Lets just that this interview didn’t help my displeasure with the lack of knowledge passed down by the church.
So, I went about and bought Misquoting Jesus, and I do plan on giving fair time to Misquoting Truth when I get a chance.
But the actual issues with Biblical texts isn’t want I want to discuss here, what I want to know is why the church does not educate it’s laity fully on issues of the faith. Sure, I guess occasionally we get [sarcasm] wonderful [/sarcasm] pieces like this, but nothing in depth is offered.
What are they afraid of? Laity running away because maybe, just maybe, there are some inaccuracies with a text that billions have based their life on? What happens when someone does find out potential problems, without being adequately prepared for such issues?
It’s like (warning: baseball analogy coming) a veteran failing to tell a rookie hitter about the nasty slider the pitcher they’re going up against displays.
Essentially it’s a system set up for failure. It must not go on.
Finally
Taken some time but I finally managed to get blogger to work with my FTP server. Very geeky stuff went on, some of which I actually understood. Anyways, three day’s later and here I have it, my blog on my personal URL in stead of a .mac blog. Fun times, eh?
-Now it won’t let me upload new stuff. Great