Zombie Haiku

Is that shuffling shape
a zombie? An old man. Stop
watching zombie films.

I felt your lips, teeth
brush against my shoulderblade,
but it was not love.

I have a hatchet.
Good blades don't need reloading.
Learn to cut off heads.

The full list is here.

Question of the Day

I've previously argued for my own hypothesis explaining the literary relationships within the Synoptic Gospels.

Among the more popular are the Two-Source Hypothesis, the Farrer Hypothesis, the Griesbach Hypothesis, and the Augustinian Hypothesis.

Which hypothesis explaining the literary relationships with the Synoptic Gospels do you favor as the most likely?

Wherein I Destroy John Wilks With My Superior Reasoning Capacity

In a previous post about a Star Trek vs. Star Wars video, John Wilks commented:

But really, a Star Destroyer would utterly overwhelm a Galaxy class starship rather quickly. No match.

Puh-leeze. With mere laser and ion cannons, a Star Destroyer couldn't so much as carve a moustache on the face of a Galaxy-class starship, armed with 10 phaser banks, photon torpedoes and regenerative shielding.

John, how about you do some basic research before you embarrass yourself on the Internet in the future.

Facts matter, John.

FYI

Until I became a father, I had no idea that there were creatures in the world capable of excreting twice their own bodyweight on a daily basis.

Question of the Day

Um...would you mind removing your hand?

The Enterprise (D) vs. a Star Destroyer

[Video Link] Yes, we've all been subjected to many a Star Trek vs. Star Wars video and/or debate, but this one is really, really good. Run time: 5 minutes, 36 seconds.

Hat tip: Topless Robot

Really? The Most Sophisticated?

The narrator in this commercial dares to question my ambition.

Today, I will prove him wrong!

Superman Decides to Pass on This One

The Ennui of Henri

A black-and-white French art film about the existential angst experienced by a house cat.

[Video Link] Via Culture Popped

America's Next Zombie Idol

A reality TV show from VH1. Seven zombies live in a house and compete for a prize. Mild language warning.

• 
  VH1 TV Shows
  


• 
  Music Videos
  


• 
  Celebrity Photos
  


• 
  
  News & Gossip
  

Via io9, where parts 2 through 5 can be found.

Hat tip to someone, but I can't remember who. Probably Olive Morgan, since it's about zombies and all.

Question of the Day

What's that smell?

I Will Stand With You, SpongeBob!

They may take our Krabby Patties, but they will never take our freedom!!



More pop culture propaganda posters here. Via Neatorama.

Caption Contest

Previous contest winner

WINNER: DannyG: We're negotiating with "Splash Country" for sponsorship of the baptismal pool.

Hyzenthlay, R.I.P. (2003-2008)

Today, Hyzenthlay died of cancer. She was almost six years old.

I loved her, and shall miss her terribly.

I love you, Hyzenthlay. And I will never forget you.

My heart has joined the thousand, for my friend stopped running today.

1001 Rules for My Unborn Son

It's a blog by, well, presumably a father who wishes to impart 1001 nuggets of advice to his unborn son as he grows up. He's up to 301.

What would you put on such a list?

Mine: Always wear shoes that you can run in -- because you never know what the day may bring (This is why I don't and never will wear flip-flops).

HT: Neatorama

Christians and Art

Michael Spencer posts this picture of Titian's Adam and Eve and asks:

Are you offended? Why or why not? Would you show this painting to your congregation (including children and young people) or Bible class as an illustration? Explain. If someone said this was offensive to them as a illustration, what would you do?

How would you respond?

If the Book of Genesis Was a Facebook Page

Click here for the full gallery. Hat tip: Geekologie

Lately, I've Been Rethinking My Position on Gay Marriage

In the past, I've been vaguely opposed to legal gay marriage, albeit without any substantial passion. It certainly hasn't been an issue that has captivated me, as it has others.

But on this recent election day, I had to take a firm position because there was a constitutional proposition on the ballot here in Florida to ban gay marriage:

Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.

The ban passed with more than 62% of the vote.

Now I had to choose to either vote for or against this amendment, so I could not longer waffle on the issue. I decided to vote against this intiative. Here's why:

I see no particular reason to ban gay marriage. And my default political paradigm is to restrict government power, not enable it. So what arguments are there to ban gay marriage? It certainly has been a hot issue, especially given the surprising constitutional amendment recently passed in California.

One common argument that I've heard and read alot is that gay marriage should be banned (or simply not legalized) in order to preserve marriage between one man and one woman, as it always existed since the beginning of time. I hope that I don't have to explain how historically preposterous this position is. Monogamous heterosexual marriage is the historical norm in American history, but certainly not world history. Anyway, the historiocity of an activity (e.g. slavery, domestic violence) does not by itself validate its continuation.

Another argument is that gay marriage harms the marriages of heterosexual couples. I just don't see this works. The health of my marriage is dependent upon the emotional health of my wife and me, and our ability and willingness to commit to each other. If a gay couple next door gets married, I simply don't see how it affects us. If a heterosexual marriage is negatively impacted by the gay marriages of others, then it was pretty weak to begin with.

Now some opponents of gay marriage have argued that it is an attack on heterosexual families by undermining the values that heterosexual couples who are opposed to gay marriage teach to their children. Well, shoot, I meet plenty of people every day whose values are completely contrary to those that I wish to teach my child. But that still doesn't mean that I should get to use government force other people to live according to my lifestyle (e.g. no worshipping false gods, hanging out in strip clubs, or being ungenerous to the poor). Teaching my kid my values is my responsibility, not the responsibility of other people. And I certainly don't want people with values contrary to mine using government force to interfere in my upbringing of my child. Mind your own damn business and I'll mind mine.

One argument against gay marriage does have some traction: legalizing gay marriage can lead to legalizing polygamy. Well, I guess that it could. Discussions of legalizing polygamy have resurfaced now that supporting gay marriage has become mainstream. But if we believe that consenting adults should have the right to do what they want with their own bodies and relationships without government interference, then maybe this is a discussion that we need to have.

Anyway, I had to make a decision when I had the ballot in front of me, so I voted against the ban.

It's not so much that I support gay marriage as much as I oppose government. The idea of using government force to define interpersonal relationships gives me the libertarian heebie jeebies. So I followed my default position and voted against the ban. I'm making no commitment in support of legalized gay marriage, but opponents are going to have to come up with better arguments before I'll get on board.

Predestination vs. Free Will from the Perspective of Video Game Characters

Free Will:
Deviation
(Video Link)

Predestination: Video-Game Character Wondering Why Heartless God Always Chooses 'Continue'

The Perversion of the Sodomites

It's not what you think it is. In a comment at Payne Hollow, Monk-In-Training reminds us of God's priorities.

Now Hiring at Locusts & Honey

Position: Senior Henchman.

HR Requisition: #0771.

Position Description: The Senior Henchman supervises 3 full-time toadies, 5 part-time lackeys, and between 8-12 on-call minions. The Senior Henchman coordinates and oversees district-wide thuggery, prisoner processing and management, and organ extraction and preservation. This position involves participation in committee assignments regarding team building, human resources, and professional development. Must perform other duties as assigned.

A criminal background check will be performed as a part of the hiring process. A felony conviction is not an automatic bar to employment.

Minimum Qualifications: 2 years experience in a laboratory setting, as well as proven success at ransacking, pillaging, and marauding. Strong interpersonal skills are critical for this position. Must possess or be able to acquire a Henchman's License in the state of Florida within six months of hiring. MS Office skills.

Preferred Qualifications: Bachelor's degree in criminology from an Evil Overlord-approved institution. Web 2.0 competencies.

Compensation: varies with professional experience and education.

Application Process: copy and paste curriculum vitae into the comments section of this post, or e-mail CV to locustsandhoney2005 at yahoo dot com.

Closing Date: 12/1/2008.

Preference given to diversity candidates. Locusts & Honey is an equal opportunity employer that strives for a diverse workforce.

Proposed Warning Label for Christian Rock Albums

A rather cynical, but quite still quite amusing suggestion from Yankee Pot Roast.

UPDATE: Me fix grammar gooder.

The Simpsons on Methodism

I gotta find a clip of this, but in the mean time, Mary Jacobs has a transcript.

Okay, Here's My Next Fundraising Idea for the Methoblogosphere

Since my last one was so cruelly rejected, I would like to offer an alternative.

I wager 5,000 quatloos on Gavin, for obvious reasons.

What if Starbucks Marketed Itself Like the Church?

[Video Link] A parable by Beyond Relevance. Run time: 5 and a half minutes.

HT: ThinkChristian via Dave Faulkner

Question of the Day: Euthanasia

Last week, my rabbit Hyzenthlay had half of her left front foot amputated due to a malignant tumor. She was remarkably mobile, even the next day, for having undergone such a severe surgery.

The biopsy results came back yesterday. We had determined that if they revealed that the cancer had continued to spread beyond the amputation site, we would have her euthanized because her quality of life would be enormously diminished. Although three-legged dogs can be rather content, because of a the way that a rabbit moves, the complete amputation of her leg would leave her very badly crippled.

Her brother Inlehain's death was sudden and therefore quite traumatic. But if we had to put her down (which we will, when and sadly not if, the cancer returns) she would have lived a full six years. That is a good life for a rabbit, and we were content with that possibility.

But as I spent all day yesterday on airplanes, I had plenty of time to think. And I got to thinking about how we justify the euthanasia of animals on the basis of pain and suffering (or anything else) and reject a similar rationale for the euthanasia of humans.

If we accept that humans have an afterlife, and animals do not (a premise that I do not share), then the death of an animal is more final than that of a human. So if anything, we should be even more inclined support euthanasia for humans than for animals.

How have we, as a society, made this distinction?

So I put the question to you, dear readers:

How do we justify the euthanasia of animals but reject it for humans?

The Black Hole

[Video Link]
A short film about a man who discovers a sheet of paper that will put a hole into any object that it is placed on. HT: Neatorama

Absence

I'll be away for about four days. Here is a shiny object with which to keep yourself occupied. Enjoy!

Poll

What is most likely to be my ultimate cause of death?
	fatal blogging accident
	zombie bite
	rabbit uprising
	making one too many wisecracks about Jeff the Baptist's bodily aroma
	overdose on caption contests
pollcode.com free polls

Caption Contest

Previous contest winner

WINNER: Ironic Catholic: Easy Rider didn't age well as a movie.

Man Tries to Pay Bill With Picture of Spider

A hilarious e-mail exchange. Read it all.

Personal Laws

"The Game" was an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation that featured the minor character of Ensign Robin Lefler, starring Ashley Judd in her screen debut. Lefler had a quirk that stood out to me when I first saw the episode. She had, over her short life, composed 102 personal 'laws' or aphorisms that reflected important lessons that she had learned. For example "You can only count on yourself" and "Never date a co-worker." The idea of codifying life's lessons has intrigued me every since that 1991 episode, but I've only recently begun putting it into action. Here are a couple of personal laws that I've developed so far:

When in doubt, keep your mouth shut.

Nothing is a greater contributor to success in life than popularity.

If you had a set of personal laws, what might some of them be?

Check, Please!

Check Please
[Video Link] A short film by Larry Zeigelman about a father-son rivalry.

Those of You Who Thought that Obama Was Elected Last Night...

...are in for a nasty surprise.

Voting Machines Elect One Of Their Own As President

The Rightward Shift of the Catholic Church under Benetict XVI

It's about time: The Catholic Church Condemns Metrosexuality

Christian Warriors vs. Christian Disciples

Michael Spencer offers an excellent warning to evangelicals who are too focused on American culture wars.

Question of the Day

Is charging interest on a loan compatible with Christian teaching?

Star Wars Campaign Ads

Today, I'm going to vote for real leadership for the future with Emperor Palpatine. How about you?

[Video Link] HT: Gabriel Malor

Nintendo Wii Games for Rednecks

[Video Link] HT: Urlesque

"The Parable of the Old Man and the Young" by Wilfred Owen

I've long savored Wilfred Owen's haunting poem of World War I entitled "Dulce et Decorum Est."

Richard Hall alerted me to another one of Owen's poems about that war:

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb, for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretchèd forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.

Question of the Day

Do you see yourself as a Beavis or a Butthead?

FYI

There are few problems in this world that cannot be solved with the sufficient application of plaid.

Vows of Ordination and Change in the UMC

This is something that I've been thinking about for a while as it pertains to the homosexuality debate within the United Methodist Church:

Recently, we discussed how candidates for the ordained ministry take vows to support the doctrine, Discipline, and liturgy of the UMC while those same candidates oppose categorizing homosexual behavior as sinful. Jayson Dobney argued that candidates should essentially lie in order to get into the system, so that the system can be changed. He justifies this deception under Jesus's command to pay taxes to Caesar that which he was due.

My commentors have unanimously (thus far) rejected this deception as a distortion of the gospel. I agree.

Here's the problem with our conclusion:

In 1956, the General Conference of the Methodist Church authorized the ordination of women. This change did not some suddenly, but after many years of reflection, study, and debate. Many clergymen advocated this change long before it was passed by General Conference.

Now let's say that it's 1954, and a candidate for the ordained ministry takes his vows as an elder in full connection. He promises to uphold the doctrine, Discipline, and liturgy of the UMC. But he advocates the ordination of women.

1. By doing so, is he not violating his vow to uphold the Discipline?

2. And how would this clergyman be any different from a candidate today advocating the normalization of homosexual behavior, and yet pledging to uphold the Discipline?

3. And how can the UMC make changes in the discipline (e.g. the ordination of women, racial desegregation of churches), whether good or ill, if they are not allowed to oppose the Discipline, without violating their vows of ordination?

Theodicy on the Margins, Part 1

I've never read Terry Pratchett, but my wife is reading Interesting Times and recently commanded me to read the first page. I'm glad that I did. The novel starts out with these lines:

This is where the gods play games with the lives of men, on a board which is at one and the same time a simple playing area and the whole world.

And Fate always wins.

Fate always wins. Most of the gods throw dice but Fate plays chess, and you don't find out until too late that he's been using two queens all along.

Fate wins. At least, so it is claimed. Whatever happens, they say afterwards, it must have been Fate.*

Pratchett attaches a footnote to this section. It reads as follows:

*People are always a little confused about this, as they are in the case of miracles. When someone is saved from certain death by a strange concatenation of of circumstances, they say that's a miracle. But of course if someone is killed by a freak chain of events -- the oil spilled just there, the safety fence broken just there -- that must also be a miracle. Just because it's not nice doesn't mean it's not miraculous.

For many years and for a variety of reasons, whenever I've heard someone say "Dude, whatever happens, it was meant to be," I've suppressed a strong desire to slap him. Fortunately, in seminaryland, theology this bad is fairly rare. But I have often heard among my fellow Christians, including myself, the sentiment "God did X for me as a blessing."

But as I grow older, I am increasingly disinclined to attribute anything that happens to me, as either blame or praise, to God. Just as misfortune sometimes ends as a blessing, so does good fortune sometimes ends as a curse.

For example, when a charismatic and talented woman joined my last church and began engaging in ministry enthusiastically, I said confidently, "God brought this woman here to bless us and bring us revival." She said this, too -- in fact, that God had appeared to her in a vision and told her to join that church. But when she turned out to be a manipulative charlatan whose only interest was power and essentially destroyed the church, I did not say "God brought this woman here to curse us and destroy a Christian community." My earlier confidence that a particular event was the blessing of God proved to be totally incorrect. And if we accept the premise that God never smites followers who are faithful to him, then the arrival of this woman was not induced by God.

My point is that perhaps we shouldn't be so quick to attribute incidents in our lives to divine activity. If we can't say that a happening in our lives is either good or bad, then we really don't know whether or not anything that happens to us is actually God's intervention. Just as Henry Neufeld recently argued that we should be humble about accrediting our own thoughts to God, maybe we should also be humble about our own ability to even perceive what God is doing in our world.

Question of the Day

Okay, I followed your instructions precisely: I have the sombrero, the prunes, the lawnmower engine, and a copy of The Purpose-Driven Life.

Now what?

Render Unto Caesar

Jayson Dobney argues that Jesus' command to pay taxes to the Roman state can be used to justify taking ordination vows that one does not fully support:

The other night I had dinner with a close friend who is in the ordination process. She is preparing for a meeting with her Board of Ordained Ministry and shared with me her struggles with taking the vows necessary to become ordained. Her struggle, as I have heard from others in the ordination track, is how she can take these vows, while at the same time remaining authentic to her own faith and her role to seek justice for all of God's people.

[snip]

As we talked about what it meant to stay in the United Methodist church and take different paths, it reminded me of the story in the Gospels where Jesus is confronted with the question about whether his followers should pay taxes to the Roman government. Implicit in the question, is that by paying taxes, they were participating in the unjust actions of the institution of the state. His response was to Give to Caesar what was Ceasar's and to give to God what was God's.

As a gay man, I see the United Methodist church as another unjust institution. These vows that we are compelled to take to be a member or to become ordained are the price we must pay to be a part of this system. It is the tax. We give to the United Methodist Church that which is of the United Methodist Church - empty, hollow words. At the same time, we give to God our hearts and our lives, including our work that requires us to work within the unjust sytem of the United Methodist church so that someday we will have justice for All People.

I've written previously on the subject here.

The Advantages of Stoning False Prophets

Henry Neufeld has a great post up about the dangers of taking prophecy casually, or better put, attributing one's own thoughts to God:

I really don’t suggest we stone false prophets. I simply suggest we should be more careful invoking the name of God. Personally, I’m prepared not to do so, but rather to let others decide if something I say is of that profound a nature, and to live happily in that vast number of times when they are saying, “Not so much.”

Amen. I've written about this subject here, here, and here.

Jesus and the Restraining Order

Jesus loves you.

He's just not in love with you.

A hilarious legal notice from Yankee Pot Roast.