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Life is fleeting, if one thing can be a guarantee. We all go out. Some in a blaze of glory and others as a low whisper. One way or the other, our candle gets snuffed out. And once it does, do you know for sure where you’ll stand?
In a blink, you could be gone. You may have told yourself that you had time to think about this later, but life doesn’t work that way. All it takes is a blink.
Do you know what comes next? Do you know for sure?
We all know we’re not perfect. It’s like a meter is built into us. Something tells us that we make mistakes. This conscience is real and is a gift from God. You are not perfect, but perfection is what God expects.
You may think that faith is for the old, but death does not discriminate on age. You may think religion just a list of do’s and don’ts, but that’s not the way it was supposed to be. The law is to protect us from sin. The things God considers wrong can hurt us. Disobeying these laws is sin. Disobeying God is sin. This isn’t petty, but protective.
A perfect God judges perfectly. What crimes have you committed? Have you committed adultery? Jesus said that if you look on a woman with lust, that you have committed adultery in your heart. Have you ever looked at a woman lustfully? If so, you are an adulterer. Have you ever lied? If so, you are liar. Have you ever committed murder? Jesus said that if you call you brother stupid, you’ve committed murder in your heart.
If you were judged today, what would be the verdict? You might think that your good deeds might count for something, but imagine sitting for a judge in your hometown. You murdered your brother. The evidence is stacked against you. And so you plea with the judge, “Look at my bank account, sir. I have given so much money to charity! Look at my calendar: I have given so much time to help others!” But the judge is to judge you for your crime. You killed a man. You killed your brother. What should a just judge do?
The good news, though, is that your sin can be covered. The law came with a sacrificial system. Pay your due for your sins. Count up all the sins that you have committed and pay the fine.
Is the number too large, the task to hard? You’d be right to think so, because the law was to point people to the hopelessness of our sin. It binds us, holds us down. Even if we provided sacrifice after sacrifice, we would never be free from our sin.
But your sin can be covered. A sacrifice was made. Jesus, the Son of God, came down not to extend a sword, but a hand. This is why a Christian cannot believe that multiple ways to God exist. Our sin is the problem and the only way for it to be forgive is by a sacrifice. Jesus was that sacrifice, he was that pure lamb, the first of creation. His life was without sin, he lived by the law. But the purpose of his life was to take our sin away, so at the prime of his life, the government took him before a judge, accused him of things he wasn’t guilt of, and gave him the ultimate punishment: death.
You might not believe this story. You likely have heard it before. You might think that Jesus was just a good man, but that good man said he was God, man. He claimed to be messiah, the chosen one, the Son of God and God himself. You can do the research. I have. You can read it in the Bible or you can read what historians say. No historian disagrees with Jesus’ existence. No historian disagrees with what is recorded in the Bible about him. Some question whether he was right.
But would you take the chance that he was wrong? His followers didn’t. They followed his words until their deaths, often at the hands of oppressors and aggressors. Stoned to death for disagreeing with the establishment, crucified for teaching a different message, thrown in prison on a remote island to grow old. But in the face of death, their faith seemed to grow stronger and bolder. A sane man following a lie would not die to not look like a liar. At least one would break rank. But none did. Historical accounts show that the early Christians, those that saw Jesus after he rose from the dead, lived life at the edge, never fearing death and always preaching life everlasting.
Life is fleeting.
The story is not a lie. It is no fabrication. You will die. You will face judgment. You know what the verdict is because it is written on your heart. You know that you haven’t done enough good to outweigh your crimes. Blink and life is gone.
The good news is a single choice is all it takes. Make the choice to follow Jesus today. Not later today. Right now. The Bible says all you must do is turn from your sins, take up your cross, and follow Jesus. You are not expected to come to him clean. You’ll be cleaned by him. You are not expected to have things in order. He’s got you covered.
A blink can make the difference. Don’t blink and let your life be taken away. Make the choice right now. Follow Jesus. Assurance is given to those that follow him. Your sin will be covered. The judge will look at you and see his son. He’ll see what his son did. You don’t want the alternative.
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Religious freedom restoration act. Provides that a state or local government action may not substantially burden a person’s right to the exercise of religion unless it is demonstrated that applying the burden to the person’s exercise of religion is: (1) essential to further a compelling governmental interest; and (2) the least restrictive means of furthering the compelling governmental interest. Provides that a person whose exercise of religion has been substantially burdened, or is likely to be substantially burdened, by a state or local government action may assert the burden as a claim or defense in a judicial proceeding, regardless of whether the state or a political subdivision of the state is a party to the judicial proceeding. Allows a person who asserts a burden as a claim or defense to obtain appropriate relief, including: (1) injunctive relief; (2) declaratory relief; (3) compensatory damages; and (4) recovery of court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees.
This is the law that was passed in Indiana last week. Take a minute and read it over.
Now look at the response to it in the media. Look at all the people going ape-shit crazy over this.
Religious freedom = the right to discriminate against gays!
Wow. Just wow. And none are sharing why this law came to be.
Last month I published an article titled A Case of New Tolerance and Ignorance. In it, I quote The Oxford Pocket Dictionary of Current English on the definition of tolerance:
“showing willingness to allow the existence of opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with”
And then I shared the definition that most people today believe to mean tolerance:
“showing willingness to accept opinions or behavior that one does not necessarily agree with”
A subtle difference, but a significant one. We have shifted the term from meaning that one allows the existence of differing opinions and behavior to meaning that one accepts differing opinions or behavior.
Along with this shift, the word “bigot,” which is directly tied in definition to the word “tolerance,” has also been changed. So instead of a bigot being a person not allowing alternative views and lifestyles— like the Muslims that are throwing gays off rooftops— a bigot is instead a person that doesn’t accept and embrace the gay lifestyle.
Defining the terms is always important in a debate.
This is a huge change. While Christians have always been considered to be tolerant, we are now being singled out as the most intolerant. Even though Muslims are throwing gays off rooftops. Muslims are throwing gays off rooftops and the media is practically ignoring them, but a bakery chooses not to provide their service for a gay wedding and they are swarmed with media attention calling them the worst things allowed in civilized society.
Now, you are a smart person. How do I know this? Because you’ve held your cool to this point in this article. “[L]et every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger.” We should really live by that verse more. Even if you are not a believer in Jesus, doesn’t it just make sense. The American media in the last couple decades have become quick to speak, quick to anger, and very seldom do they wish to hear opposing views. A wise person listens first. A wise person responds with calculated words.
Even if you do not agree with me. Even if you adamantly disagree with me. Don’t you really want us to be closer to that original definition of tolerance than the latter? Forcing a person to agree with you by lawsuit proves nothing. It’s like nuking another country. You haven’t proven who’s right, but who’s left. Accept that other opinions exist and that this is a good thing. If everyone agreed on everything, I don’t think life would be much fun. Imagine that the only restaurant around is Taco Bell. We can agree to disagree. I’m okay with this. Are you?
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America’s business community recognized a long time ago that discrimination, in all its forms, is bad for business. 1
I must ask, Mr. Cook, does Apple discriminate in any way? Or have you narrowed your definition of discrimination to fit the needs of your view? Last I checked, Apple Stores have an age limit of 18 to hiring employees.2 Apple doesn’t allow certain common practices in their Asian factories3, such as hiring young people and working long hours. Apple, at the launch of many products, restricts the number of purchases per person and sometimes has avoided sales to obvious foreigners because of the resale markets.
There are many forms of discrimination. Mr. Cook is right on this. But not all forms are bad. In fact, many forms are really good and help grow business. While not hiring 16 year olds prevents many from getting a job at an excellent employer, it also allows Apple to start their wage rates at a much higher number, far above minimum wage. While not allowing foreigners to buy their products in bulk might rub some wrong, it allows for those that want to buy their product from the business the chance to do so.
Businesses discriminate in many ways and must to survive.
That said, there are some forms of discrimination that are clearly wrong. Not hiring someone because of the color of their skin: wrong. Not serving someone because they are gay: wrong. But that isn’t what these religious freedom laws are seeking to allow. The law passed in Indiana is to allow religious conviction to play a role in providing services. Could it be used in a malicious way? Maybe, as many laws could. But the problem is the many bakeries and photographers that have been sued out of business because of refusing to provide certain services, namely gay weddings.
This is what seems to be difficult for many to understand. As a web developer, I cannot in good faith take a lot of different jobs. I left my last job because of the sexual harassment of a female coworker and the lack of response of my managers to it. I almost left the job before that because my boss was considering taking on a website for a strip club. Would I take on a project from a gay client? That isn’t the question to ask for me. It depends on the type of project more than the orientation of the client.
Anyone in the creative business has faced these issues. If you haven’t yet, you will. We must choose what clients we wish to take on.
But the media is saying that this could be used by a Christian restaurant owner to deny service to a gay person. Could it? I doubt it. The law states that action “may not substantially burden a person’s right to the exercise of religion.”4 A restaurant providing food for a gay person does not “burden” a Christian. In fact, it’s what Jesus would have done.5 Does making a cake “burden” a Christian baker? Yes, because they are participating in something they consider wrong. 6
There are many things that Apple considers wrong that they discriminate against. Look at how selective they are on their factories and the restrictions they put on their business decisions. The things that Apple opposes in these factories are standard practice in these cultures. Most other tech companies don’t require the same rules be met.
For the Christian, it is the same. Many of the lawsuits coming against bakers are coming from customers that have been coming to the bakery for years, if not decades. These bakers haven’t discriminated against their clients unilaterally. They have time and again served these homosexuals without issue. But the bakers say they don’t make cakes for this one event and then they get sued. They are not discriminating against the homosexual, but the event. Just like many bakeries do not do weddings, these bakeries do not do this type of event.
Ultimately, it is a business choice. As Mr. Cook says, “America’s business community recognized a long time ago that discrimination, in all its forms, is bad for business.” If it is bad for business, those businesses wouldn’t get clientele. They would be shunned by the community. But instead of that being good enough, some homosexuals have taken it upon themselves to sue them for tens of thousands of dollars. Because they won’t make a cake. Where I grew up, that was called a tantrum. And just like the lady that sued McDonald’s for serving hot coffee, the courts are giving them what they want. So now the pendulum is swinging the other direction and protection is being added to prevent this from happening to more businesses. If you don’t like how I run my business, take your business elsewhere.
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Sorry readers, the end of last week didn’t go as planned and the weekend was crazy because of it. So instead of my Top 5 going up Saturday afternoon, like normal, it is going up now. My apologies.
A very well-worded article on the history of sexuality and Christianity and why it is to this day one of the most rigidly held elements of our faith.
Is Facebook stifling your prayer life?
Hilarious short animation that answers something I’ve speculated for quite some time.
I’ve fallen in love with the Art of Manliness. If you’re a man and don’t know about the site, watch this interview and then follow their blog!
With Apple’s new patent, I might never make it home to see the family.
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A country that has redefined “bigot” to be anyone that disagrees with someone’s life choices, America needs to look good and hard at what ISIS has been doing through the Middle East. As we bring Christians one-by-one into the spotlight and ask them about their beliefs on sexuality, already knowing the answer they’ll give, and berate them for being so inhuman, so unloving, so intolerant, our fellow humans in ISIS are dragging gay men out of their homes and dropping them off rooftops, stoning them to death, and killing them in horrible ways.
The times that I have been called a bigot are countless. Called so for my faith. Called so because I disagree, silently and vocally, with someone’s life choices. To not see this word used against those that are dropping gay men off rooftops but instead against those that disagree, without even considering violence, shows how ass backwards our country, our media, our fellow men and women have gotten.
A Christian disagrees because he loves you and doesn’t want you to continue on a path he knows leads to Hell. To quote Penn Jillette, reknown atheist:
If you believe that there’s a heaven and hell and people could be going to hell—or not getting eternal life or whatever—and you think that, well, it’s not really worth telling them this because it would make it socially awkward. . . . How much do you have to hate somebody to not proselytize? How much do you have to hate somebody to believe that everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?
This is how the Christian thinks, how the Christian lives. While many in America are getting more and more hostile towards us. While it is becoming more and more unpopular to share our faith. While we know that our livelihood is on the line, we share our faith because we believe that, through Christ, eternal life can be had. To not share that would be hate. I would die to see a gay man come to Christ.
But these radical Muslims of ISIS are killing everyone that disagree with them and doing so without shame. They are taking gay men to the rooftops and dropping them to their deaths in front of an adorning crowd below. They are chopping the heads off of Christians and Muslims that don’t agree with them. And while doing so, they are documenting it all on video and in photos and sharing it online.
I have seen ISIS called many things in the media, but it seems that one word is reserved for Christians alone: bigot.
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In our regular office jesting of camaraderie, my love for heavy music has been poked quite a few times. In response to my coworker saying that the lyrics could never be heard in metal music, I reminded him of the ballads present in most metal albums.
I’m here again
A thousand miles away from you
A broken mess, just scattered pieces of who I am
I tried so hard
Thought I could do this on my own
I’ve lost so much along the way
Working on a review for the latest Red album, I am once again reminded of how much I love their ballads. I got their first album back in 2006. With my girlfriend— now wife— with me, I popped the CD into my car’s player. With the screaming and distortion coming hard, we both looked perplexed when Pieces came halfway through the album. This is still one of my favorite songs.
I’ll never be the same
I’m caught inside the memories
The promises, our yesterdays
When I belonged to you
I just can’t walk away
’Cause after loving you
I can never be the same
Before proposing to Nikki after a Red concert in 2009, Never Be the Same was playing non-stop on my iPod. This album is still one of my favorites overall.
Slowly fading away, you’re lost and so afraid
Where is the hope in a world so cold?
Looking for a distant light, someone who can save a life
Living in fear that no one will hear your cry
I worked for a church, what I considered my dream job, between the end of 2009 and the start of 2011. As I have mentioned before, that didn’t end too well. Until We Have Faces came out less than a month after I lost my job— along with half the staff— and a little more than a month before I got married. Not Alone and The Best Is Yet to Come helped me get up and out of my broken will.
Sometimes I need to scream out my terror, my rage, my fear. But sometimes I need something to hold onto. Hope in Christ echoes through the words of Red’s ballads. These songs have gotten me through a lot. So I thought I’d share them with you. You can listen to them on Spotify or buy their albums on iTunes and Amazon.
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As I have built more iOS apps over the last couple of years one of the biggest struggles I have had is the switch between development and release server APIs. More than a few times I have released an app pointing at the dev API. Not only is this an embarrassment, but it creates a logical nightmare in trying to redirect traffic from the dev environment to the live. Needless to say, there has to be a better way.
Over the weekend with a bit of research— which has me kicking myself for not doing it sooner— I found the best solution in Preprocessor Macros and User-Defined Settings. They are easy to set up and easy to use.
- Go to your Build Settings
- Go to the Editor menu, Add Build Setting, Add User-Defined Setting
- Give your setting a name, mine is called APIURL
- These settings have a Debug and Release value: set both
- Search in Build Settings for Preprocessor Macros
- Add
APIURL=\@\"${APIURL}\" to both Debug and Release
You will now have a variable available anywhere in your code called APIURL. When compiling your app in Debug mode, you get the Debug value. When compiling your app for Release, you get the Release value. No more mistakes.
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This week was a much slower week for news and blogging than last week. The reason for that has been that I’ve been on vacation in southern Illinois, where I grew up, with my wife and daughter. We left Chicago area on Wednesday morning and are heading back on Sunday.
Even with time off, I have been writing. On Monday I published my article on Net Neutrality and Friday I published my article on ISIS, War, Prophecy, and Ignorance. I had intended to write a review on the new Red album, but that went by the wayside for family time. The album is great and a review is coming early next week.
And as is the tradition, here are my top 5 links of the week.
Great to see this article trend this week. Feeding your infants peanuts makes them far less likely to develop peanut allergies.
On Tuesday the new Pebble smart watch was announced via Kickstarter. Thus far they’ve made $11 million. But the design is, in my opinion, atrocious. It is functional, but nothing like the Apple Watch when it comes to design.
One of my favorite development shops launches a new website and promises to be more transparent and consistent in releases.
Here comes the Apple Watch!
Everyone’s favorite Vulcan, Leonard Nimoy, has passed away.
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The Nazis and the Khmer Rouge went to great lengths to hide their crimes against humanity. Instead, ISIS posts its many crimes on social media for global distribution with seemingly no thoughts for the consequences.
And:
The mistake some make when viewing ISIS is to see it as a rational actor. Instead, as the magazine documents, its ideology is that of an apocalyptic cult that believes that we are living in the end times and that ISIS' actions are hastening the moment when this will happen.
And finally:
We live in an increasingly secularized world, so it's sometimes difficult to take seriously the deeply held religious beliefs of others. For many of us the idea that the end of times will come with a battle between "Rome" and Islam at the obscure Syrian town of Dabiq is as absurd as the belief that the Mayans had that their human sacrifices could influence future events.
First, what world does this author, Peter Bergen, live in that is increasingly secularized? Has CNN fired all the Christians that worked there? Does he choose to surround himself with only liberal atheists? Last I checked, some 75% of Americans call themselves Christian. Over 1.5 billion people around the world call themselves Christian. Around the same call themselves Muslim. That’s over half the world’s population right there, Peter, that are not secular. Maybe the media in America is, by and large, secularized today, but the population most certainly is not. If you cannot “take seriously the deeply held religious beliefs of others,” it sounds like you need to work on your tolerance— which today means accepting all opposing viewpoints as truth— and stop condescending.
What consequences will ISIS have for beheading hundreds, thousands of people and posting videos of their acts online? The media is shirking away from showing the “offensive” images that caused the mass murder in Paris last month. The media is shirking away from showing the “offensive” images that caused the killings in Denmark over the weekend. The President of the United States of America refuses to call these men and women Muslim and even refused to call the victims of 21 beheadings Christian, even though that was the key defining trait that got them killed. Estimates show that we have killed some 6,000 members of ISIS in our bombing raids, while they have grown to over 150,000 strong. Us killing them is only making them stronger!
I had talked with many friends a couple years back about the dire situation in Syria, that it was a powderkeg waiting to blow, that if we didn’t do something, it would blow. My guess at the time was too small. I said that it would end with the destruction of Damascus and the country that once stood in Syria would become a training ground for Al Qaeda. Well, it did blow, but the rebels got much bigger and blew out the east of Syria to start their conquering of Iraq to reform the caliphate.
When Peter writes “The mistake some make when viewing ISIS is to see it as a rational actor,” he condescends to the point of not understanding, making a big mistake. Can we look back at Hitler and see rhyme and reason in what he did? Some of it. But some of it so horrific that many cannot see the rationality. Most cannot see the eugenics experiment that he was conducting to cleanse the German people and form the Aryan race. That starting with the weak, the insane, the handicapped was straight up logic from a Darwinian worldview. They were a burden on an already bad economy. The mistake that Peter makes here is that ISIS is a rational actor, but you must understand their ideology to understand their reasoning.
Instead of saying that Islam is a peaceful religion, you should be looking back at Islam historically. Look at what they did to Spain when they conquered it. Many revisionist historians say that the citizens of Spain lived happily and safely under their Muslim rulers, but the fact is they were forced to pay the jizya to show their subjection to Islamic law and to receive protection. The Muslim leaders took woman as sex slaves left and right, forcing them into marriage. Happiness is not the word that I’d use to describe Muslim Spain. And Spain wasn’t the only one to be conquered by Islam before the Crusades we called to push them back and defend those under the oppressive rule of Islam.
The first war that America fought after the Revolution was with Islam. After our ships being attacked by Tripolian forces again and again, Thomas Jefferson “asked the Muslim ambassador what the new country of America had done to offend them, he reported to John Jay, March 28, 1786”:
The Ambassador answered us that it was … written in their Qur’an, that all nations who should not have acknowledged Islam’s authority were sinners, that it was their … duty to make war upon them … and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners.
Jefferson’s response was not to claim they were not Muslim, but to buy a Quran so that he could understand them. Jefferson rose a navy specifically to go after and end this threat to America.
You can look at the large, 1400 years of Islamic history and see the actions of ISIS repeated time and again. This isn’t the first time this has happened. The history of Islam is war.
So are all Muslims like this? No! There are many moderate and liberal Muslims, especially in America, that don’t follow the historical, warring views of Islam. Just like there are groups of Christians that don’t follow the largely peaceful history of Christianity. But to quote Franklin Graham, son of Billy Graham:
Many people in history have used the name of Jesus Christ to accomplish evil things for their own desires. But Jesus taught peace, love and forgiveness. He came to give His life for the sins of mankind, not to take life. Mohammad on the contrary was a warrior and killed many innocent people. True followers of Christ emulate Christ—true followers of Mohammed emulate Mohammed.
That is why saying that there are radicals in all faiths in only partly true. Radical Christians kill people. Radical Muslims don’t. Those that follow Mohammed do kill and do so in abundance.
Understand the rationality of those that seek to kill you. Instead of condescending— “rational actor”, “cult,” “difficult to take seriously the deeply held religious beliefs,” “absurd”— to those that you don’t understand, try to understand them. We are not going to dismantle their new caliphate if we just call them barbaric as we drop our bombs on them.
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If you cannot tell from the 80 plus posts over the last 4 weeks, I’m a Republican. More over, I’m a Tea Party, Constitutional Republican. Conservative both economically and on personal freedom. The Net Neutrality battle is brewing again, and I thought I’d share why I’m opposed to it.
For a Republican, there is a difference between what one likes and what one supports politically. There are things that we support (freedom of speech) and things we don’t like (how Westboro Baptist uses their freedom of speech). Constitutionally, there is nothing wrong with what they do. They are free to do it. However, personally I don’t like how they do it. As such, I cannot write my senator to demand that Westboro not be allowed to protest in my county. I can mount a counter-protest.
When it comes to freedom of businesses to operate as they wish, I support them doing whatever they want. Now obviously, a businesses like Comcast has us customers sign Terms of Service agreements. With such an agreement, they lay out how they restrict us and themselves. If they do something against their terms, we have the right to sue them. Or leave them. Or right a harsh blog article about them. But constitutionally, we shouldn’t demand regulation to prevent them from doing something. Use the courts or your freedom to spend your money where you want to spend your money.
The battle over Net Neutrality is rallied behind a term that is clearly faulty. Like the Freedom to Choose (pro-choice), which avoids the truth that a baby is being ripped limb from limb or burned with chemicals, Net Neutrality is about taking something that is free and outside the government’s control, that is as neutral as something can be, and putting it in the hands of the same government that said, “if you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it*.”
In the current situation, businesses might control access, but we pay them for that access. If Comcast does something stupid, like renaming me Asshole Finley— what is this, grade school?—, I can leave. After hours on the phone. With the government regulating the Internet, you can be almost guaranteed that no new provider will appear as the hoops are too high and too expensive to jump through.
But isn’t it already that way? Comcast owns the lines in many apartment complexes and it prevents others from coming in! Yes, it does. Because they own the lines. Do you want the government to come in and say “that thing you own: you must share it with others.” I mean, that’s what they do with your income, so why not with something like Comcast’s property? That’s a horrible idea! Competition exists in the market when it is free from regulation! It’s why business is so hard in Illinois! Over-regulation by a Democrat state government has caused so many businesses to flee to cheaper states.
Don’t be sheep herded behind vague words and propaganda used to rally. Use your brains, people! You’re smarter than this. You don’t want the government to control everything. With a bigger government, the taxes only go up. The estimates are between 11 and 17 BILLION dollars in taxes and fees. Just leave Comcast, don’t force our taxes up even higher than they already are. Instead, use your collective power (it’s clear that you have it) to hold companies accountable.
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