… because it’s happening right now! I certainly plan on lighting a Bunsen burner in celebration later on today (yes, yet another perk of being a chemical engineer - I already have one in my bench simply waiting for the honour… Check out this link to be sure you don’t miss an officially nationally declared day of particular interest to you (I already missed “National Frozen Food Day” and “Something on a Stick Day” in March and the ever-exciting “Create a Vacuum Day” in February and simply refuse to let “National Cheeseball Day” on April 17 go by without proper commemoration).
Click on the >> and << links in the month bar at the top of the calendar to advance month-to-month - there are many more events listed for the previous months in particular which are quite amusing. It’s amazing people are actually paid to declare and promote these events (they are apparently all real!).
Yep, you too can be healthier, happier, and (of course) way thinner if you would only ask the question “What Would Jesus Eat?”. The plan’s author, Dr. Don Colbert, claims that by following Jesus’ model in terms of the foods we eat, we have “The Ultimate Program for Eating Well, Feeling Great, and Living Longer” (diet plan and cookbook sold separately at a bookstore near you).
Indeed, this and other similar books have been wildly popular in the Christian “market” - one such book in the genre, “The Maker’s Diet”, recently had a 18 week run on the New York Times best-seller list (and has apparently exhibited some amazing results in more ways than one). Try typing “The Maker’s Diet” into Google and looking for a negative review from a Christian website — it’s almost impossible to find despite the highly questionable credentials of the author. Are we sometimes just looking so hard for something “Godly” in our secular culture that we sometimes turn our brains off when we run across something that claims to be inspired by Biblical principles?
Be sure to read the second half of the “What Would Jesus Eat” article — it gives us something valuable to chew on (pardon the pun) regarding ethical thought in the Bible before we start printing WWJE magnets for our refrigerators.
This is a pretty funny list (some of them are certainly good advice, some… not so much but enjoyable nonetheless)… enjoy!
- Todd
“THINGS YOU SHOULD NEVER DO”
Never hit a man with glasses. Hit him with something bigger and heavier. -Anonymous
Never say anything on the phone that you wouldn’t want your mother to hear at your trial. —Sydney Biddle Barrows, the “Mayflower Madam”
Never say “Oops” in the operating room. —Dr. Leo Troy
Never wear a backward baseball cap to an interview unless applying for the job of umpire. —Dan Zevin
Never kick a fresh cow pie on a hot day. —Harry S. Truman
Never use while sleeping. —Instruction on Conair hair dryer
Never play peekaboo with a child on a long plane trip. There’s no end to the game. Finally I grabbed him by the bib and said, “Look, it’s always gonna be me!” —Rita Rudner
Never hold discussions with the monkey when the organ grinder is in the room.—Winston Churchill
Never stand between a dog and the hydrant. —John Peers
Never ruin an apology with an excuse. —Kimberly Johnson
Never criticize a man until you’ve walked a mile in his shoes. That way, if he doesn’t like what you have to say, it’ll be OK because you’ll be a mile way and you’ll have his shoes. — Anonymous
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity. —Hanlon’s Razor
Never use your thumb for a rule. You’ll either hit it with a hammer or get a splinter in it. —Uncle Ed’s Rule of Thumb
Never eat more than you can lift. —Miss Piggy
Never offend people with style when you can offend them with substance. —Sam Brown, The Washington Post
Never let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right. —Salvor Hardin
Never try to out-stubborn a cat. —Lazarus Long
Never argue with a fool. He may be doing the same thing. — Anonymous
Never try to guess your wife’s size. Just buy her anything marked “petite” and hold on to the receipt. — Anonymous
Never blame a legislative body for not doing something. When they do nothing, they don’t hurt anybody. When they do something is when they become dangerous. - Anonymous
Most Sunday mornings are so jam-packed with food, fellowship, and digging into God’s Word that prayer sometimes gets squeezed out as we rush to finish before 1PM. As a result, outside of the small groups, we don’t seem to get much of a chance to pray together on a weekly basis. We held another prayer meeting tonight and will hold another on Sunday, April 3 starting at 7:00PM - it’s an amazing chance to come together as a community, share our burdens, and lift our eyes up to God. I have posted the specific requests mentioned in our meeting tonight on Philpott’s PrayerWall — please check them out and keep these items in your prayers throughout the week. It’s so important to pray for each other and pray for our group as a whole, and I really hope we use the prayer meetings, the PrayerWall, this blog, and even our casual conversations to share with each other those things that God has placed on our hearts.
- Todd
P.S. For all those closet hymn-o-philes we exposed tonight, check out the Hymnuts page (I kid you not, that’s actually its name) for some of the really amazing stories behind many of the songs we sang tonight… sorry Larisa, I didn’t see “God of Concrete, God of Steel” on the list…
Zondervan is devoting a six-figure marketing budget to promote their new “Today’s New International Version” of the Bible in which approximately 6% of all the passages in the NIV have been changed in some way - in particular, any gender-specific language is out, with many scholars up in arms about the “inaccuracies”. On the other hand, many of the versions we use now (in particular the original NIV) are not that literal of translations in and of themselves. What do you think - is this church marketing and political correctness run amok or making the Bible accessible to a new audience?
- Todd
P.S. Mike recommended an article on American Mega-Churches in his comment to the “Cool Jesus” blog - click here to read it (it will definitely work if you have a McMaster library password, but I think it will work for everybody… It’s another interesting read.
The role of religion in government (in particular, how much specific religious beliefs should drive the policies of a country) is a particularly hot topic here in Canada now during the same-sex marriage debate and continues to be a hot topic around the world. Indeed, while we in Canada seem scared stiff to mix religious ideals with policy in many cases (at least religions not based wholly on our Charter of Rights), religious beliefs are actually taking over a growing role in the governing of many countries around the world. Here’s a interesting perspective on religion’s role in the state by Salman Rushdie, who (agree or disagree with him) does certainly know something about what happens when radical religion and the state get mixed up together (Iran had a fatwah execution declaration on his head for several years for some unflattering comments he made regarding its fundamentalist Islamic government in his book The Satanic Verses).
Questions to ponder (and comment on): should Christians be involved in secular governments? If so, how (in particular, how can we exert our influence or express our viewpoints clearly without corrupting the church with the state?)
- Todd
UPDATE: Here’s a very eloquent letter to the editor published in Monday’s newspaper rebutting Rushdie’s article - definitely worth a read (probably even more so)…
So, based on my dodgeball night observation that competition tends to make us more interested in doing stuff, the oXyGEN Word Puzzle Challenge is back by popular demand in contest form! That’s right — you’ve had two practice rounds, but this one is for big* bucks, fantastic* prizes and of course bragging rights!. E-mail me (hoaretr@mcmaster.ca) your answers by 6PM on Thursday, March 24 - I’ll announce the winner in the weekly e-mail that night (so you’ll be famous in addition to being showered with amazing* prizes). Unless you want to guarantee your own crushing loss, I wouldn’t recommend posting your answers as comments this time around… however, feel free to use the comment section for some, let’s say, gamesmanship
- Todd
* = “big”, “fantastic”, and “amazing” are all terms which may vary in meaning according to the expectations of the reader and the prize granter (“Todd” ) takes no responsibility for any disappointment which may ensue when said prize is actually delivered But there will be a prize my friends!
Just a response to Todd’s message of the same name (couldn’t “comment” because quotes were used in the title). Kevin Smith’s movie Dogma is an interesting commentary on this phenomenon - you may be familliar with his “Catholicism WOW!” campaign and it’s icon, the “Buddy Christ” where the Catholic Church gets rid of the crucifix because that’s too depressing. If you are prepared for the irreverance and language, its an interesting film to see - they do end up stripping away all of the marketing and ask questions to challenge you on what is really important about the faith.
So, I (of course) wanted to celebrate the MONUMENTAL DODGEBALL TRIUMPH of the Wednesday Night Bruisers with class, restraint and dignity (as I had been showing in the weekly e-mail leading up to the event)… however, Larisa and Ashley insisted I post (and I quote) “a MASSIVE photo of WNB on the website”, a tribute to talent if you will, in celebration of our victory. So, in deference to the female anchors of our team and against my better judgement (and of course with all due sensitivity to the LOSING teams, in particular Team Rick and the even-more-lonely-than-before 4th place Orphan Pandas), here is your winning team in all its glory with fully colour-coordinating dodgeballs (don’t even think of getting our autographs on a copy of this without bringing your wallet )
Check out the other really great dodgeball pics here (the password to get into the album is “letmein1”
(Note to loyal blog readers - if this post doesn’t get you to comment, I give up )
The authors of the site identify 40 of the most significant prayers described in the Bible, prayers of praise, guilt, forgiveness, guidance, confession, boldness, purity, deliverance, wisdom, self-pity, and thanksgiving - in short, great Biblical examples of how (or how not) to approach God in prayer for whatever situation we find ourselves in. Each prayer is accompanied with a short (~5 minute read) pamphlet describing the background of the prayer, pointing out some of the major features, and suggesting some things to think about based on the text. I was using this site to help me sort out some thoughts for the prayer meeting tonight and I found it really helpful — maybe we’ll do this in our small group after we’re done John?
(WARNING: The following blog post may not be appropriate for all audiences, particularly those who abhor mathematics… reader discretion is advised ).
For reasons which will become more clear tomorrow night, I ended up on a couple of really interesting websites today on mathematical constants — here’s the best site I saw. Take a number like pi - it’s not only used to calculate both the area and the circumference of a circle (amazing enough in and of itself since there’s no real reason they should be related), it can also be used to predict the probability that any two randomly chosen numbers are co-prime (that is, have only 1 as a common factor) and the probability that a unit 1 length needle thrown at random on a plane marked by parallel lines a distance of 1 apart lands in a position that crosses one of the lines. And it’s just one of about 10 constants which go on seemingly forever with no pattern (pi has been calculated to 200 billion decimal places - somebody with way too much time on his/her hands! - with no detectable pattern) but keep popping up over and over when physicists, mathematicians, and yes even we chemists try to understand natural phenomena which (to our knowledge anyway) are totally unrelated. Mysterious but amazingly cool evidence that there’s a supreme being way smarter than us in control of what’s happening.
Austin - check out the page on the natural logarithm, I get it now!
I know, two blog posts in one day - I think you are getting a sense of how productive my day was today…
Dave Barry is one of my favourite columnists - I don’t know how many of you read his stuff, but if you like totally cornball humour (such as I do), it’s gold. Here’s part of one of his articles I got sent today entitled “16 Things it took me 50 years to learn” — some are pretty funny, some are actually kind of profound, all of them I would say are good advice!
(Three preface comments: (1) reforming Baptists such as myself, please ignore #6; (2) Guys, pay particular attention to #10; (3) I think the world would be a better place if everybody (many Christians included) would defy item #4).
- Todd
“16 Things it Took Me 50 Years To Learn” by Dave Barry
1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.
2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve, its full potential, that word would be “meetings.”
3. There is a very fine line between “hobby” and “mental illness.”
4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.
5. You should not confuse your career with your life.
6. Nobody cares if you can’t dance well. Just get up and dance.
7. Never lick a steak knife.
8. The most destructive force in the universe is gossip.
9. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.
10. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she’s pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.
11. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.
12. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.
13. A person, who is nice to you, but rude to a waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)
14. Your friends love you anyway.
15. Never be afraid to try something new. Remember that a lone amateur built the Ark. A large group of professionals built the Titanic.
16. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.
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