mincedLifeCentral

Something good just happened tonight.

As I was about to leave Sommerville after I had my dinner, a teenager shot out of the neighbouring restaurant like a "noctural cave-dwelling bird out of the place of the damned" into the night, followed by the proprietor and a few customers in hot pursuit.

They caught the boy for stealing.

Now for a bit of background for those not in the know, Sommerville is in the east side of Auckland and is a bit of an ethnic area, along with all the diversity (good) and the undercurrent of tensions (bad) of a mixed community.

Just seeing the Korean boss and customers of all sorts of colours sticking up for each other and doing what's right gives me the warm fuzzies.

By the time I post this the cops should have finished taking the shoplifter away...

My week @ work - Three server reboots in three days. Ick.

...it's time to check out what OkCupid thinks of my political affiliations...

You are a Social Liberal (60% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (63% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

It seems to me that almost any fresh attempt at Christian community in the western world starts off well, but somehow along the way it entrophies into a robotic ritual devoid of meaning and connectedness, turning into the stereotypical "organised religion" and becoming the harshest critics of the next "wave".

(Luke 5:36-39, Matthew 9:16-17, Mark 2:21-22)

For those more travelled down this path of life than I have, how did you come to realise this decay? What warning signs did you see?

This is a free Finnish sci-fi spoof available here.

Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning begins with Captain James B. Pirk of the starship Kickstart shipwrecked on the 21st century Earth with his crew. Originally from the distant future, Pirk and his crew travelled back in time to save the Earth from hostile aliens, but lost their ship and became stranded. Pirk's daily routine consists mainly of stuffing his face at the local fast food restaurant, and he is finding it difficult to convince the ladies he is, in fact, an intergalactic space hero from the future...

The quality of the production is amazing given that this is essentially a home-brew project. Unfortunately most of the humor gets lost in translation, nonetheless it's a good laugh for any sci-fi fans out there.

A python tried to have an alligator for lunch. Link here.

I stumbled across this article in The Sunday Times (UK).

The lab coat cohorts finally figured out what's been sitting in Phillipians 4:4-7 for centuries.

So "Positive thinking" does work - as long as the source of positivity works...

Have a nice day! :)

A friend left the following statement in response to my previous post:

"The ideas of omnipotence and omniscience seem to be ones that Jesus didn't necessarily believe in. They are later categories ascribed to god...Those ideas are certainly present in some level of god's story, but I'm not sure how we're meant to deal with them."

I'd like to put in my "instant-noodle" cooked thoughts on that matter:

J-s-s probably doesn't believe in the ideas of the omni*s since #1. He chucked it away while on Earth to fulfill his mandate as the Son of Man, and, #2. He probably doesn't know anyway...

Before you bring out the stake, petrol and rope, I'll explain #2 further:

• G-d exists outside our space-time, and there is only one like Him.
• Humanity was created in G-d's image - living mirrors.
• You do not know what you look like if you never saw a photo of yourself or your mirror image.
• Moses managed to change G-d's mind at some point during their lives. Ummm, dare I say is that a blind spot?
• From our point of view, since His thoughts are so much higher than our thoughts, (probably mainly due to the lack of space-time constraint), we correctly give Him the omni* labels.
• Giving G-d due credit invites more of His presence...

Could it be that humanity serves as a point of reference and sounding-board in G-d's journey of self-discovery?

Disclaimer - I am no theologian, and this post comes with no warranty whatsoever :)

A curious soul asked what my understanding of "predestined freewill" is - and here are my thought fragments on this matter:

1. By creating humanity with the capability to choose and setting up a scenario in which Adam and Eve must choose, G-d has predestined us to freewill.

So instead of abdicating moral responsibility: "X made me do it!", it's more like "X made me choose!"

2. Any "logical" attempts to reconcile predestination and freewill is doomed to fail since our "logic" is constrained by our understanding of Time as a serial construct. A countless number of rationalists and philosophers stumble and fall on this...

If the concept of Time is infinitely parallel, then this would not be a problem - although that means now (while we're existing in a serial Time) we won't be able to understand it at all.