On the “Ham on Nye” debate.

So I watched the Bill Nye / Ken Ham debate on creationism.

[Update, 10/20/24: They took it off the Answers in Genesis website years ago, but YouTube still has it. Wanna watch it? Here ya go.

I’m guessing the DVD sales weren’t all that. The original video started with a really long countdown; glad that’s gone.]

Some thoughts.

January fasting and bible-reading.

Two things tend to happen to Protestants in January: Our churches encourage us to fast, and to start a program of reading the bible. The fasting is because we’re ostensibly seeking God’s face for the new year—we want to start it right by showing him we’re really serious about following him, and really seeking some new revelations from him about his upcoming plans—and so we fast. The bible-reading is because, well, we’re Christians; we oughta read the bible. And if you’ve never read the bible all the way through, it’s high time you made it your New Year’s resolution, and start a-reading.

My church calls for a fast every January. And I hate fasting—and so does everyone, ’cause we’re Americans and don’t like to deprive ourselves of anything if we can help it. That’s why, I suspect, so many of us choose to go on the “Daniel Fast,” which is a popular fast-but-not-really-a-fast. You don’t actually go without food. You go without some foods, namely meat and sugar and oil. It’s a diet, really. It’s an exercise in self-control, and frankly a lot of us could use self-control, so in in the end it’s a good thing.

On “Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat.”

[The Colbert Report.]

Back in 2010, Stephen Colbert did a funny bit entitled “Jesus Is a Liberal Democrat,” which I watched again recently. He did it round Christmastime. When it came out, there was much rejoicing among the Christian Left blogosphere, and one of the lefty blogs I glance at re-posted it for fun. It still applies.

[Update, 10/20/24: Paramount has taken it down, so you’ll have to settle for my transcript.]

COLBERT. Just seems to me the Democrats don’t get Christmas. Another example: Congressman Jim McDermott, who used the baby Jesus to push his pro-poor people agenda. Jim?

MCDERMOTT. [video clip from Hardball] This is Christmastime. We talk about good Samaritans. We talk about the poor, and the little baby Jesus in the cradle, and all this stuff, and then we say to the unemployed, “We won’t give you a check to feed your family.” That’s simply wrong!

COLBERT. Of course it’s wrong! We should’t be talking to them at all! They’ve got unemployment cooties.

And I am not the only one upset by McDermott’s flagrant injection of charity into the Christmas season. So is Papa Bear Bill O'Reilly. In his weekly column, he wrote, “Every fair-minded person should support government safety nets for people who need assistance through no fault of their own. But guys like McDermott don’t make distinctions like that. For them, the baby Jesus wants us to ‘provide’ no matter what he circumstance. But being a Christian, I know that while Jesus promoted charity at the highest level, he was not self-destructive.”

Good point, Bill. Jesus said we only have to love those who deserve it.

When Black Friday comes.

[Photo illustration by Reddit user kencrema.]

Yesterday was Thanksgiving. Days before Thanksgiving, I picked up Mom’s head cold, so the day of, I was boiling cranberries and sweet potatoes (no, not together; separate pots) and coughing away from the food. I felt like Typhoid Mary. But much of the rest of the family has already suffered from one virus or another recently, and everything I cooked was pretty well sterile by the time it got to everyone’s plate. I think. I hope.

That morning we got the big-ass Thanskgiving edition of The Reporter, which contained all the Black Friday ads. And of course, half the stores weren’t gonna bother to wait till Black Friday: Their doors were either open already, or were opening at 6 or 8 p.m. Which means their employees had to be there even earlier, and cut short their Thanksgiving dinners, or move them to a different day.

I call this “the War on Thanksgiving.” Never mind the War on Christmas; that’s all hype. The War on Thanksgiving is bound to be a lot more successful because it’s based on Mammonism: Businesses wanna make more money, certain employees wanna make more overtime (assuming their employers even offer them overtime pay for working Thanksgiving; Walmart doesn’t). Plenty of Christians who will object, at the drop of a hat, to anyone wishing them a Happy Holidays, quickly turn libertarian when it comes to working Thanksgiving. Or even Christmas. ’Cause it’s money. And nothing should interfere with Americans’ God-given right to make a buck… and drag their employees in, holidays be damned, in order to help them make those bucks.

On getting friend-zoned.

To me, the “friend zone” is an easy concept. It basically means someone isn’t attracted to you. They like you—if they didn’t, you wouldn’t be considered friends—but they’ve ruled you out as a prospective romantic partner.

Either you were never attractive to begin with, or you were superficially attractive, and once they got to know you, they changed their mind. I, fr'instance, am attracted to brains. Beauty may get my attention, but intelligence holds my attention. So when I meet a woman, I might be attracted up to the minute she opens her mouth. Then I find out her character, and that determines which category she goes into.

Sometimes she’s a fool, meaning she doesn’t think things through, or invests all her thinking into silly things, like fashion or gossip or popular culture or sports. Sometimes she’s evil: She spends a lot of time manipulating her “friends,” or plotting against her “enemies,” or otherwise trying to transform her life into a bad soap opera. Sometimes she’s spiritually immature: She’s uncommitted to her religion, and lacks balance, self-control, emotional control, generosity, patience, peace, or love—and I don’t see her changing anytime soon, and I certainly don’t want her to change for my sake, but Jesus’s. And sometimes she has other habits and beliefs which I find irritating. I won’t get into a laundry list, but there are certain things which kill my attraction like someone shooting out a lightbulb with a pellet gun.

Getting in trouble at Bethany College.

Bethany College was the first Christian school I ever attended. I grew up in public schools. (For you Brits, that means government schools.) I went to a state community college and a state university. My parents didn’t have the money for private instruction, and even if they did, Dad wouldn’t care to spend it.

Having taught at Christian schools since, I will say I wasn’t necessarily deprived. It all comes down to the teacher. Some teachers at Christian schools are outstanding; some teachers are awful. Same with public schools. Some are there to teach critical thinking skills; some are there purely to indoctrinate. Bethany was full of awesome teachers. So I lucked out there: I went to Bethany because it was a Christian school in my denomination, not because I’d heard great things about its teachers. I have since: After I graduated and taught school, once people found out I was a Bethany grad, they leapt to the conclusion I went through their teacher ed program, and started gushing about how great that program was. I kept correcting them: “No no; I studied bible and theology.” But it did help prod me into going back for that program.

But I digress. The teachers were excellent. Student Life, on the other hand… The deans of students were stand-out people. The campus pastors as well. But the resident advisers were fellow college kids, and some were brand-new Christians, more earnest than wise.

So I blame them for my getting in trouble. The deans, whenever they found out about my shenanigans, laughed it off. The RAs, however, were outraged. How dare I? What kind of Christian was I? What sort of heretic would do such things?

Meh. I will say the guys who supervised the halls I lived in… well, they meant well.

Back to the future?

Someone keeps photoshopping today’s date onto a photo from Back to the Future Part II, and claiming today is when Marty McFly returns to the future. I photoshopped this—but no, I didn’t change the date; get the DVD and check it yourself. Still, it’s nuts how people who are so skeptical about all sorts of things, just mindlessly accept some internet meme. [Posted on Facebook, 1 May.]