The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Digest part 6: Resolving Our Food Dilemmas

A Digest of  The Omnivore’s Dilemma Part 6: Resolving Our Food Dilemmas
or
“What is the perfect meal, anyway?”

“The blessing of the omnivore is that he can eat a great many different things in nature.  The curse of the omnivore is that when it comes to figuring out which of those things are safe to eat, he’s pretty much on his own.” -M.P.

Humans are able to eat so many things, and yet so much that we eat (or can eat) is also harmful.  We have natural instincts that keep us from dying, like taste, disgust, and the feeling of a full belly.  But we also like to refuse to listen to our body, or our mind.
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Introducing: The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Digest

“Whatever native wisdom we may have once possessed about eating has been replaced by confusion and anxiety[…we are] a notably unhealthy people obsessed with the idea of eating healthy.” –Michael Pollan

This is my first “foodie” book.  Oh, and really, why do people use the word “foodie”?  We should start calling people who don’t smoke “oxygenies”, and people who try to dress modestly “clothesies”.
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Abstaining from the “Appearance” of Evil

Christians may hear from time to time the admonishment to “abstain from all appearances of evil“.

What you hear is a quotation of a passage from Paul’s first letter to Thessalonica (1 Thess. 5:22).  Only, we usually hear a misquote of sorts, or rather a misuse of a quote.

“Abstain from all appearances of evil” is the most commonly used quotation of the passage, from the King James Bible.  Many people shoot off this quote as if it were some sort of proof to Christians that they should not do something because it “looks bad” to others.
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Twitter and Little Birdies

“A little birdie told me…”

Heard that colloquialism before?

Nobody knows exactly where this phrase comes from but I heard it through the grapevine that the oldest and most likely source is Ecclesiastes 10:20.

“Do not revile the king even in your thoughts, or curse the rich in your bedroom, because a bird in the sky may carry your words, and a bird on the wing  may report what you say.”

Or it could just be a reference to carrier pigeons.  Perhaps Solomon (or whoever wrote the wisdom he collected) was also thinking of carrier pigeons.  Or parrots.  Solomon acquired a lot of exotic things.  Maybe parrots also.
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“How Could Both Statements Be True?” by Eric Lyons

“How Could Both Statements Be True?” by Eric Lyons

“How Could Both Statements Be True?” by Eric Lyons
As they say in MacBeth, “the battle is lost and won.”
Eric Lyons of Apologetics Press on the myth of contradiction:
“Why is it that in the 21st century we can use words and expressions in so many different ways and have little trouble understanding each other, but when Jesus or the Bible writers used words in different senses, so many people want to cry “foul”? Could it be because modern-day skeptics refuse to allow Jesus and the inspired writers the same freedoms to use words and phrases in different ways? Could it be due to unfair bias on the part of Bible critics?”

For the Love of $

Loving $

“Money is evil”

“Money is the root of all evil”

“The Love of Money is the root of all evil”

“The Love of Money is the root of all sorts of evil”

You’ve heard several versions of this phrase before.  Yet only one of them is technically a correct wording of the warning given in the Bible.  The difference may seem trivial, and indeed it is trivial compared to the understanding of the warning, but the subtleties do make a difference.
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My Week at the Full Armor Lectures: Wednesday, part 2 by Jeremy Marshall

My Week at the Full Armor Lectures
by Jeremy Marshal
Wednesday, part 2

From the harrowing climax that is called Wednesday part 2:
I remembered that Sharp and MacDoogan had called the Bacon Lane elders the night before and sowed seeds of doubt about my mental stability. I could tell that my assertion that they were attempting to extort me, combined with the tape of my meltdown at the breakfast table, wasn’t helping my case. On the other hand, Brother Dean is one of those tin-foil-hat conspiracy theorist guys. He believes the world is ran by the Club of Rome, that the government is trying to poison us with fluoride in our drinking water, that the Holocaust and themoon landing never happened, and that the real culprit behind 9/11 was the Jews. How could a fellow who believed all that stuff not believe that I was being railroaded? Seems like it’d be right up his alley, really. “Were they also trying to blackmail you when you cussed out Mack Snipes?” he asked.

“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall Day 3 (pt. 2)

“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures”
by Jeremy Marshall
Day 3 (pt. 2)

From day 3.2:
“After my talk with Beauregard Jones Tuesday morning, I decided to skip the pre-lunch lectures and go to the Memphis Zoo. It dawned on me that the Full Armor Lectureship—indeed, our entire fellowship—was its own menagerie, a stationary Noah’s ark whose inhabitants refused to leave, all blaming one another for the stench in there. We are not exotic breeds from faraway lands in the First United Primitive Christian Church, however. We are more like stubborn relics of the recent past, looking at the world through nauseatingly garish Technicolor lenses. We live on in the rubble of Modernism, proudly making no concessions to the rest of the world as it evolves without us, flinging our filth at each other. I felt quite at one that day with the animals in the zoo, for it came to me that I, too, had been bred in captivity.”

“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall Day 3 (pt. 1)

“My Week at the Full Armor Lectures” by Jeremy Marshall
Day 3 (pt. 1)

from Day 3.1:
Brother Jones waved a dismissive hand. “My views on Hell were well known amongst those people years ago, Calvin,” he said. “Up until a few months back, they just thought of it as one of those pet anomalies every preacher is allowed to have. Let me give you a few examples: Alasdair Cornwall, one of the eighteenth-century visionaries whose ‘back to the Bible,’ non-denominational preaching spawned our little movement, was an Arian, and I’m not even sure if he knew who Arius was. The pioneer revivalist ‘Onion’ Jim Throckmorton taught that it was a sin to get sick. O. D. Gypsum, the much-venerated Greek professor at Steed-Ramrick University from 1923 until 1965, was a staunch pacifist. Yet all these men are quoted freely from Brotherhood pulpits. Then, there’s a slew of outright bigots, such as Lloyd Q. Sargent, Jephthah Wigglesworth, and Zebulon Butcher, who put down their black brethren in their journals and belittled any white congregation that allowed a black evangelist to come preach there. But they are still seen as heroes for their strident defenses of orthodoxy, despite such blatant manifestations of a sinful attitude. It wasn’t an odd perspective on Hell that caused them to put the ban on me, Calvin. I’m in trouble for a much graver display of heterodoxy than annihilationism. And now that I’ve offended them in a great matter, they are calling me to task for every small matter, as well.”