Chuck Norris on Chuck Norris

Chuck Norris on Chuck Norris

http://thekingpin68.blogspot.com/2008/06/everlasting-vs-eternal-reprised.html

I have always liked Chuck Norris as an actor and I respect him for his Christian ministry work the last few years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Norris

In 2006, he began penning a column for the conservative news website WorldNetDaily. In his columns, he has expressed belief in Biblical creationism, those who are troubled should turn to Jesus, and is quoted as saying "true patriots" do not stay clear of discussing religion and politics.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/archives.asp?AUTHOR_ID=274

http://www.chucknorrisfacts.com/

Chuck Norris can sneeze with his eyes open.

Chuck Norris destroyed the periodic table, because he only recognizes the element of surprise.

Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird.

A Chuck Norris-delivered Roundhouse Kick is the preferred method of execution in 16 states.

If tapped, a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick could power the country of Australia for 44 minutes.

Chuck Norris always knows the EXACT location of Carmen SanDiego.

Chuck Norris ordered a Big Mac at Burger King, and got one.

Chuck Norris brushes his teeth with a mixture of iron shavings, industrial paint remover, and wood-grain alcohol.

Google won't search for Chuck Norris because it knows you don't find Chuck Norris, he finds you.

Human cloning is outlawed because if Chuck Norris were cloned, then it would be possible for a Chuck Norris roundhouse kick to meet another chuck Norris roundhouse kick. Physicists theorize that this contact would end the universe.

Top 25 grossing films worldwide (theatre)

Los Angeles (photo from Ron Niebrugge)

Table and description from:

http://us.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wide

The table above includes movies that have grossed over $200,000,000 at the box office during their theatrical runs.

All amounts are in USA dollars and only include theatrical box office receipts (movie ticket sales) and do not include video rentals, television rights and other revenues.

Totals may include theatrical re-release receipts. Figures are not adjusted for inflation.

Some movies may still be in general release; all figures are estimated and subject to change.

All-Time Worldwide Box office

Rank Title Worldwide Box Office

1. Titanic (1997) $1,835,300,000
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003) $1,129,219,252
3. Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest (2006) $1,060,332,628
4. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) $968,657,891
5. Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End (2007) $958,404,152
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007) $937,000,866
7. Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999) $922,379,000
8. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) $921,600,000
9. Jurassic Park (1993) $919,700,000
10. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (2005) $892,194,397
11. Spider-Man 3 (2007) $885,430,303
12. Shrek 2 (2004) $880,871,036
13. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002) $866,300,000
14. Finding Nemo (2003) $865,000,000
15. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) $860,700,000
16. Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith (2005) $848,462,555
17. Independence Day (1996) $811,200,000
18. Spider-Man (2002) $806,700,000
19. Star Wars (1977) $797,900,000
20. Shrek the Third (2007) $791,106,665
21. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004) $789,458,727
22. Spider-Man 2 (2004) $783,577,893
23. The Lion King (1994) $783,400,000
24. The Da Vinci Code (2006) $757,236,138
25. E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial (1982) $756,700,000

I realize that inflation dictates that the newer films will have an advantage over much older ones on dollars generated. However, since I became an adult in the late 1980s, I reason that Hollywood has been able to produce some of the best movies ever in the last 20-30 years. I am not stating that I consider all of the films on the list as among the best, far from it.

I remember attending a few movies as a teenager and they were often disappointing and it seemed as if there was rarely a potentially really good film to wait for in anticipation. Today there are many films that appear worth viewing. I am in no way defending the often philosophically non-Christian or anti-Christian ideas presented within Hollywood, but I reason that the advent of much improved computer technology, and computer generated images has assisted in the potential quality of a theatrical films and the DVD versions as well, of course.

Superhero movies such as produced by Marvel and DC are far more true to the comic books than could be done in the 1970s or 1980s. Lou Ferrigno is a huge, muscular human being and played the Incredible Hulk on television, but he was quite small compared to the comic book Hulk who is basically a superhuman beyond the physical size of any human being. Superheroes such as the Silver Surfer, Iron Man, Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four are now presented in ways very true to the comics.

I admit from watching the occasional old black and white film that the dialogue was generally superior, in comparison to today's movies, but interesting dialogue can be presented very well in modern films if the producers are seriously dedicated to having quality dialogue.

As much as Christianity should oppose Hollywood when its philosophy and morality counter Biblical standards, a positive is that computer technology seems to have ignited the God given creativity of many in Hollywood and a result we have many reasonably good movies to view. An ultimate goal of a film should be to entertain with both quality dialogue and interesting imagery, and I hope that this occurs in the future often, and that computer generated effects do not become overused at the expense of good story.


Christmas with Colonel Sanders

Are you dreaming of a white meat Christmas?

http://thekingpin68.blogspot.com/2008/05/son-of-man.html

Richard Dawkins versus Richard Dawson, sort of

Family Feud

Mr. Dawson

I have nothing against either gentleman. Richard Dawson is a fine comic actor and host.

This is posted for educational and satirical purposes.

Dawkins:

Quotes from:

http://www.simonyi.ox.ac.uk/dawkins/WorldOfDawkins-archive/Catalano/quotes.shtml

'Religious people split into three main groups when faced with science. I shall label them the "know-nothings", the "know-alls", and the "no-contests".'

This seems to be an extreme viewpoint. There is also room for persons who are educated in both science and religion. It is closed-minded to overlook such a possibility. This would not make someone a 'know-all', or 'no contest', but simply someone with education in both science and religion.

Scientism:

A pejorative term for the concept that only the methods of natural science and related categories form the elements for any philosophical or other enquiry. Blackburn (1996: 344).

Dawson:

http://www.angelfire.com/celeb/richarddawson/ff.html

If at first you don't succeed....kill 'im. (Family Feud)

Dawkins:

"I suspect that today if you asked people to justify their belief in God, the dominant reason would be scientific. Most people, I believe, think that you need a God to explain the existence of the world, and especially the existence of life. They are wrong, but our education system is such that many people don't know it. "

Christian theism and other forms of theism can appeal to first cause philosophical arguments which reason that an immaterial, non-measurable, infinite, eternal, first cause created the laws of science, but this would be primarily an appeal to philosophy and not science. Christianity primarily appeals to historical, Biblical revelation for a belief in God, and does not look mainly to philosophical ontological arguments.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0073991/quotes

Dawson:

Richard Dawson: I asked you to name a time when people usually get out of bed. And being the Einstein you are, you said..."Morning." Our survey said...
[Bzzt]

Richard Dawson: Zero. And then as if that wasn't bad enough, I asked you, name a time when people usually go to bed. You said, of course..."Night." Our survey said...
[Ding!]

Richard Dawson: Two!

Concerning Einstein:

http://thekingpin68.blogspot.com/2008/05/einstein-was-atheist-who-cares.html

Dawkins:

"...when it comes to choosing from the smorgasbord of available religions, their potential virtues seem to count for nothing, compared to the matter of heredity.

A good point, but then some of us are educated in our religious philosophy and faith, and do not simply follow the worldview of our parents. I reason that many non-religious adults grew up in non-religious homes.

Dawson:

http://www.geocities.com/blim916/dawson.html

"It's all part of life's rich pattern."

Dawkins:

"Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence."

Those who hold that empiricism and science provide the ultimate answer to all questions operate under faith as well. They may very well place faith in energy/matter as its own cause, whereas Christian theists see energy/matter as finite, requiring an infinite, non-material first cause beyond time and space.

Educated Christians do not necessarily have blind faith, but trust primarily in God who has revealed himself in this world, historically in Scripture. Christians can also reason on ontological, first cause argumentation. Religion can be a cop-out, but so can simply following pop science philosophy which can in ignorance and without proper religious education, reject all religion as blind faith.

Anyone that dismisses all religious academia and its philosophical and theological complex workings as pseudo academic is intellectually ignorant on the issue, and there are plenty of these people on-line.

Dawson:

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the-few-they-do-have-are-not-malicious-usually/552195.html

“ABC has told me that a sponsor has complained about my making anti-Nixon jokes. I would just like to say that I believe Mr. Nixon did his best to destroy this country.”

Dawkins:

"It is often said, mainly by the "no-contests", that although there is no positive evidence for the existence of God, nor is there evidence against his existence. So it is best to keep an open mind and be agnostic. At first sight that seems an unassailable position, at least in the weak sense of Pascal's wager. But on second thoughts it seems a cop-out, because the same could be said of Father Christmas and tooth fairies. There may be fairies at the bottom of the garden. There is no evidence for it, but you can't prove that there aren't any, so shouldn't we be agnostic with respect to fairies?"

There is not historical documentation from many sources over many years from different geographical areas for fairies at the bottom of a garden. There is Biblical historical documentation of approximately 3500 years of actual persons, from various regions who experienced God. There are scribes, prophets, apostles and of course the resurrected Christ who are actual documented persons.

I conclude:

The documentation would still be actual even if the Scripture contained some falsehoods, meaning a false comparison and false analogy is presented.

Definition of False Analogy:

http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/falsean.htm

In an analogy, two objects (or events), A and B are shown to be similar. Then it is argued that since A has property P, so also B must have property P. An analogy fails when the two objects, A and B, are different in a way which affects whether they both have property P.

Dawson:

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/the-few-they-do-have-are-not-malicious-usually/552195.html

“There were people I know that got upset that I kiss people. I kiss them for luck and love, that's all. That's what my mother did to me.”

BLACKBURN, SIMON (1996) Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford, Oxford University Press.

Dr. Dawkins

The formation of the Biblical canon

http://thekingpin68.blogspot.com/2008/05/polytheism-henotheism-environmentalism.html

I like to present information from other sites at times on this blog. I am aware that I can look in my textbooks, for example, and find opinions differing from the material in this article, as can many others, but the information below is helpful overall.

From J. P. Holding:

http://www.tektonics.org/lp/ntcanon.html

However, if we believe in the inspiration of the Bible, then it is also reasonable to assume God's hand in the matter of the compiliation of the canon. Although skeptical of many traditional positions on the canon, McDonald rightly perceives that "(t)hose who would argue for the inerrancy of scripture logically should also claim the same infallibility for the churches of the fourth and fifth centuries, whose decisions and historical circumstances have left us with our present Bible." [MacD.FormCB, 255] One cannot sensibly argue that God inspired certain books of the Bible and then allowed us to mix in books with it that were not inspired. It was either all inspired at its origination, or none of it at all, other than at a basic human level of inspiration - and though, thanks to transcription errors and the like, we have some chaff mixed in with the wheat at present, the ambiguity that is reality at the textual variant level does NOT affect our position on the canon level.

I reason that within the apostolic era the original Scriptural letters were inspired and infallible in regard to the message the Lord conveyed through the writers. I do not think we can take the idea of inspiration and infallibility into the fourth and fifth centuries, although I do grant that God did guide the correct texts to be included within the New Testament text. I reason that without holding to an infallible canon formation, we can accept the idea that God used reason and evidence to formulate the entire Biblical canon. This means it is possible, although very unlikely, that a lost manuscript could be found at a later date that may be considered part of Scripture. The written content, to be accepted, would not contradict the teachings of the other Biblical books. My view is that the original Scripture was inspired and infallible and that we have essentially accurate copies by which a proper canon was formed.

Per Metzger, NT works cited or alluded to - in actuality and in probability - by Apostolic Fathers are:

All Four Gospels;
Acts
All Pauline epistles except three (see below)
Hebrews
1 John
1 Peter
James
Revelation.

Not cited or alluded to are Titus, Philemon, and 2 Corinthians; 2 Peter, Jude, 2 and 3 John.

However, no conclusions may be drawn from this for two reasons:

First, except for 2 Corinthians, all of these books are so short that it is possible that there was never any need to refer to them - especially in light of the fact that:

Second, as Metzger indicates, the total extant works of the Apostolic Fathers fits "a volume about the same size as the New Testament"! (ibid., 72) It would therefore have been very fortunate if we had indeed had witness to all 27 NT books.

Conclusion

Human beings will never agree unanimously on anything, even the canon of Scripture. Even today, many groups (such as the Mormons) seek to add to what has been written. This, of course, is their right; but the fact remains that the canon has been fixed, not by some 4th-century Church Council, but by the witness of history itself. As Metzger writes: "the canon cannot be remade - for the simple reason that history cannot be remade." (ibid., 275) The books that made it into the canon did so by means of "survival of the fittest" - it was not a random drawing with all participants beginning on equal footing. The church did not create the canon, "but came to recognize, accept, affirm, and confirm the self-authenticating quality of certain documents that imposed themselves as such upon the Church. If this fact is obscured, one comes into serious conflict not with dogma but with history."(ibid., 286) We may freely learn from the non-canonical literature [MacD.FormCB, 257], and it may be that some of that literature contains authentic strands of teaching by Jesus. Nevertheless, we have our canon. We are each free to take it or leave it; and if it offend thee - take up scissors and paste, and make what thou considerest a better effort than others!

Here is yet another scammer email. The email came to undisclosed-recipients, and is written with the usual magnificent command of the English language:

Queen Elizabeth's Foundation And The Nigeria FoundationWoodlands RoadLeatherhead Court LeatherheadSurrey KT22 0BN.

BATCH NO: (N-222-6747,E-900-56)

Attn: Beneficiary

Congratulations The Queen Elizabeth's Foundation And The Nigeria Foundation has chosen you by theboard of trustees as one of the final recipients of a Cash Grant/Donation for your own personal,educational, and business development. To celebrate the 30th anniversary 2008 program, We aregiving out a yearly donation of 250,000.00 Pounds each to 40 lucky recipients, ascharitydonations/aid from the Queen Elizabeth's Foundation, ECOWAS, EU and the Africa UNO inaccordance with the enabling act of Parliament.which is part of our promotion To file for your claim You are required to contact the ExecutiveSecretary below their email

Executive Sec: Edwin Johnson

E-Mail: queen-elizabeth-foundation@hotmail.com

Regards.Mrs Tracy Peterson

And yet another:

INVESTMENT PROPOSAL.

Dearest One,
My name is Miss Vianney Aliababa, the only Daugther of late Mr.and Mrs Aziz Alibaba (A GOLD MARCHANT). I have a preposition important which permits me to request for your assistance in a financial transaction. And I wish to invest in Manufacturing management in your country.

I inherited Eight million Five houndred thousand Dollars.(8.500,000) to invest in your country with your very help, and I will require your assistance in helping me stand as my late father's foreign business partner who will receive the whole money in your coperate account for my self keeping and the investment project as we will agree together.

The Fund was deposited in Prime Bank in fixed suspense account.I will be glad to give you 25% of the total sum for your assistance.

While we will discuss on your percentage, on the Capital investment that you will introduce me to.

Please know that I have not gotton a good financial Education to control the whole money in your country.That is why I real need your help to secure a better financial education that will enbale me not to make poor money decissions later in life that might take years to over come.

please it is very important you contact me immediately on my private email address.(via_baba@hotmail.fr) for further explanation.

Awaiting your immediate response Thanks and God bless.
Best Regards,

VIANNEY ALIBABA.


A future satire and theology blog troll?


My Mom sent me links featuring interesting paintings. I am not making a political/social statement.

Global Warming from Robert Bateman

A thought:

O.J. Simpson, Michael Jackson, Mike Tyson, Robert Blake and Phil Spector should form the Society of Celebrity Super-Villains.