Bill Maher: Sarah Palin and "Religulous"

You may be aware that the talk show host/comedian/social commentator Bill Maher is promoting his new movie being released on October 3, 2o08. He was recently on The View talking about his views on Sarah Palin and on what his new movie is about. Take note on how they are sitting: the two women who agree with him are on his right and the two that disagree with his world view are on the left. I find I disagree with him about everything he says about religion but somethings he says about politics is true (ie Sarah Palin is not ready to be President if something befell McCain). I don't think that there is any need to insult her however. Here are somethings about religion I disagree with. He says that all he is doing in the film is asking questions. The problem is that he has his mind already made up and he's not looking for the facts. He presupposes that there are no rational answers to his questions. The joke for him is that people believe in things that can't be true. He never seems to be looking at if these things are true or not. The funny thing is that as far as I can tell he never asks anyone who can give reasoned answers. He believes that to have faith means that you have no reason. He really needs to sit down with a good apologetics text or theologian who has studied these points. There are good answers!

Here is an example of some of the questions I have heard asked in the movie's trailer and some answers
1. Why doesn't God just destroy the devil and abolish evil? The devil is not the only evil in the world. We are all evil compared to God and exterminate it completely means that he would have to obliterate all of us...past, present, and future. Instead he chose to redeem some of us because he wanted to. Aren't you glad God chose option B and not Bill Maher's solution!
2. Does it make sense for people to live 900 years and greater? Why not. At the beginning of the human race the earth had none of the polutants that shorten human life. There is also evidence that at one time there was a shield of ice that protected the earth from more radiation than is filtered out now. The Bible hints at this when it talks about the Sky separating water under the sky gathered together to from "seas" and water above the sky in Genesis 1:6,7,8. Some have also postulated that the water above the sky is where some of the flood water came from.

I think Sherri Shepherd made good case. If you don't know who God is why don't you ask Him personally. You can see Bill's attitude of scorn...deriding her and calling her crazy because God spoke to her. If God is not talking to you, then I think you are the one with the problem. Hebrews 11: 1-6 says what faith is and it does not match Bill's definition.

Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible. By faith Abel offered God a better sacrifice than Cain did. By faith he was commended as a righteous man, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith he still speaks, even though he is dead. By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

I was also disheartened to hear that the film has blatant lies and falsehoods in it. Lies repeated by Joy Behar during the show. Some accuse Christianity of stealing its concepts from mystery religions, Egypt and other Gods. Anyone who has seriously researched the subject knows that these are urban legends. The "god" Bill mentioned being born Dec 25, dying and being resurrected is the pagan god Mythras. If you want to know why you can't equate Mythras to what we know is true about Jesus please read Lee Strobel's book "The Case For Christ" where he talked to the world reknowned expert on the Mythras religon and he said that there is no parallel or equal can be found to Jesus at any time. There has been no one else like Jesus before Him. Nor will there ever be anyone else like Him. Make no mistake, He is coming back. Are you ready? Research it for yourself. Don't blindly believe the hype. If you do then you are falling for the same kind "faith" that Maher accuses religious people of having. If anyone wants to know more about this please drop me a comment and I'll put some information together. Here are the videos of Maher on The View and the trailer for his movie. There are people who will be lead astray by Maher. Don't be one of them.

Animated Gifs

Back in the day (say 1996) when you didn't have access to streaming video technology and FLASH, but you wanted to show moving images on a website what did you do? You used an Animated Gif. An Animated Gif is just a collection of images that the web browser plays to give the impression of movement...same way television and movies work. Today, we have many more options. Do you use a Java Applet? What about FLASH? Why not just stream the video over the Internet in real time? How do you know which to use? Everyone has their own opinions. If the media is short and doesn't need sound, I like to use Animated Gifs to save on bandwidth. They are perfect as avatars on social networking sites and forums. If I need sound but it's still short, I like to use Java applets because you can even have interaction. I think more people are using FLASH in this situation but I am personally more familiar with the applet route. If I don't need interation but the media needs to be television quality or better in audio and video, and the media is several minutes long, I like to stream it over the Internet from YouTube, MySpace, Blogger, GodTube, and VM Direct or from a site or blog that allows embedding. In this day and age you find that you sometimes have a file in one format but you need it in a different one. No Need to panic because somewhere somehow someone has written software to do the converting for you.

Here are some animated Gifs I created:

So what is the difference between and Animated Gif and an AVI (video file). Look below




The Gif is on the left. The video is on the right. The video can be longer and moves a little smoother.

I decided to go back to animated gifs when i realized that they could be used to make mugen characters and vice versa. I've decided to make a character from which I can get sprites before I try something like Black Panther that has fewer than no sprites. I like the Anime series Tekkaman Blade. I have found no Tekkaman Blade character but I did find a Super NES video game based on the series. I can get my sprites from there!

Here is an example of sprites gleaned from the game and about 11 of them animated together. I still need to learn how to make the background transparent. Mine is on the Right.

Here are some informative links for learning how to create Animated Gifs:
So, You Want An Animated .gif, Huh?
Tutorials: Sprite Ripping
Make Animated Gifs
Ripping and Using Sprites

Software that you may want (Just "Google" them):
ImageTasks
GIF Construction Set Professional
Easy Graphic Converter
Ulead GIF Animator
Free FLV to AVI Converter
Any Video Converter
Free FLV Player
SWF and FLV Toolbox
Camstudio