Canonicity Part 5: Gnostic Texts

Just because a manuscript is ancient does not mean that it's inspired. There are rumors that say that there are other "gospels" and other "Christian" writings that give alternative views of Christianity that were suppresed and hidden by the church because they challenged ecclesiastical authority. These are the unlying assumption and assertions of many critics and attackers of historic Christianity today, including the Da Vinci Code novel and movie. The thought is that had these other texts been accepted then Christianity would be different than it is now. That much I believe is true.

We live in a culture where the term "Christian" means very many different things to different people. I do not think for a moment that just because a text says it was written by someone who claims to be someone who knew Jesus, or claims to contains the words of Jesus Himself or from God does not mean that the text is "Christian". I put "christian" in quotations because I do not consider them "Christians" because they do not believe or teach what Christians has historically taught. Our Bible has 66 books, and these books that were "excluded" contain information that is contrary to what the 66 teaches. How do we know that they should be excluded?

First, Many of these texts that people use to substantiate the theory that Jesus was married to Mary Magdelene are from this branch of texts. Traditionally, we call these texts psuedographs because we do not know who wrote them and they can only be dated to the second or third centuries AD. Books like the Gospel of Thomas are dated way too late to have been written by the Apostle Thomas.

Second, Many of these texts are referred to as "gnostic". Gnosticism was a sect that believed that Jesus was not human. That there was no physical resurrection. They thought that sin, heaven, and hell are all in the mind. Their Jesus apparently passed on secret knowledge to the disciples. The problem is that most of what they say is contradicted by the Biblical canon.

Third, I defy anyone to show how these "excluded" books fit the defintion of scripture.

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
- 2 Timothy 3:16,17

We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. For he received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.

And we have the word of the prophets made more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts. Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet's own interpretation. For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter 1:16-21

Hitchens Is Finally In For A Challenge

I read an announcement on Apologetics 315 about an upcoming debate between Dr. William Lane Craig and Christopher Hitchens. The throw down is scheduled April 4, 2009. The topic will be: Does God Exist? I'm really excited to see this one. I can't wait. I've been wanting Hitchens go against someone who can argue against his tirades against the accuracy of the Bible from the stand point of History and Archeology. To show that believing that the Bible is the inspired Word of God is reasonable, tenable, and the only honest response to the evidence we have. Dr. Craig will have his hands full. I've watched Hitchens before. He is intelligent, but misguided. He genuinely believes he's right and he has led many astray. I know in this debate the truth will come out. Here is a clip of Hitchens on Bill Maher's cable show. This is shows why that as long as long as Dr Craig obeys God and holds to the truths in the Bible, he cannot loose this debate.

Hard Drives have feeling too?

Everyone has to come clean. You've done it. I've done it. Everyone who has ever had to use a computer knows what its like waiting for a computer to pull up information. Hearing the whirl of the hard drive being read...feeling the impatience. Thinking that: "I thought computers were supposed to be faster than this." And let's be honest...that last thought I wrote about is often heard being yelled at the computer. Let's face it: It's therapeutic emotionally. However, there may be more consequences. I read a post on G4TV's blog:

Thanks to Brendan Gregg of Sun's Fishworks team, we know for a FACT yelling at your computer doesn't do anything helpful, and in fact increases latency.

Brendan wanted to see the effects of vibration on a disc array, so the best idea he came up with for improvised vibration was yelling at it. I'm glad I'm not kidding. What resulted (besides an incredibly hilarious video) was a sharp spike the number of I/O operations that take over 5ms to complete. Lesson learned: electronics won't listen to you.

In other words, sound vibration has the effect of increasing the time it takes to perform reading and writing operations on a hard disk in a hard drive. So yelling at your computer only makes it take longer in doing what you want. To be honest yelling at any human beings make him or her less likely to listen, but to some varying level refuse to cooperate. Machines are more like us than I thought. Here is a video of Mr. Gregg performing his tests.



I'd personally, like to see the tests done in a quiet room. I'd like to know what effect the sounds from the air conditioners made to Gregg's tests.

"Watchmen" Mini-Primer

The up-coming movie Watchmen is based on a graphic novel by genius writer Alan Moore in 1985. And when it was published, it changed everything about the way superheroes are thought of and depicted. That's as much as I knew about it...up to now. You see it was also very mature (ie not for kids) and I was a kid in 1985 so no one would sell it to me then, let alone would my parents have let me read it. And now well into adulthood, I just haven't read it yet. But I will. In the meantime, a neat feauturette has hit myspace showing clips from the movie (most of which I've seen already) but interspersed with an interview with the director, Zach Snyder, who gives background on the story, and the characters. He even tells us the names of each actor.

Watchmen Exclusive

See? The PS3 Is Not Just A Toy

I came across an article that shows that Sony's PS3 is not just a toy for amusement it can actually be used for good things and bad things. Some hackers proved that connecting 200 PS3s into a network, called a "cluster", and using them to work on the same problem: cracking SSL (secure sockets layer) certificates and generating "a rogue Certification Authority (CA), a breakthrough that allows the forging of certificates that are fully trusted by all modern Web browsers." The idea is called "distributing computing". This means that each computer in the network works on a pieces of a problem. It's like solving a complex equation with more than one person on it at the same time. A single PS3 by itself is powerful. One PS3 console is capable of running billions of calculations in a second. That is why it so great at doing video games. If one console can do that imagine what 200 can do. You ineffect have a super computer that outpaces the CRAY computers of 1980s. Like any technology, it is not good or bad. It depends on how you use it. I have found lots of atricles about how to do it. For example, PS3 clusters are used in scientific research like cruching data for NASA over the Internet. I think I will do that when I get my PS3 (of course when I'm not playing with it).

IPod Touch Tablet?

G4TV have reported on its blog that there is a rumor of tablet version of the Ipod touch. It will have all the features of the smaller hand held version but maybe by Fall of 2009 we can have a unit with 8-9 inch screen. This news makes me the think that I should wait for that version instead of jumping to get a new Iphone, Ipod, or Ipod Touch. I prefer watching movies on the largest screen possible and 8-9 inches will ensure that it is portable. The article refers to it as a netbook because as I discussed earlier, a netbook uses the internet for a lot of it's processing. This means than this Ipod Tablet would not need a lot of hardware to carry out the functions it is designed for: interacting with multimedia applications and web browsing. In a sentence: I WANT ONE!!!!

There are no words....

Just when you think you've heard of every kind of crime imaginable, some idiot in Oregon invaded an elderly woman's home. Unfortunately, that in and of itself is not unheard of. However this man was naked. Why? The article does not say. The man forced the woman into her living room and pushed her face down into a chair. The 88 year-old woman had the presence of mind to reach around squeezed his crotch. The man thankfully ran away. He must have thought that she was easy pickings, but he was wrong! The man was later arrested. What goes through people's minds?

Ill. Gov. Blagojevich Sure knows How to Bob and Weave

Illinois Governor Blagovich stands accused of trying to sell Barack Obama's vacant Senate seat to highest bidder. So what does he do? Does he resign? No. He appoints a man than no one in their right mind would fight his appointment, Roland Burris. If he isn't confirmed there will be no other African-American in the Senate. Also he was the first black popularly elected official in the state. Also he was an Attorny General (can we say qualified?). He was one of Blagovich's rivals. He lost one of his bids to become governor to Blagovich. This is a mark in Burris' favor because considering the corruption of that state, Burris must be less corrupt because he lost. To top it off, Burris had been a Black Panther when he was younger! Can you think of a more unassailable candidate? Looks like Blagovich has some serious gall to think that that he can appoint a senator after the mess he's in. Yet he seems to have tried to deflect some of the scrutiny by making a responsible choice and a politically savy choice. No one is gonna wanna block the only Black person from being in the Senate. I read a great article about it on Black Snob's Blog.

Mystique and Me

Here is a webisode that I thought was really funny. It stars Jerry O'Connell and Rebecca Romijn (who played Mystique in the X-men films). You've got to see this:

"Mystique is Pregnant" featuring Jerry O'Connell and Rebecca Romijn by Jerry Minor

Sony Is Being Accused of Homophobia

Sony has a Playstation Home service accessible with a PS3. It's social networking service so that users can interact with another with animated avatars. Users can chat in forums and buy things in an Online store. There are a list of words that cannot be used in the service. It makes sense that you can't use profanity so that people don't get offended. People are not complaining over that. What some people are complaining is that the words "gay, bisexual, lesbian" cannot be used. Sony is being hammered for "discrimination". My question is: "It is a virtual playground, why would a person's sexual orientation or tastes be an issue or come up considering the kind of service Sony is intending to create?" My answer is that it should not matter. Of course, the writer of the article I read disagrees with me.

Sony has issued a statement:

"'The key message is it's a beta and it's evolving on a daily basis. We've said early on that user behavior and feedback will shape where we go with Home.' In the case of the censored words,Seybold said, Home employed filters to prevent defamation in Home's closed test version. But when the service went public, he said, it should have started allowing those words."

It sound like to me that Sony will cave in under the pressure. I hope they won't. But considering that PS3 is bringing up the rear in the current console war, they can't afford to alienate anyone. Sony is loosing big time against Nintendo and Microsoft. That combined with the global economy means that they have to make every sale count. Personally, I wish I could get a PS3 now myself, but it's too expensive to afford one at the moment. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the same boat as I.

Embarrassing Christians

One question that many "Christians" run into that trips them up is when people ask "Why does God allow bad things happen to people?" Instead of giving a Biblical answer people say what they think. Thing like "Bad things happen as a punishment by God." This always begs the question, "what about when Christians suffer?" This dialogue has been waged for centuries. It's recently come to light again for me today from reading an article on G4TV's blog. The author is not making a theological argument so I don't know where he stands. He is instead talking about the views of Jack Thompson who sent an e-mail to Dennis McCauley in which he states that the Video game company Take Two stocks plummeted because it was being punished by God. I will post the e-mail exchange as G4TV did, but I need to provide some background so you know who these people are. Jack Thompson is a lawyer who has been crusading against the violence of video games. He was recently disbarred in Florida for the following reasons:

The Florida Bar filed the disbarment proceedings against him over allegations of professional misconduct. Mr. Thompson has a history with others who file claims against him for defamatory, false statements with attempts to humiliate, embarrass, harass or intimidate them.

Here is the e-mail exchange

--------------------------

From: Jack Thompson
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 6:44 AM
To: Dennis McCauley
Subject: Spin this, Strauss...

GOD STRIKES TAKE-TWO DOWN

Take-Two dropped $2.35 to $9.72 in extended trading after the announcement and fell as low as $9.60. The shares... have declined 35 percent this year. The results contrast with comments Zelnick made in an interview on Nov. 3, when he said sales of the company’s video games hadn’t been hurt by the recession...

-------------------------

From: Dennis McCauley
To: 'Jack Thompson'
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 6:52 AM
Subject: RE: Spin this, Strauss...

So, if T2’s business reverse was God’s vengeance, does that mean that God struck you down too when you were disbarred?...

--------------------------

From: Jack Thompson
Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2008 9:10 AM
To: Dennis McCauley
Subject: Re: Spin this, Strauss...

...If you had any understanding of the Bible and of God you would understand that persecution comes Christians' way, and we are blessed by it. There is no blessing for Zelnick, who is not a Christian, when he gets what he deserves...

---------------------------

From: Dennis McCauley
To: 'Jack Thompson'
Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 6:54 AM
Subject: in relation to your Take-Two shareholder revolt...

...Are you saying that problems for Christians are blessings, while problems for non-Christians are vengeance from the Almighty? Also, how do you know what Zelnick’s religion is?

---------------------------

From: Jack Thompson
Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 7:11 AM
To: Dennis McCauley
Subject: Re: in relation to your Take-Two shareholder revolt...

Here's another passage of Scripture that you don't understand and never read: "All things work to the good for those who love the Lord and are called according to His purpose." That group would include me and not Zelnick. Zelnick is not a believer in the Gospel. How do I know? Because the man who got us together [secretly in Manhatten in 2007] is a Christian, with a massive ministry in Hollywood and the rest of the entertainment industry. It was because of the spiritual aspect of this struggle that he got the two of us together, and Zelnick failed the test.

If you knew anything about the Gospel, you would understand further that Paul, whose writings are considered part of the canon, tells Christians, not unbelievers, that we are to "count it all joy" when trials and tribulations come our way.

I have been persecuted for my faith, not because I did anything wrong, by those committed to evil. Glad to clear it up for you. And as it now stands, Mr. Zelnick's problems at Take-Two are minuscule [sic] compared to the eternity of punishment that is coming his way unless he repents and accepts Christ as I did 32 years ago this month. You might do well to read the Gospel of John yourself. Come to think of it, I'll write Strauss about all this and send you a copy...

---------------------------

I don't know if Jack Thompson was rightfully disbarred or not. What I do know is that you can't talk about suffering is such simplistic terms. He in-effect says that if Christians suffer it's persecution and if non-Christians suffer it is the Judgment of God for the sins they commit. I agree with him that God's promises are for his people and not everyone else, but you can't say someone else isn't or is or will never be one of His people. It embarrasses Christians and the Gospel we are supposed to spread by giving such a non-answer. What I know for sure is that such an explanation does not explain Job's experience in the Book of Job. Job was perfect. God said so. Yet he suffered and it had nothing to do with what he did or said. The book of Job is the best apologetic to explain suffering. Of course, no human being really likes the answer God gives us but we do have an answer. There is no formula to explain it. There is no chance of "calling God down to the Carpet" and expect him to answer to us for the circumstances we find ourselves in. Besides for about 90% of the crap we find ourselves in is self-inflicted anyway.

As for Thompson's views on video games. I disagree. I agree with Adam Sessler when he said that violence in video games can not be fully correlated with violence in the real world. I mean there was horrendous violence well before movies, television, and video games. Face it, video games are violent because the world is violent

Here is a video from G4TV's show X-Play that explain how the show views Thompson. In order to reach people we have to provide better answers by rooting what we say in Scripture.

A Year In 40 Seconds

Here is a stunning Video showing a forest go through a year of seasonal change.

Notebook Vs Netbook

Today I came across a relatively new class of computer called a Netbook. The difference between a Netbook and a Notebook is that a Netbook is more "stripped down". It has the bare minimum hardware to run. Wikipedia has great article defining what a Netbook is and I like this line:

Netbooks trade features, processing power^[1] and the ability to run resource-intensive operating systems — to achieve their small form factor, low weight and affordability.

It think it sums up the difference between the two kinds of computers in a single sentence. This trade off is not neccessarily being cheated out of anything. The truth is that not everyone in world needs a lot of processing power or a lot of features. I think the majority of the world today needs low weight, affordability, long battery-life, and small energy consumption. I'm realizing that I did hear about this computer a few years ago when people were talking about the One-laptop-per-child program in poorer countries so that we can bridge the economic and "digital divide". Net computers would be perfect.

Turns out that several computer manufacturers see the value for many other people too. Everyone agrees that they want computers with long battery-life, low weight, and consume less energy, but what about the fewer features? Today, if you are not doing heavy calculations or a lot of graphics and multimedia you could probably get away with a Netbook. Face it, majority of time on computers at home is spent reading and composing e-mail, surfing the internet, interacting on social networking sites, playing online games, and watching movies. Not much hardware is needed for that. Just 2 or 3 USB ports, a reasonably fast processor, and a stable operating system and web browser.

I'd suggest several USB ports because netbooks don't have a lot of hard drive space. So it would be great to be able to use a usb hard drive or flash drives to make up for lack of storage. This is one of the trade offs for lighter weight and less energy needed to extend battery life. The reason why many of the newer netbooks can pull off these feats is because they are not using traditional hard drives (HHD). They use "solid-state" hard drives (SSD). They have almost no mechanical parts, use less energy, and very, very light-weight. Traditional HHDs have a magnetic disk spinning inside, being read by a lazer! A lot can go wrong. In contrast SSDs use the miracles of quantum physics to store and retrieve information (I'll do some research and post on that later).

The exciting thing is that there is a new solution for the user who wants the portability, long battery life, and power conservation of a netbook but the storage of a traditional hard dive. MSI announced that they will be selling the world's first "hybrid" laptop. It will be able to use both kinds of hard drives. You can read the following articles: The World First Hybrid Laptop and
MSI Unveils The World's First Hybrid-Storage Netbook: The U115

Addendum: 12-31-08

I forgot to make the point that although netbooks do not have enough memory to handle many everyday memory-intensive software like Microsoft Office, there is a solution: Google to the rescue! Google has a free office suite that is entirely online. Write documents. Make presentations. Make Spreadsheets. The product is referred to as Google Documents. All you need to use them is a Google account and an internet connection (oh and a computer). It even allow you to easily collaborate with others. I really like it, personally, however I still use Microsoft Office. Also, there are many online storage sites that allow you to securely store files. Some of them are even free.

Satire or Racism?

The weekend I came across a video on YouTube called "Barack - The Magic Negro" but I haven't had time to look into its origins until today. Considering the pervasive racism and stupidity in the United States, I wasn't surprised to find such a thing. What I'm finding more amazing is the thought that is being put forth as satire. Rush Limbaugh and other "conservatives" are amazed that some people would be racially offended. I mean the writer of this song has managed to insult, Obama and Al Sharpton and other black Americans in one fell swoop. Here is the song set to a video montage:



This was discussed on MSNBC and Kate Obenshain attempted to defend the song by saying that it was against Al Sharpton and not Barack Obama. I'm glad the African-American woman conducting the interview would not let her get away with it. You can read an article about it and I posted the Here is what Rush had to say about it:

Japanese Trailer for New Street Fighter Movie

Well, here is a trailer for the new movie coming out next year in 2009. It's called Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li. I'm going to give it a chance. From the looks of the trailer it seems better than Dragonball movie and nearly infinitely better than Van Damm's Street Fighter movie from 1994. I guess we will just have to wait and see. The bar has not been set very high for video games to live-action film adaptions.

If I had an Iphone:

If I had an Iphone this game would be something I'd download quicker than almost anything else. A quality Iron man game with great graphics. Almost makes me wanna run out and buy an Iphone.
Here is Marvel Comic announcement at the following article.

500 Years of Women In Western Art

I came across a great YouTube video this morning where someone took the greatest examples of women depicted in western art. It's a great example of art. I found a hyperlink that lists each art clip, the artist, and the year. Here is the video:

Slavery or Wellfare?

I ran across the following article about Child Maid Trafficking. Being a descendant of people who went through what the young lady in the article went through, gives me a very negative view of the practice. It seems to be part of Carribbean and African culture. It bothers me because it seems akin to slavery. The thing is not all the circumstances are as exploitative as the young woman's experience in the article. Not all the children are denied treatment as human being or education. Shiyama's treatment was horrible in my estimation because I think a child's childhood should be full of play not of labor. I would not want my daughter treated the way she was: living in a dark garage. According to the article, Shiyama's parents thought that she had it great because she was living high according to Egyptian standard for poor people. And the couple's defense that Shiyama was part of the family seems like a lie. They didn't treat their own children the way they treated her. Not allowing her to wash her clothes with the family's or sit on the furniture and the verbal abuse makes me think they treated her like a dog - a beast of burden - a slave. I don't care if it is their culture or not or that Shiyama's standard of living was better than back at Egypt. Shiyama was not being treated as full member of the household or a person. No wonder she's angry and cut ties to her family whom I'm sure she resents for putting her in those conditions. It's truly catch-22 because her parents only wanted to give her better opportunities. I don't think that there are any easy answers. When I look into my own heart, it just does not sit well with me. I'm not far enough removed from slavery and the truth is that in my opinion we will never be. For those people who are part of that culture, I only wanna know if you would put your child into servitude and would be fine with him or her being treated the way Shiyma was treated?

Extracting Images From A Mind

Japanese Scientists have managed to figure out how to capture images from a person's mind and reconstruct them into a form that is recognizeable on a computer screen. The article I read has the following:

...by using a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine the researchers were able to map blood flow changes within a human brain's cerebral visual cortex when exposed to specific control images. Subjects were shown 400 random 10 x 10 pixel black-and-white images for a period of 12 seconds each, which allowed the scientists to map the changes associated with images, essentially calibrating the machine. Then, when the test subjects were shown a completely new set of images, such as the letters N-E-U-R-O-N, the machine was able to recognize and reconstruct the images in a recognizable, all be it low-res image.

So far, the system can only recognize simple, black and white images, but scientists are confident the technology will advance so much in the next 10 years that reading a person's mind with some degree of accuracy will be possible. This technology could be used in the fields art and design; imagine being able to see the images inside an artists head! It could also be used to treat mental conditions that exhibit hallucinations, allowing doctors to see exact what their patients think they're seeing. ATR chief researcher Yukiyasu Kamitani says, “This technology can also be applied to senses other than vision. In the future, it may also become possible to read feelings and complicated emotional states.”

My take? It's a small step from reading minds to implanting thoughts and images into them. It's a technology like anything else: not evil or good by nature. It is how it is used at to whether it's good or bad.

Biblical Numerology

I found a video on GodTube trying to tie Barack Obama to the prophecies in Daniel 11. Okay,I'll wait until you are done laughing....done? Good. Numerology is using number in the Bible to find information. I'm not sure what to actually say about numerology. One thing for sure is that number are important and God has used many numbers over and over again like 2, 12, 24, and 40. Not to mention the number that show up in nature. Factors of 2, 3 and Pi show up everywhere when you try to mathematically model the world. Does this mean anything? I'm not sure. It could be just God signing his creation. Some people think the numbers in the Bible is God sending secret messages to us. Some even believe we can figure out the time the world will end, or the identity of the antichrist, or future events. I have found that many people who study numerology in an attempt to unravel mysteries, often miss the plain truths of scripture. Watch this to see what I mean: