Marietta's Claim to Fame!

The beak moves and the eyes roll.  It's 56 feet tall and rises like a juggernaut above the non-existent Marietta, GA skyline.  When you ask for directions, people will tell you how to get where you want to go based off the location of this beloved eye-sore.  There's even a souvenir shop inside where you can buy little stuffed animals that look like the restaurant.  

It's affectionately known by locals simply as the Big Chicken.  At one point, "they" were going to tear it down, but there was such public outcry (and fundraisers) that this colossal chicken was saved!  Now restored, it seems as if it's going to remain part of my hometown for as long as my hometown exists.  In my opinion, it's worth stopping by just for the photo op (even better than Bucksnort, Tennessee if you as me!)

Intercession

Some fast food for thought on prayer:

Abraham for Sodom and Gomorrah

"But when God destroyed the cities of the plain, he remembered Abraham and sent Lot out, away from the destruction, when he overthrew the cities Lot lived in.  -Genesis 20:29

Abraham meets the Three Angels before they destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah

The only reason that righteous Lot lived through the judgment on Sodom and Gomorrah was because Abraham had prayed for God to spare the righteous in the city before God went to visit it.  Stunningly, not everyone in Lot's family made it out though (his two sons-in-law and his wife perished).  It does make me think that those who are righteous living in an unrighteous place can be overthrown with the wicked-unless we pray.  On a side note, vv. 27-28 tell us that Abraham saw the destruction of these cities but had no idea at the time whether or not his prayers for Lot's safety had been answered.  

Abraham Praying for Abimelech and His Unintentional Sin

"He is a prophet, and he will pray for you, so that you will live." -Genesis 20:7

Though King Abimelech had sinned unintentionally, God still pronounced him as good as dead (see Genesis 20:3.)  Nevertheless, God said that He would have Abraham pray for the king, and because of this action, God would spare his life.

I really felt God was speaking to me when I read this verse.  I came to it quite accidentally after really struggling with offense toward a friend of mine that was intentionally running away from God's commands.  It left me believing that regardless of how I felt, I must love as He loves, and that is to love even those that are the enemies of God.  As a result of that, I'm pushed to pray.  Even IF I feel His righteous hand of judgment approaching this person's life, my prayers can hold it off and give them time to repent.  Crazy as it might sound, I actually believe this is happening.

Isaac Praying for His Wife

"Isaac prayed to the LORD on behalf of his wife, because she was childless.  The LORD heeded his prayer, and Rebekah became pregnant." -Genesis 25:21

Genesis 25:20, 26 inform us that it took Isaac 20 years before he realized he needed to pray for his wife to be fruitful.  Whoa!  I'm just praying that God would make me fully aware of how to pray for my wife so that I wouldn't spend 20 years holding back blessings that I could be praying into her life.

More Bucks for Your Buck.

So Starbucks might hate me for writing something like this, but I thought it was an idea worth sharing. 

When I go to Starbucks, I almost always get a drink that is one size larger but without paying for the larger size.  I do this without cheating or stealing from Starbucks, and without ingratiating myself to the baristas (as I have known some people to do in scandalous, shameless ways!  You know who you are people!!!). 

Before I explain how I do it, let me first lay out all the elements needed for this little enterprise:

1. Doctoring Station: Starbucks has a little station where you can “doctor” your drinks up.  There you’ll find the half and half, skim and whole milk, the sugar/splenda/saccharine stuff and napkins.

2. Free Pumps: When you order a Starbucks drink, you can add extra pumps of flavor for free, so long as it’s the flavor that comes with the drink.  For example, when you order a Chai Tea Latte, you can add as many pumps of chai as you want for free.  If you add a pump of vanilla, you’re paying more, but so long as you stick to chai, it’s free. 

3. Space or Room: Some people, when they get their cup of joe, they like to have some space in their cup.  This is for adding cream and sugar and still being able to stir your drink vigorously without spilling the precious contents.  You get this space by asking for a cup size larger than the drink you are ordering.  The dialogue goes something like this, “I’d like a tall chai tea latte in a grande cup please.” 

4. Temperature: Finally, you can order your drinks extra hot at Starbucks.  If there’s milk in a beverage, the limit is 180 degrees because after that you scald the milk and it tastes exactly like canned awful after that.  But if it’s coffee that you like, you can tell them to go even beyond 180 and name your specific temperature. 

Now that we’ve got the elements, I’ll explain how I get more Bucks for my buck.  I always order the beverage that I want extra concentrated and extra hot (up to 180 degrees for me because I always like milk in my drinks and I have a wussy tongue.)  When I do this, I order it in a cup size that is one size too big (so for a tall I get a grande cup, for a grande I get a venti cup).  After I get my drink I head over to the “doctoring station” and add milk to my drink.  Viola!  The milk dilutes the extra concentrated drink to a normal flavor while simultaneously cooling it down to a drinkable temperature.  By the time I’m done with this, I have a drink that is about one size up at the perfect flavor and temperature, but at the lesser price. 

Warnings and Tips: this isn’t fool proof, and it won’t work for every drink you get.  Sometimes, you can’t get the perfect flavor by diluting it. However, don’t give it up if at first you don’t succeed.  I had to try a couple of times before I got the precise measurements down for the perfect drink. 

Also, I don’t always do this because I can’t add the perfect amount of other syrups to my drink for free if for some reason I want them that day (caramel is good in hot chocolate you know, and vanilla is great in chai tea lattes!). The technique I’m sharing today is just usually the way to go.  

Don’t go overboard with concentrated syrups.  I typically add only one pump extra.  If I’m feeling crazy or needing caffeine, I’ll go for two.  More than that and the stuff becomes undrinkable sludge.

Sometimes, you’ll want to put your hand to the metal part of the milk container at the doctoring station to check the temperature.  If the baristas have freshly refilled it, it’ll be extra cold and you won’t be able to add as much to your drink that day because it will cool it down too much. 

Likewise, if you’re one of those people that was born with insulation in your mouth (“asbestos mouth” we used to call them in my family) and you basically like your coffee as soon as it comes off the roiling boil, this trick isn’t for you.  You’ll despise the chilly milk reducing the heat of your lava java. 

Cats are Superior to Dogs (Theologically Speaking)

We’ve all been part of this conversation or have overheard one.  Person A, a dog-lover, meets Person B, a cat-lover.  They have a discussion,  (and it might get a little heated, but usually ends friendly) about how cats are superior to dogs or dogs are superior to cats, etc.  These conversations never really go anywhere, but people have them anyways.  Dogs alwaysgreet you when you come in the door; cats can be litter box trained/aren’t so stupid, blah-dee-blah-blah, and so on.  ENOUGH!  Today, I thought I would settle the matter, at least for those of Biblical faith: cats are vastly superior to dogs.  So sorry dog-lovers.  L

First of all, in making this argument, allow me to give a few disclaimers.

Disclaimer 1: Everything I’m about to say in this article is a joke.  I say this because I’ve actually had people get angry with me when I’ve given these arguments.  It’s understandable, I suppose, if you are in the dog loving camp. 

Disclaimer 2: Though I will be quoting Scripture I’m not trying to make a doctrine out of this, it’s all in good fun!

Disclaimer 3: I’m not trying to say that dogs have no value or that no one wants them or that you’re evil if you own one.  Far from the truth! They’re useful, lovable creatures and I think God loves them too.  After all, two of them were saved on the ark with Noah.  But let’s be clear that we’re talking about a lesser creature than cats.

So let’s proceed with the theology.  To make this easy on everyone, I’m going to keep a scorecard, starting with Cats 0, Dogs 0.

Throughout the Bible, dogs get dogged on, and it’s not just me who says so.  According to the entry on dogs in The Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (a source I used for several of the verses on dogs in this article), the life of a dog “…shocks the reader with visions of squalor, dismal poverty and the life of a pariah at the bottom of the social scale.”  (Cats 0, Dogs -1.)  It goes on to say, “Of all the domesticated animals there is a particular revulsion for the dog, who alone is willing to eat humans corpses, a fact that is reprehensible to every human and exploited uniquely by the book of Kings as a curse that comes upon wicked dynasties.”  (Before we go on, we have to tally that one up… dogs eat human flesh and they are used as curses… that’s a negatory on two counts so it’s Cats 0, Dogs -3.) 

But wait dog lovers!  Did you know that there’s actually a verse in the Bible that explicitly mentions a condition in which a dog is better than a cat?  Yes!  There is!  Behold: “…even a live dog is better off than a dead lion” (Ecclesiastes 9:4 NIV).  Ouch.  I guess you can tell that the language in that verse indicates that under normal circumstances a dog is obviously inferior to a lion (cat), but that if the cat is dead and rotting a dog trumps it… barely.  For this, I suppose we can be extremely generous and deduct only two thirds of a point from dogs.  (Cats 0, Dogs -3.66.) 

“But Adam, that’s just Old Testament…” says the dog-lover.  We’re in the New Covenant now.  Okay!  Here goes!  Paul says in Phil 3:2, “Beware of the dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the false circumcision.”  The context here is that these people referred to as “dogs” were trying to rob the Philippians of their participation in Christ’s salvation.  (Cats 0, Dogs -4.66.)

The Apostle Peter, in 2 Peter 2:22, compares sinners returning to their sinful ways with dogs returning to lick up their own vomit.  (Cats 0, Dogs -5.66.)   He juxtaposes dogs with swine in the same verse.  (Cats 0, Dogs -6.66.)  It seems that dogs are not only losing their case, but now they are seeming kind of… evil, wouldn’t you say? 

I could go on, but I will end it with one, final point that is enough to ruin the day of any Bible-believer who previously thought that dogs were superior to cats.  Revelation 5:5 is THE trump card where God Almighty identifies Himself with a lion when He names Himself, “the Lion that is from the tribe of Judah.” 

Obviously, being associated with God gives cats* an infinite number of points, so we end our competition with the final score of Cats ∞, Dogs -6.66.  I rest my case.

*If you are thinking about making the GROUNDLESS argument that a lion is not a cat, please read this article.

Place Vendome

Note the hand tucked into the shirt as a nod to Napoleon.

So... I was in Paris, and this was something I had to stop by to see (and that my wife graciously agreed to go see with me).  To the ordinary observer, this was a mere column, lost in a sea of other monuments of any great city.  Not so for students of military history; it's a landmark that shouldn't be missed just because it's probably the most audaciously arrogant, trash talking "boo-yah" monument ever erected.

Brief history as to why: Multiple countries of Europe wanted to see Napoleon punished for basically being a jerk on an international level.  So they raised up armies together and sent them out to fight the lil' Emperor of the French.  Naturally.  

In 1805 a combined Russian and Austrian force, outnumbering Napoleon's, met up with him at a place called Austerlitz.  For his part, Napoleon pretended to be afraid in order to get the Russians and Austrians to fight him on the battleground of his choosing.  They did not know that he had already commanded his generals to scope out the battlefield because he promised them a battle there.  

Base of the column.

Long story short, in what was probably his finest battle, Napoleon made a laughingstock of the Russians and Austrians.  To add insult to injury though, he took their cannons, melted them down and viola! made a column of them, with a statue of his handsome self on top.  Naturally.  

And that's why I had to go there, off the regular beaten tourist path in Paris, to see the column made up of those cannons from the combined armies that tried to bring Napoleon down on a battleground of his choosing.  

The Odds of Being a 6'6'' Redhead

You always wanted to know...

Even in the Middle Ages, Redheads were Boss!

I learned/figured out some interesting things today.  Granted, the things I learned all directly apply to me, so this post is perhaps one of my most narcissistic posts ever, BUT I still thought it was interesting enough to let everyone know. 

I'm 6'6'' and only 1/4 of 1% of the world's population is that height.  That number looks like this: 0.0025.   Pretty cool huh? 

So I thought about this, and applied it to the fact that only 2% (0.02) of the world's population is red haired.  

In case you forgot middle school math, the way you find out the odds of two percentages coming together is to simply multiply them.  THEREFORE, a red head being 6'6'' or above is going to be extremely rare... about 0.00005 % of the population.  Whoa!  Now I feel as random as a purple tiger or something like it!

But even though those odds are long... let me give you some food for thought.  I went to high school with a red head who was also 6'6'' or thereabouts (I remember having him edged in height, but sometimes the memory a guy has of his high school days are exaggerated come 10+ years later... e.g. Uncle Rico's hilarious line, "How much you wanna make a bet I can throw a football over them mountains?").  So since there were two of us in one high school, us 6'6'' redheads can't be THAT rare, can we?  

Well, if you multiply 0.00005% times the current world population of 7.1 billion, you'll see that there are plenty of tall redheads!  355,000 of them to be precise!  That's about the population of the Bahamas... a nice country, but probably not the best for tall redheads since they get sunburned easily and sometimes are so large that their friends meanly call them "Moby Dick" when they go swimming (yes, this actually happened to me!)

And before you go and stereotype all redheads as being Irish or even European, let me just tell you, there are people groups (some of them with very dark skin) from China, Papua New Guinea and the Middle East and North Africa (mostly areas in the former Ottoman Empire, usually Berber populations people but also including Jews) that are known for having red hair.   

Thus ends my strange, rambling combination of random facts and math.  

The Death of Battleships.

Yamato under construction.  

I think this is a story worth telling because I often find that people are unaware that battleships are obsolete (meaning they're basically useless for navies around the world in the event of war).  Yep, it's true.  With very few exceptions, they've been obsolete round the world since since World War II.  The reason for this goes back to the story of this bad boy seen in the picture below, Battleship Yamato.  

Whoa, and was it ever a bad boy.  Yamato was the largest battleship ever built, the pride of the Imperial Japanese Navy.  It was originally designed to be an aircraft carrier and was actually BIGGER than the aircraft carrier in the United States Navy at the time.  To give you a picture of just how big it was... the largest U.S. Battleships ever built displaced 45,000 tons (roughly the size of the Titanic of sinking and Hollywood fame).  The Yamato displaced 73,000 tons.  It's guns were bigger and better than anything else in naval history before or since.  They were 18.1 inches and capable of shooting shells that were the equivalent of explosive Volkswagon Beetles at targets 30 miles away!

Yamato undergoing sea trials.

On top of that, Yamato, at the time of its death, had over 160 anti-aircraft guns.  AA guns (as we shall affectionately call them) were needed on ships in WWII because pesky airplanes were taking off from aircraft carriers and causing all sorts of trouble.  However, there had never really been a battle, a serious battle, to prove whether or not carrier-borne aircraft were indeed superior to battleships or not.  

If any battleship could prove or disprove the superiority of battleships when it came to a fight between battleships and aircraft carriers, it was going to be Yamato.  To begin with, remember that she had 160 guns that were meant to kill planes!  What I didn't yet say was that she also had huge shells that went into her 18.1 inch guns that were the equivalent of BUCKSHOT.  (Such ingenuity was typical of the Imperial Japanese warfare btw).  Yessir, dem big guns would aim upward and farr a sprayd of hellfire at doze incomin' planes - jest lik an ol' fashund turkey shoot!  

Yamato exploding.  Note the size of the ships to the left.

So... the real test for Yamato, and really all battleships, came when 280+ U.S. planes came to attack the biggest, baddest mamma-jamma that ever sailed the seven seas.

 It was basically no contest.  Yamato and her crew fought back valiantly, but she got toasted with loads of torpedos and bombs (at least 15 of them!) 
Losses for the U.S., however, were minimal, and afterwards the battleship was considered obsolete by navies worldwide.    

The 20 Year Conversion...

First a little bit of history: In the 1800's, the great evangelist Dwight L. Moody was giving a two week series at the end of which he planned to give an opportunity for salvation.  Problem is, he never got to preach the second week to most people because a huge fire broke out all over Chicago.  As a result, Moody said he would never wait, he would always give people a chance to convert in the moment.  Tons of evangelists and pastors followed his example.  At the time, that probably wasn't a big deal, but now our society has gotten tired of this rush to make converts.  

Recently, I've been rethinking the whole way we see people convert to Christianity, and it has a lot to do with these two passages: 

"Then Jacob made a vow saying, "If God will be with me and will guard me on this way that I go, and will give me bread to eat and clothing to wear, so that I return to my father's house in peace, then the LORD shall be my God.'" -Genesis 28:20-22.

"So Jacob said to his household and to all who were with him, 'Get rid of the foreign gods that are among you and purify yourselves and put on fresh clothes.  Then let us get up and go to Beth-el, so that  I can build there an altar to God who answered me in the day of my distress and has been with me wherever I went.'" -Genesis 35:2-3.

Jacob Prays for Protection (Dore Bible Illustrations)

Here we basically see the conversion of Jacob, a.k.a Israel.  This is a big deal for the whole Bible.  For one thing, Jacob is a patriarch of the Jewish faith; secondly, he was the grandson of Abraham, and the progenitor of the nation of Israel (not to mention its namesake).  His conversion was before the Law (not introduced till Exodus 20) and therefore his covenant with God was based on faith just as was Abraham's covenant.  

Furthermore, he was converted to the faith because God Himself guided him and brought him to belief; Jacob was a skeptic that learned to trust a God he initially did not have close relationship with.  It's noteworthy that this wasn't about a preacher or evangelist giving an invitation or having Jacob pray "the sinner's prayer."  Nevertheless, it was still a very real decision on Jacob's part to follow God, and as a result, he had his family put away their foreign gods (this basically meant that the whole family converted too!).  

But here's the kicker for me: between these two passages (Genesis 28 and 35), twenty WHOLE YEARS go by in Jacob's life.  God was in no hurry to convert this man, regardless of how important he was for God's plan for the redemption of the world.  

So here's the application I get from this: 

1. We do not have to be in a hurry to see conversions.
2. God pursues people and sees them through to conversion.
3. Just because someone doesn't go to church or fit our agenda for coming to Christ, doesn't mean that God isn't working on them or pursuing them.  
4. Our responsibility is to (A.) love them, (B.) go the distance with them, (C.) entrust them to God, (D.) point them back to God.  

I think that if we learned to practice such things, we would see a greater transformation in society than we are from our current efforts that are (to be quite honest) irritating to most of the population.  

Diets, TV, Social Networking, Yo Yo's and More!

I know that what I’m about to say is controversial and that people on both sides of this argument will likely exaggerate and/or take my words out of context.  Nevertheless, I feel as though I have to talk about this topic. 

Growing up, I remember when the no-fat diets went into vogue. Scientists backed it up.  Doctors would get on TV and tell people how healthy it was to cut fat from their diets, and there were loads of magazine articles telling everyone they had to avoid fat if they were to ever become thin.  Tons of people were coming forward giving personal testimonies to how effective this diet craze was.  All this stuff made such great sense that no one could really question it, save for butter-loving Julia Child who denounced such ideas as bad cooking.

The YoYo: Fun toy for kids and grown-ups
alike!  But it makes for crappy dieting!

Fast forward a few years into the late 1990’s.  The Atkins, a.k.a. “high protein” or “low carb” diet gained national notoriety.  Now the buzz was that you could eat fats—in fact, your body needed them for things like brain health and vitamin absorbtion!  What was causing people to become fat was eating carbs—evil carbs!  Again, the scientists backed it up, doctors got on TV, articles were written and even more testimony-sharing zealots spread their story of how fun it was to eat fatty steak and broccoli while still losing weight!

Now we have a new diet, albeit, this one is slightly different (I feel) in how it’s coming about.  The new diet is a conglomeration of vegan, no GMO’s and organic foods.  Now the “science” is saying that you can’t eat meat, genetically altered foods or anything that uses pesticides because it’s unhealthy.  Scientists are backing this up, doctors are on TV (and web videos), and there are tons of testimonials; only this time the people testifying are able to spread their ideas quickly on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and the like.

What is happening is that social media and the web have come alongside the traditional media outlets to either confirm or deny “truths” to our society, and this includes the “truth” about what we eat.  Anyone in marketing worth their salt knows this, and many documentary filmmakers know this too. 

It is important to note that documentary makers are not reporters and they are not the “new media” that can be trusted more than others (it’s no secret that lots of people are looking for alternative yet viable news sources in this day and age).  Documentary filmmakers are still filmmakers, and the good ones have got an angle to make their film appealing.  Shock value still sells, and people purporting any kind of exposé on the food industry are not going to try to present a balanced argument, they are going to present a biased view so as to sell more of their documentary.  The news does the same thing.

TV shows that put the “pop scientists” on their shows, are likewise still after viewers.  I’m not calling these people evil, I’m not saying that they all, or even most of them, have an agenda.  I am saying that my experience in TV, film production, radio and sales have led me to conclude that when something is hip it’s going to get air time and the people showing it aren’t going to ask too many deep questions about the validity of what they are airing, nor are they necessarily going to present balanced arguments because it makes for boring content.  

The kicker for all this is that I’ve lived long enough to have seen too many of these fad diets not work in the lives of real people: long term, that is… the weight comes off, then goes back on, comes off then goes back on again.  “Yo-yo dieting” I believe it is called.  Yes, there are a lot of success stories, but that's usually because someone started down the road with one of these diets, learned healthy habits and then balanced themselves out as they went.  

Disclaimers: I’m not calling this a big conspiracy made up by the organic food people, and I’m not even saying that there is no truth to what is said in documentaries such as Food, Inc. or Forks Over Knives.  I am NOT saying I am a nutrition expert, know more than scientists or doctors, etc.  I’m just stating my hesitance to buy into all of what they are saying; I think there's a lot of exaggeration going on.

I’m also not saying it’s bad to be vegan or vegetarian.  You can still be strong, get enough protein and beat up people that eat meat.  Except for AHNOWLD.  No one beats up AHNOWLD!

The reason I've felt compelled, maybe even pushed to write this article is that some people are getting dogmatic, even religious and sometimes, unfortunately, self-righteous over this vegan thing, organic, no GMO thing.  So let me say it here: believe it or not, it’s a proven, self-evident fact that there are other ways to lose weight and be genuinely healthy OTHER than going vegan/organic/no GMO, or as I will say from now on, "VOGMO." 

I would like to point out that typically, whenever people start to think about what they eat on a regular basis, they take in less unhealthy food and often exercise more too!  This always helps people lose weight, regardless of what diet they are on, and this is a good thing.  Bravo!  I am honestly happy for them.  I recently heard from someone on the VOGMO diet/lifestyle who lost 40 pounds and is in way better health than he previously was—I’m delighted for him.  I also spoke with a relative just the other day who had lost 3 inches to the waistline: on a low-carb diet eating soy (GMO’s!), non-organic veggies and meats with all sorts of added hormones! 

When I was over 300 pounds, I lost about 80 pounds of fat just by eating less food overall, but making healthier choices for what I did eat and exercising more.  15 years later, the weight is still off.  But I eat meat all but probably 3 or 4 days a year.  Plus I love cheese.  Eggs I could live without, but not the cheese.  So vegan is a lifestyle that I could not embrace.  

So on the one hand, I applaud any diet if it helps people lose weight andkeep it off by helping them transform their lifestyle.  Sometimes, just getting started and learning some things about taking care of one’s body is a beginning for people that are losing weight, but their education should continue. 

On the other hand, I denounce making any one diet dogma, especially when any diet is presented as a fix-all to one’s health and obesity issues. No diet can replace other healthy habits nor self-control when it comes to eating and exercising.  

To all who have lost weight or are continuing to lose weight through whatever means, I wish you the very best in getting to your target weight and in learning all the habits of heart and mind that keep that weight off of you.  It’s not easy, but it is worth it. 

To my VOGMO friends, I respect your decisions, understand why you are making those decisions and bless you to be in good health.  I believe there is much to be learned from you, and hopefully the points you bring up will improve the food industry and care of animals.  I am genuinely glad you have shared with me why you eat the way you do.  Now I feel I have said my peace as to why I eat the way I do.  Let us then live in peace.  :)

Skeptism Yay!

This is a blog about skeptic philosophy.  Please know there is a serious difference between someone who says, "I'm a skeptic" in the casual sense and someone who says, "I am a skeptic philosopher."  Still, if you know the definition of the word "skeptic" then you've got an idea where this school is coming from: there's some serious doubt going on!  

To MAJORLY oversimplify and summarize the arguments of skeptic philosophers is to say,"you can't really be sure that you know anything."  

For example, if you've ever seen the movie The Matrix, people are living in a pseudo-reality that is generated by computers, giving people a false impression of what is real while machines sap their bodies of life.  What people think is real is not really real, but they have no way of knowing that until they are pulled into a world that is actually real.  (This is admittedly not a great way to explain skepticism because being hooked into a super-computer that sucks your life from you is far-fetched.  However, the principle here will stand true.  Bear with me.)

You and I do not KNOW with absolute certainty that we aren't hooked up to a machine that generates a reality for us.  And we can't prove it.  Any proof that we try to generate can be debunked with some kind of argument.

• History?  
• How do you know that those who recorded it are telling the truth? 
• That those people were accurate or had access to accurate data or information? 
• How do you know that these memories were not implanted in your head and that you never actually lived any of them?  
• First-Hand Experiential Knowledge?  
• How do you know that you can trust your senses?  
• How do you know that your memories of what happened are still accurate?  
• If you recorded it, how do you know that you were honest with yourself or that you indeed wrote an accurate description or that how you are interpreting what you wrote then is correct?
• Science?  
• How do you know that the biases of the scientists aren't in play?  
• How can scientists be accurate when data can seemingly change over and over as we've seen happen a lot (think health sciences or global warming or cooling)?  
• What if everything in our world is a deception by some power in charge of things beyond us and we're being made to think what we think?

Of course, you can argue away the simple points I made here, but eventually, the skeptic wins out because he can keep asking more and more questions as to the foundations and justifications for your knowledge (this goes to another branch of philosophy called Foundationalism, but we won't be discussing that here).  So long as you can get to a question that someone doesn't know the answer to, the skeptic wins.

This doesn't necessarily make this a popular philosophical idea though because it's irritating and seemingly not-applicable to anything in the real world.  And more importantly, few people actually believe that we don't really know anything, at least not to the degree that they are willing to passively suffer pain or even die for such beliefs.

Skepticism is Refreshing?

For these reasons, I actually found this premise of skepticism quite refreshing because it highly emphasizes a wonderful facet of Christianity (and you could apply it to other faiths as well).  That is, you can't know anything in this world other than by faith.  You can't know that you know anything.  If you'd like to prove that you know something, read some skeptic philosophy and you'll find your argument destroyed because at some point down the line, you are going to have to accept that what you know is actually a belief and that you are resting on your faith, not in your actual knowledge.   

St. Augustine of Hippo.  In this illustration (done over 1,000 years after his death and therefore probably looks nothing like him), our hero Augustine has been interrupted from writing in a book because he is receiving a burning heart from a glowing orb of light named "Veritas" (Latin for "Truth").  Thank goodness for this TOTALLY SWEET illustration that tells me how Augustine came up with all of those great ideas!

Augustine's Argument:

For example, to expound on an argument made by St. Augustine, how do I know that my parents are really my parents?  Do I know this or do I just believe it?  Did I see myself get formed in the womb, or come out of it?  If I did see it, do I remember it?  Or am I just taking someone's word for this?  If I am taking their word for it, how do I know that they are telling the truth?  

Of course they are telling the truth, they're my parents!  Yes, you are right.  But you are taking their word on faith.  Many things are in play that cause you to believe that you can rest your faith in them (they've been around for years, have great stories to tell about your childhood, etc.), but you are a believer in them and not a knower nevertheless.  It still comes down as a matter of your accepting their testimony with belief, not an actual knowing.  

As for me, I love that the world has been constructed like this.  To me, it's an evidence or even a calling card for an unseen God, pointing to Himself.  It's one of those "built-in's" of the universe that we can't escape.  Just like you can't say, "there is no absolute truth" without self-contradicting because to say "there is no absolute truth" is to make an absolute truth statement, you likewise cannot make an argument that you believe fact and evidence when people of faith are full of hooey.  To the contrary, every single person is a person of great faith and none of us can live or function without it.  

And just as someone with science can make phenomenal arguments with great justifications for their beliefs, so can people of faith (for those that do their homework).  Likewise both can be deconstructed.  

So then, it becomes a matter of what you will have faith in, not a matter of what you know.  

Church Death

Driving near my new home today, I saw (and stopped by) a church that had closed its doors and was selling the property.  The church sign read something like,"Churches come and go, God is Eternal. Good Bye, God Bless." 

What struck me was that this church was on a main road in a densely populated area of Norfolk.  There's no great reason why it should have closed.  I know I might be jumping to conclusions, but I couldn't help but strongly feel as though the congregation was trying to acquit themselves of guilt for letting a beautiful church, on a main road, DIE.  I was thinking, "what in the world happened here?  How could you possibly let this happen?"  

Churches do not just come and go.  Sure, sometimes they're conquered as they were in Turkey, or populations leave due to economic decline as they have in Detroit.  But in populated areas in the hearts of living cities, they do NOT just "come and go." They are started through much blood, sweat and tears, and they are preserved through hard work, lifelong repentance and death-to-self on the parts of the congregants and leadership.  If they go, and maybe this is harsh to say, it's because somebody surrendered, compromised or refused to change.

UPDATE: By strange circumstance, I met a man from this church when I stopped by it one day.  I asked him what happened, and this was his reply (paraphrased): "This whole area has changed a lot over the years.  My family has been at this church for 6 generations, and the neighborhood just couldn't support it anymore."  

I also watched some of their church services online: if it's not too harsh to say it, they were a white, 1950's style congregation, and they were in the midst of an African American community.  The neighborhood could have supported the church, but not their vision of church.  God forgive them, forgive us, and give us grace to not repeat such disasters.