Can't stop the signified

Just a neglected ore mule

2008-11-24T18:22:00.000-08:00

One of the things Stein said about MMORPGs I disagreed with, the mood is not always playful.
"The general mood in third places is playful and marked by frivolity, verbal word play, and wit."
Often times the conversations degrade to young horny men insulting each other with sexually explicit insults and poor grammar.

With almost complete anonymity online games can bring out the worst in people.

But I won't repeat the ones that actually drive my point home.

Other times however I must admit the online community can produce some amusing things, an example from bash.org, " There was a 23% drop in temperature.
That's almost 25%!
... That was one of the most worthless comments I've ever heard."

Or, " some girl on the street asked if i was saved yet
i told her i saved at the checkpoint a couple minutes back
and can reload from there if i die
she was confused"

That last one I kinda like.

But I must also admit there is something beautiful in two players helping each other out in the virtual world. A stranger whom you may never meet, taking the time to heal you out in the wild even though it is of no benefit to himself reminds me of the good Samaritan. I have heard of high level players stopping to help out beginners and giving them items just because it is the decent thing to do.

Maybe in the online world people are just that, people. The good and the bad and all the pent up sexual frustration that comes with it.

All Your Soul Are Belong To Us

2008-11-20T19:51:00.000-08:00

I am gonna have to go with M & M on this one, the meduim is the message, that is regardless of how well written a sermon is on a website the message people are most gonna take away from it will still be, "look I am a website, everything is quick and easy, don't like that? Don't read it! Do you like this? Click on this link! Wanna comment on what this nameless idiot wrote? Do it! There's no responsibility here! Wanna connect with someone? Do it, and you you can never talk to them again if you decide you don't like them, but you will want to accumulate as many friends as possible because the interactions are so shallow!"

Yes, it is an incredible tool, you can reach billions of people, but when it comes to gut wrenching, heart tearing spiritual contact, it just can't compete.

Marshal you got it right... both of you. Also the candy you guys got it right too.

You can't fool me Mr. Cruise

2008-11-17T16:39:00.000-08:00

I wonder if any superheroes are Mennonites?

No, probably not.

Superman is a Methodist.
Batman is a Catholic.
Spiderman is a Protestant.

Somehow it fits, but I wonder if villians are atheists? or practice scientology?

But some of the most inspiring and moving pieces of literature I have read would be Calvin and Hobbes. Particularly when Calvin finds a wounded raccoon which he takes in and tries to nurse back to health but unfortunately it dies during the night. Some parents would rather opt for a happy ending but I like what Tom Carmody said, "If we are dishonest, if we hold things back from children, they discover that later and there's a backlash. 'You weren't honest with me.' 'You didn't trust me.' 'You didn't empower me to deal with that.' Bye, goodbye, and they're gone.

These particular mediums are therefore, the most important because they are the favored of children and the young at heart.
To dismiss them would be silly.

But seriously, why are we Mennonites so lame?

Oh, well. Then we wouldn't be Mennonites.

"Bleeech!" puked the bald man behind me

2008-11-13T18:57:00.000-08:00

"In the name of Jesus, I cast out the demon of anal fissures!"

A grim demon to have on your shoulder.

I hope that isn't the punishment for reading Harry Potter...

But when Matt Taibbi went undercover for RollingStone and infiltrated a Christian Zionism retreat I found myself just as shocked as non-Christians would be, those guys do some crazy "batshit!"

"When the word of God is in your mouth," he said, "the demons can't come out of your body. You have to keep a path clear for the demon to come up through your throat. So under no circumstances pray to God. You can't have God in your mouth. You can cough, you might even want to vomit, but don't pray."

Yipes!

Matt had good reason to be scared but I think a small grain of salt is needed.
Most of the things they did during the weekend I would have no problem with and would encourage others to do so but everything they did was slightly skewed. This doesn't mean that speaking in tongues is wrong or healing wounds but from the way Matt described it they had different views on how to go about it, craaaaaazy views. At the same time Matt is biased going in and the constant snide remarks weaken his arguments like a holy-vomitus/demon-exorcism.

Throughout the article there are hints of Matt's bias, his upbringing was upper class and a struggle with drugs. Dealing with wounds and the past should be something of interest to everyone. Just weed out the ones that make you puke.

Nevil was a cool guy, until he asked to meet in RL

2008-10-30T21:05:00.000-07:00

Welcome weary traveler on this Hallowed eve's eve.
I have seen the future in mine crystal ball and I see you navigating away from this blog very satisfied.
I also checked my F book page.
But I left my crystal ball logged on and Dave Ward started fooling around.
He updated my status to, "Steven is trangling, as in "keep on tranglin'"... it's like strangling but without the S, and it means something different than strangling, as in "going about in a jovial yet aloof manner,""

I Love facebook, don't have to talk to all those people, just write on their wall.

I asked Dave or Dward what he thought about Facebook, he answered,
"Facebook is the devil. Wait no, Facebook is a guy named Nevil... wait no I just met a guy named Nevil on Facebook. That's what I meant to say.

That's not even true.
But it does introduce your topic of facebook."

I agreed.
Well, I listened.
But I sympathize with what I think he means, real "face time" is being replaced by online interactions.
It's nice like the article said, that we can keep in touch with people to use them for our benefit or job offers in the future.
Sounds dirty but it is a necessary evil, especially in the media, "it's who you know".
But when we start using these shallow communication alternatives with people we can actually talk to in real life, baby unicorns cry.

Luckily Dentyne has our backs in a recent commercial called, "face time". Cause the more we communicate online, the less gum we need to buy to avoid blasting our loved ones with rancid breath.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21134540/vp/26894021#26894021

Toenails in your stir fry

2008-10-20T21:50:00.000-07:00

I would like to go on a pilgrimage to a sacred place. Or take a vow of silence and spend a year meditating in a remote monastery. Maybe learn a few martial arts.
But like me, many people are just too lazy to do things for real, instead of going to the movies we stream Iron Man off the internet.
Instead of reading we play video games, eat Mr. Noodle instead of cooking up stir fry. Wear a hat instead of combing our hair, never take off our socks instead of cutting our toe nails, but that is why the Holy Land Experience exists. Israel is just too far away, and far too dangerous. And if people are having genuine spiritual experiences I am inclined to agree with Mark Taylor from Loyola University in Chicago, "We have to be careful about judging the personal taste of others at meaningful times in their lives."
But while I would love to visit Dollywood or the Creation Museum and see the 50 foot Jesus, spiritual enlightenment should not be undergone in the same fashion as making a snack. It should be hard, it should be dangerous, it should take lots of time. Convenience and garish entertainment simply have no place in soul searching.
But I guess if I will never get around to real soul searching then the Holy Land Experience may be better than nothing. And even though the feeling of a luke warm Mr. Noodle sliding down your throat is delicious and sates your hunger for a few hours, there is something more rewarding, more satisfying and probably healthier about picking up fresh ingredients and taking the time to roll up your sleeves and make a real meal.
Not that I ever have.
I am still metaphorically sitting on the couch, hungry and thinking about getting up. I make fun of the guy eating instant noodles but am tempted myself, sometimes I even just eat them dry... just crunch them up in the bag and add seasoning.
I wonder if we have any...

Dumbventures with Clint

2008-10-07T12:51:00.000-07:00

6:00 p.m Monday evening, 21 hours before the blogs are due Clint and I head down to the library to check out the reserved readings.
We ask the clerk for the New Media binder and wait.
She comes back with a black binder and we go over to the photocopier, turns out we need change, no wallets.
We look through the binder and can't find the right articles; she has given us the Writing for the Media binder. We bring it back and she gives us a giant magazine and warns of naughty pictures in the back.
After looking at the naughty pictures we give it back and explain we are looking for the New Media binder. It's not there.

2:00 p.m Tuesday afternoon, 1 hour and 20 minutes before the blogs are due Clint and I head down to check out the reserved readings.
We ask the clerk for the New Media binder, and it's there! But this time we need our student cards. We bat our eyes and drop pens on purpose to change her mind. Doesn't work, and we didn't have money for the printer anyways.
2:15 Tuesday afternoon, 1 hour and 5 minutes before the blogs are due Clint and I head down to check out the reserved readings.
We put the paper into the copier and insert our money, it pretends to make two copies but nothing comes out. We try again.
We are down 50 cents.
We sit down and read the shortest article about Ipods being Icons.
On our way back to dorm we discuss how Steve Jobs secretly wrote the article to sell more Ipods.
Back in our room David Ward is playing Soul Calibre and we tell him about our dumb adventure, which he promptly dubs "Dumbventure".
I can't wait until libraries catch up to the efficiency of Ipods. They still feel like Cathedrals.

Dottie Rambo will you marry me?

2008-10-02T20:54:00.000-07:00

"CCM has to water down the gospel in order to attract larger audiences"

"Artists uninterested in worship music should go mainstream,"

"Evangelicals have always had to reckon with the fact that God speaks through mainstream music..."

"I repent of ever having recorded one single song, and ever having performed on concert, if my music... has not provoked you into Godly jealousy or to sell out more completely to Jesus"

"If in our worship we pervert His Word, we pervert the truth about God"

"Christian music doesn't exist, because it's arrogant for sinful people"

Hmm.

Lots of things are said about music because it's like a character trait, something we are fiercely proud of and if someone doesn't share our taste "they just don't understand."
I catch myself using musical tastes to define who I am to my peers. It can create instant, unshakeable bonds with strangers who enjoy obscure 70's Prog rock or know the birthplace of Curt Cobain. It can also polarize entire generations of Christians.
As a fan of Switchfoot I felt they sold out when they put all their most popular songs on one album and introduced themselves to mainstream music. It was a greatest hits album but also a safe bet in entering secular world. I listened to them "before all my friends", and now I was annoyed by everyone asking, "have you heard of Switchfoot? I love their new single."
Yes, I heard that song a few years ago on their second album.
Their next albums began to stray from songs with obvious references to Jesus.
Did they water down for a bigger audience? I feel they did.
Does God use their music less? I don't think so.
Watered down wine is still good to those who've never tried it (untested analogy).
But a frequent wine drinker like myself now has to search for a richer vintage when in the mood for worship music.
But is that the only use of music for a Christian?

For me music is rooted in moods rather than faith. There comes a time in every man's life when he feels sad and like a cowboy, "sings a sad, sad song." But you wouldn't bring an ipod filled with love songs to the gym.
Similarly when I am filled with angst I need some emotional music to help me "scream it out".
Other times I am feeling spiritually depressed or under attack and simply need to hear someone sing about how much they love Jesus. I don't need a sermon or answers to deep questions or philosophical poetry, just someone else singing a song without me having to interpret or put my Christian filter on, it's Christian so I can just "mindlessly" listen. And I find it soothing.
The music I listen to changes depending on where I am and what time of day it is. My faith is only a part (albeit an important part) of what music I listen to.
But wouldn't it be great to marry someone named Dottie Rambo?

Who's your wife?
Oh, you know, Dottie... Rambo!

Forktime

2008-10-01T10:23:00.001-07:00

http://forktime.blogspot.com/

If you can't do something right...

2008-09-29T22:19:00.000-07:00

Pope Gregory the Great got it right, "We do no harm in wishing to show the invisible by means of the visible" or how I like to read it, "We do no harm in wishing to show the invisible by means of decent film making."
As well as having a badass name Pope G.T.G knew libri idiotarum was Latin for, 'The books of the illiterate' and their necessity in the church, because people who can't read still need to connect with the story, and people who don't waste their time with poor media still need to know Jesus.
Because not only will they refuse to go to church, or watch anything on the faith networks, they won't pick up "evangelical" magazines regardless of how "edgy" they look or even read the "christian" harry potters. The odds are the same as an illiterate farmer studying from a Greek Bible. How do I know? Cause I sure wouldn't bother if I were them. Other than a few morsels of religion I feel obligated to swallow I don't really enjoy them either. So even though they have the basic motor skills to interpret a Christian movie, they shouldn't want to sit through it, at-least until evangelicals start making films for the sake of good film making. If all evangelical media were technically and creatively above par the world would take notice, any attention at the moment is unwarranted.

I think P. g2g would agree with me, "if you can't do something smart, do something right."

How Robots have Ruined Everything - Another guest blog by David Ward

2008-09-29T15:57:00.000-07:00

I was wrestling a bear the other day, and I thought to myself: "I should start a blog for myself. That would be rad." So why am I still writing on Steve's blog, you ask? Well, we have robots to thank for that.

Freeze Ray, stops time, tell your friends

2008-09-25T21:43:00.000-07:00

I wonder if God laughs...

I mean, he seems like a serious Guy. So serious I even had to capitalize “guy”
(glancing fearfully at the ceiling, I went back and changed it). But deep down I have to believe he would laugh if he stumbled upon Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-long Blog, or read the web comic XKCD. I want to imagine him as that outlandish uncle that would sometimes pop in for dinner as a kid, a big guy with a bushy moustache and a booming voice that you could hear laughing for miles. Everyone would sit enthralled by his stories late into the night. “So there was this one time,” and we would freeze with food in limbo between our plates and faces, listening. From his stories I learned about life and love and faith, “how it really is”.
I like to think that Jesus’ parables were something like that; this carpenter guy would come for supper and tell some damn good stories, and you felt somehow wiser afterwards.

This is an excerpt from Quentin’s passage on Evangelicals use of the internet for delighting,
“In addition, evangelicals frequently enjoy witty online interaction and exchange delightful expressions of faith. Blogs demonstrate that evangelicals take pleasure in poking fun at themselves, too. ‘What should a good sermon be about,’ asks one website? Answer: ‘about God and about ten minutes.’ So much for long winded preachers!”

Stop it Quentin, that’s enough delight for one day.

Five lines about “delighting” are all Quent could fit in his 11 page chapter on Pilgrims in Cyberspace.

I wonder if God laughs...

God is a cancer

2008-09-23T12:50:00.000-07:00

In an article entitled, 'Demons in the Christian bookstore', writer Larry M. Lake writes about "apocalyptic demon-hunting novels" such as This Present Darkness, and Left Behind and how they may restore Christians acknowledgement of the spiritual world but also give readers unrealistic expectations about spiritual life.
Lake also wondered if such books are reflecting "Christian dissatisfaction with the mundane ordinariness of real life in our culture."
I think he hits the mark here, Christians should never be satisfied with mundane or the ordinary. He also talks of a retired missionary pilot who was confused when publishers reviewing his memoirs wondered if there weren't more stories of spiritual warfare or "weird happenings."
Yes I believe spiritual growth tends to be slow and measured, but I think Lake is underestimating how painful and hard growth is. Careful loading of a seaplane is not conducive to growth, slow and measured actually requires pain and "weird happenings." It is hard enough to keep up our spirituality but to actually grow we have to constantly strive after more of God. And I don't think we can ever underestimate the Almighty. I wouldn't call Saul's conversion on the way to Damascus as slow and measured. Neither would I call Paul's life mundane.
And if "apocalyptic demon-hunting novels" help young people to become dissatisfied with their average life and begin to beg God for more miracles or to see angels and have their spiritual life grow like "a cancer cell", would that be so bad?

The Problem with Knives - A Special Guest post by David Ward

2008-09-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

I was cliff jumping yesterday, and I started thinking: "Knives are an integral part of daily life." Think about it. Do it. How many things do you think you cut up in a day? I thought of about fourteen different things in about a minute, and I am sure that there are more. A slice of bread, a box, etc. Knives have more than one use as well. Think of how hard it would be to prepare a piece of delicious, delicious toast without a knife to spread the jam.

Yet knives are not always used for good or wholesome purposes. Some people throw knives into trees. Some people even use knives to cut things that people don't want to be cut, like important legal documents or car tires. I've even heard that some people use knives to inflict physical and emotional pain on other human beings. This depraved use of knives saddens me. Every time I cut my food into smaller, bite-sized pieces, I can't help but think of some hooligan cutting up an important legal document into smaller, bite-sized pieces. (I do not imply that the hooligan wants to eat the legal document, but the pieces are nonetheless bite-sized.)

So how do we then proceed? Do we do away with knives altogether, and start making sandwiches with two entire loaves of bread instead of slices? Or do we eat our conveniently sized sandwiches while turning a blind eye to the billions of knife related infringements on happiness that happen daily? The answer is responsibility here, people.

Evangelicals are the cats pajamas, the bee's knees

2008-09-19T00:08:00.000-07:00

Why do Christians always feel so smug? It could come from the fact that we have the only tickets to heaven but why do we have to create sub sections? Heaven isn't a club and the Evangelical "tribe" isn't the V.I.P section.
The foreword to Shultze's book by Clifford G. Christians begins, "I read this book and hear the New York Philharmonic. The aesthetic harmony of a symphony orchestra sounds from its pages."
Really?... Really Clifford? You hear that? It sounds more like you are advertising your own high brow taste in music. But it doesn't stop there.
In chapter 5, Ken Waters writes, "Hundreds of print-based Protestant and Catholic periodicals are regularly published. The most vibrant ones are associated with the evangelical movement in American History. He goes on to list numerous Christian publications with wowing numbers of subscription. But he laments that they cannot find new readers because mainstream bookstores and new-stands do not carry them but instead people have to go to Christain book stores. "vibrant but invisible".
I am finding it hard to stomach this evangelical spin on media. Its leaving a very bad taste in my mouth. It seems to me that what they are truly achieving is creating content, by evangelicals for evangelicals. And that seems like the opposite of what their name implies. I wouldn't find it annoying except that the writers in this book seem convinced they are doing a bang up job at what they do when it seems to me that they are merely creating content and then patting themselves on the back. I wouldn't call that evangelical media but media for evangelicals.
I agree that these publications can "combat sin, edify believers" but "change the course of history"? Not any more. C.S Lewis said it best that what the world needs is less Christians, or tribes of evangelicals, writing Christian books, and more Christians simply writing.

Hikikmori vs. Bookworms, judge Otaku presiding

2008-09-15T16:15:00.000-07:00

Violence, nudity, innuendoes and offensive language usually meant a movie was out of consideration at the video rental place as a kid. If a film had to resort to such things its message was somehow irrelevant or just bad. As an adult however, I would agree that children should not be watching such films but I would have to assume that other adult Christians should be mature enough in their convictions and faith to be able to learn and think deeper after watching a good movie, despite its "grittier" content. But I was intrigued with the idea that the effect of a medium's form may be more powerful than its content.
In an article in chapter 1 of ‘Understanding Evangelical Media,’ Michael Jindra suggests that the form of video games, regardless of content, might have a greater effect than most think of, in particular its power to inhibit social relationships and "real" community.

Video games are a very real staple in my college dorm. Most of my friends play video games and a large part of our free time is spent playing cooperatively or competitively. This is stark contrast to the idea that, “some men lock themselves away in their rooms after dinner, playing online network games all night long, and then sleep half of the following day. Unlike bookworms, they don’t even go to the library or a café to read and thereby chance upon meeting a friend.”

Ouch.

This is not the picture I see every day. I come back to dorm in between classes and at any given time I can find anywhere from 2 to 8 guys in my room playing 4 to a TV with others watching and commentating. If anything gaming in dorm has brought many people together who may never have taken the time to say hello. Now they have something to talk about and from there life long friendships could, dare I say, blossom?

I have never seen a roomful of reading college students explode into cheering and yelling every couple of seconds. And when we play, we keep the door open for anyone to wander in and join in the virtual fray, and go to supper together afterwards. We don’t leave it to chance.