tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-194257052024-03-25T14:50:26.697-07:00Running from elevatorsPush button for revelation.<br>
Or <a href="http://runningfromelevators.blogspot.com/2005/11/taking-stairs.html">take the stairs</a>.Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.comBlogger159125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-5734175181282741282024-03-16T12:04:00.000-07:002024-03-16T12:04:52.138-07:00(Not that) Ironic irony noun
1a: the use of words to express something other than and especially the opposite of the literal meaning
b: a usually humorous or sardonic literary style or form characterized by irony
c: an ironic expression or utterance
2a(1): incongruity between the actual result of a sequence of events and the normal or expected result
(2): an event or result marked by such incongruity
b: Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-7217589855493107042024-03-02T11:03:00.000-08:002024-03-04T16:00:36.860-08:00Does it ever not matter?Two things happened in the last 24 hours that share a common theme in my mind, and it made me think.
This morning, one of my coworkers joked that he was using a blue cutting board to cut beef. There's a color-coded system with the cutting boards, see: red is for beef and pork, blue is for seafood, yellow is for poultry, white is for dairy, and green is for fruits and vegetables. This is the jokeBruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-16043051584605294112024-02-04T14:50:00.000-08:002024-02-04T14:52:16.907-08:00The Problem So after writing my last post here dealing with the problem of evil and God, and writing They shall be burnt with fire on my other blog, I had an extensive email exchange with Steve Wells about how God seems to him to be quite evil as portrayed in the Bible, and yet predictably I, as a Christian, manage to see God differently. Then this morning, something was said that hit me profoundly. In the Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-80243294940521411262024-01-26T11:02:00.000-08:002024-03-04T16:07:11.380-08:00The Problem of Evil and God So... I came across a real conundrum in my other blog; see Behold, this evil is of the LORD (Isaiah 31) and the comments thereon.
I have touched many times on the Problem of Evil in this blog, but it deserves a revisit due to the issues brought up in that post and the KJV. While more modern translations of the Bible take advantage of the nuance of the Hebrew word mostly translated "evil" in the Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-13067441010421299272021-10-10T15:16:00.008-07:002021-10-11T11:24:59.910-07:00COVID-19 and mRNA vaccinesOkay, I wanted to take some time to explain how the mRNA vaccines work. I'm not a biologist, but perhaps that's a good thing, as I have studied enough of the science to understand how they work, and I believe I can explain it in very plain English.
First of all, it's worth dispelling some rumors that were common in the early days of the vaccines, and I still hear occasionally today. The vaccines Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-32117421799901617702021-05-22T10:19:00.001-07:002021-05-22T10:19:03.299-07:00Homosexuality and the Bible(This is a concise version of an argument I put together last year that I may flesh out further because my blog posts always need to be incredibly verbose.)Christians commonly will cite 1Corinthians 6:9 and 1Timothy 1:10 as verses that call out homosexuality as a sin. However, both verses in the original Greek use the word "αρσενοκοιται", which is a word found nowhere else in 1st century Greek Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-84846654873575726512019-02-07T21:54:00.001-08:002019-02-07T21:54:12.274-08:00Why do you speak to the people in parables?There's a side of Jesus that I think a lot of people either forget or miss entirely. It's weird.
Ask a Christian what the purpose of Jesus's parables was, and they'll probably tell you something like, they're little allegories to illustrate spiritual truths for people to understand. But Jesus actually specifically explained in Scripture the purpose of parables, and it's nothing like that:
Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-46663873848142029782018-02-10T13:57:00.000-08:002018-02-10T13:57:24.920-08:00Situational Ethics as taught by the BibleI have often heard it said by Christians that ethics are not situational, but rather absolute. It is my intention to illustrate the fact that not only is situational ethics an acceptable thing, but that it is in fact supported Biblically. In order to do so, I will run through the Ten Commandments, and give an example from the Bible--for as many as I can--of someone breaking that Commandment and Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-7000397830983993162017-10-27T17:30:00.001-07:002017-10-29T21:34:27.992-07:00The Nashville Statement: Sexual HeresyFor the sake of clarity, let me preface my argument by stating that I am a cisgendered evangelical Christian male married to a cisgendered evangelical Christian female. I have no need to oppose the Nashville Statement for any personal gain, but only oppose it for the cause of supporting right doctrine within Christianity.
This is my final argument concerning the Nashville Statement, I Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-23567538577078166592014-05-20T14:43:00.001-07:002014-05-20T14:43:14.703-07:00150! (What do I get?)This being my 150th post (well, 151st if you count the post I took down a few years ago when I decided it was too personal, which is a shame since it was such a good post) I thought I ought to do something special. Of course it's exactly that sort of attitude of expecting "specialness" that's bound to give me a horrible case of writer's block, and as soon as I started thinking that way, my well Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-62418561137998464432014-05-06T16:51:00.001-07:002014-05-16T08:33:30.687-07:00Are guns "froofy"? A "well regulated" post on the 2nd AmendmentI think I've written a fair amount in the past about the 1st Amendment, and it occurred to me that it might be interesting to write a bit on the 2nd Amendment, as it's probably the most controversial section of the Bill of Rights. Generally, I consider myself to be pro-2nd Amendment, but I'm pretty sure most of the opinions I have on the matter would be less than palatable to the average NRA Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-3213365509008298962014-03-16T21:14:00.000-07:002014-03-16T21:14:02.835-07:00About-FacebookSo I got "unfriended" today on Facebook. It was kind of an odd experience. I think what was particularly odd about it was that it was in the middle of a political discussion, and the person who unfriended me is someone that I find myself frequently in agreement with regarding political matters.
The place where we most certainly do not agree is in the area of religion. As I'm sure just about Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-30873899866103069362014-02-06T15:14:00.000-08:002014-02-06T15:14:39.616-08:00The Bill Nye - Ken Ham debateI don't know if I need to explain this as it seemed to be a pretty big media event, but Tuesday there was a creationism/evolution debate between Bill Nye ("The Science Guy") and Ken Ham (CEO of "Answers in Genesis"). As far as such debates usually go, this was a good one, and I felt that since it was a topic I like to cover on my blog from time to time, I'd give a sort of after-commentary here Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-62525220564449601702014-01-30T13:55:00.000-08:002014-04-18T15:49:48.205-07:00Moral relativism is driving me battyPerhaps this is a topic better suited for my other blog, but I think as it doesn't pertain to a specific scripture but rather a number of different Biblical topics, it would be better to discuss here. It's very common when people are arguing against the Bible that they bring up one or more topic of contrast between common understandings in Biblical times and modern understandings. Often, it's a Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-63256086193977652682013-12-09T19:22:00.000-08:002013-12-09T19:22:51.113-08:00Writer's block partyIt's funny, and I don't know in which sense of the word I mean "funny", but when I was in college, I took a number of creative writing courses, and something that haunts me to this day about them is that I had a large portion of my classmates tell me that I was the best writer in the class. It haunts me because, well, while I do recognize that I wrote a handful of really good short stories in theBruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-14782784614109383762013-11-19T14:03:00.000-08:002013-11-19T14:03:01.378-08:00Is blogging an ethical act?From Goosing the Antithesis:
Alison really hit the nail on the head when she told me the real issue was that people actually believe in the act of belief itself. Indeed, the Christians have been positioning themselves as being part of the "belief-based" side and that they support religion against atheism, instead of their regular exclusivism. Because of this, a most vital debate that should beBruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-47649773270816688392013-11-18T13:39:00.002-08:002014-04-18T15:58:19.919-07:00No one really believes in my blogA long time ago, I was a guest blogger on the atheist blog Goosing the Antithesis. It was a pretty sharp blog, and I think it showed a degree of open-mindedness that they allowed me as a Christian to make an occasional post there. The blog however is no more; that is to say, while it's still there for anyone to read, there hasn't been a new post since January of 2009, and there clearly is no Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-257297722427407852013-10-10T18:27:00.000-07:002013-10-11T13:05:46.308-07:00The treachery of video gamesWhen I was a kid, I used to have this space game on my home computer. It was really cool. This was before the age of the NES, and yet this game had 3D graphics and an awesome soundtrack. The funny thing about this game was that instead of being controlled in a simple up-down-left-right fashion by a joystick, the controls were all on a keyboard and the spacecraft moved like an airplane, pitching Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-28202506990418065502013-08-17T00:19:00.002-07:002013-08-17T00:22:25.922-07:00I most definitely dream in color(The following is an e-mail I wrote to myself last October which apparently describes in great detail a bizarre dream I had. I found it a fascinating read, perhaps worth sharing, although I warn that as a dream, it really has no point.)
It is about 5:30 in the morning.
I have had less than one hour of sleep.
I don't care; I'm done. I can't take anymore nightmares. Every night, I struggle for Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-33763503449565650352013-08-06T13:41:00.000-07:002014-04-18T16:12:57.952-07:00Answers in GenesisI had a friend many years ago who was an atheist. That in itself is not particularly notable, as atheism is fairly common these days, and I'm sure I have many atheist or agnostic friends. What was really notable about this guy was that unlike a lot of atheists I seem to meet on the Internet, he was pretty tolerant toward theists. In particular, I once heard him make what I thought was a pretty Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-80363425559374681692013-07-29T14:31:00.000-07:002013-07-29T14:31:35.544-07:00Mimi's Last CoffeeI was in the process of putting together something for my other blog, and it occurred to me that one of the issues that I was bound to be addressing was the fluidity and vagueness of language. Really, it's not just about the Bible either, but about the way people nitpick details in literature.
Anyway, many years ago, Scott McCloud had made an improvised comic strip called Mimi's Last CoffeeBruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-49995845220671601662013-06-11T22:21:00.000-07:002013-06-12T16:57:43.075-07:00XenocidophobiaSo, I'm reading a new (for me) book by Orson Scott Card, and while I'm generally managing to enjoy the book just for itself, there's something that keeps popping up at the back of my mind, and it's pretty much this:
The short version of the above video (uploaded to YouTube just a few weeks ago but originally made and published elsewhere at the height of the Chick-fil-A anti-gay marriage Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-57788237274393482422013-06-03T21:54:00.001-07:002013-06-03T21:54:30.901-07:00The Tale of the Paper-Wizard, an economic fableThere once was a man who was hard-working and kindly, and because of this, even though he lived alone he had everything in the world he felt he could possibly want, and was happy. One day, after an afternoon's labor of watering fields and chopping firewood, he sat down for an evening's meal of a freshly-cooked bowl of rice. As he was about to eat, a wizard emerged from the forest and stood beforeBruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-27647143780531331962012-12-31T00:01:00.000-08:002012-12-31T02:38:10.363-08:00Milhouse IS a meme!
Not that it's a problem...
I feel pretty silly about this, but I made a rather random New Year's resolution last year. I promised that in 2012, I would show the world that the Simpsons character Milhouse Mussolini Van Houten is a legitimate Internet meme, by which I meant that I would eventually take the time to compose a fairly thorough analysis of the Milhouse as meme phenomenon. While Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19425705.post-16110116349112925382012-11-02T19:49:00.001-07:002013-06-12T00:08:33.330-07:00So long, and thanks for all the fish.This is a story/essay/confession/whatever that I already know before I start will be far too long for most people on the Internet to bother to read, but I make no apologies for that. I may take the time to include one of those "tl;dr" summaries at the end if it strikes me to so, so those of you who tend towards impatience may want to find the last couple paragraphs and check.
I'm having a hard Bruckerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08445755788968924719noreply@blogger.com2