Left Behind: the game

There are some pretty strange things on the net. Some good, some bad, and some just plain weird. Falling into the last category is this game- LEFT BEHIND : Eternal Forces.

Wage a war of apocalyptic proportions in LEFT BEHIND: Eternal Forces - a real-time strategy game based upon the best-selling LEFT BEHIND book series created by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Join the ultimate fight of Good against Evil, commanding Tribulation Forces or the Global Community Peacekeepers, and uncover the truth about the worldwide disappearances!
...
· Conduct physical & spiritual warfare : using the power of prayer to strengthen your troops in combat and wield modern military weaponry throughout the game world.

· Recover ancient scriptures and witness spectacular Angelic and Demonic activity as a direct consequence of your choices.

So, a Christian-themed game that they are hoping might get a 'T'rating (suitable for those older than 13) where, amongst other things, you get to shoot unbelievers and the 'lukewarm'.

An LA Times article has this to say:

One of the series' authors, Tim LaHaye, said the game had the potential to communicate ideas such as salvation to people who might not think of themselves as particularly interested.

"We hope teenagers like the game," LaHaye said. "Our real goal is to have no one left behind."

Thoughts?
(I'll throw my 2 cents in a little later)

relatively speaking

I remember once using the analogy of aircraft navigation: the electronic navigation systems used to refer to one or more beacons (whose positions were known) in order to calculate position, speed, direction etc. Modern technology probably uses GPS to determine these things, although the analogy holds: it's the certainty of a reference point that enables a calculation of your relative position.

is the analogy true of our lives? what is your "reference point" in the journey of life?

I am a racist

I am listening to the audiobook version of Malcolm Gladwell's Blink, and really enjoying it. Blink is about thinking without thinking. About instinct. About the unconscious computer that drives our actions below the surface of comprehension.

I highly recommend it.

Gladwell is half black. His mom is Jamaican. In the book, as he unpacks the unconscious associations we have developed as a result of snippets of life experience that sometimes go so far as contradict in entirety our conscious values, he picks up on a Harvard-generated psychological test called the IAT. The Implicit Association Test.


From the site:

It is well known that people don't always 'speak their minds', and it is suspected that people don't always 'know their minds'. Understanding such divergences is important to scientific psychology.

This web site presents a method that demonstrates the conscious-unconscious divergences much more convincingly than has been possible with previous methods. This new method is called the Implicit Association Test, or IAT for short.

Many years ago, Fyodor Dostoyevsky wrote: "Every man has reminiscences which he would not tell to everyone but only his friends. He has other matters in his mind which he would not reveal even to his friends, but only to himself, and that in secret. But there are other things which a man is afraid to tell even to himself, and every decent man has a number of such things stored away in his mind."

These lines from Dostoyevsky capture two concepts that the IAT helps us examine. First, we might not always be willing to share our private attitudes with others. Second, we may not be aware of some of our own attitudes. Your results on the IAT may include both components of control and awareness.

There are IAT's for Age, Sexuality, Gender and Race to name a few. The tests take less than ten minutes to complete. Upon taking the test himself, Gladwell was mortified to learn from the results that he had a moderate preference for WHITE people. And to fully appreciate and understand his experience, read the book.

I took the test. I showed a strong preference for White people. There are only three levels - slight, moderate and strong.

What should I infer? Well, the following lines on the site are helpful:

Can (or should) people use this test to make decisions about others? Can one, for example, use this test to measure somebody else's automatic racial preference, and use it to decide that they should or should not serve on a jury? We assert that the IAT should not be used in any such way. Especially at this early stage of the IAT’s development, it is much preferable to use it mainly to develop awareness of one’s own and others’ automatic preferences and stereotypes. Using the IAT as the basis for making significant decisions about self or others could lead to undesired and unjustified consequences.

We hope you have been able to take something of value from the experience of taking one or more of these tests. Looking to the future: We shall periodically revise the IATs that you can sample at this site. We shall also continue to update the information that the site provides on developments in psychological understanding of the unconscious or automatic roots of thought and feeling.

Bottom line - I am a racist. But I am a self-aware racist. Not that that makes me any better, but I want to be better. I want to change that score.

I wonder if this was a helpful exercise? What were your experiences?

Do we have to be nice?

In recent (not so) idle banter on this blog, we have traded some hurtful punches. Perhaps some of the learned ones can give us a technical defintion, but in my view, every constructive argument requires 3 players. 2 extreme views and one holding the views in tension and creating a middle space. What happens if no-one takes up the mantle of referee? Will we just slug it out in an attrition fest as is happening in Iraq now where no middle ground has been created?

2nd question: Are there not some arguments that require less kindness. For instance, Ronald Reagan almost single handedly brought the communist empire to its knees through an unkind, often insulting, pursuit of democracy. The empire fell., not because of Post Modernists.

Nelson Mandela and others went as far as planting bombs to 'argue' their point. It was necessary, without it, we may not have the democratic freedom we enjoy today. This would not have happened if they had constantly doubted and questioned their cause. Should they have considered the possibility that they are supposed to be oppressed?

If we chat to a peadophile, we won't open ourselves up to the possibility that he is right, instead, we will argue with much gusto.

Hitler was not stopped by those who are sensitive and considerate, he was stopped by people prepared to insult and hurt him in defense of a cause. The war was won by those who had a firm and intolerant steadfastness.

For post modernist who 'considers' a new possibility, there's someone who created the possibility though dogged determination and belief in a 'fundamental' idea. It seems to me that PM's are similar to vultures in that they will gladly enjoy the leftovers, but lack the courage to do any of their own hunting. PM's are the world's passangers, the ones who observe, feed off the risk that others took and then bask in the wonderful possibilities that exist.

Is it therefore, not inevitable, that some of our arguments are meant to be 'hurtful' and that we can't expect to Always Be Nice AND Stand for what we believe

Does Jesus still heal today?

What a week we've had at Northfield. A week of healing, led by Mike Endicott (below). We witnessed miraculous healing, even I was used as an instrument of healing. Never before have I felt Jesus' power and presence more acutely. My theology has shifted over the past week and I feel like a child in a candy store once again. Yes Aiden, I know, I have also gone all Jesus Freaky!

For too long we've been mushy, wishy washy, cautious and 'intellectual' Christians who, when confronting suffering, prays that the 'victim' is comforted in their time of need. We have been so scared of praying for healing to a living, breathing, loving, risen Christ. Over this past week we did exactly that and many were healed, tumors disappered (x-ray evidence), lame walking out of their wheelchairs, literally hundreds of stories, miracles.

Read John 14:12-14 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

The Gospels are littered with many such promises. Either these promises are empty ramblings by a madman or they are the Word of God. This past week we experienced the latter 1st hand, so no post-modern argument will make me see it for anything less than that. If we live in expectancy of these promises, God delivers. PM will just question the interpretation and ambiguity of JC's words and slow down the process of acceptance of this absolute, again distracting us from the real conversations we need to be having.

Post Modernism will tell us to not read Jesus words so literally, for too long I listened to that and I forgot that the Gospels are for simple people, not theologians, not philosophers, there is no need to explain away the absolute truth that exists for us in black and white, in fact red. Christians have more reason to fear contrived, 'sensible', comfortable theology than anything Islam can throw at us (see my comments under Post Modernism vs me)

post-modernism vs me

In many conversations in recent months, I have been heartened by the demise of post-modernism. The philosophy (what I know of it) makes me just slightly nauseas. Post-modernism is leading us to a place where we'll lose some or all identity. My main objection to this philosophy is that it claims there are no absolutes. By saying that, it is stating an absolute, so it proves that absolutes do in fact exist. If that is the case, everything can be absolute.
My faith requires of me to hold certain principles and historic events as ABSOLUTELY true. If I start messing with these absolutes, I mess with my faith, my identity and who knows what else. I have a record on this blog as a postmodernophobe. Post-modernism is causing confusion among Christians, it has affected our morality and it has diluted God's Word, it's 'realism' has diminished the mysticism of our God.
I accept that PM countered the - and eminated from the fascism and neo-fascism of the 20th century, but we've gone too far, it may be time for the pendulum to swing back a bit, but I suspect that as long as fundamentalism exists, PM's will consider it their duty to argue against absolutes. Sadly, they haven't realised that their relativism is fueling the very fundamentalism they're fighting because PM is becoming a form of fundamentalism like any other. Al-Qaeda is not fighting other faiths, it's fighting a secularism which was produced by post-modern trends. So too, conservative evangelicals are fighting the secular fundamentalists and not Muslims, etc.I suspect all faiths fear secularism more than other faiths.

Inviting 'real' post-modernists to comment...

Either way, this will be interesting!

Today is J-Day. Judgement is expected within hours.

Are we prepared for the consequences? A guilty verdict could unleash some serious tribal and political warfare, violent and otherwise, our former dep prez will spend a minimum of 10 years behind the slammer. An innocent verdict will vindicate the conspiracy theorists and cause a deep sympathy for the man accused wronly, this could propell him into Tuynhuys in 3 years time.

This reminds me of the late 80's, early 90's, every day events had the potential for civil war or miracle. Let's live on the edge again, just for old time's sake!

My personal opinion, for those fans who are interested... I won't be surprised by either a guilty or an innocent verdict. Both sides made a strong case. I don't think Zuma is guilty of rape, instead I think there should be a law against culpable indiscretion (having sex with someone who can destroy your reputation and career ala Clinton) or gross ignorance (have a shower after intercourse with an HIV+ person and you'll be ok) or even bizarre cultural beliefs (... it's a sin to leave a woman when she's 'primed' and 'ready')

Personally, I predict that we'll have to wait for the corruption case to put an end to his presidential ambitions...

dating system awry

I hear a lot of people blaming global warming for how late the rainy season has come/stayed this year. I reckon global wamring is a farce. Instead, it is due to a faulty Roman dating calendar system. They buggered up when postulating that a year's cycle had 365 days in it. So, I reckon they're at least 1 days short, which explains why our seasons are awry ... after a couple thousand years, summer will seem later and winter later as well.

Still no change .. .except the bill

At R123 a day, I'd estimate this genius is in for a parking bill of R14760.