6-14-2011 "What the Heck?"

Hello, and welcome to the Snowball Effect, where dreams come true!

Not really. That would actually be kind of scary if it were true. Cuz the other night, I had a dream (actually, a couple of dreams) about dragons, and they weren't the nice dragons, like these guys, they were actually really scary dragons, and they breathed fire and killed people. So that dream would suck if it were in real life.

Speaking of dragons, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is coming out and THERE'S DRAGONS IN IT!!!!! Apparently you get to kill dragons and be friends with dragons (not confirmed--it's still a possibility though), and you also get to wander around a huge world and stuff, but most importantly DRAGONS! Click here to watch a video about it, including a bit of the demo!

And for those of you who aren't gamers, I've come to the conclusion that Al Joad is da man. Without question, he is da man. Casey Abrams is also da man, but not as much as Al Joad. You see, the guy knows cars like nobody's business, which therein and whereby makes him da man.

I found this the other day, and I can't believe it's this awesome...:D

Speaking of music, I wonder where you can get the "soundtrack" for Minecraft? (Besides iTunes) If anyone is cool enough to know of such a place, please don't hesitate to share the info!

Yeah...I'm not very coordinated in this blog, sorry. Then again, this is my brain, so things like this are bound to happen from time to time. Stay tuned for more coherent and less brain-dead blogs!

Until next time,

--CommanderSnowball

And the Original Trilogy Band:

 

Baptism--What Does it Mean??

Steven! You took it out too early! And you forgot the basil!

Hello, and welcome to the Snowball Effect, where I insert a generic and uninteresting comment about the aforementioned blog and then proceed to tell you something!

How's THAT for originality?

So today I'm going to church again this evening to take pictures of some people getting baptized, and this has brought up the question in my mind--what does baptism mean as far as our relationship with Christ goes? Ever since the Roman Catholic Church started requiring infant baptism back in the olden days, our perception of the symbolism has been screwed up. Is baptism really something Christians have to go through? Can you be saved without baptism?

First, let's clarify what I mean when I say "baptism": baptism is the physical, symbolic representation of the spiritual baptism that takes place when one accepts the Holy Spirit into their life. It is an affirmation of one's faith, a public way of saying, "This is what I believe".

Second, let's clarify what many people, both in the church and outside of it, seem to think about baptism: it's kind of a ceremonial initiation for Christians, like where you graduate from Kids Sunday School to sitting in the service and pondering the meaning of the sermonized passage deeply; a sort of the "becoming a man" ritual prevalent in many South American tribal units, if you will, albeit with decidedly less whipping and fighting of large jungle predators.

Okay, I might have exaggerated a teensy bit there, but you see what I mean--we tend to think of baptism as a landmark in our walk with Christ, like we've overcome some great feat of faith. This is especially prevalent in churches that require you to be baptized before you are a "member" of the church.

Third, let's look at the Bible--what does it say about baptism? At what point does being baptized become a badge of honor?

It's inherently obvious from the start of the New Testament that Jesus views baptism as important. I mean, one of the first things He does in His ministry is go up to John the Baptist and say, "Hey, would you do me a favor and baptize me real quick?" And of course John is like, "No way, man, it should totally be the other way around!" But Jesus says, "No, you need to do it, to fulfill all righteousness." And then John's like, "Okay." (For the non-heretical version of that passage of dialogue, please read Matthew 3:13-17)

So baptism is obviously important. But why did Jesus do it? If He's perfect, and baptism cleanses your sins, then why did he need to be baptized? The answer to that question is actually another question--does baptism cleanse you of your sins? Yes, but not the baptism you're thinking of!

Jesus was physically baptized by John the Baptist to show everybody His commitment to the ultimate goal--glorifying God, even (and especially) unto death. But the physical baptism was only a symbolic representation of the spiritual baptism that took place while He fasted in the wilderness and was tempted by the devil. There's a big difference. "Spiritual baptism" is when the Holy Spirit comes into your life and begins influencing you because you ask for it. In other words, when you're saved, you are "baptized by the Holy Spirit"--the old is made new, the dead is made living.

The spiritual baptism is in NO WAY affected by physical baptism. I could live my whole life not baptized by a pastor and still go to heaven. People do it all the time, surprisingly enough, and I doubt God has any problem with it. This does not in any way, however, reduce the importance of baptism. Baptism is an important, and in some cases, necessary, process as a confirmation of faith. Regardless of location, monetary income, social standing, denomination, or any other factor, baptism should be your way of saying, "I'd just like everyone to know, I have the Holy Spirit in me. Just clearing that up."

Now, you might be saying, "But Snowball, lots of churches need you to be baptized by their pastor before you can be a member there. Is that right?" I'd answer that by saying first off, I don't much like the whole "member" system in churches. It kind of sickens me. As a Christian, I'm a member of THE Church, the body of Jesus Christ. I can worship wherever I dang well please, thank you very much! Also, I don't much care for the whole "baptized in one church or another" deal--WHO CARES? It's not like the place matters! But I can understand some cases--like if you're going to be a teacher at a Christian school, or if you're applying for a seminary or Christian college. Chances are in that line of work your spiritual awareness is going to be a key factor, and whoever's hiring/recruiting you probably wants to know that you've made a public statement of your faith. But as far as churches go, my general principle remains the same.

Oh, that's right, I haven't stated my principle about churches. Well, here it is: "In general, most churches are entirely too concerned with upholding and emphasizing things that either are not important enough to warrant said attention or are not entirely relevant to faith." (Copyright CommanderSnowball, WhoGivesACrap Publishing. All and any misdemeanors punishable by the Internet Police.)

So, in summary--baptism is important, but overemphasized and misconstrued in modern churches, unfortunately.

Until next time,

--CommanderSnowball

Video Games Have Morality?? Well...not really...

Hello, and welcome to the Snowball Effect! If you haven't already, please feel free to read my earlier posts! 

Okay, so I was playing through Fable 3 the other day, and I got to the point where I'm the ruler of this entire country. To get to be the leader of the rebellion, by the way, you have to make a bunch of promises to people to improve situations in the country. However, when you become ruler, you find out that in exactly one year, your nation will be attacked by a terrible, unstoppable force of darkness, and there's nothing you can do to prevent it. Upon hearing this you are given two choices that occur frequently throughout the remainder of the game: do you keep your promises and make the nation a better place, even though this will leave you completely open to attack and will increase casualties? Or do you become a tyrannical dictator and impose harsh rules upon your people, harsh rules that will end up protecting them in the end? 

That's a unique feature that I actually quite like--providing realistic choices that actually reflect what usually happens in life. Normally, in games like these, your decisions are based solely on the basis that this action is good whereas this action is bad (e.g., Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect). In these games, the concept of having two possible choices is interesting, but it doesn't go much farther than that. Unless, of course, you're playing Mass Effect, in which case, your choices actually affect gameplay in sequels. 

My point, though, is this--in games like these, the choices are usually very shallow. There's not much to them. For instance, in Knights of the Old Republic, you get to choose at the end whether to save Darth Malak or to kill him, wherein killing him is the evil decision. Of course, the argument that killing him is actually good because he deserves justice and that leaving him alive would be an error of judgement goes completely out the window, because *cue Leonidas voice* THIS! IS! AVIDEOGAME!!!!! 

However, in Fable 3, there's actually another level to "good" and "bad" choices. By being a tyrant, you're actually protecting your people, but by being a benevolent leader, you're actually causing more harm in the end. It's interesting, because that's how a lot of life choices are like. True, you may not be making decisions that affect the future of an entire nation, but choices on any level can still carry more weight than simply "is someone going to like what I do?". For example, if your kid does something wrong, they're not going to like it if you punish them. But punishing them will teach them (hopefully) that doing bad things is wrong, a principle that, though simple it may seem, will stay with them for their whole life. 

So, in other words, don't base your morality on whether or not it's approved of by other people. Because that's how we got into this mess in the first place.

A reminder--if you have any topics that you think might make an interesting devotional/thingy blog, please don't hesitate to leave them in the comments! I'd love to get some feedback from anybody reading this!

Until next time,

--CommanderSnowball

Open, Says-a-Me!

Hello, and welcome to the Snowball Effect, where God is prevalent!

Today's blog/devotional thingy is about prayer. No, I'm not getting into the whole "prayer should be done this way or else you're going to hell" argument (although there's a good possibility that I might in another blog post), but trust me, this subject is no less convicting (though a bit less annoying). I'll admit I'm stealing this from Kevin, the guy who lead our Sunday School today, but let's face it--it's a good lesson, so plagiarism is fine enough.

Let me ask you--do you pray with your eyes open, or closed? Keep thinking about your answer to that as you read this blog--your answer might (or might not) change. 

God calls us to pray in two ways--with our eyes open and with our eyes closed. First, let me explain what it means to pray with our eyes closed. In Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer, which is an OUTLINE of a good prayer. For future reference, it is NOT the "perfect prayer" that we should all adhere to and recite multiple times upon certain occasions as some cultures are wont to do. Making an incantation out of a tool that Jesus gave us to help us pray shows a horrendous display of ignorance and disrespect.

...*breathes* Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. Anyway...

In Matthew 6:9-13, Jesus gives us the Lord's Prayer. Notice how it is structured: the beginning half is focused entirely upon God--praising Him, exalting Him, and praying that His will be done on Earth--and the second half is supplication and thanksgiving (yes, I'm referencing the acronym ACTS. What can I say--I'm uncreative). This is what I mean by praying "with your eyes closed"--focusing on God. A "closed-eyes" prayer is a more personal one, the kind of prayer you say around the dinner table or before you go to bed.

(Sidenote: At no point in the Bible {at least, not as far as I'm aware} is it ever said "pray with your eyes open". In fact, the only point at which the Bible refers to "eyes" in this manner is in Hebrews 12:1-2 "Fix your eyes on Jesus", referring, of course, to your spiritual eyes, since, obviously, your eyes would burn out of your sockets if you were to look directly at Jesus, due to the whole divinity thing)

Now an "opened-eyes" prayer is a much different song to sing. I think John 4:35 shows us best what this type of prayer is: "Do you not say, 'There are yet four months, and then comes the harvest'? Look, I tell you, lift up your eyes and see that the fields are white for harvest." With an "opened-eyes" prayer, we are supposed to look at the world and perceive it through eyes developed in a relationship with Christ. This might be kind of hard to understand, so let me use an analogy:

Let's look at a baby. While in the womb, it is not ready to face the outside world. It could not function well--it is still growing and getting nutrition from its mother (like we are in "closed-eyes" prayer). However, when the baby is born into the world, its body parts are now strong enough to withstand the birthing process. After it is born the baby continues to grow until, gradually, its body parts are strong and mature enough to face the world (an "open-eyes" prayer). 

Naturally, this analogy isn't perfect, but the point is made--when you pray with "closed eyes", you are praying so that you can worship God fully, and by doing so grow in your relationship with Him. Then when you pray with "open eyes", you are mature enough in your faith to pray for the world and to recognize God's work in it. 

I hope this has struck home with you as much as it has with me, dear reader. I also hope we all can recognize the difference between the two types of prayer and have the discernment to figure out what we need to improve on.

Have a great summer, y'all!

--CommanderSnowball

Oh, I almost forgot:

Did you know? Leif Ericson Day is an actual holiday? It's on October 9th...I had no idea...


Other Bible Verses Pertaining to the Same Subject (thanks, Kevin):


Closed Eyes:

• Matthew 6:6
• II Corinthians 4:17-18

Opened Eyes:

• I Thessalonians 5:17
• John 17:15
• Mark 11:24 (this one gets misinterpreted a lot, fyi)

Space is Awesome, People Can't Get Along, and...Wow. Just...Wow.

Hello there! Welcome to the Snowball Effect, the blog that tries to make a point to you!

In the news today, the doctor of Nadya Suleman, better known as "Octomom", was stripped of his license today, the reason being that his action of implanting 12 embryos into one woman "did not exercise sound judgement". No duh. I have to wonder--and I'm not condoning either of these two things, by the way--why is it that a doctor who gives a woman more babies is shamed, but "doctors" in abortion clinics killing babies every day are perfectly fine?? What's up with that? No Hippocratic oath for you guys either, huh? But I digress...stupid people will do stupid things, and yelling about it won't solve anything.

Moving on from that weird rant, we have some rather saddening news, though not shocking considering the subject. Syrian troops have begun to attack the town of Rastan, pouring heavy artillery and gunfire into the defenseless town. The attacks started because the people of Syria protested the "president" of Syria, a cruel man by the name of Bashar Assad, whose family has been in power for nearly forty years. So far, the death count of the attack on Rastan is at 72, but over 1,000 people are already dead from the government's harsh countermeasures, and at least 10,000 are missing or held captive by the government. I ask that you please pray for the people of Syria, as our brothers in Christ will need much faith and discernment in the days and weeks to come.

Now we get into some Awesome News: Jeff Greason talking about space settlement at the International Space Development Conference. Now, I don't know about you, but America having a no-kidding space station orbiting Mars!? That would be so awesome! To say that my relatives orbit Jupiter--the coolest thing ever! Aside from this being cool, it provides for better opportunities for space flight and stuff. For one thing, the reason sending space shuttles off requires so much effort is the simple fact that the Earth is huge. Because the Earth is so huge, it attracts objects with much greater force than, say, the Moon. Thus, it requires much more effort to propel something as awesomely huge as, say, the Enterprise (it could happen, guys, it could happen) into space than it would to accomplish the same feat from the Moon. If we could get colonies started on the Moon, or even Mars, eventually, space travel could become so much easier! All in all, really awesome, check the article out. You might nerd out as much as I did.

In news that's too funny, sad, and strange to pass up, hundreds of Chinese prisoners are being forced to endure the oddest torture yet--gold farming in World of Warcraft? Ask any hardcore MMORPG fanatic you may like and they'll say that the most annoying and time-consuming part of online gaming is getting the in-game currency of their favorite game (e.g., WOW). Thus spawned the custom of "gold farming"--trading real money for in-game currency. *dramatic Hollywood voice* Little did anyone know that the gold they were getting had been mined by poor Chinese prisoners, forced to work through the night for hours at a time! Now, you're probably thinking, "What? What?? That's...punishment?" Hey--don't knock it 'till you try it. I've played plenty of games, both on and offline, that required you to have ridiculous amounts of cash to do anything (Mount&Blade, anybody?), and usually it was pretty hard to get a lot of money. It's actually pretty smart of the prisons--find a product that lots of people want and are willing to pay good, solid cash for, and make the people who really don't have much else to do in the day make that product for the money-paying people! It's just good business, although I wonder if the prisoners are going to walk out of there with a few less brain cells as a result.

That's all the news I've got for today, folks--remember, you're welcome to send me news via Facebook or comments on these blogs! And that applies for all posts as well--I appreciate any advice or comments that you'd like to send me!

Until next time,

--CommanderSnowball

Random Ramblification

G'day, ladies and gents!

So, for our summer reading this year, we've been assigned The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, and, to be quite honest with you, I'm not quite sure what to think about it. I'm reading on a Kindle, so I can't give you page references or anything, but I'm 30% of the way through it and the Joads just packed up and left for California. One extremely annoying factor about this book that actually, in my opinion, is detrimental to its use as assigned reading material is the uncomfortable splicing of the plot. For every chapter he writes of actual plot, Steinbeck also writes a chapter of "filler", usually details about the condition that the Midwest was in at that time. I'm not a huge fan of this type of writing, though I understand that the purpose is to convey certain emotions and explain the situation. And it does--I understand the farmers of those days now, and I understand the relationship between a man and his land, and how that relationship is broken when machines enter the equation. But I don't need twenty chapters to explain that--I got it after the first three or so!

ShayCarl & Katilette, you guys inspire me. SHAYTARDS FTW!!!

This is an amazing shirt design.

I got Fable 3 in the mail today. I hope to play it over the summer. It looks like an amazing game, even though I haven't really played much of the series. I also ordered some books on music theory and composition, so hopefully I'll actually be able to write some good songs.

Speaking of music, I didn't realize until now how cool playing the guitar feels. I know I sound terrible at it, but after a few months I'm sure I'll be much better. Hoping to eventually lead in worship with the guitar as well.

Yeah, I'm sorry this isn't really a coherent or cohesive blog today--just me rambling about stuff in my life. I promise Thursday will be better, though!

Love and poodles,

--CommanderSnowball

Sunday Special: The Bible is NOT Subject to Interpretation

Hello again! Welcome to the Snowball Effect, the blog that addresses things relevant to your life!

Seeing as recently a lot of attention has been given to a certain Harold Camping and his "Rapture Movement", I thought I'd use my Sunday Special to help clear out this really annoying issue.

If you haven't already heard about this, or the name Camping doesn't ring any bells with you, let me summarize the news part of the story before I get on to the spiritual and biblical part of this: around the beginning of the year, Harold Camping, a Christian radio-show host, predicted that the Rapture/Judgement Day/end-of-the-world would take place on March 21st, 2011. Naturally, this caused some stir among the Christian culture--some people labeled him as a blasphemer, others blindly accepted his false teachings, but the majority of us just kept going as if nothing had happened. Surprisingly enough, that's exactly what happened on March 21st: absolutely nothing. And when our beloved prophet Camping was questioned about his failed prophecy? Well, he did two things--he covered himself by saying that the world would actually end on October 21st, and he actually congratulated himself on being humble enough to admit his mistake. He also said, in this ridiculous interview, "I can't be responsible for anybody's life; I'm only teaching the Bible!" in response to other news stories about people who attempted suicide and even murder because they feared the Judgement that he "prophesied".

Now, I'm assuming that my readers understand that Judgement Day is not on anyone's calendar--only God knows when that day will be, not even Jesus knows. We will know when it happened, and we will certainly be able to tell when it happens, but we will never have advance knowledge of any specific "day" of Judgement. Jesus even says it quite clearly in Matthew 24:36 "But concerning that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." If that's not clear enough for you, I don't know what is. "No one" clearly includes all forms of life except the Father, that being God the Father. But as I said, I'm pretty sure everybody reading this already understands that idea.

Now let's move on to something a little more pressing about this whole matter: how Camping is "figuring out" the day of Judgement.

Interestingly enough, a search of Camping's radio show's website showed absolutely nothing about how one finds the specific date and time of the Rapture. You'd think that if one had figured out the secret, they'd want other people to be able to figure it out as well. A search of the world "rapture" in the handy-dandy "Dynamic Bible Query" tool lead to absolutely nothing useful. The funnies thing I found was that there was a document explaining Matthew 24: 37-41, but nothing about the verse right before, wherein Camping's argument is torn to shreds with a single sentence from the Savior. Coincidence? I think not...

I did, however, find a video of Camping talking about why the knowledge hasn't come about until now. The interesting thing is that he talks about how God had to "hide" the facts in the book of Daniel until 1988. First off, why would God "have to" hide anything from us? If God didn't want us to know about it, then why would He put it in His Word? Secondly, while in this supposed Daniel interpretation, one has to search long and deep into the words and stretch the meaning to the point of misinterpreting the Scriptures, in the afore-mentioned verse in Matthew, the point is quite clear: no one but God Himself knows the day, so you can stop guessing, cuz you're going to be wrong.

We can't think of the Bible as some secret code that we have to decipher. The Bible is not malleable; it is not bendable to man's interpretation. That's why it's the absolute truth--as spoken by God. Whatever God says is Truth in the most definite sense. No matter what man does to it, we can't change the Truth. I will admit that there are many passages in the Bible that are hard to understand. To interpret those passages, we must rely on other Scriptural sources as tools. And when we find the meaning of those passages that we don't understand at first, we must check ourselves and see if the meaning contradicts anything in the Bible. For example, if someone says they've found a combination of verses that show what day Judgement will happen on,  you can say, "But Matthew 24:36 clearly states..." and so on.

Until next time,

--CommanderSnowball

P.S. Sorry for being so monotonous referring back to Matthew 24:36 so often. Just trying to get a point across, that one verse is all it takes to find the truth sometimes. Of course, there are other verses in the Bible that refer to the day of Judgement. A couple are:

• II Corinthians 5:10
• Revelation 20:11-15

Just to name some. Of course, these aren't the only verses that talk about the Final Judgement. If you want more references about these things, talk to your pastor or (even better!) research it yourself! Cheers!