I think I handled the “There’s probably no God” reasonably enough in my last post. Now for an intelligent exposition of the second half…

Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.

The phrase implies that those that believe in God… A) worry and B) don’t enjoy life.

It is said that the person with the experience is never at the mercy of the person with the argument. So, speaking from experience…

I worry exponentially less now as a follow of Christ, than when I lived for my own selfish desires. I enjoy my life exponentially more now as a follower of Jesus, than when I lived for my own selfish desires. I know I’m not an isolated case.

I get extremely annoyed at secular media propagandizing that Christians live dull, boring and pleasure-starved lives. It’s a lie.

I know people living life to fulfill their own selfish desires – and most of them (although they would rarely admit it) aren’t truly fulfilled. Sure, they have a form of  happiness, but it is never lasting and is only shallow at best.

Is the porn addict really happy?
Is the P user really happy
Is the adulterer really happy?
Is the tycoon really happy?

I really don’t think so. I’m not saying all of these people are atheists, but I dare say most of them would claim to have no faith nor belief in God.  The truth (that we again rarely hear) is that sexual liberation does not bring happiness – only a downward spiral into more degrading practices. I have never met a drug addict who loves their life.  Does Tiger Woods look like he’s enjoying his life right now? How many of the rich and famous are confused and depressed? To be quite honest, why does a person crave the bottle, the needle, the encounter? Isn’t it just to serve as a temporal reprieve from an otherwise sad life?

In stark contrast, I know people who are genuine followers of God – who have such a deep sense of fulfillment that suffering couldn’t dislodge. I think that is true happiness.

The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy. My purpose is to give life in all its fullness. (Jesus Christ)

So, please let me know (and be honest about it) who you follow and if you are truly happy with your life. I’d love to know .

“There’s probably no God so stop worrying and enjoy your life.”

The “probably” just cracks me up. It’s as if the non-theists responsible for the slogans aren’t totally convinced themselves. Imagine if John 3:16 read:

“God probably loved the world so much that He more than likely gave His only Son so that all that believe in Him probably won’t perish but quite possibly might have eternal life.

Not very convincing is it. The Dictionary defines ‘Probably’ as ‘being without much doubt’ which is an alternate way of saying that there is still some doubt. The slogan might as well read:

“There is a possibility that God exists and your eternal destiny depends on how you respond to His message.”

Which brings me to Pascal’s Wager. Pascal’s Wager is a suggestion posed by the French philosopher Blaise Pascal that even though the existence of God cannot be determined through reason (debatable), a person should wager as though God exists, because living life accordingly has everything to gain, and nothing to lose. Put another way, If God does not exist, one loses little by believing in him and gains correspondingly little by not believing. If God does exist however, one gains everything by believing in Him and loses everything by not believing.

The wager is fascinating to study (for some), as Pascal’s reasoning can be proved true mathematically. In fact, according to decision theory, the only rational path to follow is to live for God.  As you can imagine, Pascal’s Wager is a hotly debated topic, and has been a nasty thorn in the Atheist’s side for hundreds of years.

One might argue that giving your life to God based on mathematic probability is not the most heart-felt or sincere thing to do.  After all (and speaking from experience), trying to follow God, without having a relationship with Him is frustrating to say the least. Pascal to the rescue (again).  Pascal never treated acceptance of the wager to be in itself sufficient for salvation. Placing the wager, he argued, is unavoidable. However, it alone isn’t a justification for faith. Rather, the wager is an impetus toward faith.

And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process? Is anything worth more than your soul? (Jesus Christ)

Many years ago I watched old documentary footage showing a blue whale being slowly bitten to death by a pod of killer whales.  It had a lasting impact on me as ever since then I’ve always regarded them as extremely dangerous (perhaps the 70’s Jaws ripoff ‘Orca’ influenced me a tad also).

I couldn’t find the footage on youtube but did find a clip where a pod of 15 killer whales spent over 6 hours trying to kill a grey whale calf and leaving the carcass after only eating its lower jaw and tongue.

Killer whales.  Beautiful, definitely, but killers nevertheless.  People try to make them cute and cuddly by parading them at sea-parks, demand that they be be called Orca and not the dreaded ‘K’ word,  and making cheesy kid movies about them, but as we heard last week, Killer whales actually kill (funny that).

Here’s where I am confused.

- Toto the Terrier bites a kid (fictitious but true)… The dog is destroyed.

- Abu the rare White Tiger mauls keeper to death (Zion Wildlife Gardens, NZ)… The tiger is destroyed.

- Tilikum the Killer Whale bites, mauls and drowns trainer (is also responsible for 2 deaths previously making it 3 altogether)… The whale is not destroyed.

In fact, Tilikum is allowed to live as the alpha male of Sea World’s breeding program. How’s that for mixed signals? Poor guy probably thinks that killing humans equals business time with the lady Orcas.

Unlike wild killer whales, captives have attacked and even killed people such as their handlers or pool intruders, with nearly two dozen attacks since the 1970s. Tilikum, an orca, has been involved in three fatalities. (wikipedia)

“First they came …” is a popular poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

There has been a modern revival of vampirism in recent years.  Although AIDS has put a dampener on sucking your girlfriend’s blood, no one can deny there is a growing subculture which embracing everything vampish, and its popularity has spilled over into mainstream pop-culture.

What is modern-day vampirism? Simply, the party by night, sleep by day mentality. Dressing in black, celebrating everything macabre and sensual. What is its origin? To cut a long story short, the early Slavs and Britons had a strong belief in vampires (living corpses empowered by evil, craving blood as sustenance) up until the early 1800s. Some occultists today believe supernatural vampirism to be a fact (another post perhaps?).

If I was to ask who is the most popular vampire in history – an overwhelming majority would say Dracula (although my kids might say Sesame Street’s The Count). Have you ever wondered how the superstar of horror was inspired?

Dracula was very much a real person, called Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (or more commonly known as the Vlad The Impaler, or Draculea (1431-1476). He was a madman who massacred more than 100,000 men women, children, and babies during his lifetime in the most sickening, disturbing ways imaginable. And to drive the point home (pun intended) let me go into detail – but please be warned, the next paragraph isn’t nice to read (skip it if you want).

The atrocities committed by Vlad included impaling, torturing, burning, skinning, roasting, and boiling people, feeding people the flesh of their friends or relatives, cutting off limbs and drowning.  As his name implies… Impalement was Vlad’s preferred method of torture and execution. An oiled stake was slowly forced through the anus until it emerged from the mouth. Death by impalement was slow and agonizing and victims sometimes endured for hours or even days. One claim says he impaled 10,000 in the Transylvanian city of Sibiu in a single day (and I bet you thought Transylvania was only a fictional country).

Sorry you had to read that – but again I wish to make a point, which is simply this…

The origins of vampirism is nothing short of pure evil. The original vampire, Vlad Dracul, was nothing short of pure evil. The vampires in books and films of yesteryear were nothing short of pure evil.

But times have changed.

Pure evil has become not-so-bad-pretty-good-actually evil. The repulsive has become romantic. The villain has now become the hero. We, the pop-culture consumers have made the slow (but sure) transition from hating the vampire, to cheering for him… or her.

Is anyone else concerned?

I admit to being only an amateur musician, focusing mostly on writing songs for use in congregational worship, but I find Lewis’ insight into the motivations of the ‘Christian’ artist deeply challenging.

“It was all a snare. Ink and catgut and paint were necessary down there [on earth], but they are also dangerous stimulants. Every poet and musician, but for Grace, is drawn away from love of the thing he tells, to love of the telling till, down in Deep Hell, they cannot be interested in God at all but only in what they say about Him. For it doesn’t stop… you know. They sink lower – become interested in their own personalities and then in nothing but their own reputations.”

I must ask myself… am I guilty of the same?   Being drawn away from loving the One I tell about, by the love of the telling?

Albert Park is a beautiful and serene park situated in the centre of downtown Auckland, a reprieve from busy city life and frequented by many suit-and-tie guys and students on their lunch-breaks each day.

Albert Park was originally the site of the Albert Barracks, one of Auckland’s early European military fortifications, which was converted into a public park in the 1880s.  But it is not Albert Park itself that exudes intrigue… but what lies beneath.What most people don’t know is that underneath Albert Park is over 3.5 kilometres of man-made tunnels built during the war to shelter over 20,000 people in the event of an air-raid.  The tunnels consist of a network of shelters, sanitation facilities and first aid posts, all ventilated by air shafts, with a total of nine entrances.  Fortunately, the expected air raids did not eventuate, but with the tunnels unused, by the end of 1943 the timber supports were beginning to fail. By February 1945, the tunnels were filled in with unfired clay bricks, the entrances buried and the air shafts and other shafts in-filled.

And so the tunnels remain to this day…

This, my friends is the stuff adventure is made of.  I don’t know about you, but the Indiana-Jones-alter-ego in me screams out to throw caution to the wind…  to look for an entrance, rediscover long-forgotten places and flee from giant boulders (okay perhaps not flee from giant boulders ).  As this site shows, there have been exposed entrances in recent years and intrepid (or insane depending on how you look at it) explorers have ventured inside.

What I am dying to know is:

• Are they still accessible today?  (One article written in march 2009 said they still are.)
• Will my wife let me?  (Happy wife happy life.)
• If the answer to the above questions is “Yes”, who’s keen for a roadtrip to Albert Park (and beneath)?

Further Albert Park tunnel info: to whet your adventurer’s appetite:

• Large image of the Tunnel Plans
• Google earth image of Albert Park with with the tunnel system superimposed over top.
• Wikipedia’s Albert Park Tunnels entry
• The best Albert Park tunnel site in existence.

Please leave a comment if you have any further information, know of exposed entrances… think I’m crazy, etc.

The latest movie to grace my best-movies-of-all-time list is a film that exudes intelligence, high drama, phenomenal acting and a deeply spiritual message…

Nacho Libre.

Some movies have the magical ability to get better with each viewing and Nacho Libre is definitely one of these.  Especially when the whole family watches it multiple times.  Then a well-placed Nacho quote, impression, song, or pose brings the house down and leaves happy memories forever after… like singing the  Encarnación song around the dinner table as a family (after sucking spaghetti up our noses) – Classic.

Below are some of my favourite Nacho Libre quotes…

Nacho: Chancho. When you are a man, sometimes you wear stretchy pants in your room. It’s for fun.

Sister Encarnación: Well, my favorite color is light tan. My favourite animal is puppies. I like serving the lord. Hiking, play volleyball…
Nacho: You gotta be kidding me. Everything you just said, is MY favourite thing to do, every day!

Nacho: I’m a little concerned right now. About… your salvation and stuff.

Nacho: I know the wrestlers get all the fancy ladies, and the clothes, and the fancy creams and lotions. But my life is good! Really good! I get to wake up every morning, at 5am, and make some soup! It’s the best. I love it. I get to lay in a bed, all by myself, all of my life! That’s fantastic!

Sister Encarnación: Where are your robes, Ignacio?
Nacho: They were… stinky. These are my recreational clothes.
Sister Encarnación: They look expensive.
Nacho: Thank you. I mean… they might have the appearance of riches, but beneath the clothes, we find a man… and beneath the man we find… his… nucleus.

Sister Encarnación: Ignacio, I have been looking all over for you, where have you been?
Nacho: I have been here. I have been sleeping.
Sister Encarnación: In a frilly shirt and slacks?
Nacho: They are my PJ’s.

I know, I know… just reading the quotes just don’t do them justice.    So why don’t you treat yourself to an evening of happy shenanigans and rent the DVD.  It’s good, clean, very very funny and…

“It’s the best.”

A comment on yesterday’s post reminded me of an old urban legend about another hell hole in Russia, but one which is rather more disturbing. The story goes like this…

Geologists working somewhere in remote Siberia had drilled a hole some 14.4 kilometers deep when the drill bit suddenly began to rotate wildly. The project’s manager was quoted as saying they decided that the center of the earth was hollow.  Supposedly, the geologists measured temperatures of over 2,000 degrees in the deep hole. They lowered super sensitive microphones to the bottom of the well, and to their horror they heard the sounds of thousands, perhaps millions, of suffering souls screaming.  The plot thickened when a recording emerged of the account, and just when you thought the story couldn’t get any better, a man who witnessed the drilling went on record with the description of the bat-like creature coming out of the same hole.

The story and it’s additions were made famous by supermarket tabloids (and by the gullible people who read them or well-meaning religious folk) of the early 1990s and it has now entered the halls of infamy thanks to the Internet (and by the gullible people who…).Is there any truth to it?  Snopes says “no”, truthorfiction says “no”, my common sense says “no”, and I tend to agree with all three.

Before I continue, let me digress for a moment. There is something about human nature which yearns to believe the unbelievable.  There is the child in all of us which still is innocent enough to believe in fairy tales. Problem is we simply don’t do the research, or use our God given brains.  We hear, then re-tell the incredible stories without hesitation (or a simple google to see if it is truth or fiction) and before long fiction is re-labeled fact.  That is until the truth is discovered and we get egg on our face.  Unfortunately many of us Christians are the worst culprits, and not only does our character lose credibly… our faith loses credibility.  We must remember that Jesus is the Truth, we are followers and carriers of Truth and although we still desperately need the child-like faith, we shouldn’t have child-like intelligence.

With that in mind, back to the story…

The truth.  In 1984, an experimental well in Russia’s Kola Peninsula which reached 12 kilometers into the earth.  Scientists discovered rare rock formations, flows of gas and water, but no damned souls, no hollow center, and not temperatures of 2000&deg but of 180&deg.  You can read all about the Kola well here, all factual and very interesting.   The origin of the recording? unknown. The bat-out-of-hell creature addition?  A simple lie designed  to see whether a religious television program would accept the story at face value without checking it out, which they did (unfortunately).

In conclusion, I wish to say that although Hell isn’t situated under the snow in Siberia… it is very real, you don’t want to go there, and there is only one way to avoid it. Find a Bible look up John 3 :16 and think about it seriously.

Siberia hell hole aside, is hell really in the Earth’s bowels?  My opinion is again “no”, simply because the Bible says Hell  is eternal, and that the earth is not.  In fact it is going to all go up in flames one day… But not on Dec 22, 2012 (that is another blog post )

Several slight variations exist, but in essence the story begins during Soviet times in 1971. While drilling, geologists found a huge underground cavern filled with natural gas, which impeded any further mining activity. The team decided to fire the gas and return when it was totally burned out, but the gas exploded forming a 60m wide, 20m deep crater (which one dramatic retelling of the account says engulfed the entire drilling site with the equipment and camps). Those responsible had hoped the inferno would only last a couple of weeks but it has been burning ever since without pause.

One phrase comes to mind as I ponder these images… “Hot enough for ya?”