Halbert's Cubicle

Merry Christmas everyone!

I hope you are all having a blessed day, celebrating the birth of Christ, because of whom we can stand before God. Not much political going on right now, so the rants will have different focus this time, but that's okay, it's all still good stuff.

First, a little personal stuff. I've been having it rough the last couple of days. I hate being sick. The flu is no fun. I'm better now (a little bit of gross stuff in my lungs yet, but it's all right), so calm your fears. Being sick is not easy. It's not just the aching and the nausea and the dizziness, it's the helplessness. My sister and I were sick at the same time, and it doesn't help that my father is still recovering from foot surgery. We were quite a burden on our parents, needing food and medicine and such brought to us constantly. Perhaps it is pride which is the root of the problem. To feel sorrow for requesting help with a necessary need? To regret being a burden on family? We let our pride rise up in silly forms sometimes. Granted, my father could have done without being on his feet so much for my sake, but his selfless help should not make me shameful. It should make me grateful.

Ah well. I haven't done much productive with my day. Mostly, I've watched TV, and I really have to say, I love the History Channel. It's great. Except at Christmas.

At Christmas, they like to play all these shows that are, essentially, "Let's see how acceptable and reasonable we can make crack-pot quasi-Christian theories and blatant heresies look" shows. Let me just cover some of the examples. One of the programs I was watching earlier questioned who wrote the Torah. They eventually talked about the quasi-Jewish heresy known as Kabbalah. The group is . . . interesting. Apparently, they see the Hebrew alphabet as "magical runes" with mystical powers. God's revelation on Mt. Sinai, when looked at properly according to Kabbalah principles, gives people the power to fill the void of chaos in their soul and lead lives of fulfillment. Something like that. Right. They also use numerology. For example, when you give the Hebrew alphabet numeric values, the sum of "God" is equal to the sum of "nature." That must mean they're very similar, right? Pfft. Another program talked about the "Bible Code." This one really gets me riled up, just because of how ridiculous it is. Basically, they play crossword puzzles with the text and discover words, phrases, and dates near each other, which means that there is hidden prophecy in the Bible.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not ever going to say that there might not be some deeper meaning or hidden power or whatever in the Bible. God is bigger than my imagination. But there is a fundamental problem inherent in both of these views: When you get the Bible to say something that is not said in the text, especially when it runs counter to the text, you are doing dangerous things. God's revelation was never meant to be a gift to mankind to make our lives more enriching and fulfilling. God's revelation was meant to show us who he is, who we are, and how we should be. In other words, "I am God, I am holy, you are sinful, be holy like me." As for the "Bible Code," it works just fine when you get to dictate the size and shape of your crossword puzzle. You can find stuff eventually that way. It's just, as they theorized, a "parlor trick." Besides, to say that God "hid" prophecy in the Bible is to akin to blasphemy. Why would God hide something from us that could only be found by complex computer programs and crossword puzzles? Why would God hide something from us at all? The real meaning of scriptures have always been hidden by something: Faith. This is why many people had no idea Jesus was the Messiah until after the fact. This is why most atheists and cultists look at scriptures and cannot grasp why God does what he does or what certain verses mean. The Holy Spirit is the real interpreter of scripture, not an equation. And if you're going to claim God is hiding prophecy in the Bible, you'd better have a very good explanation of why God is hiding messages in the first place.

Best part is, that's not even the last program that I watched. They played another one of those "Rejected Bible Book" programs. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. They discuss the "dangerous" books of the Bible, that the church rejected because the books threatened power and the status quo, weren't popular enough, blah blah blah. Pfft. They usually only give lip service to the ideas that these books were heretical, written far too late from their events to be reliable, historically inaccurate, or so on. Usually, they try to make some attempt at neutral objectivity (which the History Channel actually does much better than the major networks, to its credit), but you can always feel like they're coming out on the side of the heretical. When last I watched, they were talking about Mary Magdalene again. Yeesh. So many problems, so little time.

Well, that's that, folks. Before I go, I'd like to make a personal request, and ask that you pray for my uncle and his family. They are experiencing rough waters right now.

Merry Christmas to you all, and a blessed season!

Hal

P.S. Be on the look out. I'm currently experimenting with certain ideas, and this blog is either going to get a new look or the whole shindig is going to move on over to another server. If so, I'll post a link. Be watchful.