I recently returned from Kentucky to visit my relatives, as well as to spend time with my lovely Rachel :-) We had a great time, and seeing my family(on my Dad's side) was very cool. We stayed with my Uncle Norb.
I found a couple cool websites. First, this is a cool website putting a Christian faith in current context: Godspy. The other site is a pretty innovative investing site that will even let you try their service with $10k of play money for 30 trading days I think: Foliofn.
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Tuesday, December 14, 2004
The Principle of Equivalent Trade
I've recently been watching an anime series called Full Metal Alchemist...
In this series(I've seen 29 of 50 episodes), a strong theme is that if you create something, do something, change something, whatever, you must give back anything you take away. This is the Principle of Equivalent Trade.
The main bent of this series is that there are alchemists with amazing abilities to "transmutate" things. These abilities seem almost like magic, but they insist that they're scientists. The alchemists especially relate the Principle of Equivalent Trade to every aspect of their lives.
What does this say about our reality? It is the case that every action has consequences, an equal and opposite reaction. To live good lives, we should give as much as we take, and replace anything we destroy. The Principle of Equivalent Trade.
This is justice, integrity, character. Realizing this fact.
What does this say about our God? Only God can truly create. Only God can truly destroy. When He created the universe, this was a truly amazing miracle, because it goes outside our conception of Equivalent Trade. And God set this in our hearts, all these things, so that we can work at one with the universe. And His law, given to the Israelites, is an extension of Equivalent Trade that we are to use for our lives. To repent for your sins is to give back something you have taken. Following these things will make everything exist in harmony.
But the biggest thing God did is unfathomable to everyone, even those who accept and embrace it. The sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross, in all its solemnity, yet reveals the greatest joy the world has ever seen! The world is redeemed. Yes, this means ALL humans are redeemed. We can now enter heaven, and be in communion with God, the Great Being that binds us all into one. Being redeemed means we have the potential, that we are now able to enter into heaven when we leave this frail body For we can never fully repay all the things we take. Our nature causes us to sin even when we want to do good. We all know this in our hearts. By this, justice says we should be condemned for what we do.
To be at one with God, who is love, all we need to do is accept his love for us, to accept that Jesus did indeed redeem us and that he died to save us from ourselves, our sins, from our ignorance of Equivalent Trade.
We have nothing to lose by this, and everything to gain. Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life", and "no one reaches the Father except by" Jesus. God grants power to his people. Christ repays all our sin for us, without anything more from us than our love. In Christ we are great, a sight to behold. And all this is given freely :-) All this is good. It eases the heart.
In this series(I've seen 29 of 50 episodes), a strong theme is that if you create something, do something, change something, whatever, you must give back anything you take away. This is the Principle of Equivalent Trade.
The main bent of this series is that there are alchemists with amazing abilities to "transmutate" things. These abilities seem almost like magic, but they insist that they're scientists. The alchemists especially relate the Principle of Equivalent Trade to every aspect of their lives.
What does this say about our reality? It is the case that every action has consequences, an equal and opposite reaction. To live good lives, we should give as much as we take, and replace anything we destroy. The Principle of Equivalent Trade.
This is justice, integrity, character. Realizing this fact.
What does this say about our God? Only God can truly create. Only God can truly destroy. When He created the universe, this was a truly amazing miracle, because it goes outside our conception of Equivalent Trade. And God set this in our hearts, all these things, so that we can work at one with the universe. And His law, given to the Israelites, is an extension of Equivalent Trade that we are to use for our lives. To repent for your sins is to give back something you have taken. Following these things will make everything exist in harmony.
But the biggest thing God did is unfathomable to everyone, even those who accept and embrace it. The sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross, in all its solemnity, yet reveals the greatest joy the world has ever seen! The world is redeemed. Yes, this means ALL humans are redeemed. We can now enter heaven, and be in communion with God, the Great Being that binds us all into one. Being redeemed means we have the potential, that we are now able to enter into heaven when we leave this frail body For we can never fully repay all the things we take. Our nature causes us to sin even when we want to do good. We all know this in our hearts. By this, justice says we should be condemned for what we do.
To be at one with God, who is love, all we need to do is accept his love for us, to accept that Jesus did indeed redeem us and that he died to save us from ourselves, our sins, from our ignorance of Equivalent Trade.
We have nothing to lose by this, and everything to gain. Jesus is "the way, the truth, and the life", and "no one reaches the Father except by" Jesus. God grants power to his people. Christ repays all our sin for us, without anything more from us than our love. In Christ we are great, a sight to behold. And all this is given freely :-) All this is good. It eases the heart.
Sunday, December 12, 2004
Finals and such
Well my last class of the semester was on Friday, and now I'm doing my final assignments for my classes, due to be over on Saturday the 18th. I expect it will take all that time to finish them. Please pray that my studies go well this next week.
Tonight I went to an awesome Navs Christmas party!
We got to talk, and then we had a White Elephant gift exchance and I'm very happy with what I received :-)
For my present I put a Best Buy coupon in a huge box filled with styrofoam peanuts and taped it with address labels. A nice girl named Barbie got the second steal of my present so I guess she'll be getting discounted CDs and DVDs for her family :-)
After that we were taught to dance swing and got to dance that quite a bit through the night. We also danced The Electric Slide and The Macarena. And I got to break out in my dancing quite a bit and get a nice workout. :-) My specialty is dancing to music with a fast beat and a slow bass under beat, essentially nerve and heart energy combined.
I'll post a picture of me dancing when I get it.
Now back to work for me! >_<
Tonight I went to an awesome Navs Christmas party!
We got to talk, and then we had a White Elephant gift exchance and I'm very happy with what I received :-)
For my present I put a Best Buy coupon in a huge box filled with styrofoam peanuts and taped it with address labels. A nice girl named Barbie got the second steal of my present so I guess she'll be getting discounted CDs and DVDs for her family :-)
After that we were taught to dance swing and got to dance that quite a bit through the night. We also danced The Electric Slide and The Macarena. And I got to break out in my dancing quite a bit and get a nice workout. :-) My specialty is dancing to music with a fast beat and a slow bass under beat, essentially nerve and heart energy combined.
I'll post a picture of me dancing when I get it.
Now back to work for me! >_<
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