2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 41,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 15 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

 

WhooHoo….you guys are awesome!

Tethered Twins, Free offer for an eBook by Mike Essex

I thought some of my readers might like to take advantage of this offer, and in the process help out a fellow author increase his ratings.

Hi Renee,

I hope you are well and if you have one second free today I’d love your help with a quick experiment.

I’m giving away copies of my novel, Tethered Twins, free to everyone for the next five days in an attempt to see what it takes to make a product go viral. Anyone can grab a copy right now at http://amzn.to/1boKS0X (UK) or http://amzn.to/1gh6zrX (US and Rest of World).

Even if you don’t have a Kindle, apps are available for most smartphones, tablets and computers from the Amazon site and every free download actually helps more people discover the book.

I’ve also written a post to promote the experiment and explain a little bit more about why I’m doing it. You can find it here.

It would be fantastic if you could share this post to let others know what I’m up to and download a copy of the book to help it rise up the Amazon charts. I’ll be documenting everything that happens and including a dedication in my next book for everyone who lets me know they helped.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Mike Essex
Blagman.co.uk
Find my books on GoodReads or LibraryThing or Opt out of future emails about my books

Christian Science Theory of The End of Times

The Christian Science Monitor:  When David got home from school, the third grader looked everywhere for his mom and sisters. They couldn’t be found in the house or the yard. Suddenly the youngster panicked. What he’d been taught in church must have happened – they’d disappeared in the “rapture,” and he’d been “left behind.”

For children raised in a fundamentalist Protestant background, “that wasn’t an uncommon experience,” says David Currie of his frantic moments years ago. They were taught Jesus could come at any moment to whisk believers to heaven and leave others to face seven years of “the great tribulation.” Only after that period of suffering, violence, and disasters on Earth would Christ return in the Second Coming.

Today, as belief in this end-times prophecy sees a resurgence among Americans – partly because of the phenomenal success of the “Left Behind” series of novels (58 million sold) and the disturbing “signs” of terrorism and war – Mr. Currie and others are seeking to refute the apocalyptic theology.

Fundamentalists represent a minority of Christians – an estimated 25 million – but the interest in end-times prophecy has spread beyond their circles, and is not only shaping people’s lives, but, say supporters and critics, even influencing US foreign policy.

A 2002 survey showed that 59 percent of Americans believe that the events in the Bible book of Revelation will occur in the future. The theology behind end-time prophecy – pre-millennial dispensationalism (from the idea that God has divided history into ages, or dispensations) – emerged in 19th-century England. It was brought to America by missionary John Nelson Darby and spread at evangelistic conferences. While believers say it spurs righteous living and helps discern God’s plan for the world, others see it as fostering a skewed sense of history and of what Christianity is about.

Rather than the single Second Coming of Christ expected by other Christians, it presents a two-stage return of Jesus, with the plagues and catastrophes depicted in Revelation literally to take place on Earth in between. The current “church age” will end with the rapture, when Jesus will take true Christians to heaven, and the rest of humanity will face the outpouring of God’s wrath, designed to turn them to Him. Many insist it will occur within a generation.

“I know people who have sold their houses and lived with relatives because they thought the world would soon come to an end,” Currie says. “I know others who’ve cut their education short because they thought it more important to witness to people than to get their degree.” After becoming a missionary and preaching the rapturist prophecy, Currie eventually came to a very different conclusion – that this teaching was not true, and is not in the Bible.

Premillennialism is not consistent with Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, or mainline Protestant teaching – but it has been avidly promoted by televangelists and on Christian radio for decades. And one 2002 poll found that more Americans experience the Christian faith through radio, television, or books than by attending church.

The Left Behind series of novels, which begins with the rapture (with planes and cars crashing as Christians disappear) and carries through the tribulation years to Armageddon and the Second Coming, is a blend of fast-paced violence, catastrophes, miracles, and heartfelt faith.
According to end-times teaching, Bible prophecies in Daniel, Revelation, and elsewhere apply literally to current events (there is much debate over who the Antichrist is) and are the key to understanding world history. Other fundamental points are that the state of Israel is central to God’s plan for the end times, and Jesus’ return is imminent.

“He could come tomorrow, and that grips my life and changes the way I live,” says Mark Hitchcock, pastor of Faith Bible Church in Edmond, Okla. “It encourages holy living and evangelism.” Currie, who has become a Catholic, says thousands of young Catholics have been won over to fundamentalist churches through rapture theology. Barbara White, a Jewish African-American mortician from Buffalo, N.Y., was “saved” at age 7 by a pastor “who was heavy on the rapture.” It shapes her whole life. “The priority is time – every day I cram five days into that day because of the sense of urgency,” she says. “I feel I have to love every day, encourage someone every day.” She has also become pastor of an interdenominational church. Those who dispute the theology, however, say it often encourages fatalism and escapism. A prominent pre-millennialist, Dwight L. Moody, famously asked, “Why polish the brass on a sinking ship?”

Barbara Rossing, who teaches the New Testament at Lutheran School of Theology in Chicago, gets calls for help from pastors with congregation members who are avid readers of the Left Behind series. She tells of a friend who mentored a confirmation student at her church who’d read all the novels. “As my friend talked with her about world problems, the student said, ‘I don’t have to worry about that because I’m going to be raptured before things get too bad,’ ” Dr. Rossing says. “People think they don’t have to worry about the environment or other situations because God is going to take them away from it.”

She recalls the stir during her own college years three decades ago, when Hal Lindsey’s “The Late Great Planet Earth,” which predicted the end of the world in 1988, sold millions of copies. “I can relate to the fear teenagers feel and the yearning to know what God’s plan is and not be left behind,” Rossing adds. So she’s written a book, “The Rapture Exposed: The Message of Hope in the Book of Revelation,” to be released in April. “I’m trying to offer an alternative way of understanding God’s presence in the world.”

She and Currie – who has written “Rapture: The End-Times Error That Leaves the Bible Behind” – explore the Bible sources for rapturist theology, aiming to demonstrate that it’s a modern literalist interpretation based on selective passages taken out of context. While some have experienced the fundamentalist teaching as fear- driven, others find comfort in it. Tim LaHaye, who created the Left Behind series to spread the theology, described in a Monitor interview last year what sparked his intense focus on prophecy.

When Mr. LaHaye was 9, his father died. The bereaved boy was inconsolable. “Then the minister at the funeral said these words: ‘This is not the end of Frank LaHaye; because he accepted Jesus, the day will come when the Lord will shout from heaven and descend, and the dead in Christ will rise first and then we’ll be caught up together to meet him in the air,” LaHaye recalled. “All of a sudden, there was hope in my heart I’d see my father again.”

LaHaye has since built an industry around the rapture theology, including the fiction series (the final volume comes out March 30), a Left Behind kids series, a prophecy club on the Web, nonfiction prophecy books, a new series of novels, and a Pre-Tribulation Research Center.
Mr. Hitchcock, the Oklahoma pastor, is active in the movement and is co-authoring a new book, “The Truth Behind Left Behind,” to respond to critics.
He doesn’t agree with colleagues who predict dates for the rapture, or those who are against trying to improve a world they expect to only get worse. “This is not a monolithic movement,” he says. “You find people who are separatist, and people who are very involved.” In fact, the involvement of premillennialists in politics is stirring concern among some observers. As the religious right has become more prominent in political circles, critics say, they are influencing and even undermining US policy on the Israeli- Palestinian conflict.

Dispensationalists are also called Christian Zionists, and since the 19th century have supported the “re-gathering of the Jews” in the Holy Land, which they say is an essential step toward the end times. It also says the temple will be rebuilt on the Temple Mount, where the Muslim Dome of the Rock now stands. Hitchcock says the return of Jews to Israel is “a stage-setting event for the tribulation period, when God’s going to deal again with the Jewish people,” giving them a last chance to recognize Jesus as Messiah.
In the meantime, dispensationalists believe that, according to Genesis, God will bless those who bless the Jews and curse those who curse them. They are therefore among Israel’s staunchest supporters, backing its “ownership” of the entire West Bank. They have raised money in churches to support illegal settlements.

Don Wagner, who teaches religion and Middle East studies at North Park University in Chicago, points to specific examples of Christian Zionists’ political influence: When President Bush started to call on Israel to pull the military back from Jenin refugee camp in 2002, they helped mobilize 100,000 e-mails to the White House; the president never said another word in public. And when Mr. Bush started pushing his latest peace plan, House leader “Tom DeLay headed off to Israel to speak to the Knesset and told them not to worry about it,” he adds.

Dr. Wagner says that Christian Zionists are ignoring and undermining indigenous Christians in the Middle East, many of whom are descendants of the earliest Christians. A Palestinian Christian center, Sabeel, will hold a conference this spring, “Challenging Christian Zionism.”What distresses some other Christians is that the fixation on prophecy can lead genuine seekers astray about what Christianity teaches.”Now if you talk to a man on the street he’ll think Christians believe in a God who is quixotic, plays games with humanity, and is going to cheerfully zap flight crews out of planes and see the planes crash,” says Paul Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo. “How do you counteract that?”

To challenge the prophecy buffs, he recently published “More Than a Skeleton,” a theological thriller about what happens when a man appears in contemporary Israel who begins to say and do the same things Jesus did.Rossing agrees with the power of storytelling. “What these [Left Behind] novels are fulfilling is the hunger to see God in the world, and they point to earthquakes, wars, and plagues like SARS,” she says. “We need to help people see God’s presence in other ways – in stories of healing and love and justice.”

Resource: The Christian Monitor

Lay 86, Up Yours!

Author Unknown

Lay 36, Where’s Waldo?

 

The authorities are turning the city upside-down.  It turns out Juvenile delinquent Waldo Wallo, is still running away and causing trouble everywhere he goes.

 

 

 

Glow In The Dark

My Doctor loves to cook

I am part of a recipe

He stuck me in an oven

Set at 350 degrees

There was some preparation

Before I climbed in

I was shot up with some stuff

From a giant ink pen

Was told it was radioactive

As if that wasn’t enough

Was given some directions

Saying I could glow

In the dark and stuff

I was placed in a cold room

Where I was left to baste

Was left there for a while

To ponder about my taste

Would  I come out sour

Or perhaps way too sweet

Maybe a bit salty

Possibly a nice treat?

As I was just about

To take a of my arm

A buzzer sounded off

It was my basting alarm

Evidently I was finished

Soaking in this pan

I must be glowing quite nicely

And was placed into a new pan

Was slid inside an oven

It fit much like a casket

Was rather claustrophobic

And wondered about the fit

Soon lights were whirling

Reminding me of a ride

One found at a fair

That makes you sick inside

Set to bake for 30 minutes

I tried to go to sleep

There wasn’t much else to do

I wished I had a sheet

Was taken out of the oven

Checked to see if done

Wondered if I was glowing

Wished I was having fun

I was now radioactive

And was handed a card

Instructing anyone who cared

Not  to be too alarmed

I left with one thought

I wondered what would happen

If I were exposed to a flame

Would I self-combustion

I am part of a recipe

Hope I come out good

All this preparation

Is devouring my mood

And in case you wonder

I will draw the line

If a meat thermometer

Comes near my backside

by Renee Robinson

Lay 22, Rare Bird Hatched At Zoo

The Columbus Zoo of Ohio, is pleased to announce the hatching of a very rare Humanitius Beingmitus.    This is the very first hatching in captivity.

“We’re excited about this accomplishment not only for the Zoo but also the future of Humanitius Beingmitus,” said Zack Manna, Columbus Zoo CEO.

It is believed about 600 of these birds are living in the wild with only 6 in captivity.  At first, keepers were cautious about whether any of the 5 Humanitius Beingmitus would actually breed as they seemed so incompatible.  They were often witnessed having domestic disputes, sometimes even separating for short periods of time.

They are very sociable birds, but also very temperamental.  Many times, they will become violent toward each other.  They seem consumed with “possessions”, collecting many brightly colored trinkets.  It appears these trinkets represent a role of importance in their small society.  They will trade possessions with each other in order to “purchase”  perhaps a branch in a tree another Humanitius Beingmitus claims as his own.

Though the bird’s brain is considered large, its intelligence is very low.  It is yet not known how the brain works.

The females are easily agitated and will begin pecking their mates and sometimes their chicks for seemingly no reason.  The females are also known for being very loud when angry.  They are known to squawk  for hours non stop.

The male tends to be a bit on the lazy side.  He will spend time playing with the children and gathering possessions and food.  However, the female never seems satisfied.  Studies will continue to investigate their strange behaviors.

The birds became nearly extinct due to their own stupidity.  They will get so angry with each other,  they will beat and fight among themselves to the death.  Many times, it seems the root of these “wars” is some sort of political disputes most often involving their possessions.

Its diet is made up fruit, vegetables, seed, meat and fermented fruits or vegetables.  They will come together as a group to drink the rotten fruit juices.  The more they drink, the friendly most will become.  However, inevitably a fight will break out sometime in the night.

We intend to track this chick as it grows for an educational series to be broadcast on live television.

Lay 13, Artificial Insemination

The Black Crow Memorial Hospital is proud to announce the first successful attempt at Artificial Insemination. The procedure involves removing a few eggs from the mother and collecting a semen sample from the father. The fertilization process is performed inside a test tube.

The embryo is then placed in the “best” location inside the Chick and will remain there until she is ready to lay naturally.

We will be tracking this story, hopefully, until a nest full of eggs are hatched.

One Lovely Blog Award, 2/7/12

Thank you so much, a lovely award from an even lovlier lady.

Please take time to check out this blog:

 http://celestealluvial.wordpress.com

You will be happy that you did.

Thank you again.

Renee

LAY 9, NAE’S CHICKS ON STRIKE! BLACK WEDNESDAY!

No Lay
Today
No Lay Wednesday

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