Wittenberg Door

haven't written in awhile

I have not done an entry for a while - thought I would post one...

I hate quizes - but here is the result from one.

You are Romans.


Which book of the Bible are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Coming soon

I think I am going to do a list of entries on

Why Paganism? Part I

I'll be talking about the ancientness of it.

I'll be talking about how it draws me because of its consistency worldwide.

There is an mysterious aura - a tremendium about the ancient arts.

I will talk about my faith journey - on how the spirit lead me into a deeper understanding of reality. Mystery is my epistemology!

Church history quiz

Quiz:

When was the first church split?

(I'll give you a hint - it wasn't the protestants)

great article

I thought this was a good article to bring into the Orthodox discussion that I have been having at other blogs.

Orthodox preachers shares testimony about being lost

In a candid testimony, an Orthodox theologian confessed that it was possible to be religious but at the same time lost, because it had happened to him.

Dr Bradley Nassif is a theologian of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch and All the East, and academic director for Fuller Theological Seminary in the USA. He made his personal remarks at the end of midday preaching in the university chapel on Saturday.

"It is not only possible to be religious but lost, but it actually happens to some of us, especially those of us in religious work. I am one of them!" Dr Nassif said.

"I grew up in the Orthodox Church, was a moral and upright young man. I went to church every Sunday, made the sign of the cross, kissed the icons, and read the Bible and Orthodox literature ceaselessly in my youth.

"I was even ordained a subdeacon and was on my way to becoming a priest. I could quote the Bible and recount the history and theology of the Orthodox Church in great detail and with great precision.

"I don’t want to call attention to my intellectual achievements, but I want to tell you: That is not enough! You can have all the religious knowledge you want, and still not know God."

However, God did not leave people there. He looked into people’s hearts to see whether they really want more of God -- not only knowledge about him -- and revealed himself in love.

"He invites all of us, scholars, priests, lay persons, journalists, delegates and anyone else: Come to God through Christ, in the Holy Spirit," he said.

Dr Nassif, who promotes Orthodox-evangelical dialogue around the world, preached on "Salvation in the Trinitarian God".

from E-jubliee

The Early Church

I love the early church and the church fathers. If we went back and read them - they have answered a great deal of questions that we are searching for today. I get sick of chronological snobbery - that if it "ain't new" then it "ain't true."

Engaging in some conversation with some OC at some other blogs. Really interesting. Dealing mostly with authority and the such. It is still amazing to me though how many OC and RC - and even evangelical christians set up a straw man of solo scriptura and attack it instead having an understanding of the reformers( and actually the early church) sola scriptura.

The question that I posed was - Why Orthodox over Roman church? I am curious to see what the answers will be. After all, we all know that the Roman Church called the Orthodox naughty boys first, right? Or was it the other way around?

makes sense

this is so true (at least in my pea brain deductions) I had to post it.

From Dead Man Blogging:

"All About the Oil?

I don't know why, but I was thinking last night about whether or not it was reasonable that the US might have gone to war with Iraq to steal the oil. I was curious to see if we took ALL of Iraq's oil, every day, how long it would take to simply cover the costs of the war, let alone give us a profit. So I did some research.

The CBO estimated the costs of the war for Congress. Let's figure the cheapest possible war by their numbers:
9,000,000,000 initial deployment
6,000,000,000 for a 1-month war
1,000,000,000 per month occupation
5,000,000,000 to return troops home

This means, without ANY occupation, we're looking at a $20,000,000,000 price tag.

So, how long would we have to occupy Iraq to pay for that?

Iraq's oil production capacity is roughly 2,000,000 barrels per day. Oil is right now running about $25 per barrel. Every day, we could steal about $50,000,000 dollars worth of oil. Every month, we could steal about $1.5B.

The break even point for this war, where X is in months:
20B (initial) + 1B X = X * 1.5B
20B = 0.5B X
X = 40.

If we're there to steal Iraq's oil, it's going to take 3 1/2 years for us to start making a profit. This is using the cheapest figures. And these estimates were available before the war.

If you think GWB took us to Iraq to steal the oil, you must wonder how such a bad businessman is also so rich."