Would Rick Warren be vindicated if Jesus were around? This hilarious musical sketch uses humor to hint at the deeper truths of this contentious issue. But does it reach the right conclusion?

One of the signature moments in Jesus’s life was when a religious mob brought a woman to him surprised in the act of adultery. Theocratic law prescribed death by stoning for this fault, provided there were at least two witnesses.

But, the whole thing was obviously staged. Why isn’t the man who also commited adultery accused, if there were witnesses? The fanatics, who hated Jesus for mingling with drunkards, thieves, prostitutes, the poor and uncultured, were trying to discredit him by daring him to have mercy on this “sinner”.

But all Jesus did was to start writing in the sand. When the rioters demanded an answer from him he said, simply: “Let he who is without sin throw the first stone.” He then continued to write in the sand. One by one, the entire crowd dispersed, starting with the older men.

When they were all gone, he asked the woman “has no one condemned you?”, to which she replied , “no one.” He said, “Neither do I condemn you, go and sin no more.”

It seems much of the Christian religious world is behaving like this mob. I don’t believe Jesus condemns or hates gays; at least, not any more than thieves, the greedy, or drunkards (1 Co 6.9).

Religious people are just as sinful as the irreligious. It is just that for many of them, their sins are socially acceptable, or hidden by a thick wall of self-righteousness. Jesus called them “whitewashed tombs”. None of them are keeping the commandments, especially the first, but they maintain an aura of sanctity. They are blind to their own failure, and have the arrogance to condemn gays. The irony is thick enough to bury us all.

But of course, although Jesus had a merciful attitude toward sin and sinners, he nevertheless called it sin. Somehow he managed to do it without offending anyone, except the religious.

But believing homosexuality is sinful is an act of hate for many gays. Greed is evil. Is it hateful for me to think people are greedy? Lying is wrong. Is it hateful to think someone a liar?

The key here is not whether I believe homosexuality or gay marriage to be evil or not. For the record, I believe neither to be God’s idea, and thus they are sin. The issue isn’t even whether I sanctimoniously condemn, or warmly offer grace to my fellow sinners, the gays. The key to proposition 8 is to remember the separation of church and state; the law is not religious.

As a believer I should not force my faith down the throats of non-believers. Just as non-believers shouldn’t force me to be agnostic or atheist against my will. Churches should not be forced to marry gays or face prosecution. Religious beliefs shouldn’t be classified as hate crimes any more than irreligious beliefs.

I think both Warren will be vindicated for calling sin sin, and that the conclusions made in the video are flawed. But not as flawed as the attitudes of the religious crowd. As an alleged follower of Jesus, I should offer unconditional grace, but salted with truth. This in the end will attract more people to Jesus than fiery diatribes about gays roasting in hell. But I should be free to believe as I will, and even to publicly say so, as long as I respect the rights and beliefs of others.

But anyway, I thought the video was hysterical. Thanks to Matthew Hogg for posting it!

I hope my mother doesn’t watch this…she has a Honduran green. The skit goes a little flat once the customer is offered a replacement though.

Stop motion version of the classic game, complete with human sound effects.

Wodka, Whisky or Wum?, originally uploaded by aaronernestoortizlopez.

Mangled spanglish is everywhere in Latin America. This is a shot of a restaurant menu in García, Nuevo León. The sign outside boasted of a regional “bufeet”.

I was a bit surprised to see the poll results from Saturday’s “Happiness is Contagious” article. 24% of participants were very unhappy, scoring low in all 4 questions. The rest averaged 50%.

So please stop moping about and get out there. Enjoy yourself this week with whomever you like. Watch a comedy; get some belly laughs. Practice faith; it produces hope. Take some time to work on your self image: exercise, or dress better or simply smile a lot!

Image by CARF, used with a Creative Commons license

Just when we thought Bush comedic moments were over, we hit the jackpot! Nikita Krushchev once removed a shoe and banged it on his desk at the United Nations general assembly to protest a Philippine delegate’s speech. But this, I think will be more memorable: Bush ducking to avoid an enraged reporter’s shoes, who shouted: “Consider this a goodbye kiss from the Iraqui people, you Dog!”

As you probably have read elsewhere today, this is the ultimate worst insult in Muslim culture. If Bush had continued in office, I bet his security detail would ask reporters to remove their shoes next time he spoke at a press conference. I doubt Obama would need that.

Those shoes are now worth thousands on Ebay.

Monty Python has bravely set up a channel on YouTube where we can watch our favorite sketches for free. Of course, they beg us to buy their stuff too. Many would be ex-pirates have been waiting for something like this ever since the DMCA takedown wars begun. And there was much rejoicing.

I find them hilarious, sometimes revolting, and bordering blasphemy, but better than much of the vomit that Hollywood is now passing off as comedy.

According to Wikipedia, “the collective noun for baboons is commonly troop or congress”. Not very flattering to the military or legislators ain’t it?

Image from the Wikimedia Commons, used with a Creative Commons license<7p>

Youtube has increasingly become a favorite place to listen to music, and as such, a thorn in the flesh of greedy RIAA henchpersons. Gotta be PC you know (henchmen, hench-women, hench-children?, etc …). A few days after anyone uploads anything worth watching or listening to—that isn’t a commercial, of course—it will be taken down.

In response to this, MTV recently launched a video streaming site, mtvmusic.com, with thousands of music videos which can’t be seen (legally) anywhere else in the internet.

Funnily or eerily, take your pick, MTV decided to censor out the words “Morpheus”, “Grokster”, “Limewire” and “KaZaA” from their video of Wierd Al Yancovic’s ridiculous anthem “Don’t Download This Song”. What were they thinking!? Scorching and flattening irony!

Speaking of iron and magnetism, Lars Ulrich, Metallica’s drummer, is specifically mentioned in the lyrics because of his outspoken opposition to music piracy, and his subsequent lampooning on the utterly distasteful cartoon cesspool, South Park. Note the smiling sharks at the end of Yankovic’s video, and this explanation of why they’re there.

My favorite part of the song, barely audible at the very end, is when Yankovic says “You cheap b*****d”! Al, you’re my hero.

Source, this Techdirt article

There are Microsoft daemons lurking in the background of a friend’s MacBook Pro. Could it be the reason his keyboard and trackpad suddenly stopped working?

Some twisted Unix system programmer decided to call background services daemons; the name stuck, and spread to Linux and Mac OS X, which are Unix-based . But nowhere is the name so well applied as with background Windows “services”: they chain any computer’s performance to the ground, and suck the life out of any poor foolish soul that merely wants to use their computer.