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Another Sunday...
Another church service...
Another awesome sermon!

I'm going to try to recall everything he talked about... He was mostly moved to talk on the subject of proving the accuracy of the New Testament, and debunking this stupid "Da Vinci Code" that's suddenly become best-seller and is attempting to (as many have done in the past) blast away the foundation of Christianity.

He did some recapping first. He told about how a group of 19th century germans started to claim that the Old Testament was written long after it was said to have been written, and the prophecies describing Jesus were added after he was born. Well, people started picking up on that and said 'hey! you're right!'. Well, that proved to be a false claim... since God led a goat shepherd to a set of caves near the Dead Sea. Inside these caves were scrolls. Lots of scrolls. These scrolls contained the oldest known copies of various books of the Old Testament. In fact, every single one of them was there, minus the Book of Esther.

These scrolls were dated to be written far, far, far before Jesus was born. The time of discrediting the Old Testament's accuracy was over, for not only were they as old as they always were believed to be by Christians, but upon translation, our modern Bibles were nearly word for word accurate. They say the there was a 99.75% accuracy.

Alright, the "scholars" said. Fine! The Old Testament is irrefutably written when they said it was written. But, secretly, they decided to now attack the New Testament, since it was really the only thing they had left. The books written after Jesus was born.

Which leads to one of the major things brought to light in the Da Vinci Code... the fact that they claim that some roman emperor (or at least someone in power, I forget the name, I wish I remembered but he lived around 300AD) changed the New Testament books and fiddled with what they said to make Jesus fulfill the Old Testament prophecies, and that, therefore, Jesus wasn't really the prophecied messiah.

Alright. So now they're saying the New Testament was compiled 300 years AFTER Jesus "supposedly" resurrected himself and rose up into Heaven, and that the facts were twisted by powerful leaders of the time to make Jesus look like he was the real deal.

Fortunately, one very common mistake that most people ignore is that the oldest known transcripts for the New Testament are dated at around 100AD. That's right. A full 200 years before the man they claim compiled the New Testament was even born, much less in power.

There are thousands and thousands of accurate copies (99.75% as in... mostly misprinted letters) of the New Testament books scattered all over the place... and guess what? They are word for word accurately translated to Bibles we have today. So it's pretty much what happened when they tried to discredit the Old Testament... It turns out that the documents they're trying to discredit really ARE as old as they claim to be, and therefore completely nullify any arguements that our Bibles are inaccurate and tampered with.

In fact, there are records of quoted scriptures in letters of that time. Early Christian preachers would send letters to each other, and just... you know, write! Using quotes from the works of preachers of that time alone... if the New Testament books were to somehow disappear... it would be possible to restore the ENTIRE New Testament, minus about 15 to 20 verses. From the writings of early preachers... which predate our oldest known New Testament documents.

TW asked me the other week or so about how we know the Bible wasn't tampered with... and good old Mister Faull (that's our preacher) decided to cover it all today in an hour. He's awesome.

Now... our Bibles are accurate and translated from the original transcripts. Now... is it historical? Heheh, ask most scientists and you'll get an emphatic "no!" I'll show you something here in a second that should get you thinking about that.

See, there's a sort of "margin for error" that they used with these old transcripts and scrolls. There's the time they believe the original transcript was written, and then there's the time they date the oldest known transcript. Because you know, even back then, people would copy books to keep available... and then the more transcripts you found, the more you could test accuracy, and that it wasn't some... random event.

There are several documents that are accepted as accurate history by the entire planet. The one my preacher used as an example was the writings of Thucydides, Tacitus and a few others. They all have the accuracy stamp of approval by scholars, and are all accepted history.

Thucydides' works were claimed to have been written around 460 to 400BC. The oldest known transcript of his writings are dated at about 900AD. That's a 1300 year gap, and there are only 8 known "original copies".

Tacitus' works were claimed to have been written around 100AD. The oldest known transcript of his writings are dated at about 1100AD. That's a 1000 year gap, and there are only 20 known "original copies".

The New Testament was claimed to have been written around 60AD. The oldest known transcript of the writings are dated at about 100AD, with evidence of being quoted at earlier years. That's a whopping 40 year gap, and there are... wait for it... five thousand six hundred known "original copies".

The thing here is that with only a 40 year gap between when it was originally written and the dated transcripts we have... and with Christianity in such full-force at this time... people were extremely diligent and attentive about what was the real New Testament and what was the fake. In fact, some of the original writers could have still been alive during the copy of the 100AD transcripts (they say the Apostle John was). The point here is that it would have been impossible to make faked copies during this time and have nobody notice. If there were any fakes during this time, they would have easily been identified and tossed out of circulation with a big warning to everyone else.

How can they accept Thucydides and Tacitus and other as undisputed historical documents, when there are more New Testament transcripts dated FAR CLOSER TO THE YEAR OF THE CLAIMED ORIGINAL WRITING and say 'oh, nope... New Testament isn't real'. They've even got transcripts of the roman army asking their superiors what to do about the rabid Christian problem. "Hey, these Christians... we keep killing them, but they keep coming! What do we do?!"

One other major flaw in the Da Vinci Code's attacks on Christianity... they're attacking the wrong New Testament. That's right. The Da Vinci Code pull quotes from something called the Gnostic Gospels, which were written around 300 to 400AD. Not only do these gospels blatantly contradict prophecies in the Old Testament, but they claim to have been written by the people who lived during Jesus' life... and, last I checked, he went to Heaven far before 300AD, and thus I'm sure those who lived during this time also didn't live until 300AD.

In a nutshell, the Gnostic Gospels contradicts the Old Testament (heck, and even itself) when the REAL New Testament never ever contradicts itself (or the Old Testament). The Gnostic Gospels were claimed to have been written by people who lived WITH Jesus... 200 years after they had DIED. Think there's something wrong with that? Well, that's because the Gnostic Gospels are fake... But some people say they're the true New Testament anyway.

So I guess, in reality, the Da Vinci Code is attacking the accuracy of a faked Bible... but is purposely presented in a way to attempt to disprove Christianity as a whole. It's trying to debunk real Christianity, and most people who just have no clue what I've just written here are going to go along with what the novel and movie says and say 'wow, Christians are stupid'.

So... this is probably the longest and deepest thing I've ever written here. I hope it's sparked something in the minds of those of you who aren't Christians, and uplifted and energized those who are.

...on a final note, here's a list of websites I used to help me remember and refine what I heard at church this morning:

Are the Biblical Documents Reliable?
Manuscript Evidence for Superior New Testament Reliability
Reliability of the New Testament Text

From the Slashdot article:

Gamasutra has an article on Keita Takahashi's reaction to the Revolution controller. From the article: "Takahashi commented of the Revolution, which has drawn widespread praise for its underlying concepts from other Eastern and Western designers: 'I'm not really interested in it. I don't think a controller should have that much influence on the enjoyment of games.' He continued: 'I see what [Nintendo is] trying to do, but they're putting such emphasis on the controller; 'Woah, this controller lets you do this!' and I'm thinking - are you messing with us?'"

Majority reaction is that this is crazy talk.
He doesn't think controllers should influence the enjoyment of a game?!
He must not have played many... you know... games. Not even his own.

Maybe Takahashi is mad because the Revolution's new controller doesn't have any joysticks.
That means no Katamari Damacy-like games on the new uber-leet controller.

I'm sooo disappointed. (Not really.)

From the Slashdot article:

It's not Windows. It's not distro wars. Sometimes it's just the arrogant attitude that keeps people from switching from Windows. 'As I spoke to newbies, one Windows user who wanted to learn about Linux shared the encouraging and constructive note (not) he received from one of the project members. The responding note read: "Hi jackass, RTFM and stop wasting our time trying to help you children learn."

As they say in the World of Warcraft forums: QFT (Quoted for Truth)

Mac is also the same way. There are few Mac users I know who aren't all high and mighty and "holier-than-thou", so to speak, in how they discuss such things with you. Ya'know what? I really don't care if you think that, but don't go blasting it all in our faces or we'll just keep on ignoring Apple and keep using "horrible Windoze".

Everyone approaches us Windows users with "you HAVE to be use this because it IS the best"... you should approach us with "you really oughta try this because it's better at this". Not that saying that will work, either, mind ya'... but it sure is better than going "haha, you use Windows noob. You need to use OS X, it's way better than the trash you're using".

It's not just that Windows people are stuck up and WON'T change... nobody will change unless there's a good reason to, and even then, nobody will change if there's not going to be any help. It's just good manners not to be snobby and elite... and it's just plain ol' idiotic to be snobby and elite when you want people to USE your stuff.

Ed did this, and so will I... since I'm a copycat. Er... dog. Copydog. ...looks like corndog.
Mmm... corndogs.

A rather fitting description, ya'know. Nocturnal Warfare, teehee.
"GermanShepherd" was too long to use...

There once was a Tauren Warrior named Draconim.
He was a happy Tauren. He was very strong. He was in his 31st season.

One day, Draconim decided to adventure in a dark desert called Desolace.
All his friends told him that Desolace was very dangerous.
But Draconim knew he was very strong and he didn't listen to them.

Draconim found a place called Ethel Rethor.
It was a big, big mage tower built upon a big, big rock on a beach.
Draconim thought it would be worth looking at.

Draconim walked and walked toward the big, big tower.
In front of the big tower, he saw a big cat.
The cat was black and had moon patterns on its shoulder fur.

The big cat was a Druid. Her name was Kittari.
Kittari was very strong, too. She was in her 35th season.

Kittari saw Draconim a long time before he saw her.
She was watching him. She wanted to see what he would do.
She knew she was stronger than Draconim.

Draconim waved at Kittari.
Kittari stood still and watched.
She didn't want to fight.

Draconim thought he was stronger than Kittari.
He walked very carefully behind Kittari... and hit her.
"Maybe I can beat her!" He thought.

But Kittari didn't like being hit, so she hit back.
She hit a whole lot harder than Draconim.

Draconim hit and hit and hit and Kittari started running away!
He followed and hit her a special way to make her stop running.
But Kittari used magic to make her hurts go away.

Poor Draconim didn't expect that.
He tried to still beat Kittari, but Kittari could not be beaten anymore.
Kittari beat Draconim really bad.

Draconim was a bad, bad Tauren. He wanted to be big and strong.
He wanted to hurt Kittari even though she didn't do anything to him.
He wanted to show off and beat the strong Druid... but he couldn't.

He was a bully, and nobody likes a bully.

Oh man...

I was poking around in iTunes, adding a few more of my favorite music to the My Top Rated playlist. Earlier today I said to myself "you know, I don't have any Lord of the Rings music on this". So that's what I did... I added Lord of the Rings music.

That, in itself, isn't really interesting...

But I got to the grand finale song "Into the West" and played it, not quite remembering what it sounded like... and then a horrific flood of emotions hit me the SECOND the music started playing, it was almost unreal... I immediately recalled the announcement of Uru Live's failure and it's subsequent closure. Then I remembered that I'd played this song constantly throughout that whole fiasco.

I assign things to music like that... it's subconcious almost, but I still do it. I remember a certain Enya music track that I was having trouble reading from the CD, so when I got it ripped off the disc, I played it incessantly for a while, since it was being such a pain... but while I was playing that, I also discovered the an amazing Wheel of Time MUD. So now whenever I play that song, I remember exactly what I did in the MUD... weird.

Anyway... I'll never be able to listen to "Into the West" without remembering everything I went through during Uru Live's closing. ...and that really makes me sad beyond description. I probably won't listen to this song much anymore, fwee.

It gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling when I, a little 35 Druid, can be just enough of a nuisance to allow higher level players to take down Horde Rogues.

You see, Rogues have a technique (some say abused) that allows them to disappear and enter a stealth mode DURING combat. No other class has that ability, and it allows Rogues to slip away before they're killed. It can be very annoying, since they'll use this technique to kill you in a protected area, and then disappear in front of the guards who will very much overwhelm the Rogue. (As Blizzard intended.)

Anyway... Druids have a technique that prevents the target from entering their stealth modes. It's called Faerie Fire. Not only does it force the target to remain visible for the duration, but it also negates some of their armor points, making them much more vulnerable to physical attacks.

Which brings me to the point of this post.

It makes me feel useful at my level when I cast Faerie Fire on a highest level possible Rogue... and it sticks. (Sometimes they can resist spells, but Farie Fire lands a lot of time.) This is usually during a skirmish of a few Horde and a few Alliance. Rogues can make or break a victory, since they can disappear and then pulverize unsuspecting victims at will.

There was a make-shift group of us killing Horde in a very contested area between the Alliance town Southshore and the Horde-corrupted town Tarren Mill. Very high level people. I was by far, the weakest of the bunch... but I had a spell called Entangling Roots (which stopped many a fleeing Horde and allowed my buddies to finish them off) and, of course, Faerie Fire... the ultimate anti-rogue spell.

There was a rogue and a warrior, I think, who were initially causing problems. So I followed the yells, so to speak, and found where they were fighting! The rogue, naturally, was vanishing during fights to run away and heal up before attacking again. But I caught him with Faerie Fire... several times, bwahaha. It's always refreshing when you see them attempt to vanish (there's a special move they do to do that) and still remain visible... they always stand there for a moment, wondering what the heck happened, before they fight against sudden impossible odds. He died... several times. Because of me! Yay!

...and then there was the occasional fleeing warrior or hunter that mysteriously found himself rooted to the ground, unable to move, with 5 extremely strong Alliance players suddenly catching up to him.

Ahh, I love PvP.