I had to go to the Christian bookstore today to purchase something for my Halloween costume. I went as a contemporary young adults pastor—yeah, soul patch and all. I shaved my beard for it. Something I now regret.

While I was in the store looking for my overpriced, oversized wooden and hemp cross necklace, I observed some of the product brandings. Here’s a couple:

For three transgressions and for four God would not stay the judgment pronounced on seven different peoples. But on only one of them God was angry for the injury to himself.

In the first two chapters of Amos, God pronounces judgment on Gaza, Damascus, Edom, the Ammonites, Tyre, Moab.

But to Israel he says this (Amos 2:6-7):

    "For three transgressions of Israel,
   and for four, I will not revoke the punishment,
because they sell the righteous for silver,
   and the needy for a pair of sandals—
…

a man and his father go in to the same girl,
   so that my holy name is profaned”

I had to stop and think about this. It was specifically the people called by God’s name that their sin not only stood in its own as a heinous crime. But was much worse than that. Their sin was actually profanity against God’s holiness.

Today, when the people called by God’s name fail to emulate his character to the broken world around them it’s not only a bitter failure, but it’s a caustic reflection of God himself. The church’s abhorrent behavior toward each other and the world is many people’s only picture of God.

Is it any wonder they don’t listen to us?

Okay, so it may be that this post is dramatically off topic from the normal posting genre, but I like to support good, quality business men and women whenever I can.

I know I may belong to a minority of people who like hookah enough to actually buy the stuff. But, if you do, I have this little piece of advice for you. When the time comes to buy coals, shisha or a new pipe, I must suggest that you make your purchase from HookahJohn.com.

Hookahjohn.com is run by John and his wife out of their home in California. You’ll notice that most of the product photographs seem to be take in a kitchen or garage. That’s probably because they’re taken in a kitchen or garage.

After placing an order, I received a call from John to let me know he was packing up my order but had to upgrade one of my components because the other one was out of stock. No complaint here!

John is also an active member of the web forum hookahpro.com. All in all, it makes for a very positive, personal shopping experience. I couldn’t recommend it more highly.

A friend on Facebook posted this article by Cathy Young on Salon.com. The article does a good job in presenting the arguments for and against men’s rights in the case of abortion. In fact, she does it much better than I probably could. So I won’t be expanding on much. But I did have some thoughts I wanted to share.

If you read this blog on the regular, you know that I am, without a doubt, a pro-life advocate. I’m a pro-lifer less on spiritual grounds and more on scientific ones. It doesn’t take long for the fetus inside of a woman to be a real, living person. Albeit, not one that can live on it’s own yet, but then again, neither is a one year old—yet, we wouldn’t terminate those when they become a logistical problem. At least not without major legal recourse.

A big deciding factor in the argument about women’s right to an abortion is that she should be free to terminate the pregnancy if she’s not ready to be a mother (financially, mentally, or otherwise). Of course, that’s not the only reason women have abortions, but I’m betting it’s the most prominent.

As a pro-lifer, I strongly believe men and women should take responsibility for their choices. If someone makes a bad financial decision and loses everything, the government doesn’t bale them out. It’s understood that sex makes children. In fact, from a totally biological standpoint, that’s really all it does. Sure, we enjoy it, but that’s kind of a nice side effect. So, in the question of whether or not abortion should be legal, I say ‘no’, siding with the government defending the child’s right to live (as it does for all the rest of its citizens), and enforcing responsibility for actions affecting other citizens (like it might in a small claims court between a local business and a scorned customer).

But that’s not really the current legal atmosphere. While I don’t agree with it, I agree even less with the illogical imbalance that exists instead.

Women are free to abort unwanted children for pretty much any reason. The most common probably being that raising a child simply isn’t viable—or simply inconvenient. After making a choice to engage sexually with another person, a woman can later decide against the lasting consequences. And the law defends that right. Men, other the hand have no such ability.

Men who choose to engage in sex have to make the choice prior to intercourse whether or not they’re ready for a child. Whether they like it or not, they may be forced to live with the consequences of their decision (financially at least).

Granted, men don’t have to carry a child to term, they may have to surrender huge portions of their income for the next 21 years. Men working in a steam-fitting factory, for example, could probably argue that the extra work necessary to make a living is just as straining as the nine difficult months of carrying a child.

What I find the most compelling about this is that, even though it doesn’t really make that much sense, the different parties know that changing the legislation could very well be the slippery slope that leads to abortions being outlawed. If men are required to take responsibility for their decisions, why then are women not?

Cathy Young puts it this way:

“…while paternal desertion is often cited as evidence of male irresponsibility and selfishness, more than a million American women every year walk away from the burdens of motherhood.”

While I strongly disagree with the legislation that allows for millions of babies to be terminated, it adds insult to injury that the legislation doesn’t even pass its own test for logic and reason.

Puritan Author George Downame writes:

“Too much friendship makes way for hatred. Yea, in truth there is no enmity so dangerous as that which has its foundations upon the ruins of love. And as in nature, the purest substance is turned into the most loathsome corruption; so the hottest love, which has no other ground but carnal respect, degenerates oftentimes into the most deadly and hurtful enmity… A traitor is much more dangerous than a professed enemy.”

When I read this, I had to sit back and say, “huh.”

Downame is discussing Christians’ casual friendships unbelievers. Although I think I disagree with his conclusion, the points he makes leading up to it are, at the least, thought provoking.

There are only one or two people (that I know of) who really don’t like me. Not bloodthirst or anything. But in the world of civilized living, it’s up there. All of them were, at one time, very close friends. The love that existed in the friendship unquestionably is the fuel that keeps the continuing enmity alive.

I can even see in my own life and behavior. To my shame, close friends who scorned me in some particularly devastating way received far worse in return than any stranger might have.

But in a larger sense, I think it’s seen most clearly in the relationships cultivated and ultimately destroyed by the Church.

I wager that there aren’t very many people who stand in opposition to the church who weren’t at one point part of the church. In fact, science and Christianity may be a perfect example of this.

Christian societies played a huge part in many of the first major scientific advances by encouraging the research. This is because Christianity holds that God created a natural system which, if studied, all fits together and makes sense. Unlike other religions which attribute existence to God, but not a natural order.

But look where things are now?

I think the commands to “Live at peace with everyone,” have more intention than we might think at first.

To continue briefly in yesterday’s line of discussion (last time, I promise!), here is a short video from the grand opening of the first Microsoft retail store. Look familiar? Lets just say, ‘case and point’.

(Can’t see it? Watch the video at YouTube)

Let me take a brief detour from the type of thing I normally write about here to talk about something else. Before I start, I will say that I don’t write as a pro-Mac user (although I am one), I write as an anti-Microsoft user. In other words, Mac or not, I don’t care. My agenda is not for Mac, it’s against Microsoft. That’s it.

Microsoft is a terrible company, making mediocre products, continuing to exist solely because of it’s size—and the user ends up suffering for it.

With the exception of the xBox 360, Microsoft has never made a truly top-notch product. Most have been passable, but always playing catch up to competitors technology. But because of it’s visibility and novice user’s lack of operating system options in the PC marketplace, no one realizes it.

Did people stick with Windows XP for ten years because it was the best? Definitely not. It’s just all that was really available. Meanwhile, developers for Linux suits and Mac OS were continually putting out enhancements to its software to improve user experience. Of course, Linux is filling a smaller, lesser known market. It was happening nonetheless.

So how come in a competition based economy, the inferior product Microsoft makes is able to stand? I submit that it’s about 80% size.

Think of it like the thick-headed quarterback on a small town high-school football team. Even though he’s dumb and for all intents and purposes shouldn’t be passing his classes, he is because he’s the quarterback.

With its usual line of products, Windows should’ve fallen behind and off the map a long time ago. But because if the size of the company and its resources, it isn’t able to fail. Meaning Microsoft never really has to work to develop a truly great product because it’s never really in danger of losing to another business. Instead, they can wait three or four years, take good ideas off other companies, implement them with dazzling mediocrity  and the media will praise them for their innovation.

In this way, it becomes virtually impossible for the novice to average user to get a really great product unless they’re able to pay premium prices for a Mac—which, as much as I love them, is simply out of some people’s price range. This shouldn’t have to be the case. And, if there were real competition, it probably wouldn’t be.

So, come on people, let’s do ourselves a favor and let Microsoft die.