Star Wars Dark Disciple review

I would like to start off by saying that I ultimately liked the book. Quinlan Vos is my favorite Jedi so the fact that he was added back to the canon in such a big way was great. The book includes a great deal of mystery and unexpected events.

It seemed like the story was trying to blend Ventress’ and Vos’ Dark Horse stories together with Khaleen being replaced with Ventress. Ultimately I liked the change as Khaleen was kind of one dimensional and never really understood why Vos fell for her.

They brought Ventress’ origin back into the canon which was cool. I also liked her character in this novel and the relationship she has with Quinlan is one to remember.

I am about to go into a few of the disappointments with the novel, but again, I would like to remind you I did like the book and am glad it came out. It will include a lot of spoilers so beware.

My biggest problem with the story was the lack of struggle found in the Dark Horse story. I never felt any sense that Quinlan was struggling between light and dark at all. He was either one or the other with no in between. He went from Jedi Master who was having feelings he could not identify for Ventress to abandoning the Jedi Order and wanting to live the rest of his life with her in about the span of one paragraph.

I really felt like Vos was a victim of his emotions in the novel. He had zero control. In the Dark Horse story, he was constantly struggling with how far was too far and inched his way to the Dark side and back, but in this novel it really seemed like he abandoned the Light side the second he touched the Dark side and just did whatever anyone told him. It did not seem like he was a Jedi Master, more like a Jedi Knight or a Padawan.

Another piece that is almost laughable is a topic I joke about any time I read about a Jedi falling in love. They really should tell Jedi the truth about why Jedi should not fall in love. It is not about attachment, it is because someone WILL DIE. I have read many Star Wars novels and it is an instant death sentence for someone as soon as they confess feelings for anyone in a romantic way.

Sadly, there was one exception to this rule up until now. Quinlan Vos and Khaleen got a happily ever after… but like Disney fixed Sleeping Beauty’s parents (being the only Disney Princess with living parents) in Malificent, Disney has now fixed Vos’ happily ever after.

Seriously guys, you cannot find another way to end a relationship without killing one of them? Let’s change it up every once in a while, okay?

Gay marriage: Don't be a bigot.

Bigot: a person who is intolerant toward those holding different opinions.

I'm going to start this off by saying I am not opposed to the Supreme Court's decision to legalize gay marriage in all 50 states. The decision does not really affect me.

But what does affect me are all of the bigots on both sides of this issue. Yes, you can be a bigot and be for gay marriage. All of the hate posts and slander I have seen from both sides today shows me that there are an abundance of bigots on both sides.

I was blocked by someone today when I pointed out that not everyone on the anti-gay marriage side is an uneducated bigot. We would do much better in our posts today if we stop for a minute and remember that the person on the other side of the political spectrum is not an ignorant uneducated hater. They probably just have a different opinion.

So if you feel that everyone who was against gay marriage is an ignorant fool, you, my friend, are a bigot. In reality, both sides are very educated on the topic, they just hold different opinions.

This is America. Let us just say what our opinion is and that we disagree with the other side and vote on it. NO INSULTS NEEDED. It only makes your side look bad.

A.D. The Bible Continues review

A little background about me (just a tiny bit, I promise), I love to study the early church and have read many historical works from the time of Jesus and through the first few centuries of Christianity. So the history found in A.D. The Bible Continues is something that fancies me so it was impossible for me not to watch this show.

I love it! I'm caught up to "Saul's Return" and have found it phenomenal.

But I have been asked how historically accurate it is. The answer to that is it is mostly historically accurate. There are a few discrepancies and I'll discuss a few in a minute, but it is important to note that the show is 90% not historical, but fiction derived from the history. There is only about 10% history referenced at all in the show. The rest is an adventurous fiction derived from the history (like most historical fiction is).

There are so many things I like about the fiction they have created surrounding the history. If you read Josephus or Tacitus or even Acts, there is very little emotion expressed in those writings. It is clear they are meant to record history. This show is not meant to tell history as if it were a documentary. It is meant to express the emotion felt during that time and I believe it is doing a great job of it!

The rivalry between Saul and Peter was so well done. The tension in Jerusalem from the Roman presence, Pilate and Caiaphas and their wives, it really makes it all so personal. The persecution of the early church coupled with its growth. How the apostles probably did a lot of hiding from the authorities. It's a great show.

So now that I talk about the small things I don't like or wish they had done differently, do not let them keep you from watching it. It is still a good show.

The few discrepancies I have seen are small and mostly (but not entirely) insignificant. They do show several appearances of Jesus, but it was far less than what is recorded. Jesus only appears to the disciples a few times in the show before his Ascension, but according to Acts 1:3 Jesus appears to them seemingly many times over the period of 40 days (over a month!) to speak with them and eat with them. They could have had Jesus be a regular character for 2-3 episodes before the ascension.

Another is that on the third day, Jesus did not just appear to the apostles, he appeared to the disciples who fled. They mentioned the members who fled in the show but they didn't mention or show that Jesus appeared to them on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24:13-35. I could have seen a very cool episode where this happens to the disciples that fled and how the returned to Peter and the apostles afterward. Though from a tv stand point, that's more actors and probably would have cost more money in casting, so I can understand why that may have not made the cut for the show.

But one of the coolest things they could have easily done was the appearance to the 500. In 1 Corinthians 15:6, Paul recites possibly the earliest Christian creed which includes Jesus' appearance to more than 500 people at once. It does seem to be in order so it had to have occurred before Paul's conversion. The perfect time to do that would have been after Peter and Paul's debate in front of the believers camp. Having Jesus appear to the camp after Paul's exit would have been such a great time to do that. I think they really missed an opportunity there.

Those are what I'd consider the most significant. The other small things that are completely inconsequential are they have Peter's wife dying prior to the resurrection. Early church historians however record Peter's wife living long after the resurrection and eventually being martyred shortly before Peter himself is. I think they did this to show a sense of sacrifice in Peter on the show.

The emperor did die in bed and it is recorded that his successor did kill him, but it was certainly not in Jerusalem. Though I'm glad they did it that way. Learning of the Emperor's death through a letter would have been way less dramatic.

It's Hollywood so we can't expect them to cast unattractive people but Paul was probably short and bald. Though the guy they cast is really good at displaying Paul's fervor.

These things are minor compared to the things they do have right. They are really getting across the might and arrogance of Rome, the steadfast devotion of the Jews to the Temple, Pilate's cruelty, Caiaphas self righteousness. So bravo to them. I look forward to the coming episodes!

Why I became a Creationist.

I mostly want to tell this because speaking with many who are not Creationists has shown a great many prejudices of me that simply are not true. Most believe all Creationists are anti-science and run around shouting "God dun it" to any question they are asked. Some believe Creationists are not curious about the universe and all things in it and do not seek answers to hard questions. In fact, it surprises some to learn that I believed fully in evolution until I was 17 years old.

The honest truth is though I was raised in the Bible Belt, I had never even heard of Creationism until late in my teens. I never even knew there was an alternative view other than evolution. I remember asking my mom in my tweens how evolution produced Adam and Eve. She was far from an apologist at the time and her unsure answer did not satisfy my curiosity.

Throughout my up bringing, I was always interested in the sciences. Astronomy was my strong suit and I always did really well in those classes, even getting an award in high school for highest academic performance in Astronomy my junior year. Star Trek fueled this.

Being a sci-fi geek always pushed me to study various sciences and certainly colored my beliefs in things such as extraterrestrial life and of course evolution. But at this time, I honestly did not even know it was a controversial topic. I just wanted to know more.

The more I dug into the sciences like Astronomy and Biology, the more I started seeing a pattern. The classes I took in these subjects skipped mountains of details. I started to learn how many questions science raised about evolution and how many things biologists disagreed on. How do you disagree on a scientific finding? Apparently, it is quite common.

I started learning that the closer you get to the details, the more questionable the science was. And it was then that I learned that scientists are human. There was no magic formula to display evolution. It was almost all educated guessing. The worst part is that it was educated guessing stacked on top of educated guessing. It was a giant house of cards and if any of these educated guesses were not true, the whole thing would come tumbling down. And then I learned that it already had.

There is no single point of evolution that all scientists agree on. Does that seem weird? I know of no scientist arguing for a different formula to calculate gravity, yet evolution is a flexible science such that scientists can disagree with each other on every single point.

So then I started looking at their track record. How many times have we discovered a living fossil and how many times did that living fossil confirm of deny their hypothesis about it? There are several cases of living fossils and someone can correct me on this if I am wrong, but I have yet to read about one that they accurately predicted things about these animals.

It was science that drove me away from evolution. It seemed that while science can do a great job of predicting the future, it seemed pretty poor at predicting the past. I really just stopped believing we could have a sure answer on the past using what science we know.

At this time, I was wandering around a Family Christian bookstore and saw a book called "Science and the Bible". I had never even thought of these two as something that could be put together so it intrigued me. I bought it and read it.

I would not have labeled myself a Creationist after reading that book, but it certainly confirmed a lot of my beliefs that science was not a good predictor of past events. The other hypothesis presented in the book were intriguing but like evolutionary science, it was little more than a hypothesis.

I find Creationist hypothesis fascinating and I love to read their scientific findings, but they honestly are not why I am a Creationist. They can no more prove Creationism than science can prove or disprove Evolution. Origin science simply is too plastic and too much guessing for anyone to say anything for certain using what science we know.

I am a Creationist because Jesus is. After finding out how unsure our science is, I decided to reference the man who sacrificed himself for his creation and I would take on his point of view.

“Haven’t you read,” he replied, “that at the beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female...'" -Matthew 19:4

I do not think anyone would argue that billions of years later is the beginning of anything. Jesus clearly believed the literal Genesis account of creation and since he knows more than me, I will trust him.

This is not anti-science. I am a big fan of science and I have studied this topic a great deal over the past 15 years or so and I have yet to find any solid science that contradicts the literal Genesis account. If you believe there is some, let me know, I am more than willing to have a dialog about the topic.

 

Can someone that does not know Jesus be saved?

In the Christian world, many times a question is asked among skeptics and believers both. The scenario usually goes along the lines of, what about the man who never hears about Jesus? Can he be saved? This can vary from being general to being more specific about a tribe on an island that no one has ever visited.

More realistically we can consider the few "uncontacted peoples" of the world. There are a few known tribes of people in the world who are "uncontacted" meaning no one outside of their tribe has ever spoken or met anyone in their tribe in possibly thousands of years.

There is no quick answer to this question and anyone who tries to give a quick answer, I question their studies.

But I do want to discuss the first quick answer that many Christians give as a default. Many will say one cannot be saved at all unless they believe in Jesus and possibly siting Acts 16:31, Romans 10:9, Mark 16:16, and John 12:46. All of these verses have a common theme and that is to describe that if you believe in Jesus, you will be saved.

These verses are certainly important for establishing that those who accept Jesus' sacrifice as their means of salvation are guaranteed 100% admission into Heaven. However, that is not the end of the story. We cannot believe all that is said about salvation can be summed up in those few sentences.

So then the question is raised, are all who believe in Jesus saved? To this, I will refer to Jesus:

Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ -Matthew 7:21-23

Let's keep in mind who these people are. These people were able to drive out demons and perform miracles and prophesied. They certainly believed Jesus existed and believed in his power. But when Jesus sends them to Hell, they instantly point to their own deeds to save them. They wanted their own goodness to be worthy of Heaven. Even though they knew of Jesus and his authority, they missed something vital. What was it?

They were missing humility. Their first response should not have been "but we did all these good things!" It should have been, "but your grace was supposed to save us!" Their response shows they did not have faith in Jesus' sacrifice, they had faith in their own deeds.

I am sure some of you are wondering how this ties into the people who do not know Jesus at all, but stick with me.

This points to the very first criteria of salvation. I find it funny that it's kind of the first step in a 12 step program. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have one. Similarly, the first step to salvation is admitting that we need it.

This is actually more widely known and accepted than most realize. While I am not an endorser of the sinner's prayer, the first line of it is "I know I am a sinner." This line is it. It is the prompting of the Holy Spirit to recognize we are bad people. We do not need the Bible to recognize we are bad. No one has to tell us how good God is for us to recognize how bad we are (though the second thing that happens when you do realize how good God is, is to recognize how bad we are).

Jesus seems to suggest this very thing when He is questioned by the pharisees.

When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” -Matthew 9:11-13

And again Jesus tells of a man justified when says:

To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

“But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

“I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” Luke 18:9-14

Jesus says here about a tax collector who the only thing he did was confess he was a sinner, that he went home justified.

Jesus does not call the religious or the strong or the patriotic. He calls the down trodden, the poor, and the sinner. None of these things are specific to ethnicity or religion or creed. Jesus does not care about your background, He cares that you know you need Him.

So let us dig a little further. Can a person be saved without knowing Jesus? While a knee jerk response to say "no", no Christian truly believes that. I know because all Christians believe Abraham and Moses are in Heaven (because Jesus says so). They did not know Jesus. Had they known his name, they would have surely recorded it. Had they known exactly what He would do, they would have told us more specifically. But they did not. They knew they would be saved and that faith was credited to them as righteousness, not their deeds (Romans 4).

So now we know that people can be saved who did not know Jesus. So how do we know these people know God? It is from the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit came, he prompts people (everyone in the world without discretion) to do the following things:

When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned. - John 16:8-11

When a person (anyone at all regardless of their ethnicity or religion) is convicted of their sin or wrong doing and humbles themselves to admit they are a bad person, they are following the prompting of the Holy Spirit, of God himself. To over simplify it, they are listening to God.

I believe anyone who listens to this prompting and truly understands that they are not worthy of any kind of reward and deserve punishment for their wrong doing, will find Jesus' grace.

Do not in anyway misunderstand what I am saying. We cannot and will not be saved without Jesus' grace but I do not believe you need to know Jesus' name to receive his grace.

So then the question usually follows, what is the point of evangelism if people who do not know Jesus can be saved? However, hopefully it is pretty obvious by now what that answer is.

What a miserable existence it would be to follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit and recognize how sinful and wretched we are and never get beyond that. How horrible to live one's whole life knowing he has done wrong and live in guilt his entire life without knowing God has sent his own Son to save him. And that is why we evangelize. That is why we bring the Good News to the world!

Jesus' message has always been to the poor in spirit and the down trodden and the sinner. The arrogant and righteous have always opposed Jesus and will continue to. Some have even tried to use Jesus' name to prove their own righteous deeds. I'm usually reminded of those who spend their time pointing out other people's sins without ever acknowledging their own.

I believe their are Muslims who believe they are sinners and unworthy. Despite the fact that Muslims teach a salvation based on works, there are many who know they cannot and will not live up to such standards and there are many who would never acknowledge such a failing. For those who do acknowledge they cannot earn their salvation and are miserable and unrighteous I believe that Jesus will comfort them at the end of their lives as He has been calling them the whole time. To them who do believe they are worthy, Jesus is more than willing to let them try. But so far the track record of people who have worked their way into Heaven is not good.

Indiana's Freedom of Religion law is good and bad.

When I read about the new law, I felt initially that it's sad that a law like this needs to exist and I was sad for the people that are going to abuse it.

When people started suing businesses for not participating in gay marriage I definitely felt like they were infringing on their freedom of religion. But this new law includes not serving them at a restaurant. To me that is certainly not a biblical thing to do.

Any Christian should be willing to serve all sinners of any kind in their business. There is a difference though when a business is supporting an event. If I owned a bakery I would have no issue serving and selling anything in my store to a homosexual couple, but if they wanted me to make a cake to celebrate their marriage, I would refuse.

As a Christian I don't feel that would be serving them at all but rather being a part of encouraging them to continue down a sinful road. It would be the same as making a cake for a husband's mistress celebrating 2 years of adultery.

So while I feel most of the law is good, I definitely don't like that they can refuse to serve them at all in a restaurant if they are gay. If that's the case then they should ban all sinners from their restaurant and then they'd go out of business.

Hopefully it is either not abused or reformed. Though honestly, I'd rather see Christians sued for refusing service than to see Christians kicking people out of their restaurant because they're sinners.

Update: A bill is now in the works to clarify that businesses will not be able to refuse service to anyone.

http://m.hannity.com/articles/news-476261/audio-gov-pence-on-religious-freedom-13459250/

nVidia Shield console brings Android into the gamer realm.

I have read a lot of criticism of the new nVidia Shield console this morning, but nothing I read was very concerning. It was mostly people comparing Shield to previous attempts at entering the console realm and immediately dismissing it.

What they missed was the fact that this Android console will have launch titles that appear on the current gen consoles (notably Borderlands Prequel). Not a dumbed down version, but the same version you would get on the PS4 or Xbox One. This means the console has the same capabilities as current gen consoles at a significant discount.

The $199 price tag sold everyone. Nintendo can't even hit that price point. But what is really going to make this succeed is the games on it. Nvidia has a close relationship with all of the big name game developers so when they release this console, you know they had some big names up on the stage. They hit some beautiful games from the FPS, RPG, and puzzle genres. Running Crysis 3 really put it over the top. Can it run Crysis? 3? Yes, and at 4k resolution! This was not a Grid stream, it was playing it straight off the device.

So does it have games? Yes and in abundance.

It is also running Android TV which means it has access to the Play Store and also their Shield Store (which looked a lot like the Play Store). This also opens it up to much hackery. Android TV can install APKs which opens it up to just about anything people want to install on it.

It has two USB 3.0 ports along with an SD Card expansion to allow virtually unlimited storage. I, personally, have a USB 3.0 500gb HDD just waiting to be hooked up to it. This is extremely important for this console because it is disk-less and will download all games to it. Current gen games can be greater than 10gb a piece easily so the stock 16gb will obviously not be enough.

In addition to that, it will also come with access to Grid. This is nVidia's version of cloud gaming and it looks great in theory. I should point out that I truly believe cloud gaming is the future of gaming. Instead of 1 teraflop of current gen console's power, Grid offers a platform with 5 teraflops. I cannot even think of a PC that can touch those speeds. The "PC Master Race" is dwarfed by Grid capabilities. The only problem is, it streams.

Grid is an amazing service that works flawlessly. The problem is the same cannot be said for my ISP. I already get throttled for using Netflix too much, streaming Grid games will only make it worse. When Google finally gets to my area and I can use them for an ISP, this will be perfect, but until then, it will remain a future dream.

One thing I found interesting is that almost every developer who stated they were porting their games to Grid (games like Batman Arkham Knight and other yet to be released games) they said they were also porting it to a downloadable game for the Shield also. So most of the upcoming games that will be on Grid will also be available for download via the Shield Store or Play Store.

The Android gaming revolution begins this May. Welcome to a new free and open gaming choice with no holds barred development. This riding on the heals of Unreal Engine 4 becoming a free Engine and Valve's Source 2, this year should bring some extremely cool things.

UPDATE: Notable features not mentioned in the presentation are that it is confirmed to have NVIDIA GameStream to stream your PC games to it. It also has an IR blaster to control your TV and Receiver.