Endemic
Tuesday 23rd December 2003
Yes, it's a new What's New. The title has switched to the arguable antithesis of the last one. Because this distressing syndrome, fortunately or not, is less ubiquitous. Although it still qualifies, after a fashion, as a Spam of the Day.
When I got home tonight, A) my damned porchlight was burned out, which made it much, much fun unlocking the damned door; and B) this hideous fucking thing happened to be roughly in the way of the damned lock:
![]() Goody, goody; just what I was hoping to get for giftmas: bestselling fucking fiction. And a candle and assorted fruit. This is one of the reasons I'm less than giddy to have people living on my planet.
This requires some feedback. Lucky for me, this waste of bloody trees contains a font totally indecypherable by OCR software. So this'll take a minute to transcribe.... On behalf of Pastors Rodney M. & Trina D. Hamer
and the Abiding Faith Christian Center [sic] family
We would like to say
"Merry Christmas" to you and your family;
This [sic] is truly a wonderful time of the year.
A time that all over the world you will find people celebrating this day with the giving and receiving of gifts among family and friends.
Have you ever wondered how this tradition started?
It started with the giving of a single precious gift given to the whole world.
It was the gift of eternal life given to who ever [sic] will [sic] receive it.
John 3:16 in the bible says "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life."
You may ask, what was he given for?
The answer is found in Romans 5:19, "For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners,...[sic]", Because [sic] of the disobedience of one man, we were all thrown into sin.
Roman [sic] 6:23 tells us "For the wages of sin is [sic] death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.". [sic]
Wages are something that is [sic, again] owed someone for work or service rendered.
As a sinner, our [sic] wages will be eternal separation from God in the lake of fire.
This is what the bible means, when it says the wages of sin is [sic, yet again] death, that is, eternal separation from God because of our sinful nature. [sic]
But notice, [sic] that it also says the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Now remember, a gift is something that we freely receive like we do on Christmas.
Someone else pays the price for the gift, we just freely receive it.
So in the same way God paid for the gift of eternal life, with the price of his Son Jesus Christ.
Romans 5:8 says, "But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while [sic] we were sinners, Christ died for us."
You see, Jesus paid the price for the gift of eternal life that is being offered to you now;
all you have to do is receive it.
My friend,
would you like to recieve the free gift of eternal life now, then all you have to do is receive it.
John 1:12 says, "But as many received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name."
Romans 10:9-10 says "That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart, that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
For with the heart, one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth, confession is made unto salvation."
Notice that it said the moment you confess with your mouth what you believe in your heart, you will be saved.
It means you can receive your free gift of eternal life right now!!!
(TO RECEIVE THE FREE GIFT OF ETERNAL LIFE PRAY THIS PRAYER ON THE OTHER SIDE) J
Dear God, I'm a sinner and my wages of being a sinner is [sic, ever yet the fuck again] death, that is, eternal separation in hell from you.
But you said in the bible that if I would confess Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior [sic] in my heart that [sic] I would be saved.
I accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior [sic again] and I believe, in my heart, that you raised Him from the dead for me.
Therefore, I am now saved according to the Word because I believe in my heart, and confess with my mouth Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. [sic; now we're nearly tied with 'wages is' for number of fuckups in a single spam]
AMEN!!!
******************************************************
(If you have prayed this prayer I want to welcome you to the family of God.
Please write to us, and come to the address below and tell us the great news.
We will be glad to hear from you.)
*****************************************************
Abiding Faith Christian Center [sic, again]; 1009 S. Uvalda; Aurora, Colorado 80012
Sundays at 10:00AM In [sic] the Aurora Hills Middle School
On [sic] Mississippi between Uvalda & Troy
Mailing address is: Abiding Faith Christian Center; [sic for the third time; 'wages is' has some stiff competition here] P.O. Box 200114; Aurora Co [sic] 80220-0114
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Well, that was kinda like fun. But different.
In other news...oh who am I kidding. In other news, I've been playing CivilisationIII all week. Between this and HalfLife, I may have to start paying attention to the Game of the Year winners from now on. Sure, the graphics have all the depth of a Commodore64 game, and the AI is barely smarter than any given baptist; but it's oddly addictive. Waste the forty bucks on it; the best copy I've found on BitTorrent has missing .ini files which crash not only the game but the whole computer; also, they kinda prevent you from saving your progress at all. One warning, if you haven't played it yet: the game starts out by leaping through centuries beginning [infuriatingly enough] in BC4000 [four years after the alleged beginning of the universe--more on that in a minute] and catching up to the first century in a matter of minutes; but, by the eighteenth century or so, the game has slowed down to just about realtime. I've got one game currently sitting in the middle of AD1870 which I gave up on for a bit, since I've got enough M1Abrahms and little slaveworker guys to lock up the whole map for an hour at a time as they scurry about like theists in a rainstorm. Still: fun game; just a suggestion.
About the myth regarding the beginning of the universe. In the middle of the seventeenth century, James Ussher calculated out the timeframes involved in the lifespans of the characters in the bible based on when they'd been begotten by each other. Or something. Not really an easy trick, since a lot of them have kids at unspecified ages, and simply adding up all the ages is useless, since their lifetimes would overlap here and there. But anyway, this simpleton decided, after all that, that the world and the universe orbiting it [biblically lying--erm--speaking] had been created on 23rd October BC4004.
Yay.
Let's play a game. It involves math.
There was never a year zero. I know, I know: a dangerous percentage of morons are still convinced that the twenty-first century began on Saturday 1st January 2000, but it didn't. Mathematically speaking. It actually began on Monday 1st January 2001.
The first year of the first century began on Monday 1st January AD1. That's a given. The calendar resets itself perfectly every four hundred years; that's the largest complete cycle it has.
Without a year zero, the day before Monday 1st January AD1 was, logically, Sunday 31st December BC1. BC1, interestingly, would have been a leapyear. Because, again, there was no year zero.
So. 1st January BC was a Saturday. Therefore, 1st Jaunary BC4001 was a Saturday. Every four hundred years; ten iterations in a row. Right? Good.
BC4002 began on a Friday; BC4003 began on a Thursday; BC4004 began on a Wednesday. It wasn't a leapyear.
Since 1st January BC4004 was a Wednesday, 1st October BC4004 was a Wednesday too. And so was 22nd October BC4004.
23rd October BC4004 was a Thursday. The first day.
Friday 24th October, the second day.
Saturday 25th October, the third.
Sunday the 26th, the fourth.
Monday the 27th, the fifth.
Tuesday the 28th, the sixth.
Wednesday. 29th October BC4004. The seventh. The sabbath.
In the event that some christian fraud ever tries to tell you that Ussher proved scientifically as fact that the world was created on 23rd October BC4004, let it know that, by the same 'fact', the sabbath is a Wednesday, not a Saturday. Or, since it's a christian who can't even work out why 'Sabbath' and 'Saturday' both start with 'Sa-', that it was also never a fucking Sunday.
This is the shit I come up with while I'm waiting for all the tanks and droids to get done hopping all over the planet in 1870 in Civ3. It's not totally counterproductive....
But it's close.
More later....
--Gremlin