All posts by ariah

Blog, podcast

Who should I interview?

Leave a comment

So, I really like the idea of podcasting. I’ve done a few silly one’s but the themes vary a whole lot. There are a couple areas I’d be really interested in doing a podcasting series in, and I’m wondering what you’d think about them.
1) Interviewing Non-Christians about Christians and Christianity. This has always been an area I’m very interested in. One, because most Christians live in a bubble of sorts and never really hear “real live non-Christians” talk about things. Christians often seem to have opinions of the outside world made up entirely on what other Christians have told them (sounds so middle schoolish). Secondly, I’ve found there are a lot of Non-Christians that are quite interested in saying something to Christians collectively. I’ve talked to liberal non-Christians who can’t understand how Christians can name themselves after the radical liberal they see talked about in the Bible (Jesus). I’ve talked to homosexual non-Christians who just want to share how hurt they’ve been by so-called Christians, and ask how they can call their faith “loving.” I’d love to talk to others, and ideally give folks a constructive place to share heartfelt concerns and criticism of Christians in our society.

2. The other series I’d love to do is interviewing businesses and organizations I think are doing things Christians should support. This would include a whole bunch of fair trade clothing companies, something I think is Very important for Christians to be informed about. Also, CSA’s and other local farmers, and other cool organizations I learn about through out the country, or just through out Nashville.

3. Maybe just for podcasting and interviewing practice, I’ll do a series interviewing my friends, spread out across the country, and finding out what their post college experience has been like. (I like this as a starting idea).

Blog

people like me.

1 Comment

When I have time this site is going to change. I’ve talked about writing more and then I haven’t, mainly because I feel an obligation to my subscribers, not to overwhelm anyone with random entries. I think I’ve said this before, and obviously this is not a good start to changing the way I blog.
I’m dabbling in a lot of things I’m interested in, getting organized, technology, business stuff, Christian stuff, politics, etc. I worry if I start writing about all those things then I’ll find I lose a lot of readership. But the turth is I think there are people out there who are like me. Okay, maybe not just like me, but a lot like me.
If you’ve ever watched public television, they’ve got this little ad thing that comes up after every show, brought to you by “Viewers like you.” That’s my inspiration for this blog from here on out. I’m still thinking about my subscribers, but now I’m writing whatever is on my mind, and my readers will be “People like me.”

Alright, that’s all for now, busy week, hopefully I’ll have more time later.

Uncategorized

let the discussion begin

4 Comments

Because of the risk of this subject dying off (It seems like it already has), I’m going to skip to some of the more controversial Bible passages that will hopefully create a bit of discussion. Discussion always, always helps me write better. I’m going to still try and do my best to keep extremely focused on just one passage and one thought on that passage at a time. We will do well to keep our comments and dialog to just that passage and idea (obviously we’ll end up referencing other passages in our arguments though). So, here goes Romans 13.

“Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.”
This is the first verse of the primary passage I hear cited in reference to why we should support the war. The argument I think is that quite simply God has put our president in place and therefore if our governing authorities call for something we should submit (support) it. To a large degree I find no disagreement with this argument. The struggle with this type of thinking for me comes when I start to think about who “Everyone” entails. That means an Iraqi Christian, if called to join the armed forces under Saddam, should join, and support the cause of the governing authority above him. That means the Nazi German soldier’s where simply following this same Scriptural reasoning when they begin killing the Jews. That means if the authorities in this country have deemed abortion as an acceptable practice, Christians should stop protesting Abortion Clinics and instead should be supporting them.

I find difficulty with that train of thinking and I’m sure others do as well. I’m not trying to belittle anyone, or build a straw man case for those who use Romans 13 to support the war, I’m just sharing what I have difficulty with, and I’m wondering how one reconciles those things in their mind.

Blog, considering church

A plug for Buy Nothing Christmas

5 Comments

I always get annoyed at our focus on holidays as seasons go by, so I thought I’d jump the gun and start talking about Christmas before anybody else!

I’ll leave black Friday alone, and ask that we all take a look at Christmas. We live in a very consumeristic culture, and we live on a “everybody else is doing it” mentality. Christmas is a prime example of this.
I’d like for you to think long and hard about the simple possiblity that Buying Nothing on the holidays this year might be an incredibly wise thing for you to do.

That’s all for now, I’ll leave you with a short little video interview talking about buy nothing Christmas.

Blog

Lifehacker.com

Leave a comment

my new best friend and favorite website. I read a lot of informational blogs, and most of them I find about one in 8 or less of the articles worth looking further into. When I read through lifehacker I seem to open a new tab for every post!

This probably says more about my interest then anything else, but I say it’s worth a look around.

Blog

Cellphone Conspiracy

3 Comments

So, I don’t have my very own cellphone, but my wife recently got one. We’ve been trying to keep good track of her minutes so we don’t get charged tons of extra money. During this careful attention to minutes I realized something.

You know all those automated instructions that nearly everyone has on their voice mail, “To leave a message press “1”…” My thought is that the phone companies do that so that it takes over one minute to leave a message. They double your minutes usage right there!

Besides the fact that rarely does anyone do anything besides leave a message, those who want to do the other things usually know how to.

So, To all my friends and family, take a minute this weekend and go through the complicated admin menus on your phone and figure out how to take off the instructions on your voicemail message. We have sprint and it wasn’t too hard.

That’s my two cents.

And do me a favor and post what cell phone company you use and what steps you took to get rid of that annoying message.

Blog, podcast

On Simple Living and living “a dollar above” the poverty line

2 Comments

This podcast I brought a guest speaker in, Nate Manaen, all the way from Las Vegas (He joins us in the study, from inside my cellphone). The topic being discussed was originally brought about by some post Nate put on his Xanga a week ago. You can read his two post and some of the comments here: post 1, post 2.

Here is the podcast.

Please post your comments and thoughts below or on my xanga or Nate’s.

p.s. If your an audio junky, get the quality downloads here.