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If Christianity Were Like Public Service

Ronald Huereca
06/29/2006

A person who becomes a public servant is required to place the public’s best interest over their own. A public servant is to be impartial, loyal, disciplined, and unwavering in his or her commitment to a country. In comparison, a Christian is to place the will of God before their own. A Christian (putting it rather simply) is to serve God, and believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus for salvation.^[1]

At first glance, public service and Christianity have little in common. There are some similarities between the two for comparison, however. I intend to point out three similarities and give reasons why Christians are fortunate that Christianity is not like public service in several respects. Continue Reading…

In Need of Suggestions

I am trying to add several new features to my website, but my current design doesn’t have “space” for any more features. In my opinion, the current design is rather cluttered and I’m hoping to break things down and make life easier for any users of my site.

I constructed a new layout for my site, and I’m having second thoughts about it. I’ve created the skeleton. It has room for a logo, a “about this website blurb” at the top, a content pane, and two sidebars where I can organize various blog content. Perhaps you can leave a comment about what you think of the layout?

Thanks!

It’s Just Another Manic Sunday

After church this morning, I decided to cook some baked chicken for lunch. I decided to experiment and combined the chicken (boneless-skinless chicken breast), rice, cream of chicken, chicken broth, potatoes, and various seasonings. I baked the chicken for about an hour and the result turned out pretty good. I can list the recipe if you really want me to. Just leave a comment requesting it.

After lunch/dinner (lunch wasn’t ready until after 3), I decided to watch the last half of The Two Towers. Watching the movie made me want to read the books all over again. It only took me eight months to finish the books!

I started on writing a blog/article entitled “If Christianity Were Like Public Service.” I got past a page and then hit a brick wall. I need to think about what point I’m actually trying to get across.

Tomorrow I turn a quarter of a century old. I don’t feel old, but I also don’t feel young. I remember a joke my college buddy and I used to say.

The cool thing about growing older is that the high school chicks all stay the same.

The older I get, the scarier that joke is.

Rated R Mayhem

I had a thought today about R rated movies. What if a particular movie theater chain was only showing Rated R movies for one night? Would it then be permissible to set up a vulgar protest (swear words and all) on movie theater grounds? My thought was that since the movie goers were going to see swearing, possible sex scenes, violence, or other activity expected from Rated R movies, why couldn’t people outside the theater shout out some swear words?

Sarah then proceeded to rip my argument apart. She said what if people apply the same logic to pornographic theaters? She said it didn’t work for Pee-wee Herman. Sarah also added in a statement about bars. People are allowed to get drunk in bars, but can be arrested for public intoxication and drunk driving once they leave the bar. There was no doubt after her last statement that my initial argument about Rated R movies was toast.

The Bible Says it’s Wrong

Today I was reading the editorial section of a local paper. Within the editorial section was a survey asking random people what they thought about the legality of gay marriages. Two of the people answering the survey gave their reasons behind why they thought gay marriages should be outlawed: because the Bible says gay marriages are wrong.

I’m not here to argue gay marriage, so please don’t bring that up in any comments or trackbacks. What I intend to argue is that it is illogical to claim that something should be illegal or legal based on what the Bible says. Let’s start with some examples and use the United States law as a foundation. Continue Reading…

Random Thoughts on City Stages

Listed below are some of my random thoughts on City Stages. Continue Reading…

City Stages - Sunday

Today was our last day at City Stages. This morning it was really hard to get up. Sarah and I went to sleep around 2am, so we had a good night sleep. I was just really sore and probably needed to sleep two days instead of just six or seven hours.

The first band we saw today was called Beyond Me. The band reminds me a little of a punk band and a hardcore band. The band was awesome and unfortunately they did not have a CD for sale; I would’ve bought their CD. Continue Reading…

City Stages - Saturday

Sarah and I arrived at City Stages at around 12:30pm for our second day of the music festival. The security at the gate wouldn’t allow our cameras or cell phones in, so we had to walk back to our car to put the items away. We found out later that security gave up on trying to stop cameras from getting in. Sarah was mad because she wanted to take lots of pictures. Continue Reading…

City Stages - Friday

Sarah and I left Huntsville at around 1:00pm to go to Birmingham to attend City Stages. I thought I booked a hotel in downtown Birmingham, which would have enabled us to just walk to City Stages. Unfortunately, Google Maps deceived me. Picture 1 shows what my original google maps search turned up. The Comfort Inn was supposed to be in downtown. We searched for about thirty minutes for the hotel. Picture 2 shows the actual location of the Comfort Inn. We finally found it after we called the hotel and asked for directions. Continue Reading…

Calling All Christians to Boycott

Think about the last time you received bad service at a restaurant? Do you remember the circumstances around your bad service? Do you remember the amount of the tip that you left?

Now think about the next day after you received this horrible service. Did you tell your friends not to go to this restaurant because they were also likely to receive bad service? In a way, you were calling on your friends to boycott this particular restaurant.

The term boycott has many definitions, but one such definition is as follows:

Refusing to deal with a person, group, nation, or group of nations so as to punish or show disapproval (Google - define:boycott)

Christians or not, we all have our moral obligations and values. When something conflicts with those values so harshly, we tend to want to change what is causing that conflict. A natural tendency is to take that offense on whom is perceived to be the offender. Continue Reading…

Random Thoughts

Random Thought Process Starts Here

I’m already sick of my web design. I’ve read in many places that the web designers/developers get sick of the web design long before the users of that website. So I beg the question: who are the users of my website? I know of five people that regularly frequent my website. Other than that, it’s random people from Finland, the Philippines, Germany, some school in Wisconsin or Maine… people that just read and leave (or just leave).

I’m not sure what to do with this website anymore. It started off as a virtual junk room where I could just throw a random poem or rant online. Now I actually have some content and I’m not sure what to do with it all. It’s like my website doesn’t particularly have a focus or niche. But does a personal website need focus? Is the focus on me? I don’t want it to be. The users of my website come first, and you can visit the Forums to see this. The Forums are run by me and Cetroyer, but they’re not “ours”. The Forums will die without participation, so we just do what we can to encourage conversation. Continue Reading…

Anxious

I am anxiously awaiting this Friday. What is this Friday, you ask? City Stages of course.

City Stages is a music festival held down in Birmingham, Alabama. We originally were only going there Saturday to see Flyleaf and Yellowcard. Sarah talked me into getting a hotel room for two nights and attending for a full three days. The music festival should be interesting since neither one of us has been to a music festival.

I shall blog further when I return and have some energy. The music festival is from the 16th of June through the 18th. I told Sarah I would consider the festival and our upcoming trip to Six Flags my birthday present.

A Sleepy Evening

The past two nights have consisted of me laying down for a nap at about seven in the evening. My intention is only to sleep twenty minutes or so, but I end up sleeping for hours.

Today I was surfing the Internet right after dinner and could not keep my eyes open. I laid down for a quick nap at around 6:30 or so. I woke up at 11:30p.m. I only had a nice five hour nap! I’ll probably have to take some Benadryl or something in order to not screw up my sleep schedule too much.

I don’t have work tomorrow. I’m not entirely sure what I want to do. I was thinking of writing a Topic of the Week that involved the ways we all communicate. I was also thinking of writing a blog entry comparing Christianity to public service (Government workers). We’ll see :). I may just go on a murderous rampage online (playing Day of Defeat).

Walking on the Eggshells of Morality

When was the last time you felt like going on a murderous rampage? Hopefully never, but I imagine that there are days when you just want to choke the life out of somebody. The thing that keep us from going on our ‘murderous rampage’ and other hateful acts is our sense or morality, or our sense of what’s right and wrong. Any reasonable person will realize that taking someone’s life is inherently wrong. When the issues of right and wrong are out in the open and plain to see, it is easy to make decisions. However, what happens when our sense of morality is clouded or doesn’t happen to fall in line with the societal norm? My wife calls this slip in morality the ripple-effect of consequences. Continue Reading…