Everything everybody does on purpose is selfish. There is always something to gain from it. What about saving a relative? Done because you want to see them again, and also self-satisfaction, being proud. A stranger? Again, self-satisfaction, for doing such a (supposedly) unselfish act. What about getting mad and suddenly exploding? Releasing built-up anger, relieving tension. Writing these ideas down? Saving myself the trouble of trying to remember a lost thought, easier way to share ideas, and killing boredom.
I try to be open minded and not to dismiss anything without considering the possibility of it being true first.
I once watched a show on Fox called When Cars Attack. It was showed cars that drove themselves. At the end of the show, they revealed that it was entirely fictional. I was very disappointed, because I actually believed that cars could move on their own.
Today I watched the season finale of The Osbournes. At the end of the episode they showed the cue cards for Ozzy’s lines, letting me know that the show wasn’t a reality show.
As in Judaism, sacrifice is an important element in Christianity. As Christianity has its roots in Judaism, Christianity shares many of Judaism’s sacrificial elements. There are, however, fundamental differences in the way Christians see sacrifice.
As followers of Jesus, Christians will necessarily follow many ways of the Jews, including their sacrificial rituals. During Passover, Hebrews reminisce their liberation from Egypt by eating lamb. Jesus, being a Jew himself, followed that tradition up to the Last Supper, which was a Passover meal.
During the Last Supper, Jesus announced that he was going to be betrayed by one of his disciples. Soon afterwards he was crucified. Many Christians view the crucifixion happening during Passover as no coincidence—Jesus sacrificed himself as the traditional lamb so that all of humanity will be liberated of their sins, clearing their way to return to God.
Judaism has many priests. “As the … priest changes from time to time, so we get changes in style and character, and emphasis, and in some ways the new man is better than the last one, and in other ways he is not as good. Each have their own strengths and weaknesses. Not only was and is the priesthood imperfect, it was also interrupted by death. There are many priests, because no one priest can live forever.” (http://biblepilgrim.com/mtor/priesthoodjesus.htm)
Judaism has many priests, each with their own individuality. This causes Judaism to be led differently every time a priest dies and is replaced.
In Christianity, Jesus is the one high priest. This is because Jesus is believed to live forever and will forever be their high priest. “…but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.” (Hebrews 7:24–25)
By having Christians always follow Jesus, Christianity can be kept “on track.” (There is, of course, still the problem of inaccurate translations and changes in languages that affect the Bible itself, not to mention different interpretations of the Bible that oppress or neglect certain groups, such as women, homosexuals, blacks, and little boys. One of the more extreme examples would be the Ku Klux Klan’s interpretation of the Bible.)
Baptism is another way in which Christians sacrifice. The act of putting a person underwater and then pulling her or him out is symbolic of death, and then life. “The concept of baptism is encapsulated in the word immersion. To be baptized is to be immersed in something, whether it be in repentance, in sanctification, in the Holy Spirit, in the body of Messiah, in suffering, in death, or in water. In whatever form it is manifested, it represents a complete surrender to God, to his will and his Word.” (http://www.restorationfoundation.org/volume_4/4217.htm)
The Scriptures tell of the story of how God commanded Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac:
Some time later God tested Abraham. He said to him, ‘Abraham!’ ‘Here I am,’ he replied. Then God said, ‘Take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the region of Moriah. Sacrifice him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains I will tell you about.’ (Gen. 22)
When Abraham was on the verge of killing Isaac, he had proven his faith to God. God then told him to stop. Instead, Abraham was given a ram and told to go home.
Many Christians are still doing sacrifices, though not by merely using an animal. Many Christians now work hard and sacrifice a portion of their salary to their local church as a token of good will, known as tithing. Priests can, in turn, use what others’ have toiled for and sacrifice it upon their own cars. What they need, they can make more by opening new churches. (This cynical outlook is not without cause. A friend’s mom owns a car repair shop, which priests frequent. When presented with the cost of the repairs, one response was along the lines of, “It’s okay. We’re opening a church soon, so I’ll have the money to pay for the repairs.”)
Some forms of Christianity mandate monetary sacrifice, while others merely “suggest” it. More noble and ideal Christians may only perform sacrificial rituals involving time and effort, such as helping out at a soup kitchen or converting some poor godless tribes in Africa.
Sacrifice is very prevalent in Christianity, in no small part due to its relationship to Judaism. Practicing Christians all sacrifice in one way or another. Sometimes they are symbolic, as during baptisms, while other times they are very literal.
A while back I e-mailed HSBC because their site kept on sending me to a JSP error page whenever I used an “alternative” browser. (This was probably not a page they should send to the user—lots of juicy information for the crackers amongst us.) Their response was, “At this time, HSBC’s Internet Banking service does not support Konqueror for on-line access. The service requires Java, JavaScript, SSL 2.0/3.0, 128bit encryption and cookies to be enabled in order to access the service correctly.”
I don’t see Java anywhere on the site, and I can use their site with JavaScript disabled. Any browser that supports cookies and HTTPS should be able to handle the transactions.
I don’t like letting the world know what browser I use, so I have the UserAgent disabled. Unfortunately, this is unexpected and sends me to the aforementioned error page. After much trial-and-error, I’ve narrowed down the minimum UserAgent to ‘???/ ( )’. (The question marks can be any characters.)
Aside from their UserAgent checks, HSBC also has several checks for their customers’ usernames and passwords.
The username has to be at least eight characters long, while the password can be a maximum of eight characters long. (Shouldn’t it be the other way around?)
The username seems to be case insensitive, while the password is. (They employ JavaScript to convert the username to all caps when logging in, but with JavaScript disabled, it still works. Odd.)
Both usernames and passwords are limited to being alphanumeric characters. They cannot contain spaces or any other characters, sadly. I guess this is one step up from the four numeric digit pin numbers ATMs use, though.
I find it disturbing that my money is handled by this kind of software.