Do the three Abrahamic religions have the same god? For the longest time, I always assumed they did. When I got to thinking about it yesterday (in an effort to stay awake during a particularly long and pointless meeting), Jesus just had to throw a withered fig tree into my automated thought process. Jews, Christians, and Moslems may all serve the god of Abraham, but the Christian trinity makes it a bit awkward. They consider God and Jesus one and the same. Moslems consider him a prophet, while Jews consider him naught but a rabble-rouser (well, there are Messianic Jews, but for the sake of my laziness, let's ignore them). I started to think my initial thought was wrong. Jews and Moslems had God-with-a-capital-G and Christians had their different God-Jesus-Ghost amalgamation. Only a little different, but still different.
I was about to happily leave it at that, but I still had several hours left in the meeting. Numbers began to leak into my thinking (dammit!). The god of Abraham essentially equals infinite. He is infinitely loving, infinitely jealous, infinitely bored, infinitely creating a list of things He is infinitely, &c. God = ∞. Now, Christianity essentially separates, or divides, God into three equal parts. Everyone knows that if you divide infinity by three, you get three equal infinites: ∞/3 = 3∞. If you multiply infinity by three, you get another full infinity, which we shall assign to the variable ass. 3∞ = ∞ = ass. All and all, the god of Christianity, represented by ass, is the same as the Jewish and Moslem god. To put it simply, God = ass (maybe I should change that variable... oh well, too late). Maybe the Abrahamic gods are the same?
Of course, if God was a number, I'd have a significantly easier time wrapping my head around Him. Unfortunately, most do not consider God a number, so I just tricked you into reading a worthless paragraph, ha! (sorry) The question still remains, though: are they all the same? I'm extremely tempted to say that the Jewish and Moslem god equates to the "father" division of the trinity, but this makes Christianity sound polytheistic, which I'm sure would cause much weeping and teeth gnashing in the Christian camp.
All of this is beyond my knowledge. I'm requesting anyone who is more learned in theology to assist in this "simple" question: is the god of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam the same [and why]? Arguments are welcome, but, please, no hitting below the belt (i.e. calling one's mother a hamster, relating one's father's smell to that of elderberries, &c.).
"In the Beginning, the Universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry and has been widely regarded as a bad move." - Douglas Adams
I've been doing quite a few gaming posts, haven't I? Well, toughen up, because here comes another one with my thoughts on some of the games presented at this year's Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3).
Nintendo - Not much on the Zelda front this time around. We got a somewhat new video for Spirit Tracks, but it seems Nintendo was very busy with presenting its newest additions to the Mario franchise: a sequel to Super Mario Galaxy and a new New Super Mario Bros. Having loved the originals of both of these, I'm really looking forward to them. I rather wish New New Super Mario Bros. went the way of Megaman 9 with some retro graphics, but that's just a trifle. My only real gripe with this announcement is that each of them will have Yoshi playing a role, which could only be smoothed out if they offered free Prozac with each game copy. Also on the Nintendo block was a new Metroid game co-developed with Team Ninja. I never really cared for any of the Metroid games, so I will reserve comment.
Assassin's Creed 2 - I loved the first Assassin's Creed. It was fun, engrossing, and best of all it took place during the Crusades, which was one of my favorite times in history. This game looks to build on that success, but I remain hesitant. First of all, it removes the series from the Crusades, which is a big no-no for me. The Renaissance is cool and all, but it has nothing on the Crusades. It also appears to have a sickening case of trying to do too much at once. All of a sudden you have two blades, can steal any weapon, and a hang-glider that, unlike the first game's horse, seems to play less a transportation role and more an active one. Also, making it so guards can actually spot you when you're hiding seems like they are sacrificing fun for realism. I remember GTA4 making the same sacrifice and hating it for it. I only hope they can prove me wrong.
Uncharted 2 - I hated the first Uncharted, so this game can buck off straight to Hell for all I care.
The Last Guardian - Remember Ico? Of course you don't, but I sure do. It was one of the greatest games to come out on the PS2, and you bastards probably never played it. Well, the creators of Ico are coming out with another game, and it looks great. You are a character that dresses a lot like the aforementioned game's titular character, and you team up with a giant cat-rat-chihuahua-bird amalgamation in order to explore (escape?) a big castle. Oh Team Ico, you sure do excite me (swoon~).
No More Heroes 2 - Here is another game I have been looking forward to for too long. The last game ended with a cliffhanger, and finally news about it is spreading. The gameplay footage is exciting, features pimps throwing hookers at you, phallic humor, and gets me pumped for the... 2010 release!? DAMMIT!
The Beatles: Rock Band - Honestly, I haven't played any of the music games that came with full band packs. I stopped with Guitar Hero 3. This game featuring The Beatles has me excited, though. I figure if I'm going to invest all of that money on a glorified karaoke machine, it may as well have some music I actually enjoy singing to.
Bayonetta - A librarian with guns strapped to her high heels kicking monster ass? Yes, please!
On an aside, I just picked up The Sims 3, so posts may be few and far between for a couple of days.
Why is it that in this country, where elitism is considered such a dirty word, most office environments do not allow jeans? My best guess is that most management types do not consider jeans "professional". That line of thought is, of course, completely silly. I like to think of myself as an everyman. Since I consider myself as an everyman, I represent every single person on the planet. That said, my jeans drawer is divided into two classes of jeans: work jeans and regular jeans. When management made this asinine protocol, they must have only considered the former group, and that's understandable. I wear my work jeans for all manners of tasks from gardening, to car maintenance, to eating tomato soup (a particularly dirty task). As a result, they are fading, have tears, and grass stains that would require a virgin sacrifice to the volcano gods just to remove.
On the other hand, I do have my nicer, regular jeans. They are just as comfortable, just not as ravaged. These are the kind of jeans you would wear when relaxing at home or eating at a pseudo-fancy restaurant like Olive Garden. With a nice button-down shirt, or even a polo shirt, a person can look right spiffy. It should be perfectly acceptable to wear these regular jeans to work. This would cause a huge increase in morale, lower heating costs in the cooler months, and may even decrease the number of managers being killed by disgruntled employees.
I suppose it might hurt productivity among men and lesbians, though. Allowing jeans in the work place may encourage some female coworkers to wear rather snug jeans, which would, depending on the woman, encourage either lascivious behavior or self ocular mutilation among those inclined towards women.
It is time to delve deep into the bowels of your pop culture memory and guess who this character is. The title of this post offers the only hint you're going to get. Hopefully you won't feel too embarrassed with yourself once you guess correctly.
Friends, as of yesterday, I have officially reached the age of 21. Sure, chronologically, I became 21 several months ago, but yesterday felt like my rite of passage. You see, yesterday I purchased my first can of beer. I marched right in there, picked it from the shelf, showed my ID, and walked out feeling manly. Granted, the beer was to bait a slug trap to keep them from eating my petunias, but that's beside the point. The point is that I was old enough to legally purchase it and finally did so. I'm so proud of myself (not that I have any shortage of pride).
"Without question, the greatest invention in the history of mankind is beer. Oh, I grant you that the wheel was also a fine invention, but the wheel does not go nearly as well with pizza." - Dave Barry
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