I was very honored to get to preach this past Sunday, and I'm looking forward to Eric's sermon in two weeks. I realized again how true it is that the best way to learn is to teach. We're doing a very serious Bible study of Acts in Bible class, and of course we're all getting to know Luke. On top of that, getting to do a sermon means I have to really search the Scriptures. So it is all very educating and fulfilling. I'm glad that the church puts such an emphasis on Bible study and the fact that faith comes from hearing the word of God. They really stick to the Bible.
Sunday, we went out for a while, and I got to go through the Islamic Arts Museum. It was every bit as good as I had hoped. As I'm trying to work on a novel set in a kind of Persian/Islamic culture, the museum was really inspiring. I love seeing such old artifacts. Highlights included archer's rings, intricately carved ceramic water filters, horse blankets, weapons (includings some rather mean looking push-daggers), beautifully crafted old legal documents and marriage certificates painted and made with gold foil, etc. I also got to learn alot more about the background of Muslims. I saw a story book for Muslim children, and it was about the first man. It basically read, in the beginning Allah created man from the dust, and he named him Adam. I am surprised Muslims and Christians look at each other as so foreign, when so many of our beliefs are the same or similar.
At KL tower, I got to fly across a zipline high over the road twice for about $5 or $6. It was well worth it, as I've never traveled in quite that manner before. We need ziplines from the hill to the library...seriously...it would work.
So as usual, we're having fun and working hard. There will be so many inside jokes by the time we get back that you guys won't want the four of us to be together.
Peace and best wishes to all,
Brad
posted by TehCh0c0late1!11 @ 7:53 PM
9 Comments:
I too have often wondered about the animosity between the two. From what I have gathered talking to muslim believers the first big split occurs in their account of Abraham's sacrifice of his son. By their tradition it was Ishmael who was almost sacrificed and Allah stopped him. But from there I don't really know much else. The only time I've tried to read the quran(sp) I've only ended up more confused.
islamic arts museum...i'm jealous
http://www.natreformassn.org/statesman/02/confislm.html
http://www.natreformassn.org/statesman/02/confislm.html
So David, how's that monkey-picked tea? I'm still going to do some searching in Hong Kong for cool teas. It really keep me going on reading days when I drink it too.
Jason, where are you and what are you up to?
I'm waiting a little while before I buy monkey-picked tea. We'll have to make an Atlanta run sometime in the fall when you get back. There's a store there where many delicious teas can be purchased by the cup or in larger quantities. I'm savoring some Gyokuro Imperial right now. It's very strog green tea. It's also very green! They employ some sort of process where most of the chlorophyll stays in the leaf. Very tasty chlorophyll... Mmmmmm....
I forgot to mention that I came to a couple realizations as I was driving the trucks around at work the past couple of nights. The first is for Eric: There's not alot to it and it's really quite useless. (Not to mention that it's likely been discovered and discarded many times before.) If you subtract the square root of a perfect square from the number (1-PS) the result is always a prime number. Wierd and useless! Also it struck me as I was staring at the full moon that as I'm seeing the big bright moon you guys are getting your mid-day sun because of the ~12hr difference. Essentially we are sharing the same sunlight! With a slight delay of course to account for the extra distance the light has to travel past the earth to the moon and back to the earth before I see it... That is all.
By that, I'm assuming you mean (x*x)-x-1. If not, then I have no clue what you're saying. Anyway, I had to check this out, and the results were a bit disappointing. You can see some pretty cool patterns, though. So here's what I did: on some sort of writing surface, write the numbers 1 to whatever. I chose 30. To the side, write the corresponding prime (3:5, 4:11, 5:19, 6:29...). Go back and write out (to the side) all the prime numbers between the two values.
Eventually you see some of the so-called primes are not
(13:155, 15:209, 18:305). Sorry, David.
OOoohhhh!! I should have gone higher in checking my numbers... It seems it only works up to a point, then it's hit or miss. Back to the drawing board. Or in my case a tractor-trailer. THanks, Eric.
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