Jesus Freaks: DC Talk and the Voice of the Martyrs
The title of this book is very appropriate. Open the cover and you'll find yourself in the utter places of darkness in other's lives and see their real hope, Jesus Christ, come alive. These are true stories of how Christ has openly and physically worked in the lives of people who have been murdered for their faith in Jesus. I highly recommend this book to anyone, especially those who profess the name of Jesus Christ. It will give you strength to see just how real Christ works both today and forevermore!
'Christianity in Crisis' by Hank Hanegraaff
Hank is a great author as the beginning of the book catches your attention like few do. After he gets your attention (a very scary tale) he then leads you through the bushes in order to understand where a lot of 'false' prophets are getting their misplaced ammoe in the Bible.
His points are right on and deeply felt. The seemingly limitless quantity of quotations by these twisters of scripture (false prophets) are mind baffling! People like Herbert W. Armstrong, Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Frederick Price, and many more are quoted in this book. It really helps you understand what is really going on in the 'name it and claim it' pocket areas of the church.
The Subtle Power of Spiritual Abuse by David Johnson
Anyone, and I mean anyone in a Christian church needs to read this. It was handed to me by someone who grew up in a cult as they learned how to cope with the utterly crushing culture they were engulfed in. This book has implications of some of the most common abuse in the Chrstian church today. Obviously not all churches suffer these issues and we are all human, but this book is a huge help for those who are experiencing manipulation and one man's rhetoric (some preachers) in your church body.
-Charles
A Shattered Visage: The Real Face of Atheism by Ravi Zacharias
This book is quite a deep read. For those of us with a limited vocubulary, get a dictionary. Be prepared though, to learn concepts of today's culture that are true and directly applicable to our lives. Ravi is such a powerful author/speaker and the world has a brighter light now because of him.
Good to Great by Jim Collins
A must read for anyone desiring to succeed in any area of life. The principles of a Hedghog concept and who is 'on the bus' are extremely powerful. This book is so successful and popular that many of its ideas are now becoming cliche. The author Jim Collins and his staff of researchers really fight hard to come up with concepts from existing successful businesses. They first define meticulously what businesses have gone from 'good' to 'great' then interview their past leaders, employees, read thousands of articles, and more in order to bring a great analysis of what it means to go from good to great. One spoiler you'll read in chapter 1; good is enemy of great...
Waking the Dead & Wild at Heart by John Eldredge
I'm covering two books simultaneously in this short review. Ever wondered why your faith seems to be empty in certain areas of life? The book Waking the Dead opens the subject of why we sometimes don't 'feel' our faith, or 'feel' like we are conquering in the name of Jesus. A great book by a great author.
His other book Wild at Heart was an amazing ride through some of the subjects that plague men today; what does it mean to be a man?
Common Sense by Thomas Paine
A great quick read in understanding some of the ideas behind the Constitution and challenging thoughts of their day. Thomas Paine and others like him were much more educated than most who come out of todays educational institutions. They wrote with great understanding, humility, and tact that is lack in our current society. I highly recommend this book for anyone who loves American history or history in general; very enjoyable read.
Yep, this is the book '1984' by George Orwell. He seemed to be a strange fellow and this book pulled out of more of his 'strangeness' than others I think. It was an extremely dark book with a very powerful message though. I do not recommend this one for children. The author writes with extreme honesty in one's mind through the perils of a society controlled by extreme communism. (spoiler alert) He writes to show the basic premise that if the leaders of a society can keep their followers in a crazy cycle (controlled insanity) then the followers will never be able to group themselves long enough to form a revolt. The followers will also be used for the ongoing manufacturing and production for the leaders of that society. Like I said, very dark, very honest, but very probable in how a group of people could be led. He seems to be a slight expert in psychology with some of his major points that he mixes with political science.
Not a short read
Anyone curious about some of the ideas that were floating around in the heads of the political theorists back in the 40s and 50s? This is a great read that captures a lot of those ideas in conversations and shows that our current political ideas are not 'new', but are quite regurgitated. It is a long read, but due to her writing style it goes by fairly quickly. Ayn Rand gets her ideas across through the countless plot lines, which continue to stack as you read. Be prepared to use your brain as you wrestle with the ideas that she brings up through the various plot lines.
Now for some argumentative comments
I absolutely agree with her political theories, but disagree with the humanist view of morality. Just my two cents, but I think that she probably had a lot of contact with more liberal views of Christianity to come to some of her conclusions about 'the mystics' as she calls them. She seems to concrete all of the mystics together as pushing a socialist theme, but does give some subtle hints in the book later of some of the Christians not going for it. Todays more conservative view in Christianity would agree with her 'enjoyment' of life while not asking government to have a greater role in running everything. They (Conservative Christians) would point more to having the responsibility of taking care of others to the church, not the government, who will force their way upon the public once given the power and not give the power back...ever. Either way the book is a very fun adventure that will definitely make you use think twice about what is said and that is always a plus.
A Movie?
Are they going to make an Atlas Shrugged movie? Well, probably not. There will most likely be a TV series spanning all of the stories in the book. This makes the most sense as there is almost 60 hours in the audio book alone. If they even attempted to do a movie they would not be able to capture the main idea of the book very well. I think she kept it long in order to ensure that you saturate the ideas well before you finish the book and move onto something else.
I encourage the reading of the book with one warning that this is not a 'Christian' book by any means and that is alright. Her frozen frame of the society's arguments in her day in comparison with our arguments today will shock you. I'm still stunned to know how much of our political arguments are not new.
This is a list of some of the best free software you must have if you have a Mac and are in business...more so the website designer.
GimpGimp is primarily used for editing photographs. It takes a little while to get used to where all of the tools are and how they work, but after that you are on your way.
Neo OfficeNeo Office is primarily an office suite to help you from downloading anything made by Microsoft. It opens Word extensions and even includes a database program.
Ink Scape
InkScape is a vector graphics drawing program. It does more than that, but it makes a lot of illustration work very easy. Be sure to go to youtube.com and search for tutorials.
Text WranglerI am somewhat new to Text Wrangler as I am just now learning html, css, javascript, etc, but I am extremely impressed how it works. It is simple text editor, but it allows you to hold open multiple files in the same viewer and easily access your other files quickly while keeping your work area clean.
Time Out
Timeout is an alarm of sorts. When you turn it on it reminds you to 'time out' and take a break from looking at your computer screen. This is absolutely necessary for anyone spending any period of time on a computer.
Time TrackerIf you want an absolutely wonderful, simple, time tracking system for anything Time Tracker is it. Designed with the Mac OS in mind with supreme simplicity and ease of use I highly recommend it. I use it because I work on so many different projects, but you could use it to track anything. You might like trying to track how much time it took you to work on a research paper to help forecast your next projects or you were curious how long you really spent on Facebook. Either way the price is right (free) and the software is amazing, so check it out!
Fire Fox
I'm sure everyone has heard of FireFox by now, but if you have not download it on the link above. I love Safari, but I use FireFox when I am working on projects that require me to use two different browsers at the same time.
SafariI still love Safari. Sometimes you get websites that just don't look right and it may just be your browser. Safari has the most premier viewing experience out of any browser in my opinion. The worst for security, clunkiness, and just plain bad is of course Internet Explorer. The FBI has been telling their employees not to use Internet Explorer for years.
Open Project
I used to think that Gantt Project was the coolest thing ever for being free, but it is definitely superseded by Open Project. It has a format closer to Microsoft Project and is extremely user friendly. This is quoted from their website "OpenProj by Serena Software is a desktop replacement of Microsoft Project. OpenProj has equivalent functionality, a familiar user interface and even opens existing MSProject files. OpenProj is interoperable with Project, with a Gantt Chart and PERT chart"
I will keep updating this list as I continue to find cool business software that is free for the mac. For now check out another great list, much more comprehensive than mine so far: Chris Pirillo.
-charles
The Passenger is a great little show that took Chris Jones 8 years to make, enjoy |
Well, after a month of waiting the e-mail was received from NASA. The title of this blog post is obvious to the decision made by the NASA RGSFOP (Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program). I was in Philadelphia, PA on a business trip observing a few maintenance procedures for some EVA (Extra-Vehicular Activity) activities when I received the e-mail. I was sad and happy at the same time.