Year End Round Up

When I started this blog almost 5 years ago, it was intended to be a blog on “Tech, life, family, and faith.”

Those are things I’m passionate about, and I enjoy writing about them.

However, it soon became apparent that writing a blog for 2 very different audiences – tech and faith – doesn’t work well. So I blogged less technology and more faith. In time, this has become an almost exclusively religious blog.

But I occassionally sneak in a few geek-o-rama nerd posts, and today’s post is one of those! Not to worry, religio-people, it will be fun with lots of colorful pictures. And interesting stats. And ponies!

2007 saw about 10,000 visitors to the website.

I'm pleased to report that this year, that number has increased to over 16,000 unique visitors, a 60% increase in traffic.

16,000 unique visitors for this humble blog ain’t nothin’ to laugh at. (Yes, I know some of the big blogs generate 100,000 visitors/day, but hey, I’m happy with what I’ve got.)

Why the 60% increase in traffic? I believe it’s because I’ve been blogging more, and blogging consistently:

Remember the year-and-a-half old post, How To Achieve Blogging Success? That was the turning point for this blog. I was inspired by prolific tech blogger, Jeff Atwood, when he wrote,

I'm just trying to share my easy one step plan to achieve Ultimate Blog Success: find a posting schedule you can live with, and stick to it for a year. Probably several years. Okay, so maybe that one step is really not quite so easy as I made it out to be. But everyone has to start somewhere, and the sooner the better.

So when was the last time you wrote a blog post?

So I gave it a try:

To follow Jeff's blogging advice, here is my schedule and I'm sticking to it: 2 blog posts a week.

Shalom, and thanks to you few loyal readers who come to visit despite my sporadic postings. :-)

A year and a half later, I’m pleased to say I’ve accomplished that goal. 2 posts a week * 4 weeks in a month * 12 months in a year = 96 blog posts per year. This year saw over 120 posts, most of which was original material. Woot!

So an increase in blog posts generated an increase in visitors. Does an increase in visitors correspond to an increase in, ya know, the green stuff? I’ve got those little Google ads on the right side of this blog post. Click them and I get moolah.

Does more traffic mean more money? Yes, it does!

But not as much as you might think:

Granted, if I placed the ads in a more obtrusive location, rather than hidden away on the bottom-right, I’d probably get more clicks. But that’s OK. This blog is not a money-making venture.

And for the record, when Google cuts me that first $100 check, I’ll be donating the money to an online Messianic ministries.

 

One thing I’ve found really interesting is where all you fine blog readers come from: there’s readers from every state in the US, with most visits from Florida, California, and Minnesota:

Behind the US’s 18,000+ visits, the UK has sent me 1,500+ visits.

Asian and Middle Eastern nations send me the next most with 1,000+ visits as well.

Of Asian and Middle Eastern nations, Israel sends me the most traffic, with readers in Beersheba, Peta Tiqwa, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Zohar, Rehovot, and Haifa.

Cool! You people need to say hello in the comments.

Almost half of all my traffic comes from search engines. Wow. Searches for “judah’s blog”, “torah for gentiles”, or “interesting facts about christianity”, or “lord’s prayer in aramaic”  have landed folks on the blog.

And I steal a lot of traffic from Derek Leman’s blog, with about 20% of my traffic coming from referrals from his blog! Ha! Thanks for the traffic, Derek.

A rather surprising statistic is the time you fine blog readers spend on this site:

Yes, the average reader spends a little under 2 minutes on this blog. Heheh. Which means, for long posts like this one, I’ve already lost most of you. You’ve moved on to greener interweb pastures, where your attention span is not put to the test.

Speaking of which, I should wrap up this already-too-long post.

Thanks for the great year of blogging, fine blog readers! Blogging is nothing without you fine blog readers. Here’s to another fine year in 2009,

:cheers:

Lord and Savior Jesus Christ (and other religious cliches)

It's 3:14am. I can't sleep. I have religious things running through my mind. Ever happen to you guys? Forgive me if this becomes an incoherent rant.

When discussing Christmas with a family member, a Christian friend recently chided,

"Read through the New Testament and you'll simply recognize the need to celebrate such an important moment as the birth of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."

This phrase has been running through my mind, and I can't get it out. Let me explain.

You see, folks, I'm at the point in my religious life that oft-repeated religious phrases are becoming meaningless and cliche.

"Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" is dangerously close to becoming another cliche for me.

You're probably worried about my salvation now that I've confessed that. But hold the phone calls and tell your pastor to wait on line #2, and allow me to elaborate.

I'm tired of religious people flippantly speaking without understanding. Religious people do this all the time. We say really important-sounding stuff but don't speak with any awe or really meaning what we say or thinking about what we're saying. No fear or trembling. We just parrot stuff we've heard in our church.

I've become aware of this fact to the point it's impacted my prayers. I deliberately use non-conventional wording now to avoid meaningless religious cliches. I catch myself using meaningless religious fluff phrases all the time, and it's disconcerting. Yikes.

It's like an old-time cheesy horror flick, where the whole town populace is turning zombie: I'm becoming... "one of them!" I don't want to become a religious-fluff-phrase zombie.

"Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ."

Wow. Do any of you actually know what that means?


Lord is "master". As in, "master/servant" relationship. As in, "a disciple following his master."

Messiah Yeshua was a master, alright. He had disciples. But this wasn't some new religious hierarchy he invented for some new religion called Christianity. Rather, in Judaism, a rabbi would take under him disciples: men to whom he would teach how to live their lives down to the smallest detail, the teency-est aspect, every little triviality from how and what to eat, all the way up to the big stuff like when to show mercy and when to judge.

That's what a master did.

Want to be a disciple of a master? Then follow everything the master showed you. Big and small. Trivialities to fundamentals. You're not in a position to dismiss the stuff you don't like. You're not in a position to interpret his actions to fit your lifestyle. You do what he does, you imitate. You become as the master by living exactly the way he showed you. That's the disciple's life.

Yeshua was the perfect master. We are not perfect disciples. But are we even trying to be disciples of Yeshua our Messiah? Is he really Master? I mean, you're calling him "Lord and Savior" every 5 minutes in church. Should I believe you, Christian friend?

If He's your Lord and you're his disciple, why do you trample on every damn thing he did? I'm not talking about sin, friends. I sin too, and I repent for it, thank God. I'm talking about doing the opposite of what he did and being unrepentant for it. That's something different entirely. There's a difference between "Hey, I messed up" and "We don't have to do as the Master."

You piss on God's Feasts, calling them "Jewish", passed-away nonsense. You talk behind our backs when we try to keep God's commandments, saying how foolish we are, even cult-like, for trying to keep God's Torah. You tell others to steer clear from us crazies.

Yet the One you call "Lord", your supposed tutor who showed you how you should live down to the tiniest of tiny details, didn't celebrate your Christmas. He didn't celebrate your Easter. Heck, Jesus didn't eat pork. He didn't go to Church on Sun-day. He didn't start a new religion. He kept God's commandments, and God's Feasts, which you regularly trample.

You might protest and say you don't care about such trivial things, but remember, you are a disciple! Disciples do not get to choose which acts of the master to imitate. Start picking and choosing, and you're not a disciple at all, you're just starting your own religion with a select choice of the Master's teachings.

(Note to self: Hey, I've just discovered why we have so many Protestant denominations!)

How can you call Him "Lord" if you don't follow what He does?

You feign discipleship; some of you wear "What Would Jesus Do" bracelets. I read that book, too. But "WWJD" is a joke in today's Christianity. I mean, I can't take you seriously when you guys say that. Really. What would he do? Jesus would (did) celebrate Passover. He would (did) honor the Father's sabbath. He would (did) keep God's commandments. You don't do any of that. You don't follow the master. You say you do, you call him "Lord", but I don't buy it.

WWJD? A more accurate acronym would be,

"WSIDSJDATTCTMR? OIKIJDWIWASIBLBTS!"

(What should I do since Jesus did all these things contrary to my religion? Oh, I know, I'll just do whatever I want and say I'm being "led by the spirit!")

Friends, I'm getting tired of meaningless religious fluff. I'm sick of religious cliches, folks. I'm also a bit tired of the Christian religion. Man. It's true.

Now that I've gotten that off my chest, and now that I've undoubtedly offended 90% of you fine blog readers through my rash and overly-harsh midnite blog rant, I can finally go to sleep.

Tearing Down Idols With Hanukkah

Last night started the first of 8 nights of Hanukkah, also known as the Feast of Dedication, the Feast of Lights.

Even though I am a believer in Messiah, to the surprise of many Christian friends, I celebrate Hanukkah, rather than Christmas. And I think that’s the proper thing to do for any believer in Messiah, Jewish or not! Here’s why:

• Unlike Christmas, Jesus celebrated Hanukkah.
  
  
• Hanukkah has a Godly background: it remembers the time when Israel rededicated the Temple to God after it had been defiled by foreign powers.
  
  
• Hanukkah reminds us to tear down the idols in our lives and rededicate ourselves to God.
   
  
• Hanukkah reminds us that God preserves His people, and His ways, even though the world continually fights it.
  
  
• The origins of Christmas are not about Jesus.
  
  
• Jesus wasn’t born on December 25th.
  
  
• Christmas has become a commercialized, secular holiday, with the prominent figures being airborne fat men, flying livestock, toy-making mythological creatures and other pseudo-religious myths that have nothing to do with Messiah.
  
  
• Hanukkah is free from Christmas’ paraphernalia – adorned trees, decorative balls, wreaths, yuletide – ancient religious ritual objects which have nothing to do with Messiah.

Christmas, for many, has become all about what gifts you receive. Christmas, for many, has become an emotion-based holiday, with family ornaments, gatherings around the tree, old childhood Christmas memories. Some would say that’s a good thing. But perhaps this deep emotional investment is why Christmastime sees more depression and suicides than any other time of year.

Hanukkah puts the focus back on God, and how he preserved us, and how we rededicated the Temple to Him after the world tried to tear it down. It showed us that the God of Israel lives, and that the chief god of Greece is nothing but a crumbling statue.

Marty Goetz, a Messianic Jew, has written a beautiful Hanukkah piano psalm. It sums up how I feel about this holiday:

You who love Messiah seek him out this season of rededication. Shalom.

Guest blogger

Why, hello there. Hmm… I guess I’m no longer in the womb. Maybe I should introduce myself: my name is Kess Ezriel Himango, and I was born at 10:02am on Monday, December 15th, 2008. Here are some pictures of me, I hope you like them.

 

Some with my mom:

 

This is me and my older brother Connor. He seems to like me.

 

This is my mom and dad:

 

Here's me hangin' out with my dad:

 

 

This is my grandpa Bob, grandma Jacquie, and my cousin Laila who’s only 1 year older than I am. I think we’re gonna be good friends:

This is my aunt Michaela:

I didn’t like my first bath:

But I liked my cozy outfits:

But my going-home outfit was too big!

Hey, where's my arm?

 

Here’s one more right after I was born:

Once mom went into labor, I didn’t stay very long. She pushed 2 times for about 3 minutes, and before you knew it, I was out of my warm home in the womb! The nerve! But I do like my new home now. Except I’m really hungry and very sleepy.

Speaking of which, I could use a nap right now, so I’ll give the blog back to my dad. G’bye now!

p.s. My dad says there's more pictures of me on Facebook. Goodnight!

Preggo, stick-figure style

My wife often leaves notes for my son Connor each morning – instructions for breakfast, getting ready for school, or just an “I love you” note.

Here’s one from a few months back that I got a kick out of:

In other news, my wife is due this Sunday! Kess Ezriel should be here any day now.

My brother on Israel National News

As Arutz Sheva’s reporters were interviewing folks on the streets regarding Israel's upcoming election, they met up with my younger brother and asked what he had to say:

You can see him at about 15:00 into the video, where he tells the reporter,

“The most important issue is that this is HaShem’s land and this is the land not to be divided and given to our enemies.”

Blog-as-philosophy paper

MIT's Guideline on Writing a Philosophy Paper: “pretend that your reader is lazy, stupid, and mean.” 

In fact, you can profitably take this one step further and pretend that your reader is lazy, stupid, and mean. He's lazy in that he doesn't want to figure out what your convoluted sentences are supposed to mean, and he doesn't want to figure out what your argument is, if it's not already obvious. He's stupid, so you have to explain everything you say to him in simple, bite-sized pieces. And he's mean, so he's not going to read your paper charitably.

What wisdom in this guideline! And not just for writing philosophy papers, this is true even for blogging and internet discussions.

When in a discussion, I usually shoot for the most concise words I can use. Nothing more. Without this, people pick apart your argument and split hairs.

Example: 

Me: "I'm celebrating Israel's 60th anniversary."

Them: "Peace is the way to go, man, and Israel is a violent, racist nation. Are you saying you love war, celebrate the death of Arabs, and are a racist?"

Me: No.

Notice the antagonist putting bait out there with all kinds of inflammatory language. How tempting to write a full essay refutation!

I could respond with paragraphs about how wrong that view is and how terrible a worldview that demonizes the world's only Jewish state.

Alas, had I said, "No, because X...", the antagonist would invariable find fault over X.

So we assume the reader is impatient and uncharitable and will pick the worst possible interpretation of our words; we answer as succinctly as possible, in this case, a single word of dismissal!

When writing, omit unnecessary details. Then before committing, remove all but the essentials. Useful for brevity; also for preventing lazy, stupid, mean readers from nitpicking your argument to death!  

The original forty-three-page summation of the case for cleanliness, accuracy, and brevity in the use of English.

As Strunk & White's Elements of Style put it,

13. Omit needless words.

Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the writer make all his sentences short, or that he avoid all detail and treat his subjects only in outline, but that every word tell."

Eliminate all but the essentials to withhold ammunition from your antagonist.

That said, during the last 5 years of writing on this blog, I’ve really enjoyed writing for, arguing with, learning from, and talking with you lazy, stupid, mean fine blog readers.  Here's to another 5! :cheers:

Hat tip to Atwood.

Pick the Scripture

Both of the quotations below are from early believers in Messiah.

One of them greatly influenced the Roman Church and its Protestant offspring.

The other made it into Scripture.

Can you guess which is which?

1. My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense—Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world
   
   We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, "I know him," but does not obey his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God's love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.
   
   Everyone who breaks the Law sins; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
   
   I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.
   
   
2. Let us therefore no longer keep the Sabbath after the Jewish manner, nor rejoice in days of idleness; for “he that does not work shall not eat."

   Let every friend of Christ keep the Lord’s Day as a festival, the resurrection-day, the queen and chief of all the days of the week. Looking forward to this, the prophet declared, "To the end, for the eighth day."

   Be not deceived with strange doctrines, nor with old fables, which are unprofitable. For if we still live according to the Jewish law, we acknowledge that we have not received grace. For the divinest prophets lived according to Christ Jesus. On this account also they were persecuted, being inspired by His grace to fully convince the unbelieving that there is one God, who has manifested Himself by Jesus Christ His Son, who is His eternal Word, not proceeding forth from silence, and who in all things pleased Him that sent Him.

   Be not deceived with strange doctrines, "nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies," and things in which the Jews boast. "Old things are passed away: all things have become new." For if we live according to the Jewish law, and the circumcision of the flesh, we deny that we have received grace.

   Therefore, having become His disciples, let us learn to live according to the principles of Christianity. For whosoever is called by any other name besides this, is not of God.

   It is absurd to profess Christ Jesus, and to Judaize. For Christianity did not embrace Judaism, but Judaism Christianity.

   It is absurd to speak of Jesus Christ with the tongue, and to cherish in the mind a Judaism which has now come to an end. For where there is Christianity there cannot be Judaism. [^]

The first quote is from Scripture, in 1 John.

The second quote is from Magnesians, a letter written by Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, around the time of Paul’s death.

Ignatius’ detestable theology had a great impact on the early believers; his writings were a clear forerunner of the Roman Catholic Church’s own doctrines: Ignatius is the first to abolish God’s Sabbath, replacing it with man’s Sun-day. He was also the first to describe the Church as “katholikos” or universal, from which the Catholic Church derives its name.

Armed with these anti-Jewish theologies, the Roman Catholic Church proceeded to persecute Jews and abolish most every form of keeping God’s commandments in the Torah, replacing Passover with Easter, Sabbath with Sunday, to name a few, creating a very distinct religion apart from, and very bitter towards, the original faith in the God of Israel.

The Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church still celebrate Ignatius and even have a special feast day dedicated to this man.

The Catholic Church’s offspring – Protestants and Evangelicals – have inherited much of this ugly theology. Perhaps this is why many gentile Christians today believe or sympathize with these terrible, anti-Jewish doctrines that have led to the deaths of thousands of Jews at the hands of Christians. It has also contributed to modern Christianity's foundation-less theology in which the forgiveness of sin is held high, but the obedience to God's commandments -- sin's adversary -- is largely ignored, leading to lawlessness and empty works.