Matthew Burkholder

All of these facts are 40%-80% true. 1. Beards stop UV rays. That's right. A beard is more powerful than the freaking sun. 2. People fear them. Wait, that isn't a good thing you say? Well, people fear Batman.* 3. Nature gave us beards for a reason. 110% of beardless men experience the harshness of winter more severely then bearded men. Scientists have proven that those who lack the insulation in sub zero temperatures experience subtle brain grey matter loss. 4. Millions of children are confused by beardless fathers. A beard says to a child: "I love you, and this glorious beard is proof." Children of bearded men are 42% more likely to graduate with a Master's degree because a beard provides a sense of family pride. 5. In the ancient days, bearded Saints and Monks were legally allowed to kill you if you mocked and/or touched their beards. Beards symbolize piety and power, and the beard follicles of upright men have been known to alleviate sickness. 6. *...

Last month the movie Left Behind was released. The film is based on a 1995 novel by the same name written by Tim LaHaye. The movie and book are inspired by a theological theory regarding the second coming of Christ - that when Christ returns, he'll first make a secret pit stop on his way and kind of Star Trek beam all of his followers into heaven before all hell breaks lose. It is a widely held view of North American evangelicals. While I do not tend to take a hard-line approach on things pertaining to eschatology, there are some issues that I have with this particular rapture theory and I think it would be prudent to discuss some of them in perhaps a time when the film has raised some questions. I will simply refer to the pre-tribulation rapture theory (the Church is an away team in trouble and Scottie is God beaming them to safety) as "the rapture theory" for the sake of discussion.   The rapture theory is a very new theological position.  Of course just b...

Every now and then, as I'm surfing through social media, a story, usually accompanied by a video, will pop up over and over. The contents of the videos are often described as "shocking" or "surprising."  "You won't believe what happened next!" they proclaim. The most recent video that comes to mind is a homeless man, Ryan Arcand, who has been homeless in Edmonton for the past 30 years. You can see the video and read the background here:  http://globalnews.ca/news/1645325/watch-video-of-homeless-piano-man-in-edmonton-goes-viral/ Now, before I go further, I want to make something very clear - Mr. Arcand is talented, his song beautiful, and the recognition is warranted. This blog is in no way intended to call into question any of those things. When I see the surprised reactions I find myself wondering, "Where do people think that they come from?" You see, everybody has a story. Every person that is homeless has a story. Part of the probl...

Consent and Liberty. That's it. That's the only thing governing the masses of culture regarding sexual expression. The battle was won quickly. A small single weapon shaped like a pill single handily loosed the shackles of temperance and chastity. We are all the illegitimate children of parents who failed to safeguard the ethos of our being. Lust is just another thing to be consumed. We love consuming, it's in our nature. We consume the world and we consume each other, one orgasm away from attaining some definition of meaning that isn't there. We are a generation out of control. I am not a saint. I live in the cognitive dissonance of the morality of my Creator. I battle the dark regions of the mind, winning and losing, hoping one day to be made whole. Religion is always enduring. People have attempted to squash it out, but it always has a way of resurfacing. The religious way of thinking, talking and acting will always influence us. To be irreligious is a contrad...

It's taken me a few days to try and process what happened this week. Our soldiers are suppose to lay down their lives for our citizens, not die at the hands of them. It doesn't make sense, and I don't think it is suppose to. Whatever delusional and disturbing sense of identity two people thought they had found, that they would take the lives of two soldiers, isn't suppose to be rational. My heart broke as I read of the mother of the Ottawa shooter, with no explanation for their son's actions, wanting to hate the very child she brought into this world. What happened was a terrible tragedy on so many levels. I must admit, my sadness quickly turned to concern. Words like "terrorism" began to quickly emerge from certain media outlets and individuals on social media. "Terrorism" is not a new thing in this country (FLQ), but usually (not always) refers to actions conducted by an organization. I am worried that a word is being used for emotional/p...

If you have any familiarity with the Bible, you will undoubtedly know the story about the woman caught in adultery found in John's gospel. According to the story, a group of religious leaders, scribes and Pharisees, bring a woman caught in the act of adultery demanding that Jesus act as judge over her fate. Jesus' famous retort: "let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her" is one of the most famous lines in all of scripture, known to most in the Western world. Without going into many details, there is essentially good reason to believe that the Apostle John did not actually include the story in his original writing - the chief reason being it's absence from early manuscripts. This is not to say that the story isn't historical - clearly Jesus historically was at odds with the religious leaders, and the gospel of Mark, the earliest of the gospels, records several instances in which the Pharisees confront Jesus (Mark 7, 8, 11, 12...

In a few days or weeks the state of Palestine will more than likely be a wasteland. It's hard to imagine an area suffering any more heartache. I know when I look at pictures, and read about the staggering number of children, some 80%, that live in extreme poverty my heart breaks. I cannot relate to such a life - a life in which two Palestinian children die every week as a result of being forced to live on the bare minimum, a pattern stretching back fourteen years. Source: http://socialistworker.org/ As I read the social media musings on the situation, I can't help get the feeling that there are a lot of people on "Team Israel". They say things like, "Israel has a right to protect itself", and paint a portrait where Israel is an innocent victim. They divide people into "good" and "bad", a classic national strategy to shed any culpability of action. A nation or group can't be morally culpable when the people dying are bad guys, or...