Didymos

So I went to the thrift shop of our church a week ago and was pleasantly surprised to find someone had brought in his complete collection of choir music on cd. Not that I assumed the donator's gender: his nametag was on most of the cds. He was still in the building, so I couldn't help but ask why he had donated all of those cds; could it be he didn't like choir music anymore, perhaps? But no, he said he digitalized his whole collection, also because his wife didn't like the hundreds of cds in the livingroom anymore. I'm thankful to this kind lady. Our thrift shop is a great place to find all kinds of music, and real cheap too. Plus the money goes to the restauration fund of our church. Here's something I just want to share with you all. Gibbons' setting of the Ambrosian Hymn 'Te Deum Laudumus' (We praise Thee, O Lord).

In order to compare the two you must at least have seen seen some of both. I'm not proud to say so, but I know from past experience you're absolutely right. In a way GOT is even worse though. Porn clearly is what it is, and you can easily avoid being exposed to it. With GOT you just don't expect it at first, and it seems they try to normalize pornography, incest, sodomy, rape etc. Btw there are plenty of series like that nowadays.

Yes. it's racism to claim that the indigenous people of a region couldn't have built those monuments. In the end we are all humans, members of the same homo sapiens species and capable of doing wonderful (and sadly enough also teriible) things. Basically my brain and capabilities are the same as that of (say) a stone age native american. In fact it's estimated that if we could bring back someone from about 70.000 years ago, he or she (in modern clothing) wouldn't look that much different from us and not stand out in the crowd. Also he/she could probably (after a thorough schooling) do my job, and hate it as much as I do. Yeah, I would rather be working outside, getting my hands dirty and building megaliths and such.

I even have my doubts whether its Biblical to look for or claim that you've found the Ark. In ancient Israel God's presence was believed to be embodied by the Ark. God would dwell among his people as long as they were worthy, if not He allowed the Ark to be robbed and taken elsewhere (by Philistines and Romans). So the Ark isn't a mere object you can find when you look hard enough for it. The Ark is not a pagan idol, God's presence is not something you make your own property. I believe that only when the people are worthy God will ALLOW it to be found, perhaps in the catacombes of the Vatican or in some huge warehouse (he said in jest) and be taken again to the Temple Mount.