What the H*LL?

Continuing the stream of name related thoughts that I've been pondering this week, I found two interesting articles yesterday.

First off, there is at least one study into this idea that names somehow relate to our lives: http://www.richardwiseman.com/quirkology/surname.html. Richard Wiseman (Is anyone surprised that a man named Wiseman likes to study stuff?) apparently studied the impact of surnames on daily life. In an online study he determined that people with surnames beginning with letters near the start of the alphabet tend to do better in life (i.e. perceived to be more successful) than those with surnames starting with letters closer to the end of the alphabet. His reasoning is that almost everything involving lists of names gets alphabetized by last name, so the Blair, Brown, Bush, Cameron, and Branson families are just used to being first and it's no wonder that they are massively well-known in our world today. That makes some sense, but it still doesn't cover why when I say that I met a guy yesterday named Brad that you all have an image in your mind of what a Brad ought to be.

In other name related news, a boy in Australia was denied enrollment at a Catholic school: http://www.nbc5i.com/education/13655937/detail.html?rss=dfw&psp=nationalnews. Given the recent publications of the Vatican you might think that the boy's family is Protestant, but it's really much simpler. The boy's name is Alex Hell. The good news is that besides having a great shot at being successful in life based on Mr. Wiseman's study, the school has backed down and granted Mr. Hell the right to enroll his son. After all of this debacle, though, Mr. Hell is not sure that he may not accept the enrollment offer.

I would have thought that the nuns would be all about enrolling little Alex Hell. It would give them an opportunity to cut loose without getting in trouble with their Mother Superior. I can just imagine the nuns trying to teach class and asking for volunteers:

"Awww, Hell, come on up here. I really do love it when you volunteer"

Or maybe they've gotten little frustrated because homework wasn't turned in on time:

"Hell, son, you've really got to get your act together."

Or they take the kids to the local skating rink for a field trip:

"That boy is Hell….on wheels."

Okay, so maybe some of those are lame. You think up some better ones and post them in your comments.

The One and Only Church

I know that I've already posted for today. Actually, I posted one thing from yesterday that I didn't get finished on time and one thing for today, but this article that I just read needed some commentary.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19692094/

In the news today, the Pope has approved publication of a paper stating that other denominations are not true churches and that they do not have a mechanism for salvation because they don't have apostolic succession. Is this guy serious? There's got to be more to this paper and the Pope's statements than what is reported in this article.

First of all, I'm pretty sure that there is no biblical basis for saying that salvation comes through apostolic succession. By the way, that means that you can trace the lineage of your bishops back to the original twelve apostles. Anyway, I thought Christ was pretty clear that He is the one and only mechanism for salvation.

Second of all, does this mean that all of the churches that Paul founded were not real churches? Paul was not one of the original twelve, he was not sent by the original twelve, in fact, he got crossways with the original twelve more than once. So the churches that he founded don't have apostolic succession and therefore are not real churches. If that is the case, then why does Christ speak directly to some of them as churches in Revelation? And why do we include Paul's letters to those non-churches in the church canon? Surely it's not theologically correct for Paul to tell them that they have salvation when they don't have apostolic succession.

I don't really understand how someone as intelligent as the Pope – you know they don't let dummies into that job – could publish something like this. It's completely contrary to my understanding of the history of the church, and regardless of all that it is bound to polarize a large population of both Catholics and Protestants against him. I really wonder if this guy doesn't want to take the Catholic church back to the Dark Ages and pretend that the Reformation didn't really happen.

Addiction

One of the most evil things that we talk about in our society is addiction. In nearly every form, it's the root of evil. Addiction to cigarettes, addiction to alcohol, addiction to TV, addiction to junk food, addiction to work, they are all the extremely evil end of things that are not necessarily intrinsically bad. So, I'm sure that I am not alone in thinking that a mechanism for eliminating addictions would be a great service to society.

As a matter of fact, Pfizer, Inc. seems to agree and has been marketing a pill called varenicline to eliminate cigarette addiction (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19683029/wid/11915773?gt1=10150), and now that they have found this drug to be so successful with smokers, they are targeting alcoholics next. According to the news article the drug works by attaching itself to the pleasure receptors in your brain in place of the nicotine, alcohol, or theoretically whatever other stimulant you're adding to your system so that there is no gain from drinking, smoking, gambling, etc.

Although the article is sketchy on details, it seems that the idea is that you would take this pill rather than grabbing a cigarette, bottle of Jack, or deck of cards and voila: you're cured of your evil addiction. I really wish there were more details on this, though, because it seems to me that if the reason a person is addicted in the first place is because of these pleasure receptors receiving stimulation from whatever evil substance you're using, then replacing that with varenicline is just a substitute addiction.

Sure, the drug has been successful in getting people to stop smoking, but are they now sneaking down to the parking garage between meetings to pop another varenicline out of a Pez dispenser? Is this drug really a miracle cure or is it just a way to divert revenue from the evil big tobacco companies to the slightly less evil pharmaceutical companies? I'm betting on the latter.

The only thing better than curing someone of an addiction is getting them addicted to a cure for addiction.

The Importance of Names

I was just talking to Leah yesterday about the way that names play into our lives and wondering if anyone has ever done a study on that. We all seem to have this subconscious idea of what people with certain names should look like or how they should behave. Or haven't you ever met someone and thought that their name didn't really seem to fit their personality, job, looks, whatever? Of course you have. We all have. I just wonder why that happens.

Is it some societal influence that we place on children so that they are molded to fit our image of what a person with their name should be? Is it some subconscious idea of emulating others that have similar names to ours? It seems unlikely to be mere chance or coincidence that so many parents just happened to pick the right name for their children, so what's really going on here?

Ironically, I just happened to have read a story about a man that is suing Honda over the mpg claims they make of their hybrid cars (http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070706/AUTO01/707060350/1148). Wouldn't you expect a guy named True to go out of his way to make sure that one of the largest car manufacturers in the world is being honest with its customers?