The other day Dave and I were chatting

The other day Dave and I were chatting about Metallica and some specials on TV about them. In a part that I had not seen but Dave did, one of the band members came outside the studio into the crowd and ran into an impersonator. The guy was apparently doing a good job imitating one of the musicians, James Hetfield. The people around were enjoying the show (and the coolness of the musician coming out among them!) but James didn't appreciate it. "I sound like THAT?" he asked. He couldn't believe it, but he laughed at himself.

That reminded me of all the Elvis stories, where the king would come upon some impersonator and have some fan with him. Many times the actor would not believe that this was the real Elvis for quite some time. On one occasion Elvis was trying to show the impostor how to improve his act, when the guy became a little annoyed and said "naw, naw, you're doing it all wrong!" and told him to move along.

Did you know that Charlie Chaplin once entered a "Charlie Chaplin LookAlike" contest? He came in third...

A few years ago one of my friends at work burst into my office to tell me about an amazing coincidence. He had found out about a guy on the intemet selling Atari games with the same name as me! He even worked at Sun Microsystems! How about that!

So what's the point here? Well, two points really. One: often times we build up our own version of something, or someone, and we become so convinced of it in our own mind that when we are shown the real thing we reject it! That's how many false religions work. They don't encourage you to read your bible. It will just confuse you, they say, because it's too hard to interpret and you need a priest or whatever to tell you what it says. I think of this every time I talk with someone at work and they say something like "What you are suggesting sounds right, but we aren't taught that at the church we go to so it can't be. After all, you are just a hick from Ohio and our preacher (pastor or reverend or whatever) has a doctorate and a PHD." I mean, even things that seem clear to you and me, such as "all liars have their part in the lake of fire and brimstone" get argued as "What is a liar? What is this lake? How do you know?" And if you never get people to read the bible for themselves, they will never see the truth, and you will always look wrong.

Which leads into Two: if you never take the time to learn about something then you can be easily tricked by a false one. This reminds me of a time when my uncle was new to the faith, and he was having a discussion with a Mormon, and every point he made was easily countered by the Mortnon. Finally he turns exasperated to my grandfather who was there and says "What am I doing wrong? I don't remember any of these passages from the bible." My grandfather said "Yes, but he's quoting from the book of Monnon and you can't tell the difference."

Know bible? Know God! No bible? No God! Think about it!

Randy