My take on Christianity & life

Immorality is the cause of 100% of all STD transmission

2011-08-15T00:55:00.002-05:00

Think about it.

To get an STD, you have to have sex with an infected person. If you aren't married, your sexual act itself is immoral. If you are married, then you can't get an STD unless one of you has sex with someone else. The person had sex with someone other than their spouse. Even if the spouse was okay with the extra-marital sexual encounter, the sex act was immoral. If you only just got married, and one of you has an STD, they must have gotten the STD from pre-marital sex, an immoral act.

Even a doctor or nurse who contracts the disease from an infected person, or a nun who gets the disease from an infected blood transfusion, or a lifeguard gets it by giving mouth to mouth resuscitation, all of these cases the moral person gets the disease from an immoral person. The individual transmitting the disease first must get the disease. And they had to have got it from immoral activity, sexual activity. Sex within marriage is not immoral. But if they are married, they got the STD from their spouse. And where did the spouse get the disease? By having sex with someone ELSE? Well that's cheating, which is definitely immoral. If the spouse got it before they got married, well, the spouse had to have had sex before marriage. And pre-marital sex is immoral.

Even single people who have monogamous sex with their boyfriend or girlfriend... uh... premarital sex is immoral. No matter how you slice it, all STD transmission involves at least one immoral person, and most often two people doing an immoral sexual act.

So if you are worried about STDs, avoid immoral people.

An Evolutionary Reason to Oppose Same Sex Marriage.

2011-04-11T15:19:00.011-05:00

At this moment, I'm defending marriage against some people who are advocating for the legalization of same sex marriage. First off, I'm a Christian, obviously. Furthermore, I believe that the Bible is the inerrent Word of God. The Bible on many occasions condemns homosexual activity. Same sex marriage is the celebration of homosexual activity. So on a Christian level, of course I oppose it.

But my beliefs extend further. I am a logical person and my aims are to reason out why God has set certain rules for us. God too must be logical and "because I told you so" isn't very satisfactory. We are commanded to be obediant but these rules have purpose. So what is the purpose? Why should Christians be against homosexuality? And why should Christians be against same sex marriage.

Well, I'm debating with a lot of atheists so Christian logic won't do for them. So for their sake I have to tackle this debate from their perpective. So I have for you an evolutionary reason to oppose same sex marriage.

So ask yourself why you want to get married. What is it that makes you want to unite your life with another person's life? Why is there an evolutionary imperative to pair up? Why do you see couples everywhere? Is it cultural? Is it learned? No. It's everywhere! In every single human society! It's genetic. It's instinct. It's born within us, by evolution.

So why do we have an evolutionary desire to pair up? How did the pairing up happen?

Well. It's called pair bonding. And pair bonding occurs in nature to protect and provide for the young. But let's not stop at the development of pair bonding. Let's go further back in time, before pair bonding. In fact, let's go back in time before sexual reproduction was all the rage. Millions of years ago. Perhaps billions of years ago. Every species on Earth reproduced asexually. It was a completely "every man for himself" kind of life. Of course there was no such thing as man back then. All of the species were very simple in design. And there was no gender. Every animal had the same gender.

Why it must have been paradise to the people who today are trying to kill the idea of gender roles, those people who portray man and woman as "precisely the same" instead of "equal in value."

I can't imagine a more hellish life though. It was hardly paradise. There was no such thing as cooperation. You had but one "person" you could trust, yourself. And every other "person" wanted to eat you. You are always hungry. You are worried that you are about to get eaten. You can't sleep. You have no friends. And the very idea of a mate is completely obsurd. And children? What's that? Horrible life.

So let's get back and see what happens next.

Now you see, because genetic diversity was so low, and because the diversity that was there didn't mix and combine, evolution moved EXTREMELY slowly.

But one day something amazing happened. Two of these things, whatever they were, somehow evolved to mate. To reproduce sexually. Male and female were born. And life on this planet was never the same. An EXPLOSION in evolution occurred. Brand new extremely complex species were created in a very short period of time.

But it was still an "every man for himself" type world. The babies would get eaten up almost as soon as they were born or hatched. An early tactic was to have sex more often!! So as to have even more babies. Or for the more sexually repressed species, they would after one mating have many young, sometimes hundreds. But neither tactic was very efficient.

So eventually some species figured out if the mother would stick around a bit longer, long enough for the babies to grow up and defend themselves, their line would be more likely to continue. Nurturing developed alongside giving birth, and femininity developed and evolved. But that meant the female became more vulnerable. She abandoned her selfish nature to care for her young. She fed it. The watch out for enemies. And she even educated. But all of that endangered her.

And then the father decided to stick around too. And pair bonding developed. They eventually came to have a specific relationship. Since nurturing was already a part of femininity, it was natural for the father to take up the role of protecting and providing. Since the mother stayed home and the father went out, it was natural for the father to become the leader of the family. Not because he was stronger and could beat up the mother. It was because he had more information. Fatherhood, indeed masculinity itself became associated with protecting against enemies and also with providing food, and eventually shelter too. He became the leader of the family.

This of course happened looong before humans or even perhaps before mammals came onto the scene. But when humans came, we too adopted this superior strategy.

By the time we were created, a pattern of pair bonding had long ago been established and coded into our genetic structure. And we went further, searching for genetic traits that would give our offspring an advantage. Women were attracted to particularly strong men because these men could surely protect and provide better than the scrawny males. Men desired nurturing and caring women because that meant the children would be taken care of better. The roles that nature gave to each gender had a specific purpose. To care for the young.

Why. What we find desireable in a mate has a DIRECT correlation towards the health of the child that comes as a result of sexual activity. EVERYTHING related to romance and sex has children at the heart. A caring loving man will be caring and loving to the child and protect and provide better. An attractive woman has more estrogen and that makes her healthier so she can give birth to more babies. It's ENTIRELY related to children.

But back to animals.

As animals became more and more complex, their brains developed more and more. We learned to communicate in better and better ways and shortly we began to join families together. The herd, the flock, the school were born. The tribe was born. But a tribe isn't like a herd or a flock. It's not built up of individuals. It's built up of families. These tribes were very suspicious of individuals. Why weren't they with a tribe? Were they cast out? Was their tribe all killed? Well, they must have been weak. Why should we include this weak suspicious person into our tribe?

So at the heart of a tribe is the mother-father unit. If you weren't a part of a mother father unit, or the child of one, you weren't welcome.

Of course times and people weren't as civil as we are today. Another example of this: a particularly strong male might "collect" desirable females. But this practice largely went out of fashion when smart tribes began to unite and form communities. And shortly communities grew so large that confusion over relationships developed. People wanted to protect their pair bonding so they could tell the community, "we are bonded. Lay off." And marriage was born. And because children were at the heart of pair-bonding, children were also at the heart of this new invention called marriage.

So at the heart of marriage is an imperative to mate and to protect the young.

Society has changed much in the past 6,000 years, after the agricultural revolution allowed us to build villages, cities, and nations. It has changed even further in the past 200 with the industrial revolution. And it's almost become a completely different sort of society in the past 50, because of the sexual revolution and feminism.

But evolution happens very very very slowly. So people at their very core are largely the same people we were 6,000 years ago. We still pair bond with children in mind. Men still have an instinct to protect and provide. Women still have a desire to nurture and to follow a strong man.

But some people want to pretend that this isn't so. They want to play God and tell evolution what to do. "Gender roles are outdated." "I am just as nurturing as any woman." "I can provide as well as any man." In this society, where we depend upon technology, this might be true to some extent. But if history has taught us anything, this society will come crumbling down some day. And we'll be living in small towns again.

And even if society doesn't end. Our complex nature recognizes more differences between the genders than nurturing and protecting. Women are women. Men are men. Women like beautifying the home. Men like constructing the home. Men lead. Women follow. There's a balance. A mutually beneficial balance. Men might get to lead, but they must lead for the benefit of the woman. Women choose to follow a strong man who cares for her and who won't abuse his power, even today in this "enlightened" world. Take a dance class and you'll see. Women say it time and again. "I'm glad I don't have to lead." And that attitude extends past the borders of the dance floor. Leading requires responsibility. More than following. The husband taking the lead, recognizing that something needs to get done, lets the wife focus on other important matters. It allows her to plan.

What does this have to do with same sex marriage? Isn't it obvious? I am talking about the importance of each gender. This is a fact that is encoded into our DNA. Evolution moves far slower than technology and sociology. No matter how far we progress, the importance of the genders will remain with us for thousands of years, probably far longer. And today we see a sociological movement away from this truth. It's popular now to deny your own nature. Women are encouraged to abandon their nurturing nature and to take up careers.

But these women are forgetting something. At the heart of a man's career lies his desire to protect and to provide for his family. He chooses a career to provide for his family. But since a man is an inferior nurturer, if a woman chooses a career, then the children suffer if the man takes the role of nurturer. Or more likely, the task of nurturing will be given to a stranger, a woman who has made it her career to nurture. Might sound like the best situation. But studies have shown that children raised in day care suffer with poor behavior, aggressiveness, and disobedience, even going so far as to result in poorer grades. There is clear evidence to support the idea that a woman's choice of career over family negatively affects the family.

I'm sorry. Don't shoot the messenger. I'm just stating fact.

This is just one example of how society is trying to change and blur the lines between the roles of men and women.

Same sex marriage takes this to the extreme, eliminating one gender entirely from the child's at home life. Studies show that fathers living at home are important to child development. And of course it's obvious that having a female mother living at home is important to the child.

But something that isn't discussed much goes further than the immediate child. It's the child's children. A child given to same sex marriage parents will grow up denying the importance of gender. They grew up fine, right? They are polite. They are tolerant, getting along well with any number of different sorts of people of all races, creeds, religions and sexual orientations. They aren't in jail. They aren't addicted to drugs. They have a career and they keep a clean tidy home. What wonderful people these kids turned out to be! Right?

Except they think their gender doesn't matter. And it does. It really really does.

Same sex marriage isn't just an attack on marriage. It's an all our war on gender.

Remember millions of years ago, when there was no such thing as gender? Do you want to go back to that time when it was every man for himself? When selfishness reigned supreme and you had to kill and eat your neighbor to survive? No, of course not. Now I'm not saying same sex marriage will lead to cannibalism. But denying gender importance will surely lead to selfish chaos.

And same sex marriage does just that. In fact it requires you to deny the importance of your gender. And if you in a same sex marriage choose to have children, then you must by way of your own relationship teach these children that gender doesn't matter. And we will have confusion.

Same sex marriage isn't the only perpetrator. Militant feminism. Divorce. Cohabitation. Other practices outside the norm like polygamy and swinging all contribute to the decay of the marriage institution, and the importance of the gender roles. All should be discouraged. But today we see society encouraging these things.

Divorce is encouraged. "Don't worry, you can always get divorced." Rampant sexual activity is encouraged. "Have sex with anyone you want then if you get pregnant, kill the baby." Since divorce is at an all time high, people think they have to test the waters. "Live together first!" Studies show that cohabitation is a recipe for failure, not for success.

It goes on and on. All of these new strategies fail more often than they succeed. The only one that succeeds time and again is the man and woman falling in love, courting for years getting to know one another, then uniting their lives together for life, and finally cherishing and protecting the marriage. The traditional marriage is the only one that works across the board. It is the only one that lays the foundation for the healthy development of children's minds and bodies. It is the only one that we should be encouraging.

Long live the traditional family unit.

Does this mean that I oppose adoptions? Of course not. But husbands and wifes who adopt know that they aren't the child's natural parent, and they accept that they aren't going to be quite as good as if they were. So they take steps. Same sex marriage parents think they are every bit as normal as a traditional family. In many ways they think they are even superior. They won't try to raise the child with tradition in mind. In fact they will do the opposite! They will raise the child to OPPOSE traditional marriage!

Do I oppose sterile men and women getting married? Of course not. They don't deny that children are still important. They don't deny the importance of gender roles in society. They still celebrate their gender.

Same sex marriage does two things. It opposes the importance between biological parents and their young, and it opposes the importance of the genders. But marriage and adoption for husbands and wives who can not have their own children do still accept that gender is important. They don't oppose their gender roles. They embrace them.

Again, same sex marriage is not just attacking the marriage institution. It's participating in the war against gender.

Gender is far too important to lose this war. So we will fight this battle against same sex marriage until we die. And when we do die we will turn the battle over to our children and encourage them to do the same until humanity learns the important lesson that gender roles are vital to society.

Actual Contraceptive Use and the Pregnancies that Result

2011-01-03T18:30:00.017-06:00

Take a good look at this chart. It illustrates exactly how NOT effective birth control is and how our almost religious belief in contraceptive affects pregnancy rates.

(For a copy of the excel spreadsheet, send me an email.)

If you don't believe the numbers, take a gander at this website:
http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html

What does the chart mean? What can we conclude?

43,000,000 women are said to be engaging in regular sex. 38,000,000 are said to be using some form of contraceptive. Of those 38,000,000 women who do use contraception, they collectively engage in so much sex that almost 2 and a half million of them will become pregnant within a year.

That is 6.55% or 1 out of every 15 women.

Think it's that bad because I lumped all of the contraceptives together? Want to consider a single contraceptive? Okay, how about the number one contraceptive. 1 in 11.49 women will get pregnant each year. Yikes. That's even worse than the general contraceptives. That means that the pill actually brings the average down!

Okay. How about the condom? 1 in 5.75 women will get pregnant. Twice as bad as the pill.

Ah, but what if we combined them. What if she is on the pill and he still wears a condom. SURELY that will virtually eliminate the possibility of pregnancy. Hardly. Out of every 66 women who regularly engage in sexual activity (probably less than the population you'll find in every night club on a Friday night), one will get pregnant within a year.

Also, take a look at the difference in effectiveness between condoms and withdrawal. Wow. I would wager a guess that you consider withdrawal to be the epitome of unsafe sex. And when you think of safe sex, you think of a condom. But they aren't that much different. Condoms are only 1% more effective.

Well, obviously this chart illustrates the necessity of education, right? Well, you might think so because if 43,000,000 women are engaging in sex and only 38,000,000 them are using contraceptives, that leaves 5,000,000 women who don't use contraceptives*. And because of this, 4 and a quarter million of them will become pregnant. This is more than twice the number of pregnancies by the 38 million women who have sex with contraceptives. But if these women did all use a contraceptive in the same percentages, almost 300 thousand of them would still get pregnant. That's not an insignificant number.

And it doesn't negate the fact that there are still almost 2 and a half million women each year getting pregnant from so-called protected sex. It is a strawman argument to bring up the 4 and a quarter million women who get pregnant from unprotected sex because the important point is that contraceptives are causing more pregnancies because they cause us to have more sex than we would have without them.

One more thing about education. 89.4% of the population of sexually active women are using contraceptives! I don't think education is going to increase that number by very much. Clearly, sex ed has done its job. People are convinced that contraceptives work.

They are in fact BRAINWASHED into thinking that contraceptives work. Oh, we all know that contraceptives aren't 100% effective, but that doesn't stop people from acting as if the contraceptives are.

So what's the conclusion?

SAFE SEX IS A MYTH! If anything the belief in safe sex CAUSES us to act recklessly and to have sex much more than the contraceptives are designed to handle. The result is MORE pregnancies than before the pill changed our attitudes about sex.

*Because withdrawal is considered to be a means of contraceptive, this means that "no method" is the male ejaculating inside the female every single time he has sex with her throughout the year. I don't think 11.6% of all men ejaculate inside the woman every single time.

Pre-marital sex leads to specialization and that leads to incompatibility

2011-01-01T01:11:00.005-06:00

The most common excuse people give for pre-marital sex is "we should find out if we are sexually compatible." Two problems with this.

#1 It's widely accepted that the longer you are married, the better sex becomes. The first time you have sex with someone is usually not the best.
#2 If you don't have any experience, then you haven't developed any tastes.

If you both wait until you are married, you are both virgins when you are married. You have NO experience so you aren't likely to have developed certain tastes about sex. You might be intrigued with different positions, role-play, oral sex, anal sex, toys, handcuffs, candles, feathers, ice, bondage, and maybe even kinkier things. But you don't know what you like and don't like yet. You will discover your tastes TOGETHER. You aren't likely to love kink if you haven't ever experienced it. And if you try it with your spouse and he or she doesn't like it, then you aren't likely to get kinky enough for it to become important to you. You won't even know how important it could be to you.

The lovely thing about discovering sex together is it truly enhances the bond. The sexual bond isn't just about pleasure, hormones, and vulnerability. It's also about discovery. And I think the importance of this discovery is undervalued today.

The problem with incompatibility isn't that people have too little sexual experience before they marry. The problem is that they have too much. Each person who has experience with sex before marriage has become a specialist. Then the task of choosing a mate includes finding another specialist who fits you. But if you don't specialize before you marry, then you and your mate will specialize together, and you will have harmony in the bedroom.

Most of the people saying "you need to find out if you are compatible" are coming at the question with their own experience in mind. They are assuming that one of the individuals will have had experience. But that's not always the case. And if it is, then you should be open if the person you want to marry is a virgin and recognize that some of your specialization might have to change. But it doesn't have to be bad or even boring. Rediscover your love of sex with your new spouse, especially if they are a virgin. And if both of you have experience, then forget it. Try to find common ground. Marriage is all about compromise. If you can't compromise in bed, then it's probably going to manifest elsewhere first.

One final thought. If you are one of the people who says "you need to test drive the car before you buy it," fine. Are you willing to wait until you are ready to "buy" the car before you test drive it? Are you willing to wait to get engaged to this person before you have sex? No? Then this argument is nothing but a red herring. You are having pre-marital sex because you are immoral and can't control your urges. Stop trying to act responsible because you aren't.

Respect is NOT earned. It is DIS-respect that should be earned.

2010-12-27T01:56:00.005-06:00

There's a lot of confusion over the word "respect." It can mean two things: courtesy and honor. What is honor? How does it differ from courtesy? Well, let me tell you.

I realized some time ago that there are 3 levels of respect.

Courtesy - How you treat everyone, stranger or best friend. You are polite to them. You don't insult them. You don't talk badly about them behind their back. You don't argue with them in public. You don't try to make them look bad. It's mostly about what you don't do. You don't disrespect them.
Disrespect - There are two kinds:

Feeling of disrespect - How you think about people who prove that they are not worthy of courtesy.
Action of disrespect - You might also sometimes "disrespect" someone, by doing the negative things listed under courtesy, even if you respect them. When you do this, you are likely to change their opinion of you and they are likely to start to disrespect you, both in feeling and in action.

Honor - How you think about someone who is wise. It's deeper than just treating them with courtesy. Your thoughts about them have grown. How you treat them is related to how you feel about them. You are much more likely to be obedient towards someone you honor than someone you are just courteous towards. You think higher of someone you honor than you think of yourself. But you might still disrespect them (action) from time to time.

You know, you hear this a lot:

"Respect must be earned."

And in the same paragraph the same person will say:

"I treat everyone with respect."

Here is where the confusion between courtesy and honor really surfaces. If, when you say "respect must be earned," you describe courtesy, you have it backwards. We must by default treat everyone respectfully... with courtesy... until they have demonstrated that they don't deserve it. It's only until you think about respect in terms of honor that you are right to say "respect must be earned."

I see a lot of people do this. They are clearly thinking one thing: courtesy. But they are describing honor.

Is this important? You BETCHA!!! If you are thinking and describing courtesy when you say "respect must be earned" then you are advocating treating every stranger you meet with disrespect until they have proven that they are worthy of courtesy. Maybe this is why people treat each other so badly. They buy into the "respect must be earned" philosophy and treat each other with dis-respect until that person proves they deserve respect. It's backwards. How is someone going to earn this courtesy if you are treating them with disrespect? Are YOU going to treat someone courteously if they are treating you disrespectfully? If they don't treat you courteously, are you going to start to respect them? No. So you must understand how important this issue is.

Of course in general we do often "treat everyone with respect." But the effect of "respect must be earned" still manifests itself quite a lot too. Far too often I feel.

So I think it's time we recognize the difference between courtesy and honor and we start to treat EVERYONE with courtesy, irrespective of our beliefs on the phrase "respect must be earned."

Indeed. We really must treat everyone with respect.

Seriously? No Dad Christmas cards.

2010-12-22T15:00:00.001-06:00

I ran into a new phenomenon today. I'm looking for a Christmas card for my Dad. I'm finding it especially difficult. It's not that they have run out. It's that they just don't have any. I went to Walmart. There were 4 spaces for Dad cards. But 6 types of cards were to be crammed in those 4 spaces. 3 of the cards were out of stock. Only one was not "funny" and it was a To Dad from Daughter card. And they were out of stock.

I went to a dollar store next. Not one Dad card.

Everywhere I went, there was an abundance of friend and mother cards but few Dad cards. What is going on?

Is this what you meant by equality, feminists?

Has our society become so out of whack that it undervalues the importance of fathers?

Clearly it has. I just didn't expect it to be so obvious.

Happiness comes from... within?

2010-10-24T02:46:00.005-05:00

"Happiness comes from within."

You hear that a lot. It's so popular today, we just buy it. But how true is it really? Seriously! I mean, hasn't science progressed far enough for us to test this notion? Don't we have clinical evidence proving that positive circumstances and events put us in a positive mood? Don't we have proof by now that the wrong hormones or chemicals in our bodies can put us into a foul mood? Hasn't it been demonstrated conclusively that just looking at the photo of someone you love affects the pleasure centers of our brains? Why then do we continue to disregard mother nature and insist on following this pop-psychological nonsense talk?

The fact is, our environment affecting our emotions has a very good purpose. It reinforces good behavior and it discourages bad behavior. Now I am generally a proponent of "fake it till you feel it," but when we continuously put on a happy face when we are not truly happy, we generate a sort of numbness that just becomes habit. We put on a happy costume that just isn't real. We go about our daily lives accepting our fate and we just pretend that we are happy. I am reminded of 1984. It's no wonder that the pop-psychologists today advocate that we fake being happy. They are in bed with the globalists who want our masses to be brain-dead, sitting in front of the idiot box.

This "happiness from within" notion placates us. It encourages us to stay the course and not rock the boat. But if we accept our unhappiness, maybe we'll do something about it. Maybe we'll quit our job and find a vocation that suits us. Maybe we'll get out of the house and actually meet new people. Maybe we'll take up a hobby and make something of our lives. Maybe we'll get closer to God.

See? Don't just assume that you are happy because someone told you that happiness comes from within. If you aren't happy, and aren't capable of generating happiness yourself, don't think that you are broken. Those other people who get their happiness from within... they're lying. Not so much to you but to themselves.

If you are one of those people who thinks that your happiness comes from within, examine yourself. Examine your life. Imagine removing the positive things that affect your mood. Your job. Your home. Your possessions. Your family. Your children. Your spouse. Your health. Remove those things. Now put on a life of failure and ridicule. Imagine if you failed at everything you did. Try to remove yourself from the question. Put on the identity of someone who hasn't been blessed with your life, your upbringing, your personality. And most of all, examine your relationship with God. How is that relationship? Is it thriving? Now, imagine if you can, removing that relationship. Now, can you honestly say that you would still be just as happy as you are now?

You're lying, or you just lack an imagination. Even Jesus wept.

Want to know where true happiness comes from? I'll tell you. Satisfaction. Satisfaction after a period of starving or fasting followed by your favorite meal. Satisfaction in struggle followed by triumph. Satisfaction in a job well done. Satisfaction knowing that no matter what happens your family is there for you. Satisfaction in God's love for you.

Ah, that last one. Job (you know, the guy Satan persecuted?) is of course the stereotypical victim. But he doesn't have a victim mentality does he? No. But does he try to generate his happiness from within? Nope. Does he fight tooth and nail and determine that he will get his life back on track no matter what? No! He cries out to God! He praises God and trusts in Him. And God gives him strength. Job has the satisfaction of knowing that no matter what, nothing can take away God's love.

What can we learn from Job? That happiness comes from within? Absolutely not! Happiness definitely comes from without.

Showing Our True Colors.

2010-09-23T13:03:00.011-05:00

You know they say by "this or that" you know someone's true colors. Notice something? "This or that" is always negative. Here's an example: "Christians reveal their true colors when someone blows up an abortion clinic." Powerful statement, EXCEPT IT'S COMPLETELY FALSE! It doesn't reveal our true colors at all! We are a peaceful religion which practices love above all else. 99.99% of all Christians do not support this sort of violent act, and one could argue that a genuine Christian wouldn't resort to violence and murder, ever! We Christians (hmm... and actually all of mankind) are at our best... our most true selves when we are the image of Christ Jesus. So this phrase "True Colors" is actually a falsehood. It's always used by the ignorant to describe their adversary.

So I don't think anything negative reveals anyone's true colors. Just because you have a tendency to react in a certain manner does not mean that you are that sort of person. Think about this for example. Don't you feel like you aren't yourself when you swear? Or if you lose your temper and yell at someone? You lose control. YOU lose control. You are no longer yourself. So that is not you at all!

But then again, think about those times where you feel like you are your MOST true self. You excel at your job. You achieve a life goal. You are engaging in your passion... your hobby. How about simply being at peace playing with your children, or your spouse, or the person you hope will one day become your spouse. You see, it's not the negative things that bring out our true colors. It's the good times. Bad makes us into someone we are not. Good turns us into our most true selves. See? Human nature is GOOD! (Yet another proof that God is real. Random evolution couldn't create this in us.)

So in truth we become our true selves when we are in the presence of good, not bad. Well, if this is true then why do we always react to certain situations in the same way? Isn't it possible that we are both good and bad and bad situations reveal the bad in us? Well, God created us perfect, so no. We "are" sinners, but not because we "are" bad. We are sinners because we have been cursed with sin. Remember, when you overreact to something, you don't feel like yourself. There is truth in that. So, think of those short term negative reactions more like a minor demon possession. When you lose your temper, doesn't it feel more like you are possessed? That's the demon temper. How about when you have this uncontrollable urge to swear? The demon swear. Or if you, God forbid, strike someone. The demon rage. Every negative reaction that you do is a demon. The demon spite. The demon jealousy. The demon feel like a failure. The demon eat yourself into a coma with ice cream. Our tendencies to react a certain way might actually be demon possession. Really. And I mean that quite literally.

Now the difference between these and your classic demon possession is with these we do regain our composure. We fight back the demon. Well, if we are demon possessed, how do we regain our composure? Why doesn't the demon fully possess us? Well, these short term occurrences are more like the demon finding a weak spot in our armor. Think of yourself wearing the full armor of God, but the armor is not perfect because we are not perfect. Our belt of truth is a bit frayed. Our breastplate of righteousness is a little bit dented. Our shield of faith is chinked. Our helmet of salvation needs a shine. Our sword of the Spirit is a bit dull. Going about our day to day life as sinners, our armor becomes battered. This gives these specific demons a place to hang on, trying to get in to possess the real you. As they hang on they pick at your armor. They find weak spots. They work together and every now and again they peel back a layer and reveal the real you sheltered inside. And they strike! They grab hold of you. And you burst into a reaction. The ability to which we can overcome these bursts reveals the strength of our armor. Some people feel like striking someone, but hold themselves back. Other people shift to another reaction. A person might never strike someone, but they might resort to screaming instead. The rage demon is too big for the hole he created, but the hole is still there. The demon doesn't want to lose the opportunity to affect us, so it steps back and lets its younger brother demon temper grab the person. And the person shouts. Other people lose it completely. People who lose their temper quite easily aren't fully possessed, but the gospel of peace they wear on their feet is thin, and needs to be constantly repaired. If the armor wears out completely or is totally removed by the demons, THAT is when full possession can occur.

So what can we do? 2 Things. First, maintain your armor. Take care of it. Keep it clean. Polish it. Oil it. Repair it. Sharpen it. Stay vigilant against the enemy. You can also get help from other people. Sure! Absolutely! You can have an accountability partner, right? That is an exceptional way to keep those demons out. But even getting the help of other people won't vanquish those demons for good. They are still there, hanging on. Only the power of the Holy Spirit can exorcise these demons and drive them out for good. That is the second thing that we can do. Call on the power of the Holy Spirit, the goodness of Jesus Christ, and the glory of our Father in Heaven to smite those demons once and for all. It really is possible. I've experienced it before. Truly miraculous. When you feel God's love for you, oh! So great!!

Now think about how great you feel when you are happy. How wonderful it is to feel like your true self. But happy as you are, looming in the back of your mind is burden. You have to go to the dentist tomorrow. You have to ask your brother for the money he owes you. You have to ask your boss for a raise. You have to go talk to the kid's teacher because of something he did in school. You have those skeletons in your closet. You did something you are not proud of and you are constantly in fear that someone will find out. Right now you are at peace. Right now you are happy. Tonight as you watch the season premier of your favorite show, you are happy. Right now you are giving the speech of your life. But still, looming there in the recesses of your mind is this burden. But! Imagine the bliss you feel when you are at your best, WITHOUT those burdens! Think about how GREAT that will be! Well that, my friend, is just a glimpse of what Heaven with God will be like. No cares. No worries. Just goodness. We will finally and truly be our true selves because we will be in the presence of ultimate goodness. I can't wait.

So what do we take from this? People might not be themselves when they do bad things, but they still do them. Isn't that important? Sure, but rather than judge people on the bad things they do, maybe we should instead help them to stop doing them. Upon realizing that they are not being themselves when they do bad things, perhaps you will refrain from reacting to them so harshly. Instead of judging them, perhaps you could help them to fight off that demon. Give them a kind word. Make them laugh. Change your approach on the subject. Or just listen to them. I think that is the point that I am trying to make. People might end a relationship with the phrase, "he showed his true colors." People often use that phrase in a dismissive sort of way, as if saying "there is no hope for them. They are that way because they are that way." This attitude offers no prospect for change, no hope for reconciliation, nor of growth. This attitude is divisive. We should be cooperative. When someone reacts badly, they do so because they are hurt. The people who react the most negatively are the people who need our help the most. But we so often push them away first!! But they are the people who need to be shown more love, respect and compassion than anyone else. Just look at what Jesus did while he was being beaten. He asked God His Father to forgive them. While they were beating him within an inch of His life, Jesus forgave them. Now THAT is grace. Lord I pray that you bless me with just a fraction of that grace. I need it. We all do. Especially today. I ask that you repeat that prayer yourself. Lord I pray that you bless me with just a fraction of the grace you demonstrated on the cross. We would all do good to remember that we are forgiven, so too must we forgive.

The problem with philosophy

2010-09-20T15:08:00.000-05:00

The problem with philosophy is the language. Philosophers are generally very intelligent. Truly some of the most intelligent people in history were philosophers. But because of their intelligence they inevitably talked and wrote in very thick jargon that makes it difficult for the person of average intelligence to understand. This is a very elitist approach. It doesn't allow the person of average intelligence to partake in discussion. Some people might think that is good because we don't want average intelligence dabbling in dangerous ideas, but the purpose behind philosophy is to discover. If you want your discoveries to have an impact, you have to be able to communicate your ideas to the masses, not just to your intellectual equals. It is for this reason that I hope to express my philosophical ideas in terms that are understandable to just about anyone. Along my path of discovery of the meaning of existence is the exploration of communication: how to express my ideas clearly so anyone can understand them and be moved. So I will continue to explore new ways of describing my ideas.

If only life was like UNO.

2010-09-09T09:55:00.006-05:00

Do you know what kinds of games I really like? Games that favor the person who is losing. Why? Because if you being in the lead gives you advantage, the game loses its challenge and it stops being fun. It's of course no fun for the person who is losing either. The game stops being fun when you get to a point where the winner has been determined but the game is still not over.

These "level playing field" kinds of games are pretty rare though. Sports aren't like this. They favor the team that's ahead. If you are racing, the further ahead you are, the more likely you are to win. I wish it was the opposite. The further ahead you are, the LESS likely you are to win. Wouldn't that make the race so much more interesting?

With sports you can see how giving the advantage to the winner makes the endgame boring. Ever been to a baseball game when one team has 10 points on the board and the other one only 2? BORING! Once you approach a win, the game is essentially already over and finishing it is just a formality. The team in the lead might get complacent and bored and the losing team might get more determined to win, and that does balance the scales some little bit, but not nearly enough. Sure, comebacks in sports create some of the great legends in the sports world, but they are quite rare because none of the games help the loser along. I wish there was a sports game that gave advantage to the team that was losing.

There are some casual games like this though. Two I can think of are the card games Uno and War. It's hard to win UNO if you don't have any cards to play. It's hard to win War when you have all of the low ranking cards. Games like these give a disadvantage to the person in the lead so they require the person who is winning to plan and win with strategy. Well, not War. War is just random. But UNO... UNO definitely has a strategy. Of course no game is 100% level playing field. The person with the least cards in UNO can generally find a way to win and if you ever find yourself with 50 cards in UNO, uh, yeah. You lost. But the idea. Oh I love the idea of a game that provides a level playing field throughout the course of the game and you really really have to EARN your win.

I think this is why I like the reality show Survivor so much. The better you are at the game the more of a target you are. You'll see a lot of people who fly in under the radar succeed well into the late stages of Survivor. Survivor is definitely a sort of "level playing field" game. It makes the show so interesting. I can't wait to get all of the seasons. (I pretty much stopped watching when I picked up salsa 6 years ago.)

Oh if only life were the same way. You know life favors the advantaged. If you are born rich, you have an easy life. Well, obviously life isn't "easy" for most people, even the rich. But they certainly don't have to worry about one of the things 90% of us worry about. Their worries aren't about money. Much of their worries are artificial, like social status and obtaining power. If only the system was designed to give advantage to the disadvantaged.

Here's an idea! What if the poor didn't have to pay any taxes? Oh. They don't? Ok, what if the lower middle class didn't have to pay any taxes? What if every family making under $100,000 a year didn't have to pay any taxes??? What if the bottom tax bracket started at $100,000? What if the families making $100,000 only had to pay 5% of their annual income? What if the usual 20% tax bracket didn't start until a family had an income of $250,000? What if the more money you made, the more tax burden you had? What if what determined your tax burden was not your income, but your level of prosperity? Well, the majority of what the IRS takes from us is taken from people who make less than $100,000 so doing this would definitely shift the "burden" to the people making over $100,000, and especially over $250,000. This would level the playing field and allow people in the lower income levels to live their lives with more prosperity and perhaps earn the right to pay taxes. The people paying taxes would do so because they have achieved prosperity and taking the higher taxes from them wouldn't eat into it much. Here's the rule. If taking taxes from you eliminates your prosperity, or if you don't have any prosperity to begin with, you pay no taxes. BAM! Love it.

If only. sigh

Or better yet, abolish the Federal Reserve System, eliminate unnecessary governmental spending, bring the church back to where it once was and enable it to feed the poor and care for the sick*, and eliminate the need for national taxes altogether. Our country ran fine for 137 years without the need for a national tax. Why did they all of a sudden need one in 1913?

*Ever notice how a lot of hospitals are named after churches? It's not a coincidence. They were started by churches.

No man is an island

2010-09-09T00:01:00.000-05:00

If you act a certain way, you have to expect people to react a certain way. For example, if you have a very domineering personality that shuts people down when they try to interject their own idea, you have to expect them to stop interjecting. Then later on, you can't blame them for not interjecting when they would have with someone who isn't so overbearing.

I notice a lot of overbearing people like to put the blame on other people in these sorts of situations. They say, "I can't control how people react to me." But we do live in a society in which people affect other people. No man is an island. Ah! Maybe that's it. Maybe these overbearing personalities do exist as islands and they think everyone else should exist as an island too. If this is true they can't control how other people react to them because they don't know how to act cooperatively.

Closed mindedness is the fear of truth.

2010-09-06T10:49:00.003-05:00

Open mindedness isn't just about listening to the other side. It's considering the idea that they might be right and you might be wrong.

It isn't just about expanding your worldview. It's also a willingness to let your worldview contract. It isn't just about additive: I now believe that Noah was a real person and the remnants of his Ark are somewhere in the mountains of Ararat. It's also reductive: I used to believe in aliens but now I don't.

If you are a witch or you practice other unGodly activities, receiving salvation can deeply contract your worldview. If Satan has deceived you with twisted logic and your understanding of scripture is flawed, it can be especially difficult to have an open mind, especially when you believe you are being a good Christian and change will contract your worldview.

It is always good to have an open mind because the only thing that can conquer truth is closed mindedness. Truth will always conquer deceit if the mind is open but deception will not conquer truth if the mind is open. Having a closed mind is evidence that something isn't quite right with your belief because deceit fears truth and its only defense is blindness and pride. Truth does not fear deception so it doesn't mind hearing other points of view.

Open your hearts and your minds to God's truth. Allow His wisdom to enter. When a believer challenges your faith, do not react with fear, pride, or a closed mind. They might be right. They might have received a revelation from God to instruct you. You don't want to be closed off from God's wisdom do you? Open your mind to allow God's truth in.

Of course the other person might be wrong and you might be right. When that happens, if your heart with God is good, you will know who speaks the truth. Hopefully the other person has an open mind too and is willing to allow God's truth into their heart as well.

But if they are right, then you need to have an open mind to allow God's truth inside. Determining what is truth can be difficult, but we have a power that Satan does not: The Holy Spirit. God will protect you. If what the other person says is false, God will let you know. Trust God. But examine yourself in the process. When you disagree with what they are saying, is it the Holy Spirit guarding you, or do you disagree because of closed mindedness? Be honest with yourself. Accept change if God wills it. It can be difficult and quite often receiving truth can take time. Always be aware of the little seeds God is planting in your heart. Nurture them. Water them. Feed them. Harvest them when they ripen.

Always question your doubt. Is it closed-mindedness or is it really the Holy Spirit?

An unpopular notion: Unhappily married ever after.

2010-07-29T23:16:00.001-05:00

Oh this is going to be unpopular. I wonder if I should even put this out there. It might immediately turn some people off, especially before they learn about me. If you don't know me, and you are reading this, just put it on the back burner. It might be better if you don't read this until after you get to know who I am. If you do end up reading it, and are appalled, please put your immediate instinct on the back burner. Keep an eye on me. Doubt me. But please don't just write me off as a lunatic.

Wow! Did I entice you or what? The topic is about divorce so don't get too excited. It's not about an uber-controversial subject like same sex marriage or abortion. It's "just" about divorce. But I am advocating an extreme position. A very unpopular position, even among many Christians. I'd refrain from posting it but this topic is too important to ignore. So let's get into it.

Divorce is far too common today. It's accepted. Is that okay? People say it is. But it's really not. Why? Because it's going to get worse. The acceptance of divorce as a way out creates a sort of feedback effect that makes people more likely to divorce. It is getting worse, so much that it has transformed marriage. People fear divorce so much they choose to eliminate marriage altogether and become life partners. I don't mean same sex partners. I mean heterosexual domestic partners. That's got a whole different set of problems associated with it. I'll ponder those and report on them later but for now let's focus on divorce.

What I realized is the acceptance of divorce allows people to take their pre-marital relationships too casually. In many Christian circles, divorce is not an option. Even in the case of infidelity. I know that can be difficult but forgiveness wouldn't be meaningful if it was easy. When forgiveness is easy you dismiss the apology, saying "think nothing of it." But a spouse who cheats can't apologize enough. We can't apologize enough for our rebellion against God either, but God forgives. Not because it's easy. He forgives us because we are that important to Him. This kind of forgiveness is meaningful. So too is the forgiveness for infidelity. Your spouse is so important to you that you are willing to forgive him or her for anything, even infidelity. That is unconditional love. Anything less would be conditional.

Most cases of divorce do not happen because of infidelity though. They occur because of "irreconcilable differences." Well, if you find that you're irreconcilably different from your spouse, you didn't do your homework before you were married, did you? Is Divorce okay for you? Absolutely not. If your marriage suffers from bickering or backbiting or differing perspectives on life or name your sin, then you missed something in the courting process. You didn't test one another enough before you said your vows. Now your punishment is to remain married and unhappy.

Wow! Really Alex? You really believe this? Absolutely. Yes. You made your bed. It's your fault. If you divorce you only reinforce the idea that marriages are disposable. This isn't to say that divorce is a picnic. It's terrible, sure. But ripping the bandage off is nothing like keeping the bandage on for the rest of your life. If you are mature and accept your punishment, your unhappy marriage can now serve a purpose: teaching other people that they must make sure they are marrying the right person. And your bad marriage will be well known. People will gossip about it. And the longer the awful marriage lasts the longer the lesson can be taught. I know it's harsh, but if life's lessons were easy then we wouldn't learn anything.

Holey cow! Now you can see why this is unpopular. Even many Christians have a hard time with it. But if you are a Christian you must accept the infallible word of God. And God tells you that you must not divorce. There is one single case in the new testament (Matthew 19:9) where Jesus (in a roundabout way) gives permission to divorce in the case of infidelity. But we already covered infidelity. It can be overcome. And I believe that Jesus' apparent permission had something more to do with the attitudes of the time. Things are different today. So I think it's clear in no way should a Christian couple get a divorce. EVER!!

Of course the proper solution is to fix your marriage. Come to terms with your differences. Accept them. Learn to live with them. Change your perspective. Meet in the middle. Compromise. Or outright change. Ask for advice at the church. Or from your friends and family. See a marriage counselor. But if all of those things fail, then it is still not okay to divorce. You should have done your homework and you should let your unhappy marriage be an example that tells the world, "this is what happens if you don't court properly."

So why do I believe this? Today's attitude about divorce increases the likelihood that you will divorce. By accepting the notion that you can get divorced as a last resort, you can take your pre-marital relationships more casually. You don't do your homework. You don't test. You don't prove. Oh, you might live with each other before you marry to test the waters, but that creates a completely different set of marital problems. I'm gettin' sick and tired of frikkin' 'splainin' to people that they shouldn't live together before they get married. The statistics don't lie. If you live together first, you have an 80% chance of splitting!! So living together is not testing the right way. Testing takes time and a different perspective than just falling in love, or more likely, lust. (After all, what cohabiting unmarried couple doesn't have sex too?) When you walk down the aisle, you need to know at the bottom of your heart that you will be with this person until death. Not because you are against divorce, but instead because you have proven it to each other. If you don't do this, then you don't deserve to be married. And if you do get married, and find that you are incompatible, then you deserve your punishment. You must stay unhappily married so you can be an example for others.

It seems that we aren't learning anything any more. We are in fact going backwards. People are living together because they are afraid of divorce. That's not right. The answer isn't to fear marriage. It's to make sure you are compatible. Not by living together, But instead by spending time together. By asking questions. By watching them live their life. If divorce wasn't an option, more people would be doing this, and the result would be a greater number of happy marriages.

The tyranny of monopoly or "They don't have a gun to your head."

2010-07-28T15:41:00.001-05:00

When people complain about a monopoly other people often reply, "well you can just choose not to use the product" or "they aren't holding a gun to your head." But why the heckle and jeckle do they think monopolies are a problem? This is EXACTLY why a monopoly is illegal. You HAVE to use their product. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.

Take high fructose corn syrup. People say it's ok. Well it's not. Argument for another day. Well, what am I supposed to do? Not buy products with corn syrup? Try it. Seriously. Try it. You can't. You can't survive without corn syrup today because it's in practically every food product you buy. You have to eat to survive. What am I supposed to do? Grow my own crops? Hand make my own ketchup? That's completely unrealistic. Maybe it was ok 150 years ago when the majority of Americans were farming their own food. But it's not practical today. I am FORCED to use HFCS. That is the problem. The HFCS manufacturers have a monopoly on the sweetener market. And my only recourse is whine about it. There are alternatives at Whole Foods for some foods, sure. But not for all foods. And be realistic. Not everyone can afford to buy all of their groceries from a gourmet grocery store. In fact, I can't afford it. And if more people would purchase those alternatives, demand would skyrocket and prices would shoot up even higher.

This isn't just about monopolies. It's about the attitude. Any time you need to use something or to do something people like to say "they aren't putting a gun to your head." Well, that might be true. The HFCS industry may not be putting a gun to my head. The oil industry isn't forcing me to drive a vehicle powered by gasoline. That's not the problem. The problem is usually that they know someone ELSE has a gun raised to my head and they are taking advantage. I have to use HFCS because I have to eat and HFCS is in what? 40% of all foodstuffs? I have to drive because society today requires it. I live in a very large city. The bus is not a reasonable alternative, especially at 4:00 AM. So the people who sell the things I hate might not have a gun raised to my head. But that doesn't stop them from taking advantage when they know someone else has a gun raised to my head. That's why a monopoly is illegal. How does the banking cartel get away with it?

Please be careful about using the phrase "gun to your head." It's pretty disrespectful, and quite frankly it's generally not true. A lot of times a figurative gun IS actually held to our heads.

"I don't believe in Coincidence." No. You don't know what coincidence is.

2010-07-28T14:32:00.008-05:00

I hear this all the time,

"I don't believe in coincidence."

Oh how it aggravates me. These people are really saying that there is meaning behind every event. That may or may not be true, but that is not what their words say. For their words to mean what they think they mean, they have to change the definition of coincidence.

Coincidence is an insignificant relation or connection. Insignificant is part of the definition! If you don't believe in coincidence, you have to take the word insignificant out from the definition first. Coincidence is me passing a guy in the hallway who has the same name as me. It is not coincidence if I run into him because God decided we should have lunch together. What's the difference? Purpose! The difference between coincidence and meaning is purpose. Is there a purpose behind 10 people in the mall having the same first name? Was it planned for a specific purpose? No. So it's a coincidence.

If you wonder if something is coincidental, ask yourself if the event was planned.

Now, just because the event SEEMS to have meaning doesn't necessarily mean it's not coincidental. It could still be a coincidence. You don't know if the event was planned. This is where things get dicey though because we want to see meaning everywhere, especially when a coincidental event coincides with a significant event.

Here's an example. Let's pretend a fellow named Adam enters Club Eden. Inside this club is a girl named Eve. Coincidence? Probably so. Significant? Maybe. If they meet. They'll surely find it interesting. Well, let's say they do meet. The pickup line writes itself, "where have you been all my life?" She might chuckle and they might engage in a conversation just because their names coincide along with the venue. Maybe they hit it off. Does this mean that them meeting was significant? Well, them meeting might be significant, and their names might have added something, but did their names create the significance? Surely not. Even if they fall in love and marry, their names aren't what did it. Hopefully not. If upon meeting her he said, "Your name is Eve? My name is Adam! It must be fate," and she believed him? Then fell for him JUST because his name was Adam and they met in Club Eden? Well that's just STUPID! See? The names coinciding with the Biblical names is nothing but an interesting anecdote. God MIGHT have created this event. He might have given them these names to add to the interest. But God doesn't JUST work with these sorts of events. He always adds more. Meaning. They shouldn't fall in love because their names are Adam and Eve. They should fall in love because they are made for each other. Them meeting might not be a coincidence, but them having these names probably is.

Now, let's get back to the mundane. According to many scientists an object is said to have hit the Earth 65 million years ago with 65 million megatons of explosive force. The fact that these two numbers are the same, is that not a coincidence? What is the meaning behind these two numbers being the same? In a million years, these two numbers won't be the same anymore. Is it significant that the numbers are the same when humans are on Earth? Who cares if they are the same? What's the big deal?

It's not a big deal. The event wasn't planned.

Here's another example: I'm about to turn 38. There are 38 pennies in my jar. WOW! There must be something meaningful about those pennies!

No, there isn't. It's a coincidence.

People who say there is no such thing as coincidence forget the definition of the word. When you say that you don't believe in coincidence, aren't you really saying that you don't believe in insignificance? Insignificance is practically a synonym for coincidence. But you find insignificant events everywhere.

Just look around you. Here. I'll look around me and find... oooo... coincidence. The sheets on my mattress are the same color as the mattress. Significant or no? The wall is the same color too. Significant? No. The sheet of paper on my desk is the same color. Again, significant? No. All of these things are coincidence. My socks are the same color. Significant? Nope.

See? There IS indeed coincidence. As long as you don't change the definition just so you can say the catch phrase. Stop it. It's just wrong.

"I don't believe that" is not a valid argument.

2010-07-02T22:57:00.010-05:00

Going back to my blog post about having an opinion, simply dismissing an argument without having a counter argument is nothing but laziness. At best it's resistance to change. If you "don't believe" that the world bankers are trying to take over the world, it's not enough to point to the popular media as evidence. The world bankers own the popular media. If you don't think that the government had a hand in the Kennedy Assassination it's not enough to point to the government's papers on the subject. You have to do your own homework. In any argument you need valid evidence, best provided by an impartial party. If an impartial third party is unavailable, then you need to consider evidence provided by both sides. And in all of these cases of conspiracy, we have a plethora of evidence to support the idea that there really is a large scale conspiracy between the world's elite, by people who have a stake in seeing the bankers fall, and also people who do not. Every bit of impartial evidence about this "New World Order" conspiracy gives proof that the New World Order is very real. But every single bit of "evidence" against that theory is provided by those people purported to be in the conspiracy.

Conspiracy though isn't the point of this post. Making a valid argument is. If you don't take the time to look into an argument, don't think you are going to win the argument. And if you don't take the time to come up with an argument, then you lose the right to have an opinion on someone's stance on the issue. If you choose to remain ignorant over an issue, then you don't have ANY right to call someone stupid or crazy for being on one side.

Example: Ron Paul. A LOT of people called Ron Paul crazy, but they hadn't heard one speech that Dr. Paul gave. They just called him crazy because they heard it on talk radio, or on the news channels that he was a loon. Who is stupid now? Then they went along thinking that Barrack Obama was practically a demigod, even though they hadn't seen any of HIS speeches either. Sure eventually they heard an Obama speech, but that was because they had already made up their mind about him.

The public doesn't listen to people they don't support. But how can you choose to support someone if you won't listen to them? Or if you have never heard them before?

No one supported Obama in 1976. He wasn't in the public eye to be supported. Then in the 2008 campaign gradually one by one people started to hear about him. Key word: ABOUT. They didn't hear him. They heard ABOUT him. They were intrigued. Here was supposed to be a different sort of candidate (while ignoring that other different sort of candidate - whose platform was centered on constitutionality). And they hadn't even heard a speech yet (by either candidate). They had already been sold the idea that here is a man who would make a good president (or here was a crazy person). They made up their mind before they'd even heard one word from him (both of them - and they still hadn't heard any speech from Ron Paul). Or they simply saw a picture of him and decided that they wanted a black president.

Please, don't just believe what The Man tells you to believe. And if someone is going against what you believe, but you are too lazy to investigate, don't just call them crazy. Chances are they did the homework to come to the conclusions that they did. You didn't. If anything, that makes YOU crazy for blindly doing as you are told by people in power.

The way to convince someone of the truth.

2010-06-28T23:27:00.005-05:00

In light of my most recent post, I think it's time I posted this... Please note, it's a work in progress so don't get too attached to it.

To change someone's view on something the best method is to tell them something that they can not disagree with. Then something else and one more thing. And keep doing it, but guide them. Formulate a thread of logic that leads to their own personal discovery that they were wrong, and you are right. It is best if they do not detect an ulterior motive, or they will disagree with their own truth just to keep from changing. They need an epiphany. And if you are able to take them down a path of no resistance, where they agree to every single thing you say, and that path leads to truth, then they will have one. And hopefully the epiphany will change them. But you have to be completely truthful and logical. You cannot commit logical fallacies. You must examine the logic from every angle and you must seek alternatives and excuses and opposing logic and even twisted logic. They'll use twisted logic so you have to be able to fight it.

Most importantly, you have to know the person. this is why we have to understand our adversaries. To direct them down a path of logic that leads to truth, you have to know where they are at. You have to know who they are and why they do the things they do. This is why I think about the reasons behind things like the pro-choice movement and other evils. If I know the reasons people murder their own unborn children and if I can learn to understand what is going on for these mothers, maybe one day I can get them to realize how wrong they are. If we can get behind the lies of the world, then maybe we can direct people towards truth.

This is the way to teach people the truth.

Excusing Passive Aggressive Behavior

2010-06-28T22:22:00.013-05:00

Of all sins one of the ones I despise the most is hypocrisy. So I am very aware when I say something then do it myself. I suppose you could say this blog is as much a guide for myself as it is for other people. In fact, since I have so few readers I'm sure that is exactly what it is.

One thing I sometimes struggle with is what I understand to be passive aggressive behavior. Keeping things in and not allowing conflict to be resolved out in the open. Or lashing out silently. I to my knowledge have never lashed out silently against someone but I'm examining some past experiences and I recognize times when I did jump to conclusions about someone and I silently made a judgment about them without giving them the opportunity to defend themselves. Had I been straightforward with them I would have found the situation to be different. Those times are inexcusable. I'll try not to commit that particular sin again.

But I'm reflecting on other times when I fled conflict that could have been handled out in the open, and I realize something. The reason why I didn't go to the person directly and deal with things properly is because I know that I would have lost the argument. Either they were so hard headed or I knew they were just too good at arguing. Not that I would be persuaded to change my position, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to change their's. I was still right and they were still wrong, but my verbal skills were not good enough to defend my position. In these cases it was more advantageous to keep the issue silent and do what I would do had I won the argument. Is that the right thing to do? Probably not. But what can a poor speaker do? Does he have to live his life according to other people's rule sets just because he lacks the ability to defend his position? Absolutely not! Especially when he is dealing with moral issues.

So what can I do the next time this situation comes up? I can't go to them directly and allow us to argue. We won't get anywhere. They'll "win" and I'll be forced to back down on an issue that I feel very strongly about. But it's wrong to go behind their back too. What to do? God? Any advice? I wonder if there are any scriptural verses to aid in this conundrum.

I do know that Paul was supposed to be a poor public speaker. And he had more influence on our religion than anyone, save Jesus Himself. How did Paul do it? Writing? I don't know. Obviously the Holy Spirit helped Paul. Will the Holy Spirit help me with the little disagreements? Surely the answer is... sometimes. Sometimes the Lord has bigger plans.

I'm reminded of the phrase "What Would Jesus Do." Jesus would be able to argue the point and convince the other person that they are wrong. I'm not Jesus. I don't have His ability to convince other people, so I'm back at square one.

I'm wondering if this conundrum sometimes plays a part in a lot of people's passive aggressive behavior. Once again, the case is made for giving people the benefit of the doubt and assuming there is a valid justifiable reason behind their actions. This includes passive aggressive behavior.

So what can we do? If I am the person with the problem, I don't know. I'll have to ponder that question for awhile. Any thoughts on that are welcome.

I wonder though if people reading this blog will understand what this situation is like. Do you know what it's like to be inescapably right but to also be unable to defend your position? I suspect a lot of socially skilled people don't understand what it's like. Can you give advice to someone who isn't capable of taking your advice? It's just like the WWJD "advice." Advice from someone who is capable of arguing a point doesn't help much. You can't just say, "talk about it with the other person" because talking about it is the very problem I am faced with, especially when it's with people who are skilled at arguing. I hate arguing. It never leads anywhere except towards destruction. So if you know what it's like to be unable to talk to someone about an issue you have with them, what can you do?

Now if someone is silently holding a grudge against me, or forming an invalid opinion about me, can I do something to get them to bring their issues out into the open? Should I? I believe so. They could be wrong. They might be right. Either way it's better if conflict is resolved. If I'm even aware that they have a problem with me. Sometimes I don't. If I should get them to bring the issue out into the open, am I capable of defending my position? Again, I don't know. I suppose this is another reason for the blog. It allows me to cement my thoughts and to prepare for the arguments on these important issues.

Now if I could just get people to have arguments with me about THESE issues. LOL. I'd probably still lose. Celibacy, abortion, religion, and general morality are difficult topics to argue.

It's ok to have an opinion.

2010-06-12T01:40:00.009-05:00

I was discussing debate with a friend of mine (You know who you are girl) and I told her that I liked that she was upfront and not afraid to disagree when someone says something that isn't true, even if it could lead to conflict. That's a very rare quality these days. So many people are so afraid of conflict. But apparently fear of conflict isn't the only reason some people don't argue about truth. It seems a big reason people don't debate is that they really just don't have an opinion on these things, even about things that matter.

Weird. At least to me.

So Micah said she really appreciates truth. If someone says something that is false, if she is capable, she's going to set them straight, in a nice way of course. And of course we were talking about truth pertaining to things that matter: salvation, abortion, lifestyle choices. Things like that. We weren't talking about the best flavor of coffee. She mentioned that things changed for her when she let Jesus into her life. Before, she wasn't opinionated. She'd had a permissive 'live and let live' attitude. Then, she "obtained a worldview." She hadn't had one!

This opened my eyes a bit. I have pretty much always analyzed things in my world and tried to understand it to make it better, if only a little bit. That's the philosopher in me I guess. I suppose I figured everyone does the same so when she said she GOT a worldview, I thought to myself, "hmmm. Can you NOT have a worldview?" And I realized that a lot of the people with a permissive attitude must have no worldview. WOW! How can you function without a belief system to guide you?

I guess without a worldview you can do whatever you want. That explains a lot, huh?

Well, it seems we can identify ourselves right now. Do you have a worldview? Do you have an opinion about the important things? Controvertial things? Or do you prefer to let people have their own opinion about them? You must know that the thing that makes controversy so controvertial is that those things matter, right? LOL Wow. Amazing that people know some things matter but don't care enough to form an opinion.

The times we live in.

I guess opinion is responsibility. When you form an opinion, you have to back it up, at least internally. You have to reason first. Well, I reason before I form an opinion anyway. I guess if you are too lazy to summon up an opinion you might also be too lazy to have a reason for your opinions.

Well, you should have an opinion on these things. And then you should reason out why you feel the way you do. Prepare yourself. If you don't have a defendable position, then maybe you should reconsider your belief. So get ready to defend your position. Stand up for what you believe in. And then read my blog post: "I'm Entitled to My Opinion".

Give up control when things get out of control.

2010-06-05T22:51:00.005-05:00

So I'm thinking about certain things while I'm driving back home after helping Micah move and I'm thinking about prayer and mostly about giving God control. You know letting him be the driver in my life. It occurs to me that this issue of control comes up. How do you give control to God, without laying like a lump in bed all day long? You have to actually get out and do stuff. You aren't a puppet. And God doesn't want you to be. So I'm pondering this issue.

We hear this a lot in Christian circles. "You have to give God control." I think that "control" though is not the problem. I don't think the problem is that people try to control their lives. Controlling our own life isn't all that bad. If you want to be a veterinarian, you have to be proactive and go to school, educate yourself, meet the right people, and find a job. You know, actually make the dream happen. So control isn't really a problem.

I think generally speaking people should still be allowed to have some control over their lives but there can still be a problem. God sometimes does need to step in from time to time to remind us, to keep us on His path. So I think the problem is GIVING UP control when things get OUT OF control. We don't want to give up control when it seems that God takes the most control, when things start to go awry.

What I think is really being said in this Christian advice is that people are too married or attached to a certain outcome or a particular plan. I suffer from this A LOT. Because I like to plan things. I like to see things work a certain way. I'm a designer at heart. I want things to work right. Things working according to their designed intent goes straight to my heart. The stinking iPhone's battery is SUPPOSED to last all day long! Why do these programs crash so much? That person shouldn't be in the right lane. That person shouldn't be in the left lane. So I find it extremely difficult to let things go when things aren't happening according to "what's right."

When this happens I feel things are out of control, and my reaction is to try to seize control. So I think THIS goes directly in line with what a lot of Christian advisers say. I think what they are really saying is go with the flow when things start to veer off course. When things don't go according to plan... to YOUR plan, maybe thing aren't supposed to go according to your plan. Maybe God's plan is better and you need to just accept it. When you react, rather than try to steer everything back towards your plan, react towards the new direction.

It's like you are on a rafting trip and approaching a fork in the river. You want to go right but the current is pulling you left. And you fight it and try to force yourself to go right when the river wants you to go left. If you would just accept the left fork, maybe it's a better trip. God is the current. The problem isn't the control. You are still in the raft paddling and steering. The problem is that you aren't letting go when you have to.

When I have a plan that isn't working, I pray to God. I say things like, "God why isn't this working? What am I doing wrong? What is getting in the way? What is going wrong? Why can't I do this? Why can't I have this one thing?" All of those are bound up by... me. They are a reaction to my plan. Well, what about God's plan?

So I've decided to try to think about this when things start to go awry. Make little adjustments to see if they "take." But if they don't, then accept the new direction. If I want to plan a date with a girl and traffic is preventing me from meeting her on time, don't fight it. Call her calmly. Let her know I'm running late. React. Don't try to force things by rushing through rush hour traffic and risk dying. Accept the path God put me on. Maybe we won't see the movie. Maybe something better will come up. Whatever happens, I'm sure God's plan for the date is better than mine.

Why even think about evil?

2010-06-01T00:31:00.006-05:00

If you've been following my blog, you know that I like to think about good and evil. Especially evil. I question evil. What it means. Does it exist?

But what does it matter? This question in my mind? Is it all semantic? Does it matter that the guy who abuses his wife is not technically evil? What use is it to say that Hitler was just mentally derranged instead of evil? He still did evil acts. Isn't that what matters? Don't they just need to stop doing evil things? Who cares if someone is evil or just crazy? They did evil! Right? Is my thinking about all of this just mental masturbation? Unproductive thought?

Then I get a grip and remember what prompts these thoughts of mine to surface. The reason I concern myself with these issues is because other people don't. People don't make movies about the bad guy. Not trying to understand him anyway. It seems aside from the law enforcement and psychiatric communities no on wants to understand the evil mind. But I know that there is a PERSON inside that "evil" body. Someone who loves and fears and dreams and wants good! Yes! Even so called evil people want to do good! They may have a twisted idea of what good is. But they still want to do good. Everyone on Earth thinks it's good to do good. This I truly believe. (And it's something I feel is proof that God exists. C.S. Lewis gave me the idea.)

All of these thoughts and ponderings of the evil mind I do because when we start to think of these people as PEOPLE and stop thinking of them as demons, maybe we'll be able to, you know, help them and reduce the number of evil people in the world. Evil people are evil for a reason. Maybe it can be controlled, or handled differently, or the unstable person can be reached before he becomes maniacal dictator bent on genocide. I don't know. The point is we shouldn't just wash our hands of someone and resign them to hell just because they do evil. They are people too. Sure, they need to be punished. No doubt about that. But they are victims too. Hitler was a victim. Yes he was. His life didn't end well, did it? Do you think if he was sane he would have done everything he did? No. He was a deranged drug addict.

I know this is a hard pill to swallow. I know the real victims deserve justice. But don't confuse revenge for justice.

Would it not be fruitful to get into the mind of evil people and see what makes them tick? I don't think enough people consider the mind of bad people. They are "just bad" and need to "just stop being bad," right? But it's not that easy. You can't just "stop being bad" any more than you can just "stop being male." We are who we are and we do what we do for a reason and the more we study those reasons the better understanding we can have about these people. Maybe we can actually stop the next Hitler.

THAT is why it's important to consider the PERSON contained within the evil body. And THAT is why I think about evil. One day I would like to write a book taken from the perspective of an evil person. I wonder if I could do it. I'm not evil enough. I hope I'm not. Is my imagination good enough to compensate? Actually I really don't want to get into the mind of another Hitler. I really would like to get into the mind of a jerk though. What makes a jerk tick? That might be an interesting story to ponder.

Don't begin your prayers with "if."

2010-05-31T23:48:00.017-05:00

I saw in a movie long ago a girl after a date said to herself about the boy walking away, "if he likes me he'll turn around and look at me." He turned around. "Yes!" she squealed to herself. Cute. But come on. How real is that? Did the guy actually like her or was he just being nice? He might have liked her but was him turning around the signal? She could have said, "if he likes me he'll stop and tie his shoelace." Ridiculous.

People will give you advice, say about a girl. They'll say "you have to be direct with her. Tell her your intentions right away before you enter the 'friend zone.' Most girls appreciate guys being direct." But what about the girl who likes to move slow? What about the girl you HAVE to befriend first? Well, the advice giver will say "if being direct doesn't work out, then she's not the girl for you." WHAT A COP OUT! How ridiculous is that? He's saying one of two things, either HIS ADVICE is what MADE her the right girl for you, or the 5% of girls that this "advice" doesn't work on aren't right for anyone, because, after all, his advice is supposed to work for every guy. He doesn't realize that if you had followed the advice her GIRL friend told you, to befriend the girl first and approach things slowly, she would have grown to realize how compatible the two of you really are. If you do that, all of a sudden she's the right girl for you? Just because you chose someone else's advice? The advice has no connection at all to her being the right girl. You are either compatible or you aren't. All you can do is be yourself and try to win her heart the best way you can.

How many people are we compatible with? A lot. A whole lot. I think we are compatible with a lot more people than we realize. But how many do we end up with? One. Ideally. Does that mean you aren't compatible with the other people? No. Compatibility is a constant. You are either compatible with someone or you aren't. Sure it changes over time, but generally speaking you either are compatible or you are not. So the reason you don't end up with someone, even though you are compatible, isn't because you are only compatible with just one person. It's because conditions weren't right when the opportunity was at its best. Opportunity wasn't good enough, no matter how compatible you two are.

I hate it when people say things like "if so and so then it wasn't meant to be." No. You don't get to dictate the terms of a cause and effect relationship. Nature does. God does. It's like praying for something. I read in Boy Meets Girl, how Joshua Harris's girl prayed to God, "please if it's your will that Joshua be the man for me, tell him NOT to call me tonight." She believed that if Joshua was strong enough in Christ that he would hear God's word and fight the temptation to call. Nice idea, but completely faulty. Sure, in this case God said yes, but what if God had said, "no?" What if Joshua prayed a contradictory prayer? Would she have known? What if God had bigger plans? What if His plan was BETTER than hers? What if God said "no" to this girl? If Joshua hadn't called, then maybe he just wasn't interested. Or worse, what if he DID call but God said NO to this girl's prayer because He wanted Joshua to be proactive and to chase after her. Now he calls her and she loses interest, all because she THOUGHT she had a bargain with God. She didn't necessarily have a bargain. God doesn't say yes to every prayer, and if you give him an ultimatum or a bargain, watch out.

Think about how ridiculous this prayer would be... "If you don't want me to be with this guy, let me win the lottery tonight." Wouldn't it be great if God worked that way? I'd get both. I'd get the girl of my dreams one day then the next day say, "Ok God, if you want me to be with her then can you confirm it by letting me win the lottery? Thanks." Riiiight. God's not a vending machine.

Don't dictate to God. Don't bargain. Ask? Sure. Pray? Definitely. Beg? I guess. Fast? Yes. But don't think a bargain is going to work.

In short, don't begin your prayers with "if." He might say "yes." But then again, He might say "no." You'll never know if he said "yes" or "no," even if your condition is met. Just because you prayed for a condition, and the condition was met, it doesn't mean He said "yes" to the prayer. Be very careful about these sorts of prayers.

I do believe Jesus told us not to test God. You tread on thin ice when asking these sorts of questions.

A thought to ponder... Are other people necessary for you to sin?

2010-05-17T04:36:00.005-05:00

Can you sin if you are all by yourself on a deserted island? Does it take other people to sin? If you hurt yourself and cursed out loud, would that be a sin? If you denied God, I suppose that would be a sin. I'd be very interested to hear what sins people might think are possible without other people around. And also what sins are impossible. Obviously you can't murder, or steal, or covet. But are there sins that you can commit?

Makes you think. What if you were born trapped on a deserted island all by yourself and lived the entirety of your life all by yourself? Let's say your mother died when you were still innocent and didn't know right from wrong but you were able to survive. Would you be sin free when you died?

EDIT:
I suppose the answer to this question is dependent upon the definition of sin. The Bible lays out a lot of rules so I guess studying the Bible would be a good place to start. Really as I see it I suppose there are three types of sin: sin against God (blasphemy, Lord's name in vain, denying Him), sin against man (theft, slander, murder), and sin against yourself (laziness, self-destructiveness). Obviously if you are alone on a deserted island you can't sin against other people. But there are still those other two kinds of sin. Obviously if you take the Lord's name in vain and use His name as a swear word, you've sinned against Him. And also if you are too lazy to work on your shelter when it needs it or if you are too lazy to go find food you are sinning against yourself.

So to answer my own question, it definitely is possible to sin on a deserted island, even if you are all by yourself.

Is it ok for a Christian to get a tattoo?

2010-05-17T04:07:00.003-05:00

I have a lot of Christian friends. I also have a lot of friends with tattoos. And I have a few Christian friends with tattoos, or want to get tattoos. Are they violating some biblical principle by displaying art or personal expression on their bodies?

I was raised pretty conservatively so naturally my first instinct is to look down on Christians who get tattoos. But some of my strongest Christian friends still want tattoos or already have them. Some of their tattoos express their love of the Lord. What's wrong with that? Any time I see Christians do something I stand against I find myself examining my belief in real context. I might be wrong. Was I taught wrong? Is it REALLY in the Bible? So I'm left wondering, are all tattoos banned in the Bible?

I have two thoughts on this. The first one is expressed in 1 Corinthians 6: 19-20

19Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.

So, your body is not yours. That means if you want to get a tattoo as a means of PERSONAL expression, to communicate to the world your love of Rainbows, Bugs Bunny or Chevy trucks, then I'd have to say you are violating the spirit of this verse. Your body is God's. It's meant for the Lord, not as a means of personal expression. If you think yourself a strong Christian and you also believe that your body is YOURS to use as you see fit, whether you want to use it for artwork, or to shovel junk food in it, to have sex when you want with whomever you want, or to have an abortion because it's "your body, your choice," then you really should sit down with the Lord and have a heart to heart. It's not your body.

How about displaying God on your body? I'll just have to reserve judgment on that one. A lot of churches display art. There are entire churches that are complete works of art themselves. So maybe a tattoo of a cross or the words "Jesus loves me" wouldn't be too bad. It would express your love of Christ to the world.

But would it also be expressing something else? This leads to my second point, expressed in 1 Corinthians 8: 9-13.

9Be careful, however, that the exercise of your freedom does not become a stumbling block to the weak. 10For if anyone with a weak conscience sees you who have this knowledge eating in an idol's temple, won't he be emboldened to eat what has been sacrificed to idols? 11So this weak brother, for whom Christ died, is destroyed by your knowledge. 12When you sin against your brothers in this way and wound their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. 13Therefore, if what I eat causes my brother to fall into sin, I will never eat meat again, so that I will not cause him to fall.

Paul worries that his actions, although permissible in the Bible, might be misinterpreted by people who are weaker in the flesh and it might cause them to sin. He says that if his actions cause other people to sin, then his action is a sin too.

So, if you get a tattoo with a cross, or a fish, or Hebrew letters, or especially something more cryptic, and a person who is a new babe in Christ knows you to be strong in Christ and sees your tattoo, they might think all tattoos are ok and decide to get a tattoo of an ankh. The ankh isn't a Christian symbol, so getting a tattoo of an ankh would violate the Biblical principle expressed in 1 Corinthians 8. Your friend would sin, and because your tattoo gave him "permission" in his mind, then your tattoo (although Christian in nature) is a sin too.

Likewise, fundamentalist Christians might see the tattoos on you and dismiss you as a weak Christian. You might lose your credibility with them. Maybe you don't care. But really, shouldn't you care how other Christians feel about you? I certainly do. I don't want anyone to think I'm a poor example in Christ. My goal in life is to be a beacon that leads people towards Christ. How can I do that if ANYONE thinks I'm a weak Christian? Maybe the fundamentalist Christians are weak. (Aren't we all really?) Well, if they are weak then it's my responsibility to try to help them to become stronger. How can I do that if they dismiss me? At the very least I have to keep from causing them to sin. They sin when they judge me. So I invite them to judge me when I do something I know they disagree with.

Now of course you getting a tattoo might not be any of my business. Who am I to judge, right? Well, I'm not here to judge. I'm here to open your eyes and to ask you to judge YOURSELF. Ask yourself, "would Jesus be okay with that yin & yang tattoo on my ankle?" Or... "What would Jesus feel about that tribal 'tramp stamp' tattooed on my lower back?" How about "will that Native American band tattooed around by bicep glorify God?"

I'm pretty sure you know the answer to those questions and if you still get the tattoos I pray you seek God. Strengthen your relationship with Him because really, none of those glorify God. They glorify you.

Your body is meant to glorify God. We are commanded to refrain from glorifying ourselves and instead we are told to glorify God. So if you want a tattoo, really ask yourself if your desire to get the tattoo is really intended to glorify God. Even if it would be Christian tattoo, like a cross, what will YOU get from the tattoo? Is your desire to get the tattoo wrapped up in how you want other people to perceive you? Is it pride? Or is it meant to truly glorify God? Will the tattoo express your love of God? Will it also express to ignorant people your weakness? Could it cause other people to stumble? Will the tattoo help you to witness for the Lord, or will it make it more difficult to witness?

I'm not here to judge you. I know the answer to this question is dependent on your personal circumstance. A man in prison might use tattoos to witness. A tattoo might be very helpful for missionary work. So it's not up to me. The answer is between you and God. Ask God, "Is the tattoo ok? Will it really glorify you or is my reason for wanting it personal?" But whatever you do, realize that tattoos are (mostly) permanent. You can't go back (not easily anyway) so please take it seriously. Sit down with God and your Bible and ask Him for guidance before you decide to go through with it. And as long as there is doubt in your heart about it, wait to get the tattoo. If God wants the tattoo, the Holy Spirit will remove the doubt.

Quick Movie Review: Gran Torino

2010-05-17T03:40:00.002-05:00

I didn't expect the ending of Gran Torino, but I wasn't surprised it ended the way it did. Clint Eastwood understands what it means to be a man: Strength, Responsibility, Doing the Right Thing, and most importantly Sacrifice.

If you want to see a man being a man, watch this movie. Clint portrays a vulgar abrasive racist old war veteran, but in the end he exhibits true manliness. The character might be a bit difficult for some Christian people to watch through most of the movie, but he more than makes up for it in the end.

Watch this movie.

Do you separate yourself from Christianity by denying the church?

2010-05-14T09:46:00.014-05:00

What's wrong with Christianity today? The good Christians are leaving the religion.

Do you call yourself spiritual but not religious? Do you say you believe in Christ but you don't like the religion of Christianity?

I don't find it necessary to qualify my relationship with God with words like Spiritual or Anti-Religious Christian. I am a Christian. Protestant is the only qualification I need. Okay, non-denominational Christian. If people don't understand what it truly means to be Christian, my denying it and separating myself from the overall Christian community (dogmatic as they are) only supports the mistaken belief that all Christians are bad people. I don't need to defend my faith from people who hate Christians. If they even only dislike the judgmental hypocritical fair-weather Christians, they aren't much better. I am Christian. The Christian faith isn't the problem. Bad Christians might give the rest of us a bad name, but denying the name Christian because of some bad apples is shameful. The problem isn't the religion. It's some people in the religion. I'm not going to deny the religion because some people give it a bad name.

There are a lot of atheists, agnostics, new agers, witches, Muslims, Buddhists, even satanists who are genuinely nice people. You need to separate yourself from THEM, not Christians. When you say that you are a believer but not Christian, you join the crowd that includes nice atheist, good witch, and peaceful Muslim. Do you want to be one of them? Do you want people to associate you with atheist? Or witch?? Or SATANIST???? Or do you want people to think the reason you are special is the fact that you follow Christ? What do you want the world to think causes you to be so nice? Good genes? Good upbringing? Your pride? No. THAT isn't what it means to love God. You glorify God, not yourself. THAT is what will separate yourself from non-believers.

You aren't supposed to point the finger at yourself. "Yeah I'm a nice guy. I worship Jesus, but I'm not one of THOSE Christians." That statement glorifies YOU! Not God. Not Jesus. You are telling the other person that you are nice DESPITE the fact that Christ dwells in your heart. Are you kidding me???? That's not the way you communicate Christ's love. That only glorifies you. Stop it!

To clarify to non-believers that you aren't like those other bad Christians gives the bad Christians power. Show your non-believing brethren what a true Christian is like. If you exemplify Christ's love and the non-believer has heard you say that you don't affiliate yourself with the overall Christian religion, you only prove to him that the overall Christian faith is flawed. But if you defend the Christian faith and you exemplify Christ's love, then the non-believer will more likely associate Christ's love with Christianity, not you. They aren't supposed to associate Christ's love with you. Not you exclusively. You aren't the only good person in the world. You aren't the only good believer. You are supposed to be just one of millions or billions of good Christians. To deny and separate yourself from the overall Christian community points the glory of being good back right at you. That is virtual blasphemy.

YOU aren't great. GOD is great.

Get over yourself. Defend your faith. Prove to the world what it means to be a good Christian.

Don't ignore your responsibility.

2010-05-10T02:58:00.013-05:00

The entirety of humanity is intertwined. Everything we do affects the lives of other people. It's really really true. Just think of the impact just one little incident sometimes has on other people. You burn yourself on the stove. You get a splinter. You stub your toe. Now when you go through that elevator door someone has to wait just that fraction of a second longer because you are hobbling. They don't mind. It's not a bother. But it does have an effect. They get to the meeting 10 seconds later. They sit down in a different seat. They sit next to someone important, or they miss the opportunity to sit next to that important person. This minor seating adjustment can have a profound impact on the course of the meeting, all because you didn't turn on the light in the middle of the night. Maybe your stubbed toe doesn't affect the meeting much, but it's possible. In fact, just consider in the course of your own life how one small seemingly insignificant event has had a profound effect on your life and the lives of other people. You never know what effect your actions will have on the lives of other people.

But we don't know which events will have an effect. And we don't to what extent those effects will reach. And we don't know if the effect will be positive or negative. So are we then supposed to ignore the possibility that we might have an effect? I say absolutely not. That is precisely the reason we have free will. It is what separates us from the rocks that make up the Earth, the water in our oceans, and the air we breathe. We are alive. We aren't governed solely by gravity and inertia and chemistry and the other physical forces of nature. We can make choices. And our choices have an effect on the world around us.

So each one of us has a responsibility to consider how our life choices affect the lives of other people. This I am finding is the chasm that separates "judgmental Christians" from "the enlightened." People who have a "progressive" outlook on life have a permissive attitude towards other people. The only people they judge are Christians who scoff when other people who ignore their responsibility to humanity. These progressive people don't mind when other people "live their lives how they see fit." The progressive people ignore the effect other people have... no, they pretend there is no effect, but they see it. How can they not? The effect is right there in front of them. If they admit they see the effect, they call it progress.

To them, thousands of hippies engaging in "free love" in the late 60s weren't responsible for STD epidemics, millions of aborted babies, and countless children raised by single mothers. No they brought upon the "sexual revolution" that enabled people to have sex without regret. They made it so if you are in a relationship today, you are having sex, and if you aren't, then something is wrong with you. The beneficiaries of the sexual revolution love the fun part of the sexual revolution and they pretend the bad stuff isn't a consequence.

These people like to pretend that we don't affect one another. They say things like, "how they choose to live their life doesn't affect me so who am I to judge." But they are just deceiving themselves... well... actually... they have been deceived by the current of worldly thought, which is controlled by the adversary of God.

This is why Christians are so "quick to judge." We recognize our responsibility. We know that we have an effect on the lives of the people around us. And we want our effect to be positive. Maybe we do end up "telling you how to live." But that's because you make it clear that you don't know how to live in a responsible way. If you act like a child, then you can't be trusted to live the way you want to, and someone who knows better than you should step in and tell you that you are being bad. The Bible makes the rules quite clear. It's written all down for us. And it's really not as difficult as you think. If you have a problem with temptation, then stay away from it. I know avoiding temptation isn't all that simple sometimes, but if more people would be willing to do the ground work, more people wouldn't have to deal with the difficulties of life. If more people were willing to live responsibly, life for EVERYONE would be easier.

See, it's not the "judgmental" Christians who are forcing our way of life onto other people. It's the progressives. The people who enable other people to live their lives without responsibility cause the world to change. People who looked away when the hippies were changing the sexual habits of the western world caused the world to turn depraved. It's their fault that AIDS is an epidemic, children are raised by single mothers, and millions upon millions of innocent children are aborted. The blood is on their hands. If you look the other way when someone lives their life without considering how it affects other people, then you are just as responsible for the effect their life has had on the world as they are. Maybe we don't know what the effect will be. We don't know how same-sex marriage will affect the lives of heterosexual people, or more importantly the children of society. But we know that the Bible tells us that homosexuality is wrong. It's hard for us as humans to reason out the consequences sometimes. But when you don't understand a rule, is that when you should ignore the rule??? NO!!! That's when you obey the rule the MOST!!! When the sexual revolution was in its prime, Christians didn't know the effect it would have on the world. They just knew that it was bad. Now we know that the sexual revolution was far worse than anything they could have feared. The sexual revolution paved the way for more than decadence and Girls Gone Wild videos. It was even responsible for more damage than STDs and abortions. The sexual revolution paved the way for individuality and people feeling entitled to live their lives without regret. Some call that progress. I call it savagery. We aren't apes screwing everything in sight. We are human beings with conscience and reason. We know that there are consequences for our actions.

So we need to stop and fight our sinful nature. We know what's sinful. Don't embrace depravity and temptation. Fight it! Avoid temptation. Not for yourself. For humanity! Don't pretend that you don't have an effect. You do. Whether you cut yourself or you have sex with a stranger, you have an effect. You don't have a right to do whatever you want. And if someone you see is doing something you know is sinful, don't look the other way. You know they are doing wrong. And you know that what they are doing wrong will damage the lives of other people.

Don't ignore your responsibility.

Who am I to judge?

2010-05-02T01:51:00.000-05:00

A lot of times you'll hear this phrase. And I agree with it in principle but generally you'll hear it preceding some statement that doesn't have anything to do with the reason not to judge. Like "they love each other, so who am I to judge." A does not lead to B. It doesn't make sense to say "so who am I to judge." It might be true to say it but the statement before isn't what made it true. Now, let's make "who am I to judge" valid.

"I don't know why they did it, so who am I to judge." That's more like it. "The Bible tells me not to, so who am I to judge." Or better yet... "I'm not God, so who am I to judge." That's a good one, and pretty much universally applicable.

It's always bothered me when people would say "who am I to judge." Now I know why.

God helps those who help themselves. Really?

2010-04-16T05:16:00.004-05:00

God helps those who help themselves.

I defy anyone to find that verse in the Bible. I'll give a shiny silver dollar to anyone that can do it.

You know why you won't find it? Because it isn't just not in the Bible, it's completely contrary to scripture. God wants us to help one another. He doesn't JUST help those who help themselves. Yes, He does help them, but he also helps those who ask for help. And he really helps those who help others!

Christianity is not individualistic, despite the belief that each of us has a personal relationship with God. Christianity is a collectivist ideal, whereby it advocates cooperation and self sacrifice. If an idea isn't collectivistic in nature, it's probably not Christian.

Be careful about just accepting any contemporary pop-culture phrase as advice, especially those that are attributed to God. Check them out. And keep studying scripture.

"I'm entitled to my opinion."

2010-04-12T01:22:00.004-05:00

The problem with politics, religion, and philosophy is that people don't know the difference between fact and opinion. People believe that their beliefs are opinions. That their choice in candidate is an opinion. Well we know now that people who had "the opinion" that Obama would make a good President were wrong. An opinion is something that can not be measured. An opinion will never turn into a wrong choice. Your opinion that apples taste better than pears can't be wrong. Tastes change and you might taste a delicious pear that might change your mind, but that doesn't mean that your previous opinion was wrong. But if you think that red and blue make green, that's not an opinion. That's a belief, and you are wrong. Red and blue don't make green. If you think driving down one road is going to be faster than another, that is not an opinion. It's a belief. If you take a back road instead of the highway it wasn't your opinion that the back road would be faster. It either is faster or it is not. We can't know for sure all the time if our beliefs are going to turn out right or wrong. There are accidents and some slow roads sometimes become the best choice. We usually try to make the smart choice based on what knowledge we have. But do not be mistaken, an educated guess is not an opinion.

An opinion is "I like Coke over Pepsi." "I like brunettes over blondes." "I like corvettes more than mustangs." I like rocky road or cherry pie.

If your opinion ever turns out to be wrong, then it wasn't an opinion. It was a mistake.

Obama wasn't an opinion. He was a choice. The wrong one.

Pro-life isn't an opinion. It's the right choice. And that's a fact.

In the grand scheme of things, long after we are dead, maybe super advanced beings will be able to look back into the past and examine the pages of our lives. What will they see? Opinion? No. They will see facts. We made certain decisions, not based on taste, but instead based on information. And in some cases we lacked critical information and made the wrong choices. Even though we felt that it was our opinion to make the choice, we were wrong.

People who sided with Obama didn't side with him for taste. They sided with him for reason. They lacked the necessary information to make an educated decision. Had the powers that be (the media) not ridiculed Ron Paul and instead supported him, I am certain that the majority of us would have made the right choice, and we together, through Ron Paul, would have saved our nation and the financial system of the world. And that's not my opinion. That's fact.

So when you argue with someone, do you ever get to a point where you say "I'm entitled to my opinion." If so, think. Are you really arguing over opinion? Probably not. Arguing over opinion is ridiculous. You don't (generally) argue over which type of pie tastes better. You argue over something that in time will be proven true or false. And if that's the case, it's not your opinion. It's your belief. You are entitled to your belief but that's not enough to end the argument. The statement "I'm entitled to my opinion" is usually said in an attempt to end the argument. But that only works if you are arguing over opinion, and you probably aren't. So save yourself the trouble and don't say it. Say "let's agree to disagree" instead. Soo much better. But does that mean you should stop discussing? I guess that depends on if you get to the point of beating a dead horse. Discussions over belief are important because the difference between people who voted for Obama and those who didn't was information. When we discuss our beliefs, we try to inform each other so we can agree. So just because two people have different beliefs, that doesn't mean they shouldn't have a discussion about it.

Is this really a meaningless semantic argument? Even if true, shouldn't people be allowed to express their beliefs? Aren't they entitled to have beliefs? Yeah I guess so. It just bugs me I guess when someone confuses a question of fact with opinion. Calling it an opinion minimizes the importance of the question. So I don't like that. Someone saying "I'm entitled to my opinion" is basically the same thing as saying "I don't care what you think." If they realized that it wasn't an opinion they were arguing over, maybe they would care about the question more. And if they cared about the question more, maybe they would want as much information as possible. And then maybe they would have more of an open mind. And then maybe they would be a bit more open to listening to reason.

Trouble with religion? Why?

2010-04-12T00:26:00.005-05:00

Many people who have had bad experiences with religion (and they usually mean Christianity) had trouble because they couldn't let go of their sinful nature. Religion told them to stop having premarital sex, to be generous, to forgive, to stop partying, to stop living for themselves. They felt judged but in reality they weren't willing to do the things necessary to live a Godly life. Well one has to ask, what were they looking for in religion in the first place?

If you go to a gym to lose weight you know that paying $30 a month isn't enough to get rid of the weight, right? It takes sacrifice. It takes work. You can't just send in a check each month and expect to lose the weight. You have to actually go and work out. So if you went to church to "find answers" or to get rid of that empty feeling inside or to find your purpose or whatever, you do realize that it's not enough to just go to church one day of the week, right? It takes sacrifice.

Maybe you didn't go to church and you still have a problem with religion. Why? What IS your problem with Christianity? I've met a lot of people that don't like religion and I think the reason is pretty obvious. You don't like other people telling you how to live. And you don't want people's lives to affect other people. But you refuse to accept the fact that we live in a society composed of people whose lives are intertwined. Everyone affects everyone else's life. You can't escape it. So you have a responsibility to make use of your life so you don't negatively affect the lives of other people. Christians don't want to tell you how to live. We want you to stop treading on our lives. The world is evolving towards an unhealthy one. If everyone lived the Christian lifestyle, we would experience a world of prosperity and peace. Instead we have people forcing their sinful way of life on us. People call us judgmental when we complain. They tell us not to force our lifestyle on other people but they don't realize that we only voice our objections. They are actually acting. They are the people forcing their lives onto other people, not us.

And they call us hypocrites.

The semantics of abortion

2010-03-29T10:39:00.006-05:00

The abortion argument is ridiculous. The pro-choice position is predicated on the idea that women who have proven that they are incapable of making good life choices (by engaging in sexual activity when they are incapable of raising a child) have a right to make a life and death decision that is going to end an innocent life.

Some people think the abortion debate is a semantic one. They feel that the argument is over the definition of life, or the definition of sentience. But there are pro-choice advocates who believe the fetus is alive or sentient and they still believe that abortion should be allowed. So it's clear to me that the semantic argument isn't over the definition of life. It can't be. It must instead be over the definition of responsibility. Pro-life advocates believe that it's responsible to refrain from sex because you might get pregnant, and if you do get pregnant that it's responsible to keep the child or to give it up for adoption. The pro-choice advocates on the other hand believe that it's NOT irresponsible to engage in sexual activity before you are capable of raising a child. And if you get pregnant in that case they feel that it's more responsible to end the pregnancy with abortion.

See? The difference is over responsibility.

Get fanatical about Christ y'all!

2010-03-29T10:34:00.001-05:00

It's funny that we embrace people who are fanatical about sports, music, or a hobby, but we shun people who are fanatical about Jesus. People ridicule and look down on people who get excited about spreading the love of Christ. But really, isn't it better to share your love for Christ than to share your love for your favorite sports team or your favorite band? I think we like people who are fanatics of a sports team and feel uncomfortable about fanatics of God because the fanatics of sports don't matter. Whatever they feel about their team, it's not likely to change our opinion of our own team. We don't want someone's fanaticism to affect us. This is why we are often ashamed of sharing our faith. We don't want other people to look down on us, and they might because to us God DOES matter. He matters MUCH more than the team means to the sports fan. But isn't that GOOD? Isn't it GOOD that God matters to us more than our favorite team or band or TV show? If it's good, then why are we afraid to let people feel our fanaticism over Christ?

Get fanatical about Christ y'all!

Do you deserve what you desire?

2009-12-27T19:25:00.011-06:00

If you've read my article on Bart Simpson you know that I think the TV Cartoon Show The Simpsons has a lot to teach us about life. Tonight I am thinking of two episodes in particular. In one Bart wins an elephant on a radio contest. In the other Lisa is given a pony by her father. Both circumstances create a ridiculous and comical situation for the family. In the first, the family has to sell rides on the elephant to pay for the enormous cost of feeding and caring for it. And even after they sell hundreds of rides the money they make isn't enough. In the second, for Lisa to be allowed to keep the pony it has to live in an expensive stable. So Homer has to get a second job at the kwicky mart to pay for it. He doesn't have any time to sleep, much less enough time to spend with his family. In both cases the desired animal raises havoc on the family and causes extreme financial hardship.

Truly the Simpson children were not capable of owning such animals. They really didn't deserve to have them. They earned them by right, but did they deserve the animals?

What does it mean to earn?
You work hard, you get paid a decent wage. You rescue 20 men in a horrible situation in battle, risking your own life in the process, you earn a Metal of Honor. You make a scientific discovery that helps all of humanity, you earn a Nobel Prize. Your actions merit the prize. But is earning the same thing as deserving?

Can you handle what you earn?
You might think that winning the Lottery would instantly make your life a success. You can pay off your bills, put the kids through college, get that dream home you have always wanted, and make your dreams come true.. But for many lottery winners, this is not what happens. Sure it's great at first, but inevitably some lottery winners overextend themselves. They buy too much. They waste their money on frivolous things that don't last. They overextend themselves so much that they have to sell that dream house. They end up losing everything before they have a chance to make their dreams come true. Truly some lottery winners wish they had never won the lottery. They could not handle what they earned.

What does it mean to deserve?
In the normal sense of the word, you deserve what you earn. But in many cases, a person can not handle that which he receives. In this sense the person doesn't really deserve what he has earned. He isn't capable of making use of what he has received.

Let's not get into semantics
Okay, you are welcome to interpret the word "deserve" in any way you want. I have stated some definitions that might contradict what you understand the word "deserve" to be. My use of the word though is a label. I could make up a word and replace the word "deserve" with it. The meaning that I have discussed is what is important, not the exact word.

What's the point?
Well, a big part of my current philosophical thinking these days centers on new age, the Law of Attraction, and Intention - Manifestation. The idea behind Intention Manifestation, or I-M, is that if you send out an intention, or a will, out into the "consciousness" of the universe, the universe or source will, through the use of the Law of Attraction, manifest what you intended. I am absolutely against this practice, for any number of reasons. One of these reasons is what I am talking about today. You might, through the use of I-M, "earn" something that you desire, but will you be able to handle what you desire? In many cases, no. See, the reason the things we want in life are hard to get is because the act of getting what we want prepares us to handle it when we get it. If it's very difficult to earn a million dollars in sales with your mom and pop clothing store, you will protect your success. But if the success comes easily, you aren't likely to treat it in the same way you would have if you had to work hard to achieve it. This is the danger that the I-Mer has. Let me explain with an example.

Most of us desire love. A majority of people on Earth want to eventually get married and to have a family. One of the main goals in using the Law of Attraction is to find love. Finding love the normal way is difficult though. Some people get lucky and find it quickly, marrying their high school sweetheart. But most people have to wait many years to find it. Is it just luck that decides who finds their mate and who does not? No. Luck can be a component to finding your mate, but to win your mate's heart you have to demonstrate to them that you are the sort of person they have been looking for. There are many characteristics that you need to have to have a successful marriage. Things like maturity, responsibility and some skill in maintaining a relationship. True, not everyone who gets married has these, but are their marriages successful? I submit to you that most marriages that aren't founded on things such as these are doomed. In order to get a marriage, you have to struggle to become a person who deserves to have one. You have to work hard. Get a good career. You have to work on your personality so your spouse will like you. You should work on your home life and finances so when you join lives with someone else your mutual home can be an organized haven rather than a cluttered war zone. Some of these of course are more important than others but they are just examples. You know that you need to be a good person to deserve love. The fact that it's difficult to achieve lasting love ensures that you will try to become a better person.

But if you can wish for love knowing you'll get it, why become a better person? In simple terms, the Law of Attraction doesn't require you to earn your right to get what you desire. You can be irresponsible, have bad habits and addictions and using the Law of Attraction can help you to achieve love when it would be impossible for you to achieve it otherwise.

Many people use the Law of Attraction as a tool for personal development. But the goal isn't to become a better person really. It's to increase their connection with the universe, to become enlightened. That isn't to say that they don't want to become better people. But the means by which they want to achieve this goal is not through hard work but through shortcuts. So they don't change. They don't really become better people. They might want to. But the Law of Attraction won't make them better people. In fact, it's more likely to inhibit their personal growth. People who struggle for personal development are much more likely to succeed at it.

The 5 arguments about cohabitation

2009-12-05T04:21:00.004-06:00

1) The Trial Marriage
It's a very popular notion that living together is a good idea. You have a trial marriage and test yourselves and you don't have the hassle of divorce if you find that you are not compatible. This is of course an excuse. People live together before they marry because they want to, not because of some high moral principle. That doesn't negate the logic behind the argument, but is the argument really all that sound? Are you really tested enough when you cohabit? We'll answer that question later.

2) The Statistics
Christians love to cite studies and surveys by many different credible sources that have found a correlation between cohabitation and divorce. They make other claims too, such as couples who cohabit before they marry are not as happy after they marry and their children are less healthy. This may or may not be true. Correlation does not necessarily equate to causation. A more reasonable reply is that people who think you should not cohabit before marriage belong to religious groups who also believe that you should not get divorced. One might logically conclude that these Christians are not actually as happy as they like to claim. But that ignores the studies that show that more of them are happier.

3) The Fairy Tale Argument
This is the worst one. It's the "we have a fairy tale marriage and we cohabited" response. Again correlation does not necessarily mean causation. You may have a fairy tale marriage but cohabitation didn't create it. Had you waited to live together until after the wedding you would still have the fairy tale marriage. You should have stuck with the rebuttal that people who don't cohabit stay married because they think divorce is wrong.

Anyway, whether or not your marriage was a success is immaterial. Marriages that were a continuation from cohabitation fail more often than marriages that did not come out of a cohabitation relationship. Your success does not disprove the statistics. But is there a danger to cohabiting? We'll discuss that in a moment.

4) The Christian Rebuttal
The whole cohabitation argument is a red herring. The fact is you have two groups, one that has Christ at the center and another that doesn't. It should be no surprise that the group that has Christ at the center is more successful... well, unless you aren't Christian. In fact those who think cohabitation is right really have a lot of trouble explaining the statistics. The best they do is bring up the fairy tale argument.

But getting back to the red herring... what matters is that couples that don't belong together don't get married and those that do belong together stay married. The fact remains that people who cohabit are divorcing more often than those who don't cohabit. Even though they have trial marriages... even though more of these relationships break up before they marry, these people are still getting married when they shouldn't. What can account for that? Well, it seems the defining variance is morality and religion. Couples that share a strong moral center are more connected. They are on the same page. Their goals in life are complimentary. They aren't room mates who happen to be in love. They aren't independent. They are interdependent. They aren't two individuals sharing the house and bed. They are one couple sharing a common life. Yes, there are many couples who cohabit who share these same traits but they still lack the moral center. They don't have the strength of a ruleset that is bigger than they are. If they are non-Christian they also probably lack the advantage of a church that will do everything it can to help the couple with any marriage problems. A couple without a strong moral center is definitely more at risk.

Those who are religious tend to remain happily married. Note I said happily married. There is a cause and effect relationship here. The effect is happiness. The cause is the Holy Spirit. Studies have shown that couples who did not live together before they marry are happier.

This isn't the strongest argument though. It religiously biased. But there are other differences between cohabiting couples and non-cohabiting couples.

5) The Secular Logic against Cohabitation
The fact remains that people who cohabit are still more likely to divorce. They choose to cohabit to prove that their marriage will last. But for 70% of them, despite their trial run, their marriage still doesn't last! Well, what happened? What did their cohabitation prove? Nothing. So all we are left with is the fact that they lived together before they were married because they didn't want to wait.

Unlike the non-cohabiting couple, the cohabiting couple believes that they have tested themselves. Have they really though? No. There are tests that a married couple endures that a single couple living together doesn't. Children for example. That's a big one, but of course there are some unmarried couples with children. Generally though the unmarried couple won't endure 18 years of parenting without being married. Maybe one or two. Eventually they will probably marry and have to raise the children through all of the stages of childhood development. This is definitely going to test the marriage. There are other tests too. One of them will lose a job. One of them will lose a parent. One of them will feel the pressure to relocate for their career. There will be very big tests. Of course all marriages are tested. So is there something to protect the non-cohabiting couple? Yes. The shock of commitment.

The shock of commitment is one more difference between a couple who cohabits before marriage and a couple that does not. It is the strongest argument against cohabiting and I believe it explains the statistics. See, when a couple first moves in together, it's great. It is a bit of a jump, but not nearly the jump that happens for a couple that doesn't cohabit before they marry. When THEY move in together, it's coupled with a brand new life together. It's coupled with commitment. The cohabiting couple is going through the trial run because they don't trust that they will have what it takes to endure the tests in marriage. Sure they have commitment. Perhaps a bit more (at that time) than if they decided not to live together. After all, it's a huge deal to break up after you have been living together so you aren't going to take that step if you aren't somewhat committed already. There is a lot invested so naturally they have more of a commitment than a dating couple who don't live together. But the commitment that goes along with the cohabitation is nothing compared to the commitment of marriage. And even moreso, the feeling of commitment after the marriage is MUCH stronger after a non-cohabiting couple marries.

The cohabiting couple who gets married just continues doing what they did before they got married. The only difference is they are no longer planning a wedding. Now they get to live their lives. But they lack the adventure of living together for the first time. The only thing they might do is purchase a home together as a newly married couple. That might add to the excitement but imagine the excitement if they'd waited to live together.

This sudden change from single to married is exceptionally strong if a couple did not live together before they got married. They are so grateful. Getting to the wedding was a struggle. Sure they loved each other. Sure their relationship improved. But they had to be patient. They had to be strong and withstand temptation and societal pressure. They had to stay determined. They no doubt had cold feet, but they fought their fears and remained vigilant because of their love for one another. All that effort paid off after they married. Now they have achieved something. Marriage is like an award to them. The rings on their fingers symbolize more than love and commitment. They symbolize the time they were together before the wedding. They also symbolize the hard times when they were apart. The rings are a reminder of what it was like before they won the award of marriage. They are a reminder that they really really really want to stay married.

A dating couple that decides to move in together approaches things much more carefully. They gradually approach marriage. The entire process of commitment is a gradual one. They slowly reach the commitment of marriage. So they don't feel the jump when it occurs. The wedding is a mere ceremony to celebrate the commitment they already have. It doesn't give them a commitment. The ceremony itself gives the non-cohabiting couple a bit more commitment. In fact, they really feel it. I believe the cohabiting couple won't feel it as much. It might be there, but it's more subtle because of the jump.

Now they are married and are inevitably tested. If they did not live together first, they feel the extra strong commitment created by the jump from single to married. Their "coupleness" is accentuated. They earned their marriage. But they also know that their marriage needs to be protected. So they are careful. They approach the tests differently than the couple who lived together first. The couple that cohabited is more likely to feel secure. In living with each other they believe that they have proven that they can withstand any test life throws at them. They are more likely to take their commitment for granted, and that puts them at risk. The tests can sneak up on them and rob them of their commitment before they even realize it. The next thing they know they are putting a checkmark in the "irreconcilable differences" box, and they can't explain why. They tested themselves but found out that the testing they endured before marriage was little preparation. In fact the testing before marriage only gave them a false sense of security.

And THAT is the main danger with cohabitation: the false sense of security. You MUST remain vigilant when you are married. Marriage takes work. It's not all pixie dust and granted wishes. You have to endure. You have to be careful and watch out for trouble. If you let your guard down, you will lose it all. Cohabitation sets you up for that. That is why marriages that begin with cohabitation fail more often than marriages that did not begin with cohabitation.

That's not the only danger of cohabitation though. Consider how difficult it is to break up when you are living together. It's incredibly difficult. Breaking up without the added burden of having to find a new place to live is hard enough on its own. But it is easier. I propose to you that some couples who live together would have broken up if they did not live together. They do NOT break up specifically BECAUSE breaking up is so difficult for them. They stay together even though in their hearts they feel that they are not compatible. It's easier to go with the flow and hope that the marriage ceremony is going to change them somehow. Naturally this is not true for all couples who decide to live together before they marry and it's probably not a significant portion of the 70% of cohabiting couples who eventually do divorce. But it is an additional issue that you will more than likely have to deal with if you do decide to live together before you marry.

Remember, most people who live together before they marry DO end up breaking up. Even if they marry, 70% of them will divorce. And considering the fact that we know that 50% of all marriages end in divorce, out of the couples who do not cohabit before they marry, only 30% of them will divorce. Don't believe me? Consider if 200 couples marry. 100 of them lived together before they marry. 100 of them did not. Eventually 100 of those total marriages will end in divorce. We know that 70 of the couples who lived together before they married end up getting divorced. 70 of the 100 couples who divorced cohabited. That leaves room for only 30 non-cohabiting couples to get divorced. So You actually have more than twice the chances of marital success if you decide NOT to live together before you marry!

Something to think about isn't it?

"If you believe, you can." Really? Are you sure?

2009-11-14T19:18:00.001-06:00

How often do you hear people say to you "believe that you will succeed and you will." That's just nothing more than new age claptrap. It's not bad to have confidence, but is it enough to just believe?

How many American Idol contestants do we hear season after season telling us that they ARE the next American Idol? How many of their parents said that they believed? From their family? Their friends? Their neighbors? Their voice coach? And how many of them really ARE the next American Idol?

One.

That's it. Just one. And how many of those American Idol winners actually believed that they would be the next American Idol? I'm not entirely sure, but I know it's not all of them. I know Kelly Clarkson didn't believe that she would make it at first. She hoped she would be the one, but she didn't know it.

So, does belief in yourself have ANY thing to do with your success? I suppose it can play a part, after all self-doubt is quite crippling. I know a lot about that. But belief can only get you so far. You still have to actually do the work!

"Belief" in this case is a simple word for intention-manifestation, so you KNOW I'll be against it. It's just plain wrong. And it's non-biblical. Yet another example of how scripture wins out over new age. We are to put our faith in God, not in ourselves. And even then, a guarantee of success isn't 100%, except for the guarantee of eternal life. But don't take the Bible's word on it. Analyze it logically. There can only be one American Idol. Yes, Ruben and Clay both won the hearts of America. Yeah. Clay did sell a lot of records too. But he still lost the American Idol competition. He is not an American Idol. Ruben is. He might have more money. He might have more fans. But he doesn't have the title.

So maybe you think that you are really saying, "don't believe that you can't, then you will." Well, that's not true either. How many olympic gold metal winners tell us how they didn't really believe that it would happen?

In matters of belief, I only accept one absolute... that I am Saved.

Ooooo! It's 11:11!

2009-11-11T11:11:00.006-06:00

In the metaphysical world apparently seeing 11:11 means something. If you google it you'll actually find that it means all sorts of different things depending on their belief system but in general it's supposed to mean that you are on the right mystical track. But if you think about it logically can you blame people for seeing it all the time? They really have no choice.

It begins with the desire to be special. How cool is it when the odometer in your car reads all ones? When it's 11:11 or 1:11 you appreciate the cool factor of all 1s and you think, "wow that only happens twice a day." Then you hear about people repeatedly noticing 11:11. They say they see it several times every week. They can't explain it. They say that when they look at the clock and see 11:11 they don't know why they looked at the clock at that time. They just had this urge to find out what time it was (even while they ignore the fact that wanting to look at a clock is by definition a spontaneous impulse.) Then they discuss in wonder about the meaning behind it all and conclude that their constant reminder about the time makes them special. You want to be a part of this special crowd too, and before you can say synchronicity you find yourself checking the time at 11:11 all the time.

How to explain it??? Is your vibration somehow synchronized with some cosmic mystical source guiding your light as it penetrates the essence of your chakra? Hardly. It's actually quite simple to explain. It's your subconscious mind. It happens to be a superior time keeper. Its responsible for a lot of biological functions that are dependent upon excellent timing so it stands to reason that it knows when 11:11 is. When it becomes aware of your desire to know that it's 11:11, if you happen to be near one of the clocks it knows about and you are in a ready state, say driving, or in an elevator, or walking down the street, it will simply alert your conscious mind to wonder about the time. Then you get this inescapable urge to check your watch.

Bam! You are a member of the 11:11 club. Aren't you special? No. Not really.

Now, some proponents of the 11:11 theory will say something like, "I notice 11111 or 3.14 all the time and you can't predict that." It's true that you can't predict when you will notice pi or the number 42 or 11111. But you do know that statistically speaking, you have as much a chance of running into 11111 as you do any other number between 0 and 99999. But you pay attention to the times you see the numbers that are special to you; or more accurately, your subconscious mind does. It is after all a lot more alert to the world than you are. It processes information far faster than your conscious mind does. So when you are driving on the road and you see a license plate made up of some random digits, your subconscious mind ignores it. But when it runs across some digits that it understands have meaning to you, it alerts your conscious mind to take a look.

BAM! Proof that you are special and in synchronous relationship with the universe.

Or is it? Uh... no.

The logic behind the pro-choice position, or why you should abstain.

2009-10-20T02:04:00.011-05:00

Let me begin this post with something. This post is about a very controversial position and I am attempting to posit a theory to help me to understand a position I disagree with. If you disagree with me, please hold your temper and understand that I am not approaching the topic in this case with judgment in my heart. I am simply trying to understand the opposing side. Please before you form any judgment, read the entire post.

Now to the article: abortion.

I, like many Christians, am pro-life. Yet I am not pro-life because my religious leaders told me to be pro-life. I am pro-life because it's obvious to me that the fetus is alive. We should protect our young. I can't imagine a woman wanting to pay a "doctor" to rip her own child to pieces. It just doesn't make sense to me. I honestly believe that in 1,000 years people will look back at our time in horror at the practice.

Like most pro-lifers I have been completely baffled at the logic of the pro-choice position and have dismissed the pro-choice position that the fetus isn't a child as nothing but a heartless excuse to engage in casual sex (usually outside of marriage.)

I have been pondering the confusion for a few years now and I think I have finally begun to start to understand why pro-choice advocates support someone's "right" to have an abortion, even when they sometimes think the life being aborted is a sentient, feeling, little human baby. And some do, yet they are still pro-choice.

It begins with a lesson in the statistics of birth control. The most absolute form of birth control is sterilization, but even that is not 100% effective. Statistically speaking 3 out of every 1000 sterilized couples will become pregnant within one year. While this seems very close to absolute, it is absolutely NOT absolute, especially considering the sexual appetite of man. It is actually quite high. After all, if 1,000,000 sterilized couples engage in sex, 3,000 of them will become pregnant after one year!!!! WOAH! That number is far from absolute. And that number is reapeated the next year.

Now you must realize that this is the most extreme example, and most of the people who get sterilized are married. The most common examples, especially for single people, are birth control and the condom. They are far less effective. In real world use the condom can be as low as 70% effective. The pill only slightly moreso. But let's be optimistic and say that each are 99% effective. Well, that means that 1% of all people who engage in regular sex will become pregnant within one year. Holey Moley! That means that out of (a ridiculously low number of) 1,000,000 couples engaging in regular sex, 10,000 will become pregnant. Again that is EACH year! And again, this is OPTIMISTIC! And again that is out of a sample of 1,000,000 couples!!! Need I remind you that there are over 6 billion people on the planet. If only 1% of them are having regular sex then they will create 300,000 pregnancies IF all of them use condoms or birth control perfectly!!! And we all know that most people do not use their birth control properly, if they use it at all. So that 300,000 pregnancies is actually much much much higher.

And you thought that the sexual revolution was a good thing.

Of course many of these 60 million people engaging in regular sex do want their babies, but I think these statistics are very telling for people who do NOT want to get pregnant. I hope you see how my point demonstrates the severity and huge responsibility that you must accept when you have sex.

This responsibility is precisely the point. I think this might just be a dividing line between the pro-life position and the pro-choice position. And it also helps to explain why the dividing line so often becomes a debate between Christians and non-Christians. After all, the Christian faith is against casual sex, especially outside of marriage. And most women who have abortions are not married, although I know that there are some. Christians believe that you do not have a natural right to have sex whenever you want. The people who do think that you have a natural right to have sex whenever you want are typically not Christian, although there are some of course. Christians do sin and can be deceived by what they see in the world around them.

So, the Christian just does not understand how important sex is to the part of mankind that appreciates the value of a healthy sexual life. And in our opinion this part of mankind does not fully comprehend and appreciate the responsibility that comes with a sexual lifestyle. If you consider the statistics, you can see why.

Now, I do not think that the sexually active people are fully ignorant of the responsibility that comes with a sexually active lifestyle. They do after all support the use of contraceptives. A short while ago I had an epiphany. I came to the conclusion that most people in the western world believe that sex, especially within the confines of a committed relationship, is very important, before and after marriage. This realization was so ______-changing that I felt the need to create polls in several forums. The results completely confirmed my suspicion. Sex is very important to people today, before and after marriage.

They know that there is a very real chance that they will become pregnant when they have sex. They don't feel that this is right because sex is just so important. So their answer is of course, abortion.

Oh blastitall. I forgot to finish my thoughts. I'm too tired right now, but I'll include some, but remember, they are unfinished.

A parasite is not related to its host.

Also, I, unlike many people, do not support abortion, ever. Not when the life of the baby is at stake. Not when the life of the mother is at stake. Not in the case of incest or if the baby will be deformed or impaired. And absolutely definitely most positively not in the case of rape. I know these difficult situations are controversial. I can at least understand situations that put the mother's life in danger. But not rape. I know it's horrible to say but women have been giving birth after rapes for thousands of years. I realize that the growing baby inside your belly is a reminder of the horrible incident you want to put behind you. But I personally can not think of a greater silver lining that a brand new life. Yes, it was horrible, but now you have a baby! Babies ate WONDERFUL gifts!

Knowing the condition of the birth is a new phenomenon.

How's this for a definition of evil?

2009-10-07T14:37:00.009-05:00

While studying the morality of Bart Simpson I think I figured out a good definition of evil. Here it is:

Someone who does not want to do good.

Easy, right? So obvious. Maybe a little bit too obvious. Enough that you might miss what I really mean, so let me explain.

The standard measure of evil is Hitler. But maybe Hitler isn't the best example to use in these cases since there is so much emotional attachment to his figure. (see my comment) So rather than use that tired example I'll use a more fun one: James Bond villains. They generally want to take over the world. But to what end? Power? Greed? No. Not all of them. What do they want? Utopia. They want to create peace. Their methods might be a bit unorthodox, but their end goal is the same: goodness. They believe that they are doing good. In fact, EVERYONE believes that they are doing good.

This is why I don't believe in evil. Everyone thinks they are doing good. And I think it's pretty darned good evidence for the existence of God. The general "tide" or "current" in humanity is towards goodness. Over time we should gradually get to be better and better people because we all struggle towards goodness.

Unfortunately, although evil seems fairly easy to define, it seems that good is far more difficult. The struggles we have (indeed many wars were fought over this) are reconciling each others' definitions of "goodness." There are few universally accepted definitions of "good," so one of the main goals of philosophy I think is to study mankind in such a way as to discover that universal definition of "goodness" so we'll have a tried and true yardstick by which we can live and know that we are doing right.

This is why I especially like my definition of morality: free will. I think it covers all bases. Read the article for more information.

Bart Simpson: An allegory for humanity.

2009-10-07T13:57:00.010-05:00

I got into a discussion with some people online about The Simpsons and I told them about my belief that they generally teach good moral values on the show. They completely scoffed at my thought and ridiculed me soundly. But I stand behind what I said.

You can really see what I mean if you study the bad seed, Bart. Bart is not intended to be a positive role model. Bart is an allegory of the nature of all mankind. He is an exploration of the duality of good and evil and a lesson that good triumphs. He is constantly struggling with temptation and having to deal with the consequences of his sinful tendencies. It's actually quite Christian in its nature. He always (and by extension we) learn(s) a valuable life lesson, although it's rarely spelled out "I learned something today" South Park style.

If you are a fan of the show, you no doubt remember when he killed a bird with a BB gun. Or when he was caught shoplifting. Or when he got Principle Skinner fired. Or in this latest episode, when he got Miss Krabappel fired. In this episode she tells him something particularly ground shaking, "You are bad on the inside." That completely shattered him, and the fact that he was so shaken by her accusation shows just how good he really is. If he was truly evil, it wouldn't matter that someone said that he was bad on the inside. (This is where the definition of evil became clear to me.)

Whatever you feel about Bart's nature, the one thing you must conclude is that he is not rotten to the core. He is in fact good inside. When his pranks go overboard he always feels bad for it and attempts to make things right. In fact, the majority of the shows involving him are almost always largely composed of his attempts to right his wrongdoings. The show is really about good.

So we can really study Bart and learn something about ourselves. Although we do tend to make mistakes, we should always try to do good and to make our evil deeds right. And in general, that's exactly what we do, because we are good.

Review: Glee is not High School Musical

2009-09-10T02:04:00.005-05:00

I really don't want to spend a lot of time on this. There is just so much I'm overwhelmed. So I'll be brief.

Glee is a terrible show, especially if you are a Christian who doesn't like the world's values changing. They clearly have an agenda. They do the classic technique that I am seeing so often today. They must have conflict but they don't understand subtlety so they make everything black and white. The writers portray the things they don't like as negatively as possible just so they can set up a change of heart.

Example 1) The wife of the main character is not a nice person. She is awful. Then they show how the guidance councelor (an otherwise very nice person) is in love with the same main character. Clearly they want the wife and the husband to divorce so the guidance councelor to get together. See? They set up a terrible situation so they can end it and provide an ideal situation.

Example 2) The glee club needs more members so they are going to have a rally in front of the whole school. It is completely lame and the glee club students know it. So they decide to change the routine to a very sexy show, far too explicit for a high school rally. Again, they set up a bad situation so they can counter it with a far more pleasant one.

Example 3) They show a "chastity club" event. Well the christian in me shouts for joy at that idea. Fantastic! And lo and behold the bad girl, a gorgeous cheerleader, is in charge of the whole club! Good for her. Of course this comes after a scene in which she tries to bribe her boyfriend into quitting the glee club by offering up a feel of her breast. Anyway, her hypocrocy isn't the issue, it's the way the writers portrayed the chastity club. They apparently don't think of a chastity club as a way for high school students to get together for wholesome non-sexual activities, nor in lessons by a responsible knowledgeable adult about the dangers of engaging in sexual activity so young. No, they apparently think that a chastity club is an excuse for boys and girls to get together and indulge in sexual activities! They begin by showing how the girls talk about using their bodies to manipulate boys and they show the boys talking about girls in the most disrespectful ways. They have absolutely no interest in being chaste. But that is nothing compared to the activities that happen when the boys and girls get together during their meetings. In this meeting, they take a blown up balloon and I guessed that maybe they would pass the balloon from person to person by only using their mouths or something. Well I didn't like that idea but then I soon found out how wrong I was. They didn't kiss the balloons. They used the balloons to allow them to grind their hips together. Each couple would hold the balloon up in the air with their hips, and they would proceed to grind on each other, as if they were making love with the balloon between them. I could actually hear in my mind the thousands of Christian parents around the country turning the TV show off telling their kids that enough is enough and their kids would not ever be watching this show. And shame on any Christian parent that actually watched that scene with their kids and did NOT turn the TV off.

Back to the balloon scene. The cheerleader's boyfriend ends up popping the balloon, thus killing an angel according to the bad christian cheerleader. Then of COURSE the main female character has to jump in and tell the whole group how groups like that one actually end up causing more teen pregnancies than sexual education about contraceptives and such. Why one of the characters actually berated her for "using the C word!" What the crap???? How utterly cliche! Of COURSE programs like that one would fail. That one encouraged indulging in sexual thoughts and activities! It's all well and good to teach about contraceptives but the first thing you must teach is that abstinence is the only appropriate option!

I really dislike how they paired the antagonist (the female cheerleader) with Christian values while the good girl believes in, or at least enables, progressive attitudes towards sex. They clearly want to fight the belief in chastity.

If you are a Christian parent, please don't let your chlldren watch this show. They are not teaching Christian family values. They are teaching new post-modern progressive ideas that pre-marital sexuality should not only be tolerated, it should be embraced.

King of the Hill gets one right.

2009-09-10T01:46:00.004-05:00

I still stand by what I said about King of the Hill being a completely evil show, but they did do one thing right. For several seasons one of the main characters' wife (Nancy) was having an affair. They made it a big joke because Dale is the type of person who suspects everyone of everything, yet he is clueless of the obvious hints that his wife is cheating on him. Cute. Shoot! His child is clearly the son of a Native American and he still never puts two and two together! I hated this part of the show but finally they did the right thing. Nancy fell back in love with her husband and ended her affair. And the show in which it all comes out is handled very poignently.

I think this might be the only thing the writers of this show have ever done right.

Life's purpose

2009-08-15T17:35:00.003-05:00

I believe that God has a plan for us. I think that He has a vision about what we were meant to be. I think at the core each and every one of us is a singular sort of person, complete and whole and able to be with God in the flesh. But Adam and Eve were the only people to have ever been this kind of person. Then they sinned and everything went bad. All of Adam's descendants are now damaged, from birth. And what's worse? The damaged people of the world damage us even more.

Even as a newborn baby, we are damaged because of original sin. But, severe as that taint is, the infant is at his LEAST damaged the moment he is born. He will never be as undamaged as he was the moment he left his mother's womb, until he gets to Heaven. The world's damage to the infant is incalculable.

We are in fact so damaged that we are blind as to what God wants us to be. We might believe something about ourselves and not realize how wrong we are. We have been brainwashed by the world. And with the power of the media and the moving tide of "progress" today, the brainwashing has never been so complete.

So I think that one of God's purposes for us is to heal us. To undo the damage done when Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Obviously, we can not do it ourselves. Our greatest healer is Jesus. We are to look to Him for healing. But we can not ignore other people. They are one of Jesus' most important tools. He doesn't just use people though. Of course we have the Bible as our main word, but we might learn from other books as well, even secular ones. Sometimes a TV show can offer us inspiration. Even nature can offer us some insight. Seeing a rainbow at just the right time can give someone hope. Watching animals behave in a peculiar way can actually teach us something, even change our hearts. All of these come from Jesus and the Holy Spirit and we should look for them daily, no, as often as possible.

Truly God wants us to be whole again. He wants us healed. Once we are healed we can be with Him completely, as Adam and Eve were. That is what God wants. He wants to be with us again. That is what I think we are meant to do here on Earth, to help one another to become whole again, with the power of the Holy Spirit. Open ourselves up to Jesus and accept His gift of forgiveness and healing. We will of course never get to perfection on Earth, but we can look forward to receiving it in Heaven. And we will. God be praised.

Getting people to do things "your way"

2009-08-06T02:46:00.010-05:00

I happened upon a reality show where one roommate was making life difficult for her roommate because she wanted them to be as ecologically sound as possible. They had to take 3 minute showers. They had to turn off all the lights all of the time. They had to watch what they were doing constantly. It was aggravating how controlling that girl was.

Here's some advice to anyone wanting other people to do things "your way." If it really matters how people do things, make it easier for them to do it your way. You want the lights turning off when someone leaves the room, install motion activated switches. That way they never have to even turn a light on. You want to conserve water, capture rainwater or grey water to use in toilets and such. They won't have to worry about water at all. You worried about energy usage? Install solar panels. You don't like them adjusting the thermostats? Install programmable thermostats.

These are of course examples, expensive ones. Not everyone can afford a solar array. But the point remains. If it's harder for them to do it your way, why would they want do it your way? Especially if you have a bad attitude about it all? If you are incapable of making it easier for the other people to do things your way, then you'd be better off picking your battles and compromise.

You'll never get people to do things your way with a controlling attitude. The leader's job is to make the follower's life easier, not harder.

It's difficult to fall in love with someone you don't trust.

2009-08-05T17:03:00.007-05:00

Have you ever known couples who fell in love and married in a very short amount of time? Months? Weeks??? I have heard of some, curiously all Christian, which seems bizarre considering the Christian stance on divorce. But these couples seem to make it work somehow. How do we explain this phenomenon?

My guess is they get to really know one another very quickly, because they already know what to expect from a true Christian. I realized something, a reason why I am hesitant to say that I love a girl too soon, despite extreme feelings of affection for her: trust. I have always said that love is selfless, that if you can't put them above yourself, then your affectionate feelings are selfish. If it's about how they make you feel, then it's not love. It's infatuation. It's not necessarily a bad thing understand. It's part of the process of falling in love for most of us, because we are programmed (by society) to look out for number one. But as you grow in your relationship with that special person, you start to realize that the "whole you" (which includes that other person) is actually more important to you and you naturally start to put them first.

Here is the first explanation of Christians falling in love very quickly. Christians who have been able to genuinely practice putting themselves last all of their lives are more able to put their significant other first more quickly because they don't need to make that transformation from me to we. They never think if themselves first and as a consequence they are able to very quicky demonstrate their faith to the person they are interested in.

Another reason why they fall in love so quickly is regarding trust, or at trust's root, knowledge about the other person. It's difficult to fall in love with someone you don't know... or know to trust. So how do you know that you can trust them? Generally time is the only answer, but... if you are a particularly strong Christian, and you find yourself attracted to another particularly strong Christian, you might be a candidate for finding love quickly.

What I really think I understand now about these Christians who fall in love so quickly, and the reason why in the past I would take time to fall in love (a couple of months, maybe 3 or 4), is that I didn't quite trust them. Why not? Because we were both a bit too worldly. Because they were worldly, I was unfamiliar with their beliefs. I had to learn about them first to determine how much of my beliefs I would have to compromise to be with them. Some girls made me realize that I would have to compromise too much. Other girls made me regret doubting their faith. They fell in love far quicker than I and my reticence left them disappointed. By the time I'd caught up, it was too late.

Now I see that it should be easier as a strong Christian, not more difficult. Christians have a specific set of core beliefs that make us who we are. If you are a strong Christian falling for another strong Christian, finding that trust should be easier because we know what to expect. Finding trust with a worldly person is more difficult because you don't know what they believe in. There are so many belief systems, many of them incompatible. You have to learn more about that person and really examine how compatible your beliefs are. If you don't strongly subscribe to and understand an established belief system, like Christianity, you will always find it difficult to trust another person you date because you will never know what to expect from them*. If you don't have any obvious common ground with the person you are interested in, you have to learn a lot about them first. You have to learn what beliefs they subscribe to. But if you are, say, a Christian, all you have to do is learn how strong of a Christian they are. Find out if you are both at the same point in your development as a Christian.

Sure, it's not 100% automatic. You'll always need to learn about people you date, and even strong Christians differ on many core beliefs. But knowing that you share a majority of your core beliefs from the start gives you a sense of security that you cannot have with anyone else. You don't have to be so protective. You don't have to focus so much time learning about each others' core beliefs. You can spend more time learning about the other things that make each of us unique and attractive.

Many Christians doubt other people A LOT. Comes with the territory. But amongst the Christians that we trust, we can put real faith in each other. All you have to do is prove to each other that you are a strong Christian, and you will automatically know a lot about each other, especially your beliefs. So if you are a traditional strong Christian interested in another person, all you have to do is find out if they truly aim to embody Christ's love in the world. Once you do that, as long as there is chemistry between the two of you, love will surely bloom. True love. Unfailing love.

*The world's answer to this problem is to create a blanket "acceptance" of all belief systems and to not intrude, force your beliefs on them, and not meet in the middle. Curiously this "open mind" actually encourages closed mindedness because we aren't "supposed to" challenge one another's beliefs. Progress is slow without challenge. Christians challenge each other's beliefs all the time. It kind of defines us. We try to become better through Christ every day. We can only achieve that by listening to advice from other Christians.

How to forgive

2009-07-23T16:15:00.001-05:00

I think I learned a lesson in forgiveness. There are occasions in which a good friend of mine will stop talking to me, for no apparent reason. Well people don't just do that. There is a reason. Something that I don't realize that I did. If the person would tell me, then perhaps I could explain, or apologize, or mend my ways and stop doing whatever it is that made the person stop talking to me. But they don't do that. They hold a grudge. Now of course this is completely unfair to me since I am at people's whims about whether or not they will just up and decide to hate me one day. But then I have to ask myself, do I want to be friends with a passive aggressive person like that? So I move on. But the issue remains. Why don't they forgive.

It's easy to point at other people and tell them that they do something wrong and should change their ways. But sometimes you realize that the other person is the man in the mirror. So I've been examining forgiveness in my own heart. It stems from this deal with complaining. I have a couple of blog posts regarding complaining. I don't think that complaining for valid reasons is wrong. In fact I think people complein far too little. See my blog post about why I think this way. But there is an attitude today of exhuberant forgiveness. Now, on the one hand we are commanded by scripture to forgive as Jesus did. On the other hand we can't just let people get away with everything they do to us. Spare the rod you know. Rude people need to learn that they are rude. And yes, many rude people know it, but I would say that the majority of rude people are not on the extremes. There is just a general ignorance of common courtesy and etiquette these days, and this is something that we all should hold one accountable for. So these kinds of complaints, let 'em rip.

But what about when someone really does you wrong? How can you forgive someone for really changing the direction of your life? Well, the answer came to me when I was examining the concept of free will. See, a lot of people believe that free will is an illusion. They say that everything you do or say is predestined, not necessarily by God (although some do say that), but by circumstance. When you round a corner, you bumping into someone has a lot to do with your speed, their speed, your concentration, theirs, the vector, the diameter of the arc that you are turning, the center of that arc. There are in fact more variables to the intersection of your two paths than we can imagine... because you must also consider why were you 2 feet away from the wall? Why were they running? There are so many factors that determine what we do it's a wonder that we even feel that we have any free will. I am on the fence about free will. If it weren't for Christianity I probably would abandon the idea of free will altogether, for what just God would send you to hell if you couldn't prevent it?

So I began wondering how Jesus would deal with some forgiveness issues, and why. And I realized that Jesus would not only know what someone did, but exactly why. He knew why a woman committed adultery. He knew why someone committed murder. He knows why we do the things we do. In fact, it's possible that he knows that we don't have enough free will to do the things that we should, and maybe that is why he is able to forgive all of mankind. Then it clicked. I can do the same thing! All I have to do is assume that the other person lscked the free will to do what was right.

So if you want to forgive someone, but don't know how to justify it, consider this. Even if you do believe in free will, imagine that the other person didn't have enough free will when they did you wrong. If free will exist, I do believe that it is variable. Some people have more free will than others. In fact this is the way in which I define morality. So I assume that the other person's level of free will was so diminished that they couldn't help but to do me wrong. Then I search for reasons to explain why they did the thing they did. They didn't realize. They weren't brought up right. They are young and immature. They were having a bad day. They assumed that I was the bad guy. Their feelings were too involved. Once you begin to believe that the other person is just as innocent as you, then it becomes easier to forgive them.

That is what I am planning on doing from now on. When someone does me wrong, I'm not going to just say, "I forgive you." First, they might take it wrong. They might think that I am being passive aggressive myself. I still have to let them know what they did to me. Second, if I don't tell them what they did wrong, they can't learn a lesson from it. This is just like your first day on the job and you take a coffee break for 15 minutes and company policy is 10 minutes. The boss tells you "I know you don't know our policy so it's okay this one time that you took 15 minutes, but from now on you need to limit your breaks to 10 minutes." So that is what I plan on doing. I'll let them know that they did me wrong. I'll tell them that we are still friends, but please don't do it again. And an apology would be nice.

This is what Jesus would do I think. If not, I pray that He lets me know.

MAN I hate the word "empower."

2009-07-09T05:07:00.004-05:00

I don't understand how ANYONE can actually LIKE this word. It's freaking insulting to everyone.

The word implies that you give power to someone who would not have it otherwise. It's often used in context with the Women's movement. When it is, it's insulting to both Women AND to Men. It tells women that they are naturally powerless, and it tells men that the women are taking power away.

I can NOT understand how anyone would embrace this freaking insult!

I hate it!

Act nice or be nice?

2009-07-07T23:25:00.002-05:00

A recent study showed that Houston has some of the nicest drivers in America. How did they come to this conclusion? They measured the amount of time it takes for someone to honk the horn when the person in front of them didn't go at the green light. THey found that Houston had some of the longest times. Some people would wait the entire cycle and let the light turn red before they honked the horn.

How is that being nice???? It's not being nice! It's ACTING nice, at the sake of giving someone else the opportunity to BE nice. When I am at a light and I don't notice that it turned green, I don't want to miss the green light either. I want someone to tell me that the freaking light has changed and I should get off my inattentive butt and get a move on! I'm being a jerk and someone should tell me about it. I don't want people to think that I am a jerk. I want to learn my lesson so I'm not a jerk the next time.

I don't know why I'm surprised at this study though. It is the way the world works now. We act nice instead of be nice. Someone cuts you off in traffic, you honk the horn, and you are the jerk. They almost killed you, and you are the jerk for complaining about them almost killing you.

Let me ask you something. Someone does something to you, but you don't tell them about it. Why?

Is it because you don't want to rock the boat? Is it because you want to be nice? Is it because you don't want people to think that you are a complainer? Is it because you don't want people mad at you? Is it because today everyone is supposed to just let things go and "be nice?"

Or is it because you are afraid of conflict?

Be honest.

It's probably a mixture of any of the first ones and the conflict one. Just think what goes on in your head when you decide against responding to them. When you decide to let it go, don't you feel a sense of relief that you don't have to confront them, risk antagonizing them, and make them mad at you? If that's you, do you hold their actions against them? Do you keep it inside and just hate them, and don't tell them why? Is that you being nice? Do you honestly think that you are being nice by getting mad at someone for doing something that they don't know was wrong? You aren't being nice because you aren't nice. You are angry. What you are doing is ACTING nice, but inside you hate them.

This postmodern world we live in today advocates letting things slide and acting nice, but is it really good? Think about this. When you throw a party and your guests make a lot of noise and your neighbor comes and pounds on your front door (because your party is so loud that you can't hear the doorbell) to shut the *beep* up, do you think the neighbor is a jerk? He should just let it go and relax a little, right? But come on! If you are being honest with yourself, you know that you and your friends are the real jerks.

So what is the neighbor supposed to do instead? Ideally he would be right there with you partying, right? But you can't expect every one of your neighbors to be a party animal. Some of them just want to sit back, relax and watch a movie in the peace and quiet of their home. So what would you have THOSE people do? Just suck it up? Wouldn't that make them dislike you? But if they come to you and ask you to be a good neighbor by being quiet, then the dialog of cooperation can begin. Perhaps the two of you can come to an arrangement. Maybe if you give your neighbors some advance notice, they will schedule their vacation for that time. Or they might decide to go to a movie, or visit friends or relatives. The point is that the two of you should be able to figure something out that works for both of you. It would have been best if you warned them ahead of time, but you don't know who will complain and who won't. So if you don't do that, then you can't blame the neighbors for complaining. If they don't come to you, but they still don't like the noise, then they are probably just going to hate you and not let you know that they do.

Is that what you want? Do you want a world that encourages people to hate one another and not tell each other why? That is the world we live in today, and I hate it. I don't like hating people. And I hate it when people hate me and don't tell me why. Acting nice leads to passive aggressiveness. This is a passive aggressive world now. We still complain about people, but we do it in our heads. We hold people's actions against them and we don't tell them about it. How is that right??? That is the definition of passive aggressiveness, and it is just plain wrong. Wrong wrong wrong!

Am I advocating being a complainer? Sort of, yes I am. Not necessarily a person who just loves to complain. But don't be a coward about complaining either. If someone does something to you, don't be too afraid to speak up about it. They are guilty and they should be allowed the opportunity to rectify it. If you don't complain, then they don't have a chance to make things right.

What would the world be like if we weren't afraid to complain? You probably think that a world like that wouldn't be very nice, everyone complaining all the time. But if you really think about it, would everyone be complaining all the time? I don't think so. What would realy happen is that the people who walk all over other people would hear about it. It would be a world in which everyone expected each other to be nice. Today, we don't expect people to be nice. We expect people to ACT nice. Big difference. In order for the world to BE nice, we would have to hold one another accountable for his or her actions. We would not let anyone get away with anything. People would be more considerate, not less considerate. I honestly believe that it would be a nicer world if everyone was more courageous about interpersonal conflict.

Some of us get a bad rap of being a complainer. But if everyone complained when someone did something that they didn't like, then the people who did those things would at least know what they are doing is bothering someone else. And if everyone complained, then the people who did those things would know that they were the problem and it wasn't just one person being a jerky complainer. The people who are unafraid of complaining today wouldn't have to shoulder the entire load of complaining. They would have to complain LESS.

I know, there are extremes. There are people who like to complain and no matter what people do they will find a reason to complain. I'm not talking about those people. I'm talking about people who have legitimate complaints once in awhile and aren't afraid to speak up about it.

There are also people who would continue being jerks no matter how many people complain to them about their actions. I'm not talking about them either. I'm talking about the average person who today doesn't really think about how his or her actions affect other people. I'm talking about the person who talks on the cellphone at the stop light and doesn't notice when it turns green. I'm talking about the person who moves over to the right lane at a stop light and doesn't consider the people behind him who might want to turn right at that red light. I'm talking about people who do throw loud parties and don't realize that they are being loud. I'm talking about people who whisper just a bit too loud at movie theaters. I'm talking about you and me.

If you have a complaint about me, I want to know about it. If I do something that you don't like all the time and you never talk to me about it, then you have no right to complain. Don't hold grudges with people who don't know what they are guilty of. You are just being a complete cowardly jerk.

So please everyone, stop being a jerk that acts nice. Complain but BE nice!

Up

2009-06-04T01:07:00.003-05:00

This movie had me smiling from ear to ear, after the beginning.

The most brilliant thing I've read all year

2009-06-02T13:19:00.002-05:00

I was having a laugh at this website: http://www.menarebetterthanwomen.com/ (I know. The website is horrible. But it is funny if you don't take what he says to heart. Plus, you have to admit, the guy does make some good points: like "I'm my doggie's mommy.") Anyway, I came cross this one:

"I don’t ask my clock what time it is. I tell it what time it is. The #%&! thing just keeps track for next time."

That's just brilliant. It really is. Of course, disregarding clocks that are synced up with an atomic clock, we do have to program the clock's time to begin with.

I know it might not be all that interesting, especially not interesting enough that you might want to put it on your blog, but I love it when someone pulls me out of the box.

I know I might get some flack for even reading that website, but come on, you have to recognize that the guy is not stupid, even if he is a bit chauvinistic.

Attachment is bad?

2009-05-25T01:29:00.006-05:00

I feel sorry for people who fall in love with people who believe all attachment is bad. If I fall in love with someone and I die, I want the idea of my death to horrify them. How much do you love someone you don't mourn?

What did the Star Wars movies teach us? That attachment is bad, or that it is not bad? I believe that the lesson that George Lucas had for us was that it's dangerous to ignore attachment. By banning attachment for jedi, the Jedi council alienated Anakin and made him feel that he could not go to them for advice. Instead he found council in a Sith lord who was all too eager to give him advice. Had they been more open to attachment Anakin would have felt comfortable going to them for advice regarding his dreams about Padme. They would have warned him that dreams, even prophetic ones, do not give you the whole picture. They would have been able to watch over him. But because they considered attachment bad

So I do not think that George Lucas's message to us was that attachment is bad. I think his message to us was that attachment can cause you trouble if you ignore it.

Attachment is a way of life.

Push

2009-05-23T03:01:00.002-05:00

freaked me out.

Fear the power behind the machine

2009-05-22T02:20:00.015-05:00

Ever since technology started to have a big impact on our lives, there have been movies warning us about it. One of the early ones, at the dawning of the computer age, was 2001, in which the most perfect computer ever designed went crazy and killed the hibernating crew of astronauts going to Jupiter. Then Wargames envisioned a computer that could bring upon a global thermonuclear war. And of course there is Terminator and the Matrix, in which the machines themselves declare war on their creators. All of these movies have one thing in common, the lesson that we must never give too much control to technology.

But are we humans that much better? Is the technology in the movies flawed? Hal in 2001? WOPR in Wargames? Skynet in Terminator? Nope. The machines did precisely what they were programmed to do. The flaw wasn't the machines. The flaw was humans.

Garbage in Garbage out. It's an old computer axiom. The computer will give you what you give it. If the machine creates havoc, isn't the human who designed it the cause? Even in the case of artificial intelligence... we do not understand human intelligence. The way in which we program computers to learn could be flawed enough that it develops into a Skynet or a Matrix. Again, the human behind the machine is at fault. Machines don't go on a rampage unless they are told to, unless they are busted.

Interestingly enough, Isaac Asimov envisioned the dangers of technology and between 1940 and 1950 wrote 9 short stories which eventually became the book entitled I Robot. He imagined a world in which robots coexisted with humans, acting as servants. Because of the obvious danger he created the 3 laws of robotics, which are designed to protect humans from robots. They are:

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

In the book, Asimov demonstrates how even these seemingly foolproof laws could actually cause robots to endanger human lives. But we must never forget, the robots themselves didn't cause the danger. The programming was. The problem was that humans failed in creating enough intelligence inside the robots to cope with the internal conflicts created by the 3 Laws. And even moreso in some followup books Asimov demonstrates how the robots can interpret the 3 laws in such a way as to take over humanity. Definitely not what we would want.

The fact is that humans are just as flawed as technology, and in some cases worse. A brilliant human being is like a super fast computer. We are in and of ourselves blank slates. Sure some of what we do is genetic, but a large part of what we do is dependent upon the input we receive.

Smart people sometimes do dumb things. Why?

Some of the most brilliant tacticians in history were... the bad guy. Napoleon, Hitler, Robert E. Lee*. They were all the bad guy! And they were some of the most successful military leaders the world has ever seen. They were absolutely brilliant. Complete geniuses. But bad input put them on the wrong side. Luckily bad input also brought upon their downfall.

So in this age of technology, when we begin to fear the computers and machines, do not forget to fear the power behind the machine: the human.

*Yes civil war buffs. I know. I know. I kind of like Robert E. Lee too. But I'm sorry, he was the bad guy. Sure, he was a gentleman and possibly a good human, but he did lead the bad guys in the Civil War.

Do I believe in the Law of Attraction?

2009-05-17T21:21:00.003-05:00

You might think after reading my articles on the Law of Attraction and Intention/manifestation that I am one of those people who think that the Law of Attraction is BS. But that's not true. I do believe that the Law of Attraction works. If it didn't work, then it wouldn't be such a big deal. It's the fact that it DOES work that makes it bad, because it gives an unfair advantage to those people who use it.

Now, if you only use the Law of Attraction for certain things like, getting better grades in school, then it might seem harmless. After all, you getting straight As isn't going to make some other student's grades drop. In fact, the fact of the law of Attraction having an effect in this case is questionable and could be debated. After all, if you wake up every morning and chant to yourself, "I am going to make straight A's this semester" for 5 minutes in the lotus position, that practice alone might give you additional encouragement to make it happen. You might get charged up and ready to learn, study, practice, and do everything it takes to make those straight A's happen. And you are very likely to accomplish your goal. And you didn't necessarily use of any sort of metaphysical "magic." Maybe the Law of Attraction helped. Maybe it didn't. But in the end, does the fact that you made better grades affect the other kids in class? Does it lower their grades? That is the issue. Did the Law of Attraction help you to compete? Well, it won't lower someone else's score, but it will raise your class rank, and thus lower someone else's rank.

Now, the leading proponents of the Law of Attraction sell it as a universal good, as if once everybody starts using it, we will somehow enter into some kind of nirvana. But this is complete rubbish. They also say that it is not used competitively. Come on!!! Don't sell me a turd and call it a Snickers. Make no mistake, you will use the Law of Attaction competitively. You will do it! It might be as innocent as getting a better parking spot, or it might be getting the promotion over the leading sycophantic suckup. Maybe you think you deserve the promotion more than the other jerk, but if you don't use the Law of Attraction to get it, will you get the promotion? If you don't, then maybe the world would be better off in the long run if you didn't get the promotion.

If you ever use the Law of Attraction to give you something that someone else might get instead, then you are using it for competition. And that is the danger, because one day, the forces of nature (or the Devil) will pull the rug out from under the Law of Attraction and if the world leaders use it, they will start to fail. Countries will fail, Corporations will fail. Families will crumble. If the LAW OF Attraction is used en-masse for a couple hundred years, only those who use it will rise to the top. The Law of Attraction will be one of their main tools so much that it will become a crutch. Then, if it is a tool of Satan, as many Christians do, he will stop supporting it. And once he does, the world will crumble.

Now, if you do not believe in God, then I can understand your position. But then you MUST admit that the Law of Attraction becomes your religion. It will by definition become one. If you believe in it, then you can NOT call yourself an Atheist. And even if you still disregard that it's a religion, how can you think that a good universal force would support it? It can NOT be used for good because two people can not both use the Law of Attraction to achieve the same goal and have it work. We can not all win. There can not be a universe of number 1's. That would really suck. Competition isn't bad. And you might think that I am contradicting myself, so i will rephrase. FAIR competition is not bad. FAIR competition creates new Olympic records every 4 years. FAIR competition is the method of evolution. We achieve because we compete. But if we start to use the Law of Attraction, then we cheat. We do not win because we are the fastest, the strongest, or the smartest. We win because we are the luckiest. What happens when the luck runs out?

If you believe in God, and you are on His side, I can not understand why you would support the use of the Law of Attraction. It is a tool of unfair competition. It is used AGAINST other men, rather than FOR yourself and FOR society, and in that regard it should be cast out of your bag of tricks. You don't do witchcraft spells, do you? If not, then you must not do Intention/Manifestation. Intention/Manifestation is a form of a minor spell. And even if it weren't, how can you not see that a good force in the universe would support it? It gives the user an unfair advantage.

Movie Review: Monsters vs Aliens

2009-05-09T01:39:00.010-05:00

Yet another unhealthy kid's movie.

I should have known that this movie would suck when the woman who never had a right thumb in her life try to use that thumb to open a door. I'm too optimistic.

Susan, a woman set to marry a weatherman, who is just about to make anchorman, becomes a giant. Her fiance rejects her because of her size. Rather than do what it takes to become normal sized so she can try to stay with her beloved she responds with the typical new age independent female mantra "I don't need him anyway."

Let me get this straight Hollywood. She's been dating and falling in love with this man for years. He rejects her when she should be marrying him, and she is able turn off her emotions in 3 seconds flat, then turn away from the life she's been dreaming about for years. Yeah, right!

Later on in the movie she shrinks. Does she even for one second realize that she can return to her fiance? NO! She doesn't miss him, EVER! She doesn't pine for her lost love ONCE! WHAT KIND OF A MOVIE IS THIS WITHOUT LOVE?????

Of course then at the end of the movie the guy returns and tells her that he forgives her! Riiiight. In which universe would THAT happen? A man telling a woman that ANYTHING was her fault??? But in this movie he does. Yet another MAN turning into a jerk when he realizes that his woman doesn't need him. WHAT THE CRAP!?! What happened to unity, to cooperation, to solidarity? To couples being, uh, couples! He was a perfect gentleman at the beginning of the movie then he instantly turns into a selfish jerk??? Only in the new age movie world would this happen. Don't let this crap happen in the real world too people. Stay away from this and all movies like it.

What are they trying to teach us today? They could have had the guy show support, as Susan thought he would do at the beginning. But the writers didn't do that! Why not??? What purpose was served by making her fiance a jerk??? NONE!!! All it did was pander to the idea that women don't need men, and that men are all jerks. This is the big problem I have with the movie world today. There are far too few Meet the Robinson's that teach good healthy family values and cooperative emotional and physical support. Instead, Hollywood teaches independence, that we can only count on ourselves. It's no wonder people are so selfish today and they don't want to help their fellow man. Hollywood taught us to be that way!!!

Stop supporting these evil movies people! They are just going to take the world down a black hole to destruction.

King of the Hill is an completely evil TV show.

2009-05-03T19:56:00.002-05:00

I am getting more and more disghusted by this show. If you haven't seen it, don't bother. It's caustic.

Tonight's episode teaches a lesson about supporting our children. But they acutally teach that we should NOT support our children, and that parents are just plain always right. Neither is true.

Here is what happened in tonight's show. Hank (the father) has spent his life wishing his boy was someone different, someone more athletic. Bobby wants to be a stand up comic, and he's actually very good at it. Hank hates that the boy wants to be a comic. And he doesn't support him in his dreams. He gave up on his son long ago.

In this episode Bobby wants to play baseball. The coach gives Bobby support and Bobby starts to excel because of it. Then they freaking convert the coach's support to over-exhuberance, and he ends up lying to Bobby by telling him that he's so talented that he will be playing pro ball. And of course Hank "knows" that the coach is wrong and it's all going to go bad. And what happens? Hank is right. Hank finds out that Bobby wasn't ever actually good and he takes him out of the game just in time.

But Hank was actually not right. The writers just created a universe in which Hank was right. But that universe isn't this one. It's not reality. And even though this is a cartoon, the writers absolutely intended to create a morality lesson, as they always do with this show. And once again, the morality lesson is a harmful one.

What are they trying to teach us??? That we aren't supposed to support our children? That we have two choices when our children don't turn out the way we want them to: either give up on them or go overboard? Why not just teach parents that they should support their children and give them as much help as they can?

The lie of "life's not fair."

2009-04-18T00:49:00.012-05:00

"Life's not fair." What a ridiculous disrespectful lie. First, people who condescendingly tell others that life is unfair believe the person they are telling it to is an idiot for ignoring some obvious truth. But they don't realize how illogical it is to say "life's not fair."

The phrase "life's not fair" implies that life for everyone is unfair. Life is unfair to everyone? Am I the only person to see the contradiction here?

The word "life" here is all inclusive. In this sentence and in meaning it says "life for everyone." If the word "life" didn't mean "everyone," then you wouldn't be telling the person that life is unfair. They already addressed the inequality of life when they said, "it's not fair."

So you are really saying "life for everyone is not fair." But life can NOT be unfair to everyone! If it is unfair to everyone, then it can not by definition be unfair. Unfair means there is an imbalance. Life cannot be unfair to everyone. If it was, there would be no imbalance.

If life is unfair to some, then it must by definition be advantageous to others. We all know that some people are charmed. Life gives them success with little effort. They find money easily. They make friends easily. They look good without working out. They are exceptionally talented. They find love quickly. They attribute their success to hard work, and they no doubt have worked hard. But they fail to recognize the hard work that the guy who mows their lawn and cleans their pool has had to endure for the entirety of his life. These charmed people are the people that say "life's not fair." They don't even realize that life is more than fair to them.

So the phrase "life's not fair" is incomplete. It should either be "life's equally unfair to everyone" (a very clear contradiction) or it should be be "life's not fair to some." It has to be unfair to some. And it's completely meaningless to tell someone that. When someone says "It's not fair" that's exactly what they are saying.

You are better off just agreeing with them.

Next time you tell someone that life is unfair, consider how the contradiction makes you look. It is not true.

Is it wrong to be independent in a relationship?

2009-04-12T11:40:00.001-05:00

Question: my bf says i'm too independent and there's nothing wrong about needing someone. how do i make him feel needed and still be able to stand on my own at the same time?

My answer: Independence is essential when you are single. But when you are in a relationship, you are a member of a team. Maybe at first it is okay to maintain your independence since you don't know if the relationship will last. But eventually, you must be able to shift from independence to interdependence. Anyone that cannot make this shift will fail in their long term relationships.

It's too bad so few people realize just how important it is for a man to feel needed... It is a lesson well learned by today's modern independent woman. For a man to feel like a man, he must feel like he has accomplished something, that the important people in his life find value in what he DOES, not just in WHO he IS. This is a fundamental difference between men and women. A man that doesn't feel needed isn't going to be able to provide the emotional attachment that YOU need.

It doesn't take much to make him feel needed. Just let him do things for you. Ask yourself why you feel the need to be independent. Is it a fear that you will be disrespected? I must admit that I sense it a bit, or you wouldn't have said that you wanted to stand on your own. Imagine how much internal strength it takes to acknowledge that you need someone. You have to give up your pride. There are two kinds of pride. The emotion and the state. Feeling pride, and being proud are different things. I am proud of being a decent salsa dancer. That is good. You should take pride in your ability to care for yourself. To be able to take care of your car, your finances, your job. To be able to mow the lawn. To be able to handle situations that women wouldn't have been able to handle 50 years ago. Take pride in that ability. But beware. Do not let your pride become proud. There is another form of pride.. a damaging kind. Being too proud to open your mind. That form of pride is equivalent to fear. And fear is weakness. Humility is STRENGTH! If you can wrap your head around that, then you should feel PROUD to let people help to make your life easier. That's the good kind of pride.

You can also consider what your man can provide that you cannot. Perhaps security? Let's consider your boyfriend walking you to your car at night. I know. You might carry mace, or a gun. You could be a black belt. You might be a tough as nails kick boxer. It's true. But the guys who prey on women don't know. The guys who prey on women don't respect women. The guys who prey on women look down on women. You being a bad@$$ isn't going to keep them from attacking. But these evil men respect men. Or at least they give more respect to men. Right? So if a woman is walking with a man at night, a stalker is less likely to attack. Sure, the man might not prevent the attack, but the chances are greater that the stalker won't attack. And even if you are able to take care of yourself, even if you could shoot the stalker dead, wouldn't you rather not be bothered with it? Wouldn't you rather have a pleasant walk with your boyfriend than beat up a stalker? Sometimes it's just easier to give up some of the pride and give up the independence and let your boyfriend take charge.

Read my question...
If men and women are equal, and one takes leadership of the other, what does the other person receive?

The answer is that if done properly, the leader gets to lead, and the follower gets taken care of. Independent people don't get taken care of. You have to take care of yourself. Wouldn't it be nice if your boyfriend took care of you?

I like to say that if you are independent, you can only count on yourself. But if everyone relied on one another, then you can rely on EVERYONE else to help you when you need it. Would you rather have one person you can count on, or the few dozen closest friends and family in your life?

A truly equal relationship will utilize both of your strengths. Maybe you are a good organizer. Maybe he is a neat freak. Both can be useful for similar tasks. Well, let him wash the dishes and you take charge of the packing for the vacation. You pay the bills and let him wash the clothes. Or vice versa. You have to strike a balance. You have to be willing to compromise. Both of you. Him too. You need to figure out which roles both of you will play in your future relationship. You cannot expect yourself to take charge of EVERYTHING. You HAVE to be able to let him take charge too. In fact, you SHOULD let him be the default leader. But that's the Christian in me. Still true. But take it that way. If you do that, if you let him lead, then YOU will be the person who is taken care of, as you should. Then you can dedicate your energy to more important things.

If you lead, AND you are taken care of, then what does that make your boyfriend? Your slave. How can he be your equal if you lead AND you get the benefits of the leadership? The person leading must use the leadership to benefit the other person, or the relationship is not equal.

Yes, there are times in which both of you can or must equally share responsibility and leadership. Choosing a vacation spot. Taking care of kids. But in any relationship, there will inevitably be a time in which ONE single person MUST take charge. If you don't believe that, then you are only deceiving yourself. Ask ANYONE who has been happily married for any length of time. There IS a DEFAULT leader! It should be him because you expect to be taken care of. The default person to take charge should be the person that can put their interests LAST. Is that you? Or your boyfriend? I know that it can be extremely difficult to put that kind of trust in someone. But if you can't trust the person that is now or will one day become the most important person in your life, then you will never be able to trust anyone. Do you really want to live your life without being able to trust anyone? ESPECIALLY your husband?

Please take the opportunity to really think about what is going on here. I know it will all work out okay for you.

Sorry about the long-winded reply.

Independence and insecurity

2009-04-04T14:10:00.004-05:00

I had a revelation as I was writing this. I began thinking that most, if not all selfishness is a minor form of contempt for other people, thinking that you somehow deserve more than the rest of the people of the world. I realize now that this isn't true. I think I see what independence is now. It's fear based. Independence and most selfishness related to independence is based on fear of inferiority, not a belief of superiority.

I offer a bit of self examination to all of you, being somewhat independent myself. Although I am struggling to cure myself, because I think that independence is both a symptom of society's ills as well as part of the problem. So while I deal with my own independence and selfishness, perhaps you might discover some of these truths in yourself.

Indepenent people's approach to cooperation is often, "what do I have to do to get them to give me what I want?" If they do act selflessly, they do so agaist their nature. They are after all, independent, which means "focused on themselves." I see a bit of myself in this, which is why I try to focus on helping other people, even while I am thinking to myself, "how am I going to benefit from this act of altruism?" I try to suppress the selfishness, while at the same time recognizing that the answer is not to remove my help. I should offer up help because it's the right thing to do, not because I get something out of it. The problem isn't that I'm helping. The problem is that I relate it to myself.

No doubt, many don't want to believe that the only reason they give is to get what they want. They believe the opposite, that independence is simply not wanting to bother other people with your problems. But why? This is simplistic and rationalization. If you are one of these people, ask yourself this: "Aren't I just afraid that if I put myself out there, that I ask for help, or I offer help without thinking how it relates to me, that someone will think lower of me? Or that I think low of myself for needing someone. Or that I lose something of myself? Or if I do help or offer my services I won't be able to do a good job? They are better off without my help? Or that helping will cost me something? These thoughts are all self serving. They are self-ish, but it is understandable. At the same time they are protective.

The degree to which someone is independent can actually be measured in terms of selfishness. But it's not pure egoism. It's a protective sort of selfishness. It's self preservation. In fact, what I have found to be true is that the most independent people are the most insecure. They are very quick to tell you that they can "do it on their own." And this is rather ironic since independence is usually used to communicate to the world that you have high self esteem. Independence is a shell designed to give the illusion that you are strong. But in reality, the only person you are fooling is yourself. Everyone knows that independent people are insecure, because everyone is insecure in some area and recognizes its symptoms. Your insecurity reads loud and clear when you act independently and selfishly. If someone else ridicules you because your help was somehow flawed or inadequate, or that you are less of a person because you need help, then they are too self centered themselves. And you can see how selfishness starts to snowball and to create an independent world. Their self-centerdness helps to reinforce yours. Their insecurity feeds yours. Our world is not only independent and selfish, it is also increasingly insecure. When you begin to recognize your own insecurities and begin to deal with them openly rather than internally, you will automatically open up and begin to be more cooperative.

Am I insecure? Sure! We all are in one way or another. So what do we do? Most people do the opposite of what they would do if they embraced their insecurity and put their insecurity on display. But doing the opposite REALLY highlights your insecurity. Most actions like this are unnatural. Independence is actually unnatural. We are meant to be cooperative, not selfish.

So I urge you all to examine your own insecurities and to recognize how you deal with them. Do you react opposite to how you would otherwise? Can you see how your response to insecurity exposes your insecurity to the world? Isn't it then smarter to embrace your insecurities and to let other people help? Or to help other people and to risk finding out that your help will possibly be inadequate?

You need to ask yourself this: Which is worse, exposing that you aren't good at something? That you are inadequate. That you aren't perfect? That you don't have it all figured out? That your life isn't perfect and in order? Or is it worse for the world to know that you are insecure? Insecurity gives the illusion that you are ALL of those things and more! While you are probably only a couple of those things. If the world believes that you are insecure, they think that you believe ALL of the above. If that's not true, then it's better for you to let them in on the couple of problems that you have. Since everyone has skeletons, then they would be hypocritical to ridicule you of your flaws.

And if someone exposes their own weakness to you, be careful that you do not highlight the weakness. Help it. Give the person help to fight the weakness. Give them advice. THAT is the proper way to deal with each other's weaknesses. Helping one another with weakness creates true strength. They become stronger, as does your relationship with them. And the world becomes a little bit better because of it. Thank you.

Movie Review: The International

2009-02-22T16:44:00.007-06:00

I saw The International with my Dad today. It wasn't the best thriller, but it was fun and it is most certainly relevant today, because of globalization and the the conspiracy theories related to globalization. Obviously the bank, The International Bank of Business and Credit (which curiously has a webpage),
is obviously a stand in for the World Bank. The leaders of the bank were so corrupt that they could cause global conflicts. Interestingly, many people believe that the World Bank has the same kind of influence on the world.

Do we know that the world bank operates in the way portrayed in this movie? No, we don't. But The International provides an excellent example of how the World Bank would control politics and the world at large. Anyone who has an interest in global conspiracy and the economy should watch this movie.

They explain quite well how banking effects global politics, through debt.

On a side note: The International has a scene in which a bank official explains his actions in that life caused him to turn the way he did. The hero however faught this idea. Clearly Hollywood doesn't want to accept the idea that we have less influence over our lives as we really do. The banker was absolutely right. The same events that made him evil madeAnakin turn into Vader and a young boy running on the River Danube into the ruthless killer, Hitler.

What is New Age?

2009-02-20T12:44:00.004-06:00

I've been asked this a number of times before and I've had a difficult time explaining it because it is difficult to pin New Age down. I'm going to defer to this website:

http://www.carm.org/religious-movements/new-age-movement/what-new-age-movement

The website says:

The New Age Movement is difficult to define because "there is no hierarchy, dogma, doctrine, collection plate, or membership." It is a collection, an assortment of different theologies with the common threads of toleration and divergence weaving through its tapestry of "universal truth."

and...

The New Age movement has many sub-divisions, but it is generally a collection of Eastern-influenced metaphysical thought systems, a conglomeration of theologies, hopes, and expectations held together with an eclectic teaching of salvation, of "correct thinking," and "correct knowledge." It is a theology of "feel-goodism," "universal tolerance," and "moral relativism."

I think that summarizes it well, although it doesn't really nail down a definition either. I'm going to have to peruse this website more. And I'll try to find some sort of idea of how the New Agers define themselves too.

Right now, I'm leaning towards a definition that includes a "thirst for knowledge of the hidden universe." But it's not based upon scientific principles, like those who study quantum physics or astronomy. It's based upon metaphysics. I'll return here with more later.

Do you need a man, or just want a man?

2009-01-25T23:57:00.006-06:00

Someone said this beautiful statement...

"Independence is all fine and good, but it's lonely."

But another phrase has become almost cliche... "I don't need a man. I want one." I see it a lot online. If this is you, let me begin by warning you that you aren't going to get ANY man if you start off telling him that you don't need him. You might get some responses on a website like eharmony or something like that, but none of the guys are going to be the kind of man you want to keep. He will either be a wuss or selfish.

Men need to be needed, ESPECIALLY real men. When a woman tells a man that she doesn't need him, it is a huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge turn off. And telling him that he will never be able to compete with her family, again, huge turn off. If everything goes right, he is going to become your family and he SHOULD become the single most important person in your life, FOR LIFE!

NO ONE should EVER get between you and your mate.

Whether or not you believe it (valid as your belief might be) it is immaterial. Men believe it and if you start off your relationships by telling men the opposite of what they believe, they won't stick around.

Let me try to paraphrase this phrase...

I don't need a man, but

I WANT a man to meet my needs.

That seems to me to be the TRUE meaning behind "I don't need a man, I want one."

I have some reading material you all might want to check out... written by a very successful and independent woman.

http://www.ezinearticles.com/?The-Successful-Career-Womans-Guide-to-Landing-and-Keeping-a-Man!&id=98031
and
www.gillistriplett.com/manhood/articles/modern.html

Have you thought about the men you want? That maybe the men you want (real men) need to be needed? That if they don't need to be needed then they must by definition be as selfish as you appear to be? And it is selfish to not need and to be needed. It means everyone else (especially the most important person - your mate) is a luxury. If someone is a luxury then they are as disposable as a Jaguar, BMW, or Mercedes. As soon as they stop being luxurious, you toss them for a newer model. No wonder there are so many divorces these days!

But I'm not so pessimistic. I realy don't believe that so many people treat their relationships so casually.
(True statistic: 50% of marriages end in divorce, but 80% of PEOPLE who marry remain married.)
I believe that people do need one another. I believe that when you do find your mate, that you WILL need him. All of those things that you say that you want, you will see just how quickly they become necessity. Then you will recount and say...

I don't need a man to live, but

I need one to have a life worth living.

You see, that is the way society works. Society is a large community built upon need. It is not independent. It is in-TER-dependent.

WE AAAALLLLLL NEEEEEED EACH OTHER!

If you really don't need anyone, especially while you are seeking a life mate, then you might as well just lock yourself up in your home and never come out. Why be so independent? We all need to stay connected people!

But please don't just read my post and throw the whole idea away... read the article. It's much nicer than my rant.

If you change your mind a lot, do you think that maybe you will change your mind about whether or not the #1 man in your life is always going to be your father? Let me tell you, one day that #1 man WILL shift from your father to your husband. Can you not imagine a future where the man in your life becomes a necessity? If you know that you tend to change your mind, then why communicate so much in absolutes? Just don't bring it up. Let it go and relax.

Song of Solomon conference is returning to Houston!!!

2009-01-25T23:56:00.000-06:00

I was fortunate enough to have been invited to a Song of Solomon conference several years ago. That one was by Tommy Nelson himself, and he was absolutely amazing. I don't think the conference has returned to Houston since then so we are very lucky that the conference will be coming soon. Although Tommy is not going to be the speaker, I am sure that it will still be fully entertaining and truly enlightening to anyone who wants to know the Biblical stance on romance, dating, sex, and marriage.

Whether you are single, dating, married, or even if you are young and not ready for a serious relationship, you should not miss this opportunity to learn what the Bible says on romance.

Put it on your calendar. January 30 and 31 at the First Baptist Church on I-10. 3 hours on Friday Night and Saturday morning. The conference costs $35 for us average folk. Less for students and military. Believe me, it is well worth it. It will change your whole perspective on romance.
http://www.songofsolomon.com/details_houston.asp

To get a taste of what is in store for us, listen to the free podcast by Tommy Nelson.
http://www.dentonbible.org/index.php?pfile=love_song_podcast&mfile=medialm&dir=media

Is it alright to complain?

2008-12-22T01:20:00.007-06:00

Well the answer depends on if the issue is with you or with the person you are complaining about. Is it a pet peeve or a legitimate complaint? If you don't like people who always say "axe" when they mean "ask" then that's a pet peeve. Yes, you are right. They are saying it wrong, but it's a minor issue that isn't going to negatively affect their lives much. You are better off swallowing your complaint.

But if they do something to you, like spread rumors about you behind your back, then you have a legitimate complaint. But manner in which you complain is of particular importance. Do you return in kind and talk about them behind their back too? Or do you keep it inside, hold it against them without letting them know that (and why) you have a problem with them? Do you simply forgive them? Or do you talk to that person face to face? The way in which you deal with these issues reflects on you as a person. So when you do have a complaint about someone, then you had better do it right. Word gets around fast these days.

LoA Part 8: How we are different.

2008-11-16T20:04:00.002-06:00

Law of Attraction Series
Part 8 of 8

While some Christians will remain vulnerable, there is a difference that protects many of us. The difference between the other religions and the true Christian one is that WE have The Holy Spirit to protect us. Satan can sweep right through the other religions. But not us. Well, he can get through some of our armor and take some of our followers. He might even divide the church. But there will always be a core of true believers who will not be swayed by his tricks. We must remain vigilant and ever cautious, especially when new ideas enter the world. We should take up the fight against tempting ideas that have the potential to take the world down dark paths, like I-M/LoA.

I pray that the power of Intention-Manifestation and the Law of Attraction is diminished in the world and that the New Age religion is called out into the open for what it is: an attempt by Satan to infiltrate and unify all of the world's religions. I pray that The Lord protect His servants in this fight and that we remain vigilant and strong and wise so we might not be swayed by the ideas we will hear. And I pray that God will continue to bless all of us.

LoA Part 7: Is Prayer Intention Manifestation?

2008-11-16T12:21:00.001-06:00

Law of Attraction series
Part 7 of 8

Some will say that prayer is an Intention-Manifestation. I say absolutely NOT! I know who I am praying to. Who knows what power listens to the I-M? Prayer is humble, ASKING God to grant your request. I-M is proud. TELLING the universe to grant your request. Two totally different concepts. This is an excellent example of what I was saying earlier. We use prayer (methodology) to speak to God (theology). But this new movement is taking what we believe and changing it. If someone accepts that prayer is like I-M they might over time develop a view behind it that says that they deserve to have their prayers answered. They will become prideful. But this will only happen if they forget the theology of prayer. That we must approach God with humility.

LoA Part 6: How Satan will deceive Christians to adopt New Age

2008-11-12T02:19:00.005-06:00

Law of Attraction series
Part 6 of 8

I wonder.... no, I know that many Christian believers are currently sliding down the slope, embracing New Age ideas. It's just too easy to get caught up, listening to George Noory, reading books like The Secret, getting involved with other believers who also believe in the religion of intention. When the world tells Christians that they are intollerant, Christians don't like it. Some begin to change their hearts and start to accept that other religions have a right to take souls. They start to be swayed by seemingly innocuous ideas such as intention-manifestation and "take care of your own house," and inaccurate biblical quotes like "God helps those who help themselves." If you are surprised to find that this last one is not in the bible, then you should recognize how deceiving the new belief system is. Even YOU have been deceived.

Here is how some believers will be seduced by New Age. Many "christian" New Agers believe that Jesus' power was complete knowledge of the science of the universe. While I believe that Jesus did have this knowledge, I think that he executed His miracles not by using nature, but by humbly calling upon His Father to move nature aside so He could perform the miracles. When Jesus healed the blind, he didn't call upon jedi midichlorians to do it for him. He asked God to take His spiritual hand, step outside of nature and wipe away the blindness. Jesus didn't just have knowledge. He had power. The power and personal communion with His Father. Those in the new age movement ignore Jesus' communion with His Father and instead focus on Jesus' knowledge and how he used it to manipulate nature. And even moreso if Jesus had this knowledge of nature, then maybe one day WE can obtain this knowledge. Kind of sacrilegious isn't it? But some will be seduced by the idea and will live their lives trying to obtain power through knowledge. LoA is precisely that.

If Christians rooted their lives not in the pursuit of knowledge but instead in the word, community with other believers, and their relationship with God, they would constantly be refreshed and reminded that some of these ideas are dangerous, to themselves and to the world.

Those who lead should always come last.

2008-11-10T15:36:00.002-06:00

I love this. If you get to lead, it is abusive to use your leadership to give yourself advantage over those who serve you. So many Kings were known to be oppressive. It's why we say things like "Power Corrupts." But a proper leader will always put himself last. If you are the leader and people see that you abuse your power, they will stop following you. But if you put them first, they will give you more power and privilege.

LoA Part 5: How Satan will attack the other religions

2008-11-08T11:16:00.001-06:00

Law of Attraction series
Part 5 of 8

Believe it or not, wicca would probably be against New Age, now. But who knows in 10, 20, 100 years. Here's how religions like wicca will slip. Each religion has a theology and a way in which it practices its theology. The wiccan religion worships the Earth or whatever (Sorry, I'm not that educated in witchcraft so I might be off - but let's just say it's so for argument's sake.) and they practice their worship of the Earth through various rituals and spells. The New Age movement will enter into these religions slowly, showing how someone might use new methods (intention-manifestation) similar to the religion's methodology (spells/prayer) to express the theology. Or they might get so caught up in the methodology of the religion that they forget/ignore the theology of the religion. Then less enthusiastic members of the religion will neglect the theology and misunderstand the goals of the religion. They will be especially vulnerable to Satan's tactics. They will start to embrace new methods and muddle them with the methods of their religion. Some of them will become more enthusiastic about the religion and become leaders. Then slowly the theology of the religion will shift. I believe that Satan will guide the theology of all non-christian religions to a new age one. Even religions such as Islam. When New Age takes over, people will subscribe to two religions. An overarching religion and a sub-religion. Unless they are true Christians. Only the true Christians will deny New Age.

LoA Part 4: Satan's attack on the other religions

2008-11-04T02:13:00.001-06:00

Law of Attraction series
Part 4 of 8

Historically Satan has not really attacked the other religions. He's already won the members so he didn't have to. "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world that he doesn't exist." But in the end times he will attack the other religions because he needs to unite every non-believer on Earth so he can fight the Messaiah's army in the final battle.

I just wonder if Satan has the other religions on a slippery slope now, sliding towards New Age as the global religion. Why New Age? Because it's the only religion that tolerates all other religion. It's the only religion that embraces all other religions. It is the first religion in the world that is trying to UNIFY all of the religions. And that is precisely what the Anti-Christ will do.

LoA Part3: Cherry picking religous theology

2008-10-31T00:10:00.003-05:00

Law of Attraction series
Part 3 of 8

I notice that a lot of the I-M/LoA people like to combine/cherry pick the most advantageous parts of several religions like Buddism, Hinduism, Christianity, and even Paganism and Wicca. They sort of blend the religions and are especially careful to tolerate them all. Christianity on the other hand is against all other religions. We aren't against the people inside the other religions, but the theology of those religions themselves. New Agers even attempt to blend in and search for some scientific studies and theories like quantum physics to support the belief system, even though the Law of Attraction is not falsifiable (meaning you can't prove it false) so it is therefore unscientific. This way they even attempt to pull in scientists and atheist. Imagine a global religion that even atheists can agree with! And they would share that religion with some Christians!

Leadership & Preferential Treatment meets Love & Respect

2008-10-30T00:45:00.007-05:00

If you haven't read Love and Respect you absolutely have to. I just realized just how much my recent line of thinking about leadership and preferential treatment goes along with this book.

I'll illustrate this with a rather inane example. Maybe I'll replace it later on if I come up with a better one but let's say a couple wants to go to the movies. The guy wants to see a horror movie. The girl can not stand horror movies but there is a great chick flick all of her friends have been raving about. The guy hates hates hates chick flicks though. What to do? What to do?

Let's remove all other variables from the equation and say that they are in a small town where there is nothing to do. The small theater only has two screens. They must see one of these two movies. Okay. The way I believe the couple should handle this is the woman should trust her man's leadership ability to handle the situation fairly. If he cannot come up with a compromise he should go with his girl's choice and see the chick flick. Why? Because he got what he needed: respect. She cared enough about him to respectfully defer to him. So he should show her love enough to give her what she wants.

See? It all goes back to love and respect. A woman who allows her man to lead shows him that she respects him. She trusts his actions. She doesn't just give up and say, "oh forget it. Let's just do what you want." No no no! She lovingly and respectfully gives him the lead. It's not very respectful to say "I give up."

The man should return the favor. She showed him respect. He needs to show love. A man who chooses what the woman wants shows her that he loves her more than he loves himself. He values her as a person.

Doesn't that sound nice? Guys!!!! Learn from this lesson! Give your girl what she wants!!! Not because it will get you points. Not because she will beat you if you don't. Not because she tells you what to do. Do it because she loves and respects you. If you keep proving that you will put her first she will give you the leadership and the respect you need and deserve.

(I still don't believe that respect should be earned. I think that it's a right because men need respect more than they need love. I strongly believe that if women deserve unconditional love men deserve unconditional respect.

However, even though I believe this, I would never tell my girl to respect me. If your girl believes that you have to earn respect, then you are going to have to earn it nonetheless. Earn it without argument. Fighting for respect loses you respect.)

Leadership and Preferential Treatment

2008-10-29T19:19:00.018-05:00

Okay, this is surely going to create controversy so let me begin with a disclaimer. This is just a theory. If you have anything to add that might contradict or support this theory I am eager to hear your comments. Okay. Here we go.

There are two kinds of equality: symmetric equality and asymmetric equality.

Symmetric equality is cooperative.
"Where do you want to go eat?"
"I don't know. Chinese or Italian."
"I had Chinese last night. Let's have Italian."
"Ok. Where to?"

That's cooperative or symmetric equality. Both contribute equally to the decision.

Then there is asymmetric equality. And there are two kinds of this... One in which the leader is the person who can guide the decision with skill or desire and one in which neither or all parties involved can guide the decision with skill or desire.

Who gets to lead an asymmetric situation? The answer is usually the person who is better at making the decision and the person who wants to make the decision. If the man in a relationship is good with cars, then he should be allowed to do it. That is the easy type of asymmetric situation of equality. The woman will defer leadership to him because he is good at the task.

But what about the situation that isn't so black and white? What if neither of them is good at working on the car? What if neither wants to work on it? Let's imagine that they can't take it to a shop and let's say that one of them needs to work on the car while the other walks down the road to call the relatives and say they are going to be late. They are in a hurry so they need to do double duty. So who works on the car? Who walks?

Someone needs to own up and take the lead. Who then? Well there should be a default leader.

Before we discuss who should lead let's move on to the flip side. I think one of the reasons why leadership is so controversial is because we so often equate leadership with advantage. But I believe that God intends the leader to give his advantage away. This I call preferential treatment. It is the flip-side of leadership.

If there is a default leader then the other person should have some advantage that matches the advantage that leadership gives. Well that advantage is preferential treatment. If one is allowed to be the default leader, then the other person should receive preferential treatment by default. Guess who has always received preferential treatment in a healthy romantic relationship? The woman naturally, and that is precisely the way it should be. Therefore, the man should be the natural default leader.

Let me be clear in saying that outside of the relationship, both members of the couple are to be considered equal. But within the relationship, the leader should consider the other person to be more important. Yes, I said that right. He is the leader and he considers his girl more important. This is absolutely essential in maintaining true balance within the relationship. It keeps the leader from being selfish. If the leader considers himself to be superior, then she will be his servant. She will have nothing to balance the relationship if he uses his leadership to give himself preferential treatment.

I can hear the crowd screaming, "They are equal!!" I do agree in principle. Men and women are equal, but still we are both distinct and different. The man is a lump of gold worth a million dollars and the woman is a diamond worth a million dollars. Both equal in value, but still different. However, the idea that both can be treated equally in every situation is pretty naive. If you refuse to come to terms with the fact that there are situations in life that do not allow for equality, you are one day going to find yourself putting an 'x' in the box that says "irreconcilable differences." There really are many situations that don't allow for equality. And that is why leadership is balanced out with preferential treatment.

If it wasn't, then the two would have to keep score because you will run into millions of scenarios in your lifetime in which both can not possibly be treated equally. "You took the first life raft last time, so this time I get to jump out of the burning building first." That's completely ridiculous. Keeping score is just not right. Maybe with children, but not with a man and a woman. It's better just to just give preference to the follower. To do otherwise is going to result in strife between them.

A problem with this is becoming obvious. Are they just supposed to do what she wants all the time? Of course not. If that were true then the leader wouldn't have any responsibility at all and leadership would certainly have no advantage. Occasionally the leader will have to contradict what the follower wants. Sometimes he can not go along with the follower's desires. But he needs discernment. This is why we need someone to be the default leader. He must obtain the experience to decide when the follower's desire is the right thing to do and when the right thing to do is something else. He needs the practice to both discover when it's right to contradict her and to keep making her feel loved when he has to go against her desires. He needs a lot of practice to achieve this long term. Because of this, the woman should wait for the man to take the lead. If the Sunday date is getting rather late, then it's the leader's job to decide when the date ends. If the woman just up and takes the lead and says, "Ok, it's getting late. We should go home" then she hasn't given the man the opportunity to practice leadership. AND more importantly, she hasn't given him the opportunity to prove to her that he is capable of being a good leader. And let's face it, women today do not trust men to lead. And yet, they WANT a man who can and will lead. Women want a take charge guy who knows what's right and will fight for it. But she'll never find him if she doesn't ever give a man a chance to show her that he is a natural born leader. Now, if in the Sunday date scenario, the guy is not doing his job and is letting the date continue too long, the woman might be able to offer up her opinion. But she should still allow him the opportunity to practice leadership. Eventually it will become clear whether or not the man will ever learn leadership. If that's the case, then you should probably consider if you even want to be with such a wishy washy non-man.

Please understand that I am not trying to say the woman should never have a choice. She absolutely should. A date scenario is an example of a traditional relationship. The man is wooing the woman, trying to show his mettle and be a good match for her. He is the natural leader on a date. In general though, the context of this blog post is about the 1% of the time in which the leader is not obvious. In 99% of the situations in life the two will either collaborate or one will be an obvious leader. But that one single percent is very important. The Bible tells the man to lead and the woman to submit. The reasons I listed I think support what the Bible tells us.

I see two rights when it comes to men and women. One is the right to lead. The other is the right of preferential treatment. If you are a leader, then your significant other must receive preferential treatment. If you receive preferential treatment, then you must defer leadership to your significant other. To do otherwise (meaning you get leadership AND preferential treatment) would make you the superior and the other person your servant. How can you have equality if you are both the leader and you receive preferential treatment? You can't. It is why some men today really dislike the feminist movement. It is also the reason FOR the feminist movement.

Here is how it happened. Long ago God created man and woman. Men were the leaders and they gave their women preferential treatment. In fact, men used their leadership to give women preferential treatment. If someone else threatened a man's wife's treatment, he would stand up for his wife. I believe that is the way God intended. I believe that if you are outside of a relationship looking in, you should look at the woman and the man equally. Man and woman should be considered equal. But within the relationship, the man should consider his woman to be superior. But she should not think that she should be allowed to lead. The president doesn't open doors does he? He has other people plan his day, right? Sure, he could decide to take control on a whim and run off to vacation. I'm sure he does react when necessary, but I doubt he plans every facet of his life in office. His job is bigger than one man can handle. A woman that badgers her husband is like a president who tries to control every facet of his life.

Ok, back on topic. As men led, because they could, some men began to give themselves preferential treatment. It became more and more the norm and eventually women began to feel like second class citizens. Some women became truly oppressed. I don't think that all men oppressed their women but many women did not feel like they were equal to their husbands. So they rebelled and began to get jobs, demand the right to vote, demanded sexual freedom, taught their children the idea that a woman (even with preferential treatment) should be allowed to lead.

Then the tables started turning. Women became good at living independently. They started to want men instead of needing them. And then they started to dominate their personal relationships because they no longer needed men. And now look at what has happened. The pendulum has swung the other way and men are now the slaves. We have to wait on our women hand and foot and we get no say in any matter. Oh yeah, there are times where our opinion is asked for, but in general, women wear the pants. Scoff all you want, but it's so funny the standup comics make jokes about it all of the time. Standup comics I've found are generally good at distilling the condition of society pretty well. They make their living by observing life and thier naturally clever nature enables them some real insight. They find truth in the idea that women are in charge these days. So I also do. And I don't like it one bit. Not because women are incapable, but because it makes men into slaves.

LoA Part 2 : Individuality vs. Cooperation

2008-10-27T00:44:00.003-05:00

A week ago or so I wrote the first part in a series I'll call the Law of Attraction series. Here is part 2.

Law of Attraction series
Part 2 of 8

I-M/LoA It has a big impact on your belief system and how you live your life. The overarching philosophy of this new age belief system is that the individual must come first. I am noticing a huge rift developing between two factions, one is about the individual, and the other is about community. One says that we must better ourselves before we can help one another. The other says that we must work together to better each other. One is essentially individualistic. The other is cooperative.

The faction that preaches cooperation is of course the Christian one. Looking after yourself last. The faction that preaches perfecting yourself first is the New Age one. The idea being that you must have a clean house before you can clean your neighbor's house. Luckily in the wake of Hurricane Ike, I didn't actually witness many people being so selfish. I witnessed a great DEAL of cooperation though. In fact the only selfish act I recall is a sign at a gas station selling regular gas at $9.00+ a gallon.

McCain? Obama? LOL

2008-10-23T12:49:00.007-05:00

Okay, I think I finally figured out who I'm going to vote for this year.

I was going to write in Jesus, but this is just so much funnier.

Live as if you don't need it - riiight.

2008-10-23T12:16:00.006-05:00

One thing I dislike about Eastern philosophy and especially the new age movement (particularily the way in which it has already infiltrated our daily lives - many Christians believe this as well - now) is that they tell you in effect that to get what you need, you have to live as if you don't need it.

This has many consequences. One of which of course is that it turns the person inward, proclaiming that he/she doesn't need "anything." You'll hear that time and again today from pop-psychologists. "You shouldn't look to others to meet your needs." We who try to follow The Way know that we are to turn to God to meet our needs. But the way you hear it from other less healthy (or less clear) experts (or at least you can interpret it this way - and most people do) is that you must and can only look to yourself to meet all of your needs.

This of course is an impossibility. If you need a job, you don't look to yourself to give you one. If you need an education to get the job you want, you don't teach yourself. You go to school and get your education from other people. We do need one another and we should run away screaming from anything that tells us otherwise.

The fact is that this way of thinking is a lie. If you need something in our life, you cannot create it from within. You cannot elude yourself into thinking that you don't need it. If you can, then you obviously did not really need it. Or far worse, someone else filled that need. Worse? Yes. If you did NOT turn your need to God, who do you think filled the need? I don't want that guy filling any of my needs. No thank you. Even if the need is met, I probably won't like the method he used to fill it. And I sure won't like the consequences of that need being filled in the way he filled it.

There are many examples of independence ruining us today. I won't go into them too much but one obvious one is abortion. I really don't think that God would ever choose that as a solution. There are more beneficial alternatives like adoption. Those seem much more cooperative and Godly.

The end consequence of the modern independent movement that alarms me the most is that it creates distrust. People justify their independence by saying that they can only count on themselves. Well, first this is just a bold faced lie. But worse is that their independence combined with the natural human fear of change has made them afraid to give their needs to anyone else. No one has ever pulled through for them because they never gave anyone a chance. They were taught to not rely on other people, and it feeds off of itself, until a circumstance of need shatters their preconceptions that other people are unreliable.

If we allow the trend of independence to continue society will begin to change from a society that thrives on cooperation to a society that fears it and worse doesn't offer it up when needed. 50 years ago people would openly help one another. Now there is this attitude of "you can't handle that on your own?" People are slow to help when asked because they are so inwardly focused and they won't offer help on their own because they assume the person can handle the situation on their own. It kind of divides us, huh?

Think Satan can make use of a divided world? And that is why it alarms me so. Recent developments like the economy, globalization, and the Internet being a tool of independence are making it clear that Satan is ramping up. I can literally feel it happening. It's a chill running up and down my spine culminating at the base of my neck. It rears up whenever I hear someone commit a logical fallacy in defense of a dangerous choice and lifestyle.

So I want people to understand how dangerous this new way of thinking is. And it is a new way of thinking. It's not natural. It's not logical. And it's destructive. Put God first. Put your needs in God's hands, not in your own. Don't be afraid to ask for help from other people. God will use them. It's His way. He created the world to work with cooperation. Don't go against His way.

WOAH! Collin Powel: there's going to be a crisis... the 21st or 22nd of January

2008-10-22T11:09:00.003-05:00

Search for 21st or 22nd of January

Did he really say that there's going to be a crisis on January 21st or 22nd on Meet the Press????

Yes, he did.

The problems will always be there, and there's going to be a crisis come along in the 21st or 22nd of January that we don't even know about right now.

HOW CAN COLIN POWEL KNOW THAT THERE'S GOING TO BE A CRISIS AHEAD OF TIME?????

Here's a Google cache link with highlighting to make it easier to find the text.
http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:teb-ASlXyhwJ:www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27266223/+%2221st+or+22nd+of+January%22

The importance of study

2008-10-19T13:47:00.004-05:00

There are many reasons why we should study our Bible as much as possible. One as I mentioned previously is to remain invigorated in The Spirit. Loving to read your Bible daily does this. But reading your bible and studying does more than this. It prepares us to witness.

Would you want to take a dance class from someone who doesn't look like they know how to dance? It is one reason why a dance studio should employ great dancers to be their instructors (another being that the students should never be able to surpass their instructors). An intermediate level dancer might be able to teach the basics, but he lacks the intimate knowledge of how one evolves through each of the stages to become a truly advanced dancer. So a student who aspires to be an advanced dancer will only be hindered by the teacher who teaches instruction that will have to be unlearned later on. A very advanced teacher will prepare the beginning students to receive advanced instruction later on. An intermediate instructor will not have the knowledge to be able to do this. And it shows. Students are wise enough to understand that a dancer who isn't amazing will only be able to teach them so much. So they will naturally respect a teacher who has gone through the entire evolutionary process to become an advanced dancer. They might like the intermediate teacher, but they will respect the advanced one.

Did you ever see the Seinfeld episode where Jerry buys a tennis racket at the tennis club? A salesman at the tennis club tells Jerry that it was the racket that he uses. Jerry buys the expensive racket solely on that fact. Then Jerry sees him play, badly. The guys is AWFUL! Jerry completely loses faith in the racket he bought. We don't want to be the salesman when we witness to other people. We want to look like we know what we are talking about. We need to have confidence in what we are talking about. Our number one tool is The Holy Spirit. It will guide us. But our secondary tool is our knowledge of The Word.

Someone new in Christ can tell someone that all we need to get into Heaven is written in John 3:16. And he will be right. But he might be tested. Some of the least faithful are the most knowledgeable of The Bible and biblical history. So if you want to be prepared to take on these individuals, you had better be prepared. Study your bible. Learn from other scholars, mentors, and believers. Increase your knowledge. You never know who God is going to put in your path.

How to stay zealous

2008-10-19T13:32:00.007-05:00

Before you read this blog post, read the previous one. This is an extension of that one.

With the previous post in mind, I remembered a particularily important verse that I was alerted to some years ago in a sermon about how to stay zealous. I wanted to remain zealous for the remainder of my life and here was a verse that told you precisely how to do it. It was so meaningful to me that I folded the page in my Bible so I would forever be able to flip right to it. So I wrote on the top of the page "how to Stay Zealous" and it was so important that I even put the date and the time. May 26. 6:00 PM Don't know why I didn't put the year down. But it was 2003.

Here is the verse:
Isaiah 33:15-16 (KJV)
15He that walketh righteously, and speaketh uprightly;
he that despiseth the gain of oppressions,
that shaketh his hands from holding of bribes,
that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood,
and shutteth his eyes from seeing evil;

16He shall dwell on high: his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks: bread shall be given him; his waters shall be sure.

In short, keep focused and stay away from temptation. Keep your eyes on the prize (Heaven) and don't let anything divert your attention from that prize.

I remember that being a great sermon as well.

How to stay rejuvinated in The Spirit

2008-10-19T12:48:00.015-05:00

Today I really truly understood the brilliance of God choosing Sunday to be the day on which we go to Church. It is the day before we return to our daily lives. Every time I go to church I become rejuvinated to live life to the fullest and to let Jesus' light shine through me. Although I might not be the best example of this, it is my goal in life.

If there is one prayer I can have answered God it is this: let Jesus' light shine through me so the people around me will say, "Oh! That is what it's like to have Christ in your life. I want that."

My heart was especially rejuvinated in the service today, especially after we took communion. The server who held the bread really touched me. The way he looked at each person in the eyes and with true love and conviction said "Jesus body broken for you." You absolutely KNEW that he really believed and wanted you to understand just how much Jesus' loves us. That really hit me. I hope and pray that it changed me.

If you read my earlier blog post, you'll know just how much I needed to feel God's love today. We all need to be rejuvinated. Constantly really. So that is why it is good to be involved in a church. No, it's not a commandment, but without it, it becomes a real struggle to show Jesus' light. We need reminders. The weight of the world presses down on us too much. So by the end of the week, we might be a bit out of it spiritually. So we go to church before the week begins, but that doesn't do us much good on the weekend.

So it was during service that I wished that I could have an equally strong influence on my spirit and faith before the weekend. Then I was reminded of Hannah's Friday Bible study. A lot of churches have Bible study on Thursday, and generally that seems like a good day to have one since for a lot of us the weekend begins after work on Friday. But I am committed to helping with salsa classes every Thursday. So Friday might be just as good at rejuvinating me before the weekend. And the way in which Hannah's bible study goes, they seem to give the entire Friday to God. And that is so wonderful. I'm sure on Saturday Hannah feels completely recharged.

Plus, she lives in the word daily. And that is equally important. Going to church isn't really enough to keep you charged up all week long. After we attend church (hopefully) we feel completely recharged on Sunday and even Monday. But the rigors of daily life and the struggles the real world puts on us beats that love of mankind down. We need daily reminders. So we are called to live in The Word.

Read your bible daily. Not because you feel that you are commanded to. I don't think any commandment in The Bible is "because I said so." I think every commandment in The Bible is "because it's good for you."

So read your bible daily. It is good for you. And soon you will see just how much you depend on it. Find a church that rejuvinates you. Go to Church, at least on Sunday because it will fill your heart by communing with fellow believers. Listen to wisdom brought to you by someone who has spent time in study of The Word. It can bring fresh eyes and understanding to your life. It will rejuvinate you. And if you find that during the weekend you aren't the best example of Christ's love, then find a Bible Study that will recharge your love of God and of mankind.

Is it enough to just go to a Bible Study? Not really, no. The people who lead the bible study, kind, generous, Godly, wise, and entertaining as they are, they are not likely to study it full time. The pastor who gives a sermon on Sunday does. He studies the bible daily, for hours. He went to school to learn much more than the Bible study leader knows. He has real wisdom and education. Your Bible study leader doesn't. The Bible study leader might have gone to seminary, but probably not. He might be a good Christian (he'd better be) and the spirit can surely use him. But if you have to choose between church on Sunday and a Bible study on Friday, go with the church. Deep inside you really must know that it's the choice that God would want you to make.

God loves us now.

2008-10-19T12:45:00.002-05:00

Chris said an amazingly profound thing in his sermon today:

God doesn't love the person we will become.
He loves the person we are today.

This really struck a chord with me.

What a great service it was today.

Witness

2008-10-17T08:52:00.009-05:00

Did you ever feel like you are witnessing life rather than living it? Like you are on the outside looking in, just watching and not participating?

Boy how I wish my brain was wired differently. It seems that the people who are most successful, most happy are those who are naturally outgoing and talkative.

Lord, why must I clam up when I am with talkative people? I can contribute too doggonit. I know things. I have opinions. I'm pretty smart. I'm a philosopher by nature. Why must my thoughts and opinions disappear from my mind while I watch others have a conversation? Can't I participate too?

Do all philosophers suffer so? No. I doubt that. Many like to talk. I like to be heard. But I don't like being pushy. I hate it when I am interrupted, so I don't interrupt others myself. The result is that when I am with boisterous and talkative people who walk all over each another, I clam up. Maybe that's why I have this blog. I can write whatever I can't say. But is anyone listening?

I don't want to sound so arrogant. I clearly don't have all the answers, but what good is it to know anything at all if you can't share your wisdom?

Free podcast: Song of Solomon

2008-10-14T14:51:00.005-05:00

If you are a Christian and interested in any kind of romance. If you are married or if you are single. Even if you are young and you aren't ready for a serious romance...

Listen to this podcast. Especially if you've read and subscribe to the ideas in the book:
I Kissed Dating Goodbye.

The Podcast is an examination of the book Song of Solomon, which is how God wants us to date, court, fall in love, marry, make love, and live in marriage.

It might be rather long, but it's well worth it. It's even worth the usual $60 pricetag, but for free, it's a no-brainer.

http://www.dentonbible.org/index.php?pfile=love_song_podcast&mfile=medialm&dir=media

If the post disappears, search for it on www.dentonbible.org or www.songofsolomon.com or on iTunes.

Dance mimics life

2008-10-12T19:13:00.009-05:00

I like to say that dance mimics life. That dance is the best metaphor for romantic relationships.

I wrote in my salsa blog that a man's job is to make it possible for a woman to do things that she can't do on her own.

I was going to say the same thing about life and relationships. There is some truth that we are both more capable by working together. But is it biblical to say that a man's job (in life) is to make it possible for a woman to do things that she couldn't do on her own? I'm remembering one of the earliest parts of the Bible. "It is not good for man to be alone. I will make a helpmeet for him." So, this begs the question, are men meant to help women, or are women meant to help men? Or both? They say that behind a great man is a great woman. But do they say the same thing about great women? Is this an antiquated notion these days? We seem to be so independent these days.

Predatorial dating

2008-10-12T13:58:00.001-05:00

I really like this quote.

A lot of times we use romance in a predatory sense to get our mate, and once we have them we cease to become a discipline in delighting our mate. And it has to become a discipline.

-Tommy Nelson

I don't want to hunt my mate. I'm not a predator. I'm a vegetarian for goodness sake!

Be a team player.

2008-10-12T04:23:00.006-05:00

I took a class today and came upon a realization. At the end of every movement, especially in closed position, the girl needs to be secure, balanced and in control. If she does not feel that way and just goes on, she will go too fast and end up ahead of the guy's lead and he will be incapable of leading her. To lead means to come before. You cannot lead someone down a trail if they are 100 feet ahead of you. The lady needs to stay behind the guy. The guy needs to stay ahead.

How does she stay balanced then? Use the guy. It is up to the guy to provide what she needs to gain that security. But the girl also needs to recognize the team and use her man. She is not alone. It's not entirely up to her to find the balance. He is there to help her if necessary. That is the first priority for the guy. But he can only be there for her if she uses him.

So...
#1 Guys: Be there for the girl. Be a team player.
#2 Girls: Use the guy. Be a team player.

Ladies, do you need your man or just want him?

2008-10-09T03:19:00.001-05:00

I've noticed a trend lately: women saying that they don't need a man, they just want one.

Ok ladies, if you do believe this, then ask yourself this question:

What I find most important in my familial relationships, my platonic relationships, and my romantic relationships is...

A) the emotional support they provide. Being there when I need a shoulder to cry on. Giving advice. Giving me a word of encouragement. Paying me compliments. Making me feel like I am the most important person in the world. Just holding me.

B) the help they provide with my day to day life. Buying the groceries. Doing the laundry. Washing the car. Picking up the children. Killing the bugs. Changing the car's oil. Checking to see if the strange bump in the night is a burglar.

I'll bet that every single one of you answered A. In fact, if you removed A from your life, you would probably want to stop living. Therefore, you do NEEED emotional support.

When you get married, the most important person in your life is your spouse, and you should receive the bulk of your emotional support from that person. If someone besides your spouse provides the emotional support you need (even if it's a best friend of the same sex), then you are committing emotional adultery (yes, even with your best girl friend), which is often more damaging to a marriage than sexual adultery. If you have a mate and you aren't getting emotional support from your mate, then your needs aren't being met by the most important person in your life.

So, if you want a man, then you get a man, that man that you desire should become a necessity. Considering all of this, it's completely impossible to get what you want (a man) without having it (the man) become a necessity.

I like to change the phrase "I don't need a man, I want one" to this one:
I don't need a man, but...
I want a man to meet my needs.

That seems much more truthful.

Why is the economy REALLY failing?

2008-10-06T14:02:00.008-05:00

If you didn't watch Money as Debt yet, you need to. But if you don't want to or don't have time to, I'll explain one important concept so you can understand why the world economy is collapsing.

Fiat money is Debt. The banks create this money when someone takes out a loan.*
This debt/money enters the world economy. The economy includes money to pay off the principle but not any money to pay off the interest.
Banks expect you to pay principle AND interest.
Remember. The world economy is only composed of principle. There is absolutely NO money in the pool to pay interest.
You can ONLY go to the world economy to pay off a debt to the bank.
In order for you to pay off interest, you (or someone else) must get a loan to pay the interest, so enough money will enter the pool to pay the interest. But of course that is debt money and must be payed back with interest again.
It is therefore IMPOSSIBLE for everyone to pay off principle and interest. This is how people and businesses go bankrupt. The system is designed to make some people go bankrupt.

The pool is right now overfilled with this debt money, cracks are forming, and all of the money is running out.

*Please understand. Banks do not just move money around. They create it. Without loans, given by your friendly neighborhood branch bank, there would be no money in the economy. Banks do not loan money that someone deposited. They CREATE the money out of thin air. Deposits determine how much money the banks are allowed by law to loan out, so if they loan out all of the money on deposit, they reduce the amount of money they can loan. So they do not loan much of the money you deposit. Instead, they loan out money they do not have. You heard right. They create money out of thin air. And it's completely legal. It's called Fractional Reserve Banking.

The growing divide between Christianity and the New Age movement.

2008-09-09T13:42:00.006-05:00

Okay, I wrote this super long post on a new idea and how it relates to New Age, Christianity and the future of our world. But it was so long I decided that it would be best if I posted it in bite sized chunks for you to digest slowly over time. So here goes... First installment of the Law of Attraction series.

Part 1

There has been a lot of discussion lately about Intention-Manifestation and the Law of Attraction. George Noory on late night's number one syndicated radio show (Coast to Coast AM) discusses this a lot. Essentially I-M/LoA means that if you put out an energy/intention/desire into the etherial consciousness of the universe, the universe will grant your request. If you want love, love will come. If you want money, money will come. If you want success, success will come. It's not necessarily automatic, but it supposedly increases your chances. It's sort of like magic isn't it? (I'll post a bit more on this later on.)

The Law of Attraction supposedly works. But how can it? If Joe uses Intention-Manifestation to get the best parking spot then that means that Brad can't have it. What if both of them use intention to get it? One will have to settle for the second best parking spot. And someone else will have to settle for the 3rd. You can see how individualistic this idea is. If a benevolence in the universe were paying attention, it would not allow it because individualism is destructive. I-M/LoA divides the human race into people who practice I-M and people who do not. So the LoA must be evil. Therefore, it must work with Satan's assistance! No thank you. And that is why I urge you, if you are going to study the book The Secret, pray before you pick it up.

Wow! Globalization comes to the olympics.

2008-08-12T23:13:00.000-05:00

Corporations have been crossing political boundaries for decades. Banks got into the picture first and now many nations in Europe share a common currency. We are on the brink of full fledged globalization that will in effect wipe clean national boundaries. While on the surface that doesn't seem like such a bad idea, it negates the importance of local power structures. Some head honcho in Belgium doesn't understand nor care about the problem with beavers in my neck of the woods. So why would they be better at running my neck of the woods? Well obviously they wouldn't. But the globalists tend to think they will do a better job of it than my local leaders.

We had some hope. But the hope is dwindling. If there was going to be one symbol of nations keeping their individuality, it had to be the olympics. No other event so embodies national pride, and friendly competition more than the games. But those days seem to be coming to an end.

This year a new trend has developed at the Olympics. Outsourcing. Nations actually outsource their olympic athletes!! Are you kidding me??? When nations are practically encouraged to recruit athletes from other nations to compete for one of the greatest symbols of national pride, it surely means the degradation of the meaningfulness of national pride. If this keeps up, surely in 10 or 20 years the nations with the most money and influence will recruit the greatest athletes for the games.

The globalists sure know how to fight dirty.

Nephew Ben's 1st Birthday

2008-04-07T00:45:00.001-05:00

What a cute baby Ben is. It was great getting to see him experience his first birthday.

Ben, Daddy and his favorite toy. Ben liked the toy too.

What do you want me to do with this? I don't understand this birthday thing.

Ben's first birthday gift.

What do I do with this?

Oh! It's Grandpop's birthday party too??

Ooo! A puppy!

I like puppies.

What did Daddy get me?

Best gift ever!

Who are you?

This is cool. What is it?

I like basketball. Especially in a box.

Martial Law in NYC?

2007-11-19T05:27:00.003-06:00

Did 80% the citizens of New York City REALLY leave the city in protest of the Republican National Convention? If true, it certainly wasn't covered on the main stream news.

Video: Alex Jones Martial Law
URL: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=auR4RumZEnQ

Endgame

2007-11-18T23:30:00.003-06:00

Alex Jones' new video. I know he's a total nut, but the people in power won't answer his questions. The only responses he ever gets are, "you are a conspiracy theorist."

I don't think the US was behind 9/11. But I sure would like to hear their responses to this too.

Video: Endgame
URL: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=aHJ2joOSSGw

You like Hagee? Maybe you shouldn't.

2007-11-12T19:22:00.001-06:00

John Hagee says his newest book will "shake Christian theology" Yeah, if Christians believed it, the book certainly would do that. Like when it "proves" that:

"Jesus did not come to Earth to be the Messiah."

WHAT???

Luckily for us, we have another book that proves just the opposite. Maybe instead of trying to sell his own books, Hagee should spend a bit more time reading the top selling book of all time.

Hey Hagee. I have proof that Jesus DID come to be the Messiah right here.

http://www.redtext.com/search/?search=John+4%3A25-26&x=36&y=13
John 4:25-26
25The woman said to him, “I know that the Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will tell us everything.”26Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Clearly, if you believe scripture, Jesus DID come to the Earth to be the Messiah, and he most certainly presented himself so.

It was what got him crucified. It's all in Matthew 26, Luke 22, and John 18. Shoot. Read John 18:37

"Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. I was born for this, and I came into the world for this: to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice."

Video: Hagee Heresy

URL: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=F0CyolAOeWQ

If this video disappears Google Hagee Messiah.

Movie Review: Ratatoille

2007-07-05T03:08:00.001-05:00

I just had to review this movie I loved it so much.

It's such a relief to finally see a good movie. It's been so long. So long. Pixar does it again: Heartwarming, funny, innocent, clever, emotionally healthy (but not in your face) with good life lessons for the kiddies, and most importantly - realistic. Well, not that a rat could really cook in our world, but within the Ratatouille world, the movie was realistic. I loved it. I sat there at the end of the movie blissfully relaxed and genuinely satisfied, the way you feel after eating a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. God bless Pixar.

My favorite Character was of course Anton Ego, the "bad" guy. Don't ask why I identified with him. I guess it's because he really wasn't all that bad. I really like it when I identify with the bad guy. (I liked the bad guy in Meet the Robinsons too.) He also said my favorite line, "I don't like food. I love it. If I don't like it, I don't... swallow."

OOOOO! What a comeback! But the greatest moment in the movie was of course when he tasted the Ratatoille. Oh I'm tearing up just thinking about it.

This has got to be the best children's movie in a decade. Hands down. Although now that I'm reminded of it, Meet the Robinsons was good too. I'll have to review that one next.

Money is debt

2007-05-30T05:00:00.001-05:00

How does our monetary system really work? Educate yourself and get pissed off at our government and the banking establishment.

The bankers love to talk about personal responsibility. "If you were responsible you wouldn't be in debt." Pffft. But they don't advertize that our entire economy is debt. When your entire economy is a huge ball of debt, and we have to pay principle and interest with an economy composed entirely of principle, then you can't blame the citizens for not paying their debts. The monetary system is DESIGNED to make it impossible for everybody to pay off their debts. EVERY dollar you own is a debt. If everybody paid off their debts, there would be zero dollars in the economy. Don't believe me? Learn about it by watching this movie.

Movie: Money as Debt

URL: http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=vVkFb26u9g8

Please everyone! Educate yourself!

Vote Ron Paul into the Presidency! He is the ONLY honest candidate.

Welp. I'm an uncle! At last.

2007-04-04T12:47:00.000-05:00

Took long enough, but my sister finally had her first baby.

Benjamin Kneeland Harvey was born on April 2nd at 2:45 PM. He weighed 7 pounds, 2 ounces.

Yay!

So long sweet 148.

2006-11-10T05:17:00.000-06:00

It's a sad sad sad sad melancholy day. I closed the door to apartment 148 at 5151 Richmond for the last time this morning, and I have to admit that a (very masculine J) drip or two fell upon the threshold.

I know that it might seem a bit fruity for a dude to be so sentimental over something so inane as an apartment, but that superb apartment represents one of the best periods of my life. So much has happened during the past four years: the best jobs of my life, the beginning of my favorite hobby: dancing; which led to many things like rekindling my relationship with our Lord, and, most notably, I met some extraordinary people.

One in particular was very special and letting the memories of her slip into oblivion isn't something I want to do. Leaving a place allows you an opportunity to, for a fleeting moment, relive those memories in extraordinary detail, but once you are out of the vicinity of the reminders, the memories fade away. And it's sad. You lose a part of yourself.

But such is life. One must move on. New chapters must be written. New scenes played out. New experiences lived. New friends made. New goals accomplished. I will do my best to hold onto the memories made during these last four years, but I must also welcome the opportunities for new memories, so it's time to make room. I only pray that the memories made during these next years will be as fantastic as the memories made during the last.

Praise God for everything He has done and continues to do for me and the people that I love. I don't deserve His blessings. I'm so happy that He continues to smile in my direction.

I Love You God. Thank you soo much. MWHA

Book review: I Kissed Dating Goodbye

2006-11-09T02:29:00.005-06:00

I wrote a review of this book on Amazon a couple of years ago, but I picked the book up again and wanted to put the review here. I think it's appropriate here. Let me start with some notes before I post the Amazon review.

The book is I Kissed Dating Goodbye and I am FEROCIOUSLY against it.

Before you jump ship, please continue to read. I have very valid reasons.

The book is non-biblical and dangerous. Joshua Harris ignores the entire book of Song of Solomon, the true Godly and biblical book dedicated to romance. The one time he quotes it he takes it out of context.

He says that "The Bible doesn't provide a one-size-fits-all program for us. (Chapter 15. Paragraph 3)" ARE YOU KIDDING ME JOSHUA???? That is PRECISELY what the Bible is!!! It's an instruction manual for living!!!

Here, I'll give you the formula: Song of Solomon. Proverbs. Study up. Pray. Have faith. Worship God. If you and your boyfriend/girlfriend do all of these things, especially together, then your relationship will blossom.

He shifts from one translation of the Bible to another because the language of on version can be used to support his argument when all of the other versions will deny his point. Like here at the end of Chapter 15. The fruits of the spirit are Love, Joy, Peace, Longsuffering, Gentleness, Goodness, and Faith. But he uses the NLT version that says they are rewards: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. The Fruits of the Spirit aren't a reward. They are a duty. Sure they can be rewardING, but he implies that if you follow his dating advice you will obtain the rewards of the fruits of the spirit.

I Kissed Dating Goodbye is convenient for girls (especially those who unhealthily avoid conflict) in the short term because it gives them an excuse to avoid the issues of dating, but it is bad for them in the long term. At best, it can keep a good woman from giving a great man a chance. This has happened to me in the past and I think it's happening to me right now.

Even the author recanted some of his theology later on. If you pay attention, you can actually see him start to change his mind in THIS book. Let me look in my notes. I took EXTENSIVE notes while reading this book. If you read my copy you would probably not buy his theology, or you would really dislike me for writing all over the book. Here it is... at first he tells us that everyone who dates is a pervert who only dates casually. He is so pessimistic at the beginning. If girls read that it's no wonder they don't want to date.

But ladies let me tell you this and please pay attention.

NOT ALL GUYS APPROACH DATING CASUALLY!

I for one have NEVER approached dating casually. I consider marrying every girl I date. Maybe I was too optimistic about dating. I assumed that everyone approached dating the way I do, in the hopes of finding their mate. But apparently I was wrong. Joshua Harris was a kind of guy who didn't take dating seriously. But not every guy is like that, and for those guys, this book is completely inappropriate.

Later on in the book Joshua starts to ease up, saying that if we started to date with the right formula to begin with (see my formula above), then the dangers of dating can be virtually eliminated. Of course the girls who read the book are already brainwashed long before they get to this point. So they keep great guys at a distance, never allowing the guy to have a chance to show just how great they would be together. The girls begin instead to spread themselves too thin, giving themselves to large groups of friends and keeping everybody at a distance. They might be close to their family, but they won't allow anyone to become too close, especially guys.

THIS is a very modern way of being and it is extremely bad for the girl and her friends. You should not spread yourself too thin. If you have a hard time keeping up with all of your friends, you need to do some trimming. I know that can be hard. But it's the way it should be. You should stay close to those who are most important to you and be careful about the time you give to casual platonic relationships. Be cautious about who you allow to get close, but don't eliminate anyone just because they want to get close to you. If you do get close to girlfriends, and then you do start to be "courted" by a guy, be aware of your emotional attachments.

The danger of close non-romantic relationships is in the timing when you shift your emotional needs from your friends and family to your romantic relation. It needs to happen. If it doesn't then you commit emotional adultery. The most important person in your life (your long term boyfriend/girlfriend/fiance/spouse) deserves to have you need them. The only question is when do you make this transition. If it hasn't happened BEFORE you marry, then you shouldn't marry that person.

Ok. Without further ado. The Amazon review of I Kissed Dating Goodbye.

Don't play hookie with dating

This book is totally non-biblical. God intended us to date for a REASON! I think the best evidence against this book and the best reason to date is that we don't just date to have fun. We date to learn about the opposite sex. Men and Women are different. You cannot learn about the opposite sex any better than by dating them. Friendship isn't enough. Not in the slightest. Let's say you follow this book to the letter. You finally get to a point where you feel you can court someone. You find each other intensely attractive and want to pursue something serious. But you are completely ignorant of them in every way. You make horrible mistakes because you don't have any experience with treating a woman or man right. We NEED a relationship education. Dating is the school we attend. You can't just play hookey and expect to show up to take the final exams (courting) and the graduation (wedding). You've got to go to the classes too because the graduation is only the beginning. Now you've got to get a job and actually put what you learned to practice. If you haven't learned anything, you won't find and keep the right job. We learn by going to class. We learn about the opposite sex by dating them. To skip this step is asking to at best fail the final exams. While courting, you will lose the person you are courting unless you have taken the classes that will help you to keep them. And God help you if you somehow pass the final exams and end up getting married. You are headed for disaster. This book is absolutely DAMAGING! Avoid it at all costs!

If you want some true biblical advice on dating, I suggest another book instead, Boundaries in Dating. Or better yet a CD/DVD/Book from the Song of Solomon website. You can even listen to the Song of Solomon podcast FOR FREE!

Now, what would I do if I met a girl who believed in the theology of this book? Would I try to make her change her views? Probably not. That would probably only divide us. If she turned out to be as wonderful as I want her to be, then I would do everything in my power to keep us together. I would try doing what Joshua instructs the guys to do, court the girl. I would though try to do it romantically instead of in the calculating way he did it in his follow up book. I read that book too, and I didn't like it either. LOL But I do understand it.

Another movie to piss you off. Our government engaging in terrorism, ON US!

2006-11-08T05:43:00.000-06:00

Again! Another video that will make you hate our governments for screwing up the country we love. Evidence that our leaders use terrorism to encourage war.

I hate to be all about these "conspiracy theories" but dude! When the evidence from their own documents point to the governments taking away our God given freedoms, I start to get upset.

Did you know that there were several military drills scheduled on Sept 11, 2001? One of the drills was about a plane hitting one of the world trade center towers. So when this scenario in fact happened, NORAD didn't pay much attention to it. Likewise the very day that the London subways were attacked last year, they had drills going on. And what were they drilling? An attack on the London subway system.

Coincidence? Statistically it's practically impossible. The odds are worse than all the grains of sand in the entire world! And pay special attention to George Bush's intollerance for our Constitution.

The movie is called Terrorstorm.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=af4QOKC6F78

If it's not available via my links, search for it on youtube. The maker of the video allows you to spread it without fear of copyright infringement.