Life / Religion / Philosophy / Science / Polictics

Category: Philosophy

Discussions about PHILOSOPHY. Because everyone needs to wax poetic every once in a while. This category will contain everything that interests me about PHILOSOPHY.

  • A Woman’s Right To Choose

    A couple of weeks ago, in the U.S.A., on January 22, 2015, the passing of the Supreme Court Roe v. Wade anniversary was marked.  This National case, decided on January 22, 1973, found that a woman possessed the right to choose an abortion as a legal means of terminating an unwanted pregnancy.

    A human pregnancy, despite requiring the participation of a male member of the species to accomplish, is a uniquely feminine condition.  To date, it has only been accomplished by those who are naturally born women.  Despite those male members of the species who believe they were somehow cheated and should have been born a female (a fantastic argument for a God by-the-way – WHO cheated them?  Surely not the evolutionary process.  It has no choice but to follow the laws of physics and the natural sciences.  Ergo, if they were cheated, they must have been cheated by God.  And for that to happen, there must first be a God.) but as usual, I digress.  The point is, we have yet to be able to create a reproductive woman through our own means even with all our science and understanding.  Only women, who have been born as women, have had the trait of being able to become pregnant and bear offspring.

    There have been many arguments over the so called “rights” of a person and perhaps those could be debated another time (indeed, I have considered human rights before, just search this blog).  Today I’d rather focus on whether or not a woman should exercise her right to choose when choosing in the affirmative (to terminate a pregnancy with an abortion).  I will pause here to mention once again though, that it continues to amaze me that we, as the human race, continually debate the right of a person, usually without acknowledging where those rights come from.  Specifically WHO granted a woman the RIGHT to an abortion?  It certainly wasn’t me.  I don’t agree with it.  In the case of the U.S.A. it was decided in the highest court of the land.  And that cannot be absolute, because there are people who do not agree with it.  Therefore, without a God, there can be no justice (a point Dr. Ravi Zacharias has made much more eloquently than I).  However, today I simply wish to debate the point as to whether or not a woman should exercise this so called right she has.

    If the woman is an Atheist, whether she has an evolutionary theory world view or not (which would be most odd if she did not), she should consider the ramifications of limiting the population pool.  Evolutionary theory, if you are to follow its primary tenant of natural selection, actually needs a wide descendant base.  I quote:

    “Evolution by natural selection is a process inferred from the observation that more offspring are produced than can possibly survive, along with three facts about populations: 1) traits vary among individuals with respect to morphology, physiology, and behaviour (phenotypic variation), 2) different traits confer different rates of survival and reproduction (differential fitness), and 3) traits can be passed from generation to generation (heritability of fitness).[8] Thus, in successive generations members of a population are replaced by progeny of parents better adapted to survive and reproduce in the biophysical environment in which natural selection takes place.”

    Ergo, by actually aborting potential offspring, one is actually defeating the evolutionary process.  Even worse than that, evolution needs diversity within its hereditary base.  That is to say the gene pool actually needs diversity within it in order to carry forward.  A shocking 85% of abortions within the U.S.A. are performed because some type of genetic defect has been detected in the unborn child during the pregnancy.  By removing these genetic defects from the gene pool through abortion, we are actually harming the evolutionary process,  And anyone who actually believes we know enough to steer the evolutionary process on our own should talk to an animal breeder.  Before you try and help the human evolutionary process along, consider a purebred animal first.  Again, I quote:

    “However, breeding from too small a gene pool, especially direct inbreeding, can lead to the passing on of undesirable characteristics or even a collapse of a breed population due to inbreeding depression. Therefore there is a question, and often heated controversy, as to when or if a breed may need to allow “outside” stock in for the purpose of improving the overall health and vigor of the breed.”

    I don’t care how you slice it, under an evolutionary model, abortion is bad, limiting the gene pool, and removing viable stock from the propagation of the species.  So despite the so called right of the Atheistic woman to seek out the termination of a pregnancy through an abortion, she should consider the fact that the human race is slowly headed towards extinction.

    And don’t argue with me that a certain number of controlled abortions are OK and will not affect the overall population.  Before you try and bring any such argument to the table, I’d like to know several things (not the least of which is the stats on the number you believe could be sustained given the current birth rate) such as who in the world is the controlling authority?  World wide?  Because there is none, and you cannot possibly show that we are either safe or unsafe given the current stats of countries around the world.

    For the Theistic woman, her world view should embrace a God who is the origin of all life.  Given this world view, the Theistic woman could not possibly encompasses any right to terminate a life through an abortion.  Only the God who is the author of that life would hold that right.

    And for the Agnostic, it really doesn’t matter because either side you come down on, it ends up being harmful.  It is either harmful to the evolutionary advancement of the species, or it is harmful in your overreach of rights held only by the God who granted life in the first place.

    A woman’s right to choose?  You may believe such a right exists, but not all choices are healthy choices.  Every one of us has the right to eat nothing but chocolate for every meal for the rest of our lives.  But if you were to exercise that right, how long do you think you would live?

  • My Tastes In Food

     

    Have you ever known a picky eater?  And by picky I do mean finicky.  I have.  Some peoples culinary standards simply cannot be met.  Other people are fastidious in their selections of food as well as its preparation.  Many people in America will cite health reasons as the primary driver behind their particular eating habits.  Some people go absolutely nuts counting calories, checking sugar content, evaluating ingredients on packages, and carefully questioning food preparation (was this dish grilled or fried?).  Some folks stick with what they know and are comfortable with, they are not willing to branch out into new areas and try new things.  Some people only eat according to religious guidelines and govern their eating through close religious standards.

    The commercial world plays off of these eating peculiarities in advertising and marketing.  The Food Network has programming in 150 countries around the world and 24 hour programming in America, Great Britain, India, Asia, and Africa.  Japan has its Iron Chef, Julia Child’s was billed as The French Chef (even though she was American), while All Recipes will bring you cooking techniques from around the world.  And check out this organic food craze from World Cuisine.

    Food.  It is a stable of our lives.  We need food to survive and yet at the same time we immensely enjoy good food.  For the Judeo Christian world food is an interesting thing.  Most Christians around the world do not stop and think about the very first commandment given by God to mankind.  Many hundreds of years (perhaps as long as two or three thousand years) before the Ten Commandments were given to Moses and the nation of Israel, a commandment was given to Adam and Eve (Note: the Wikipedia article erroneously and foolishly refers to Adam and Eve in conjunction with creation myths.  The same weak thinkers that unequivocally establish the story of Adam and Eve as mythical, will just as quickly point out that most mythical stories have some basis in fact.  Except for, apparently, Adam and Eve.  Although they may never quite establish either the basis or the fact in the other stories.  In reality, they believe what they want to believe without any basis in fact simply because it meets their world view.  The difference between them and the religious people of the world is they are not brave enough to admit it.  But I’m chasing rabbits here.)  in the Garden of Eden.  And that commandment was “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it:” Genesis 2:16-17.  This is greatly interesting to me.  The very first commandment ever given is embodied in the words “thou shalt not eat“.  And the one thing God said could not be eaten was the fruit of a tree.

    This must have been greatly perplexing to Adam and Eve.  After all, God had told them that he had placed every herb bearing seed and every tree that had fruit that yielded seed, on the Earth for them to eat.  Genesis 1:27-30.  And all of a sudden God is telling them ‘ What I really meant was you can eat of just about any tree in the Garden.  Just don’t eat of this one.  Because this one is kind of poison and if you eat of it, you will die’ (my paraphrase).  Talk about a setup.  The Garden of Eden must have been the equivalent of putting a child in a candy shop and telling them they may eat any of the candy in the entire shop, except for the chocolate bars on this one rack in the center of the store.  Unfortunately Eve’s taste in food was pretty open and she saw the fruit and thought it must be good.  Genesis 3:6.

    And thus the very first commandment ever broken was eating food!  Have you ever considered why food is so important?  And why in the world would God structure the very first test mankind was ever to face around eating, and refraining from eating, food?  And here we are, six thousand years later, still wrapped around our culinary peculiarities.

    I believe the answer is because God specifically designed us to be creatures of replenishment.  God designed us to be renewed in so many ways.  Both Spiritually, Emotionally, and Physically.  And eating is one of the primary ways we are renewed physically.  We are dependent upon food for survival.  And yet Jesus tells us to take no thought of what we are to eat.  Matthew 6:25.  Why?  Because our Father in Heaven knows we need these things and wants to be the supplier of them in our lives.  Matthew 6:32.

    God knows, and God wants to supply the very needs of our lives.  And he wants us to keep coming back to him over and over and over again to have those needs fulfilled.

    Choosey eaters turn me off to some extent.  Because if people display habits or traits in one area of their lives, you can pretty well bet that they exhibit those habits and traits in other areas of their lives.  If we are hard to please in our Physical lives, we are probably hard to please in our Spiritual lives as well.

    God wants us to be renewed in all facets of our beings.  And that means being renewed Spiritually.  Constantly, and consistently, and through wondrous experiences he has designed specifically for us.  And just like eating, when we come to God’s table for Spiritual replenishment, we can get ourselves into trouble.

    We can miss out by being picky and not experiencing all God has for us.  We can over indulge by being chocoholics and not eating our vegetables.  And we can end up unhealthy by not eating a well balanced meal.

    So are you a picky eater?  Because I believe God wants us to be hungry and then filled, hungry and then filled, over and over again.  Each time enjoying a great meal that he has prepared just for us.  And if we are picky eaters, we might miss out on God’s specific treats for our lives.

    As for myself, I’ll eat just about anything.

  • Where Is Your Moral Compass?

    I have previously mentioned the book The Word of God: A Logical and Moral Dilemma written by an acquaintance of mine.  The title of the book implies a puzzle exists in the book of the Bible (here, The Word of God is a direct reference to the Bible).  That puzzle (dilemma) is manifest by the belief that the author holds, that the Bible is illogical and does not agree with the scientific basis of the natural world (as he understands it), and yet (one would presume here) the Bible seems to be the definitive authority for those values we hold as Moral.  Oddly enough, nowhere in the book is this dilemma ever resolved.  The reason the author never resolves the dilemma is because he eliminates the source of the answer.  By discrediting the Bible, through science (once again, as he understands it), he can no longer turn to it for answers even when it holds the truths to the questions he is asking.

    The logic aside however, the Moral Dilemma is a most interesting study.  Because it begs the question of what Morals one really holds.  Each of us has a Moral compass if you will, a compass that we might say points true North (absolute Morality), or possibly true South (absolute Amorality), or at some point in between.  And wherever your Moral compass points, is where you become comfortable with your own actions, and where you build your basis for judging others.

    Amazingly enough, we all believe our own Moral compass is just about right.  And, amazingly enough, we all get it just about wrong.  This is one area that is a huge dilemma for the Atheist (not just the author of the aforementioned book).  The Atheist, devoid of a God or any other outside influence to the system, is left to believe that any type of Moral reference is simply one derived from the majority of the people within the system.  Those Morals that fall underneath the middle of the bell curve as it were.  This is a fallacy however since we all accept some set of Moral code that is a predisposition in us from the time of birth.  Who had to teach a young child that it was wrong to steal?  The child knows, even before they are corrected.  As further evidence that Morals derived from within the system are a fallacy, consider the vast debate upon the Moral issues of our day.  Neither side giving, and neither side willing to compromise.  But in the Atheistic view of the world, what does it matter?  Neither side can be either right or wrong.  Each side is simply playing out the results of the physical laws of the Universe.  Morals, strictly speaking, have no say here.  And while the Science of Morals more or less falls under Philosophy, could someone please point me to one credible discipline that actually studies and shapes the derivatives of Morals?  At least one that a majority of people give any credence to.

    For the Theist though, Morals are an easier matter.  For the Theist Morals are not defined within the system, but rather are stipulated from outside the system.  They are (usually) specified by a God.  In the case of the Bible they are embodied within the Ten Commandments, but are sometimes added to with other Scripture depending upon interpretations.

    For Christians, the Bible then becomes the basis for defining their Moral compass and they go about their lives decrying one thing or another, or praising this thing, or lifting up that.  And these actions then become Salt (see my previous Blog post) in the wounds of hurting people around them.

    When it comes to our Moral compass, I have witnessed those from my closest and dearest friends, to those I hardly even know, get it completely and utterly wrong.  Oh, they may not live with the dilemma alluded to by the author of the previously referenced book, but they exhibit such a complete misunderstanding of the application of their own Moral compass, one simply has to believe there is a misunderstanding of exactly where their Moral compass should be pointing.

    When it comes to Biblical Morals, God’s mark is perfect, never changing, and has always been the same.  Mankind may move its own Moral mark about God’s absolute reference point, but God’s reference does not change.  A graphical representation of God’s Moral reference point with Mankind’s Moral reference point superimposed on top of it might look like this:

    Moral Line

    When people takes God’s law, and define it as something more strict than what it is, they stray into the area of Legalism, this is what the Sadducees and Pharisees were accused of.  When people become legalistic in their point of view, they become condemning of others and they become self righteous in their own views.  They become the keepers of God’s law and they (and they alone) are the only ones worthy of its correct interpretation and application.

    Oddly enough, I have heard people say that the opposite of Legalism is Grace (although in this sense we should define Grace as God’s unmerited favor towards sinners).  I was even able to Google it as found here (see Amy’s answer from 5 years ago about the third one down).  Nothing could be further from the truth.  The opposite of Legalism is not Grace!  The opposite of Legalism might more appropriately be Hedonism.  Hedonism is when man tramples upon God’s law.  It is when we throw Morals to the wind and have no inhibitions other than that which pleases us.

    Grace on the other hand, is the ANSWER to both mankind’s Legalism and Hedonism (and all of our other ‘isms as well).  God’s Grace is what allows him to remember our sins no more.  It is what allowed him to send his Son to take my place on the Cross.  It is God’s Grace that allows him to pay the debt for my transgressions and to redeem me to his own family.  Grace, God’s Grace, is what tempers God’s Moral code.

    So where is your Moral compass pointing today?  If you tell me it is pointing towards God’s absolute Moral code, or the absolute immorality of the world, or anywhere in between, I might suggest your Moral compass is pointing in the wrong direction.  If ALL of our Moral compasses where pointing directly at God’s Grace, we might just find the world to be a much more Moral place.

  • Chasing After Rights

    Our rights are important.  As is what we perceive as our rights.  Rights are where we derive so many of our other political and social concepts from.  Rights, as defined, are those set of items or actions that are afforded due to just claim, legal guarantee, moral principle, or legal principle and authorities.  And rights determine how we are to be treated, what actions we are allowed (and not allowed) to take, and what reactions are allowed.  They form a basis of how we interact with others and the rest of the world.

    When dealing with what is right and what is wrong, and by extension what rights we may or may not have as individual entities on this planet, I believe it only RIGHT that each and every atheist in the world begin by accepting the understanding that there are no rights, they have no rights, and that the mere concept of a right or wrong is a fallacy.

    Lets break this down.  If there is no “supreme being” (or beings as the case may be), although if we were to be clear here, the definition should be “creator“, so if there is no Creator then there can be no design.  By definition there is no design (or we might say Intelligent Design).  If you were to argue that the design lies within the physical and metaphysical laws of the universe, I suppose you could make a case that those laws constitute the design (or the description) of what we see physically around us.  But to then take that and stretch it into some piece of matter’s right is quite a leap of logic and faith.

    If I even begin by granting the atheist the line of reasoning that what we observe as design in the universe is the result of natural and physical laws playing out in some grand scheme over the vastness of time, there are still a lot of unanswered questions with regards to morality, justice, right, wrong, happiness, sadness, love, hate, or just the plain meaning of life.  In the atheistic world view, there is no Creator, and by extension no designer, and thus there are no rights.

    Very, very, very, few atheists are honest enough, principled enough, and reasoned enough, to admit and state that within their world view there is no meaning and no purpose.  What can it be?  You cannot have meaning or purpose without design.  They simply cannot exist without design.  A design exudes a purpose.  And a purpose comes about by design.  Thus, given the atheistic world view of no Creator, there is no designer, which leaves no design within the universe, which leaves the universe absolutely purposeless.  And since there is no purpose, what then becomes the basis for right and for wrong?  Why should there be any basis?  After all, it doesn’t really matter much at all, does it?  And since right and wrong are now regulated to mere concepts that have no meaning, what then becomes the foundation on which we build individual rights?

    And yet the atheist and the theist alike will claim individual rights of humankind in the world.  The atheist will claim some collective conscious that inherently bestows these rights upon individuals.  But that, in and of itself, is a fallacy.  When did we, as all of humankind, ever come together and agree upon and define those rights?  We did not.  To suggest that you or I have any ability to bestow rights upon another assigns a level of supremacy to one or another particular individual that then sets them apart from all the rest.  This in and of itself breaks the very premise of the model.  The only logical conclusion one may draw here is that those rights are granted and bestowed from outside of the system.  This in its very nature lends credence to a Creator.  A Supreme being who by design built a system that has certain inalienable rights woven into the very fabric of its existence.

    This is the conclusion the framers of the U.S. Constitution came to and it is the foundation upon which they sought to establish the system of Government.  Our rights, liberties, and happiness are not what is decided upon by society or humankind.  Rather our rights, liberties, and our very happiness is what is granted and bestowed upon us by the Creator himself.

    Given a theistic world view, conflicts are now resolved against the framework of the Creators design, not of our own.  I do not have the right to then define your pursuit of happiness based upon my own framework of what would satisfy my own happiness or desires, but rather I must weigh your actions against the framework of the Creator himself.

    This is why knowing and understanding the Creator is so important within our lives.  And it is why Theology becomes the foundational science upon which we must base all other pursuits upon.  Theology is the only pursuit in which we may find purpose and meaning to our very existence.  And it that understanding that then begins to build the framework for our interactions with our fellow human beings around us.

    When you seek to impose your morals upon the world you establish yourself as the source of right and wrong.  You set yourself apart and above the rest of humanity.

    The Christian does not set out to impose morality upon the world.  The Christian rather recognizes the design of the moral code designed into the system by the Creator.  It is not MY morality I espouse, but rather the morality designed by the Creator.

    You may draw different conclusions as to the source of the morality within the system.  You may even argue the interpretation and understanding of that morality.  Indeed, Christians have various interpretations of right and wrong amongst themselves (as do theists of all venues).

    What should not be at issue is the design of the rights.  And that design cries out of the existence of a Creator, a God, a Supreme being who has bestowed upon all of humankind (his creation) the inalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  And that is why my rights, your rights, and everyone’s rights are of the utmost importance.  Because they did not come from you or from me or from society or from an accident of the physical laws of the cosmos.  They came from God.  And you may exert your own force of will and power against them as you see fit (as happens all over the world each and every day), but you can never take them away or alter them or make them your own.  They are secured by God and he will administer them and regulate them as he sees fit.

    Knowing this, pursuing this, understanding this, in its deepest and most intimate depths is key to happiness and peace with those around us and on earth.

  • Where do YOUR rights come from?

    First, let me say thankyou for your patience and understanding while I undertook a move one quarter of the way around the world.  While not completely settled yet, we are starting to get back some of the things we have been without (my computer is just about back to the state it was in when I last shut it down in Hawaii).  It has been a challenging time and there are many challenges ahead, but at least I may now return to LRPSP.COM while facing those challenges.

    But enough of boring you with my personal life, I am anxious to get back on track with discussing the more interesting things in life.  And one of the things that interests me (and I believe a lot of people) is Human Rights – specifically Our Rights as inhabitants of planet Earth.

    I just read Glenn Greenwald’s book “No Place To Hide” where civil rights are referenced no less than 21 separate times and in every chapter.  He quotes Supreme Court Justices (Justice Louis Brandeis – page 187) and hammers the rights of a free people.

    The building I work in has some writing on the wall when you first enter the main doors, the writing says: “We hold these truths to be self-evident …“, which, of course comes from the United States Declaration of Independence.  The phrase is: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

    There are those amongst us that want to argue the rights of the people of the Earth.  But they never want to stop and consider where those rights came from, who bestowed the right?  What gives individuals the right to even claim rights?  And what happens when your rights are contradictory to my own rights?  What gives any of us the right to express what is right and what is wrong?

    There are the foolish amongst us that try and make some feeble attempt of rights being derived from our own consciousness or from Mother Earth/Gaia.

    So let me get this straight.  All of us can agree that we all have the right to life, to live, to continue to exist, to not die (at least unjustly)?  And thus we know it is wrong to kill, to murder, to take a life?  And we gained this ground truth when?  At the point of “consciousness” of human-kind?

    This is rather amazing to me because, without even realizing it, these folks have stumbled into the one common denominator for all human life.  Our DNA is different, our world-views are different, our finger-prints are different, our retinas are different, we are all the most unique set of creatures ever encountered, but the one thing we all managed to get exactly the same comes down to basic human rights.

    Which is an amazingly structured piece of code.  It tells me, and it tells you, that we each have a right to life.  And there is little to no ambiguity there.  And where do our religious dissenters find this code?  Is it in the DNA?  Is it part of a blood type?  Is it structured in some social engineering?  Why no, it seems to be innate within each and every one of us from birth, embedded as it were, within our very beings, and readily grasped and expressed by our consciousness.

    In other words it is embedded in our spirits.  That part of our being that is Spiritual in nature.  That part of our being that is explored and understood through our Theology.  Or at least I have yet to have an atheistic friend try and explain spiritual matters via a non-Theistic line of reasoning.  How else would one argue the finer points of a human nature that is expressed by more than what we can tangibly see, taste, smell, touch, hear, or mentally visualize of the physical world around us?

    In the words of an atheistic friend of mine, it is a gift … this great consciousness that we all share.  This awareness that allows us to propagate the notion that we are somehow all entitled to rights.  Which is the greatest irony of all time, that the Universe would explode into existence at the point of the big bang, that matter would bump around through 13 billion years of time until life were sparked into existence, and then poof!  That matter bumping around against itself would bestow a gift upon the life it accidently created.

    All right, lets say I accept your model for the sake of argument.  I then assert that my rights have not been fulfilled.  My rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness (as understood and expressed by my consciousness) have been taken away and trampled upon.  To whom do I turn?  To whom do I take up my grievances with?  Where is Justice?  As Dr. Ravi Zacharias has said on a number of occasions (and I paraphrase), Atheism makes a mockery of justice.  And the only logical conclusion from there is that it doesn’t really matter anyway.  After all, there is no meaning, can be no meaning, since everything is merely a result of physical laws set into motion so long, long ago.

    So today I ask the question: Where do YOUR rights come from?  The emphasis on the individual nature is important here.  Because if your rights are just some cosmic accident, some whimsical fluke of natural laws, then I say “So what?”  What makes your rights any more or any less valuable or important or necessary of enforcement or protection than any others on this Earth?

    However, for those that join me and the framers of the U.S. Declaration of Independence in understanding and believing that my rights are endowed by my Creator (God), then you, like I, have a champion, a defender, a Judge, and an arbitrator of those rights.  The same God that bestowed them on me, that gave them to me as a gift, is the same God that is going to ensure that Justice is served.  My rights did not come from some cosmic consciousness (which doesn’t make sense or match any model its defenders purport to begin with) or by some accident of physical nature.  My rights are fabricated into my very being by God himself and he will, one day, hold me accountable for them.

    Fortunately, I have an understanding, and an answer for him.

  • Where do you live?

    One of the more interesting passages of Scripture to me is Ruth 1:15-17 which states (in the King James Version):

    15 And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister in law.

    16 And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

    17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me.

    Naomi entreated Ruth to go back to her people and to her gods.  She begged her, implored her, suggested with emphasis that Ruth depart from her.  And yet Ruth asked her not to beg her to leave.  She stated more than just loyalty or friendship, she stated that wherever Naomi went, her people would become her people and her God would become her God.

    Ruth was willing (and able) to forsake all.  She was truly able to leave her family behind and follow Naomi to a far away land, with customs she did not know, and where she would be a stranger amongst the people.

    Several years ago I realized my wife, a Filipino, needed to be near her family and the culture she was born into.  So we moved to Hawaii to be closer to the Philippines and to be next to some of her family and friends.

    Today, due to circumstances far outside our control, we are at the end of this particular phase of that journey.  We find ourselves forced into having to sell our home, and pack up our belongings, and move to Maryland.  We find our lives in an upheaval.

    I have been extremely frustrated by this set of circumstances and by this move itself.  I have struggled with the sheer Godlessness of the world around me.  And yet, there have been clear and undeniable indicators of God working in our circumstances and gently guiding us in this direction.

    Ruth tells us many things, but perhaps one of the more amazing things Ruth teaches us that is perhaps the most overlooked is – the reasons in our lives for being happy and the needs we think we have, are perhaps not the ones we think they are.

    We have resigned ourselves to our fate as thrust upon us.  But I want to do more than that.  I want to be like Ruth and embrace it fully.  Not because we are blindly following some cosmic path, but because God is in control and is taking us to where he wants us to be.

    The fools in this world, those who say in their hearts that there is no God, are completely hopeless in this situation.  When they do not get their way, they have nowhere to turn to.  It is simply the cosmic dust bumping together.  A bunch of chemical reactions, a set of physical laws playing themselves out over the eons of existence.  There is no design, there is no fate, there is no hope, and there is no free will.  They are not really making decisions about the course of their lives.  To think that they were would be sheer folly.  It is no different than an asteroid spinning through space that falls into a course that sends it crashing into a planet.  It was set on that course and bound to that end at the beginning of the (so called) Big Bang from the outset of time.  Just as their lives.

    For those with a different world view however, one must accept that the Creator knows what he is doing and is in control and that all will be made clear within his time.

    The larger question for most of us though is “Can you leave your people?”  Could you leave your land, your customs, your gods?  Because when you come to the point where you can leave your gods, then The God will be in a position to show you his riches and his goodness.

    We are off on a new journey in life.  A new home, in a new State, with some old friends and certainly some new friends.  We are both sad and a little excited, and mostly worried about how things are going to work out.  But we know that no matter what, God is in control.

    For those that say God is the invention of man’s imagination, then these circumstances must seem totally irrational.  The paradox becomes how can such a seemingly rational person be so irrational?  And I then ask – How is it that your rationality cannot resolve the irrationality in the world?  Because my God can.

    So where do you live?  Are you comfortable in your surroundings?  Are you totally dependent upon family, friends, culture, habits, and circumstances to the point that you no longer seek what new adventure God has in store for you?  Or could you, like Ruth, leave behind your people and your gods and become a stranger in a new land all for the sake of one?

    On an Administrative Note – I would like to thank the myriads of you who have registered on this Blog.  It is truly meant to be a conversation, and if you have registered, and would like to contribute, please feel free to comment.  As long as it is family friendly, I will approve it, no matter what the view point.

    As we are in the process of moving 1/4 of the way around the world in the next few weeks, I will be out of touch with my computer and an easy ability to administer my Blog while our household goods are in transit.  I will do the best I can with my iPad, however it is not really the appropriate platform for what I need.

    I promise that once we are settled in our new home and our lives begin to take on some semblance of normalcy there, I will pick this up with earnest and get back to what I truly intended it to be.  That will most likely be in about 45 days or so.  In the meantime I sincerely hope that you will bear with me of necessity and understand that I have not abandoned this effort, I am just going through a transition that does not allow me the ability to apply the due diligence I desire.  I trust you understand.

  • Whose Science Is It?

    One of the more amusing aspects of the whole God debate to me is the exclusive territory of science.  As if certain crowds have a lock on particular disciplines.

    When studying the world around us, there are many different facets that can be taken into account.  And there are different theories and interpretations of the data.  But just because one world view doesn’t line up with your world view does not automatically mean that you have a lock on the interpretation of the data.

    There actually is a science of Theology – Theo, of the Greek Theos or God, and ology, primarily of Latin origin for the study of.  Hence, the study of (or the Science of) God.

    Theology is not Religion and not all religions have Theology at their base.  In the strictest sense of the term, Atheism is a religion.  Atheism is, in fact, a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe.  And those beliefs hold that there is no existence of a God.

    What is interesting then is that atheism (for the most part) tends to claim ownership of all of the realm of science.  The claim is that you cannot mix religion and science (particularly data and facts).  But that is the very thing that Atheism then tends to do.  To my amazement, it tends to do it to exclusion.

    But Atheism, by its very definition has no Theology.  How can it?  It prescribes that there is no God.  And having no Theology, how can it then, evaluate any premises it may form, correctly concerning the existence of God?  In reality, it purports to establish fact based upon evidence it cannot support.

    I do not need to prove the existence of God in order for him to exist.  God either exists or he does not.  But that does not mean that I cannot take a preponderance of the evidence and draw some conclusions one way or the other.

    To say that I cannot infer the existence of God based upon science is preposterous.  My Theology is perfectly capable of forming hypotheses and theories based upon the observable universe around me.  And I should be able to determine which model the evidence better supports.

    The Atheist may determine that the model better supports their particular world view, but that in no way gives them a lock on Science.  Science has neither conclusively proven nor dis-proven the existence of God.  Theists simply believe that the preponderance of the evidence more conclusively supports the existence of a God than not.

    Typically (not always, but in most cases – at least in my experience), people want to argue Religion and not Theology.  But before you can argue Religion, you must first agree upon which Religion you are going to debate.  And there are many of them to debate, and not all equal at that.  Satanism is a Religion.  One might suppose that Satanist at least accept the existence of God since the very concept of Satan comes from God centered religions.  Perhaps not though.  There may be some Satanist that believe there is no other God other than Satan himself, in which case they still accept the existence of a God (albeit, in my world view, the wrong one).

    Atheism is, in and of itself, a religion.  And if one is to undertake a religious debate, one must argue the merits of Atheism compared to other world religions.  However, if one wants to argue the existence of God, one should argue from a Theological standpoint.  Does the evidence better support a model for a God or for no God?  In my world view, the evidence is greatly in favor of a God.

    Once one has determined in his or her own mind as to the existence of God, then the debate as to who or what that God may (or may not) be can take place.  At this point there are many religions that purport to have that answer.  I am satisfied with my aligned Religion (Christianity), but even within that there is a myriad of disparate thought.  I’ve drawn my own conclusions, and at times I am given to deep contemplation over a perceived belief.  But those have never altered my Theology.

    At times I wonder why Atheists even want to debate their position.  Why would it matter?  If there is indeed no God, then where is the derived meaning in Life?  Apparently the Founding Fathers of the United States of America could find no other recourse for the inherent basic truths of life other than that of a Creator (God).  Their preponderance of the evidence led them to believe that a Creator endowed mankind (Human race) with inalienable rights.  If further evidence purports that there is no God, then it fails to establish any rights, liberties, or happiness other than cosmic chaos.  Indeed, even Dr. Richard Dawkins has stated that the appearance of Intelligent Design is actually an illusion of whatever naturally occurs in nature.  Meaning, that there is no meaning behind it all.

    Actually, in my experience, what Atheists really want to debate is not Theology, they have none, since their minds are made up on that point, but rather religions.  Atheists want to have a religious debate because their own religion does not prescribe to what other world religions assert as a basis.

    But even here, I do not believe it fair to lay exclusive hold to the realm of Science.  It is disingenuous to begin with, as if their religion is the only religion that could ever interpret scientific data.  But it also shuts down creativity and growth of the human race.  Exactly what they claim other religions do.

    May I use Science (other Scientific Disciplines) to support my Theology?  Of course I may.  And if my interpretation of the data is different than yours, it does not mean that a differing world view owns the Science and therefore cannot consider my conclusions.  Neither does it mean that my conclusions are wrong or have necessarily been disproven.  It simply means that there are multiple interpretations of that data.

    So whose Science is it anyway?  It is all of our Science.  We are all free to explore and discover and derive our own set of conclusions and beliefs as we learn and grow in life.  So don’t tell me I cannot mix Religion and Science, because at the point of my Theology I can.  Just the same as the Atheists already do.  The only difference is I actually encourage them to use Science to explore and to learn the mysteries of Life and the Universe.  Because I find that data supports my Theology.

  • Where Is My Faith?

    Faith is a difficult thing.  It shouldn’t be, but it is.  Faith permeates our lives in every way imaginable and yet we struggle with it where it matters most.

    Simply put, Faith is a belief that is held that is not based on a proof.  We utilize faith in our lives each and every day in all realms of our existence.

    We are basically beings of three parts.  In the simplest description we are physical beings.  We have a body that has needs and interacts with the physical world.  We are also emotional, intellectual, and social beings.  We have a soul.  We experience joy, and sorrow.  And we are spiritual beings.  We are individuals, unique unto ourselves.  We are all one-of-a-kind instantiations of the human kind and we know who we are inside of our own being.

    Within the physical world we exercise faith on an almost daily basis.  When we sit in a chair, when we get into a vehicle and start the engine, when we browse the Internet.  We do not prove these things to be working and reliable.  We simply accept them on faith.  We trust that the chair will hold up our weight when we sit in it.  Before we examine it, test it, or certify it as OK to sit in.  We trust that our vehicles will start.  That they will work without a mechanic testing the parts of the vehicle and confirming for us that it is OK.  We trust that the Internet is up, and working.  We do not call our Internet Service Provider and verify that everything is working before we attempt to bring up our FaceBook page, we simply believe that it will work.

    Within our souls, our emotions, our intellect, we have faith in our relationships, our favorite pastimes, our challenges.  We trust that our spouses are faithful to us, and we trust ourselves to be faithful to them.  We trust our families, our neighbors, and our friends.  We believe in the humanity around us.  How many times I’ve been told by someone that they have a lot of faith (lower case) but not much Faith (upper case).

    And we continue to have faith even when it is shattered within our lives.  When our car doesn’t start, or a chair breaks when we sit in it (causing us to fall), or when we find that our Internet connection really is down and we cannot get to our FaceBook page.  We do not lose hope in the physical world around us, rather we accept things and move on, still exercising our faith.

    Within our souls we are constantly failed.  Spouses cheat on one another.  We are lied to.  We experience ridicule and scorn.  And yet we continue to go on, and we continue to have faith in humanity.

    And yes, I know that anyone can be beaten down to the point of giving up or losing all hope.  Individuals may experience so many problems with a particular vehicle that they lose faith in it ever doing its job again.  We may be hurt by loved ones or friends so much that we give up on life and begin to believe it is us against the world.

    But these are not the norm.  We label these cases as phobias or disorders.  We say that people become depressed or despondent and that their ability to function is impaired.  I am focusing on the general case here, the norm, what the average person experiences within their lives.  And that norm is one of exercising faith.

    Why is it then, that when it comes to the faith that really matters, the one our world view is built on top of, the one that affects our Spirit (that which defines us individually), that we suddenly become dysfunctional?

    Dr. Richard Dawkins has stated unequivocally that evolution is a fact.  A fact as sure as the sunrise or the sunset.  It is established and true.  When he knows perfectly well that it is not.  Evolution is a theory.  He may think it a good theory, he may even find parts of it to be reasonable and practicable.  But he knows it is not a fact.  He knows he cannot prove it, either scientifically, through a repeatable process, or otherwise.  No, he accepts it as fact based upon his faith in the improvable.

    My world view accepts the existence of a Deity.  A supernatural being.  A God.  A world view I am perfectly willing to accept on Faith.  I believe there is just as much evidence for my world view as Dr. Dawkins seems to find for his.  Both world views are accepted upon faith, and yet their is a difference.

    In Dr. Dawkins world view, my Faith is to be mocked, ridiculed, belittled.  He has stated as much.  My Faith cannot be taught in Public Schools, cannot be exercised within some Government spaces, and in many parts of the world is persecuted.  And yet the opposite world view, for many that hold it, is to be accepted as the only faith one may have.

    Atheists that hold their particular world views are oblivious to the fact that they are actually strengthening my world view by their very attempts to discredit my Faith.

    In my world view the testing of my Spiritual Faith works for good in my life.  It is the trials of my Faith that actually builds the foundation that my world view is built on and brings me through stronger and more resolved than ever before.

    One might ask the question though, if your world view does not hold a Faith in God, what does the testing of your Faith gain you?  I would contend nothing.  How can it?  What could it possibly matter in the vastness of all eternity?

    Another question that might be asked is why is it so important that the evolutionary faith triumph over a Faith in God?  Are they not both Spiritual Faith?  So why then is one taught as a foundational truth within our Public Schools while the other is deviously cast aside under the guise of Separation of Church and State?

    Faith is hard.  I would contend that Faith in God is harder.  And given such, whose world view would you say has the better developed Faith?

  • The Words Mean What I Want Them To Mean When I Say Them

    To paraphrase Humpty Dumpty in Lewis Carroll’s Through The looking Glass.  Which is then completed though Alice’s reply:

    “The question is, ” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”   “The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty. “which is to be master—that’s all.”

    Like Mr. Humpty Dumpty, we all want to be the master of words.  The problem is we need words in order to communicate.

    Rush Limbaugh wrote a list of 35 Undeniable Truths as part of a newspaper article once.  In it he stated: “Words Mean Things”

    The highly technical folks that I am most privileged to work with have very strict definitions of terms that can, at times, be pretty unyielding.

    Other friends and family that I have been around have been fairly loose with their words (and intended meanings).  We all want to be the master of words, but are we?

    Several years ago I was at a dinner party with a group of friends.  One of the individuals there, an African American lady, arrived a little late and told a tale of being held up with some co-workers, and when she realized the time and where she needed to be, she told them “I be gone with a quickness.”  This statement or phrase apparently alarmed the rest of the people at the table (or the majority of them anyway, including the host and hostess), most of them white, although there were also some Asians there as well.

    A rather involved discussion on the use of the Queen’s English promptly ensued.  Now I should probably add for clarity, that the individual who used the phrase was a highly educated official within the local School System.  And she stated that when she was with some friends, she spoke one way, and when she was with other friends, she spoke a different way.  The banter went back and forth as to what should be “good” spoken words, and what would be “bad” spoken words.  Everyone wanted to be the master of the words.

    For the most part I sat there quietly throughout the dinner and enjoyed my meal and listened to the debate.  Towards the end of dinner, the hostess turned to me and said “Paul, you’ve been quiet the whole time.  What do you think?  Was that acceptable speech or not?”

    Here I was, put on the spot, in front of everybody at the dinner party.  I sat back and thought for a minute, and then (more or less) made the following statement (I’m sure this is paraphrased after so many years):

    Words mean things, but they also DO things.  And what they do is to convey ideas.  They not only mean things, but they transfer that meaning from one individual to other individuals.  Words have morphed, transformed, dropped out of use, and been newly invented all throughout history.  But as long as the ideas conveyed by the individuals that use them, are understood by the individuals that receive them, then communication takes place and we all have understanding.  I understood what (and I named the individual here) meant when she used the phrase.

    There was a moment of silence in the room before folks went back to, what was now, a much different conversation.  At the end of the evening, when it was time to go, and there were still a number of people at the party, I stood up and said “We be gone with a quickness!” to which everyone laughed and I got a high-five out of the owner of the phrase.

    Words do mean things.  But we all also want to be the master of the words.  And whether we are those that parse every single syllable and use the strictest of dictionary definitions, or we are those that tend to be a little lose and artistic in our speech, the bottom line is that we intend to convey information with those words.

    There are some words in use more and more today, that have traditionally been defined as offensive and foul language.  I am not quite sure when these words entered into our mainstream conversation and became acceptable for use, but I do know I never agreed to give up the mastery of those words.

    If we randomly introduce curse words into our speech, what does that do to our intended communication?  Does it not convey the thought that we are always angry, always foul, and always incapable of expressing ourselves coherently and clearly?  I believe it does.

    There are some words I just will not allow on this site.  No matter how well you think they convey your meaning.  If there are comments on my blog that contain (at least what traditionally used to be) foul language, I will remove that post.

    But as far as today’s communications are concerned, perhaps if we all used a little less offensive language, and at the same time became a little less critical in our hearing, we would see beyond just the words that are used and connect with the intent being conveyed.

    When we begin to use less offensive language with one another, and begin to listen a little more carefully to one another, we might find that true communication will begin to take place.

    This does not mean we cannot be passionate in our communications.  Quite the contrary.  We may be very passionate, but at the same time very respectful.

    Words.  They mean things.  AND: They DO things.  What do your words do?

  • Where Did The Void (Nothingness) Come From?

    To be honest, I had developed a schedule of sorts for my blog.  I had intended to introduce, and comment on, a series of items that interest me within the topics of Life / Religion / Politics / Science / and Philosophy in some sort of loosely structured but coherent order.  But I am already violating that schedule.  I had also intended to blog about relevant topics of the day as they came up in news sources and general conversations with family and friends.

    But as I write, things occur to me that I feel like ought to be addressed, and they would eventually come up anyway, so why not just deal with them now while they are staring me in the face?  Today is such a day.

    A couple of days ago I mentioned Dr. Stephen Hawking and his latest book The Grand Design.  Dr. Hawking is a fascinating individual to me and he is a brilliant Physicist.  But I find his Theology to be greatly lacking.  In his second latest work he mentions some poignant questions that he himself acknowledges as deserving an answer.  I referenced some of those questions in my previous post.  Specifically:

    “Why is there something rather than nothing?”
    “Why do we exist?”
    “Why this particular set of law and not some other?”

    From this point he goes on to say:

    “Some would claim the answer to these questions is that there is a God who chose to create the universe that way.  It is reasonable to ask who or what created the universe, but if the answer is God, then the question has merely been deflected to that of who created God.  In this view it is accepted that some entity exists that needs no creator, and that entity is called God.  We claim, however, that it is possible to answer these questions  purely within the realm of science, and with-out invoking any divine beings.”

    (The Grand Design, pg. 164 – 165)  Dr. Hawking has spent a great deal of his works defining physical interactions based upon known laws and today’s understanding of their relationships with each other.  In The Grand Design, Dr. Hawking brilliantly ties a number of current scientific theory together to explain how something could literally come from nothing.  He does acknowledge that deist need only stop with whatever deity created the universe, but he wants to claim that the universe came from nothing on its own.  If it is fair for Dr. Hawking to ask the question “Who or what created God?” then I believe it only fair to ask “Who or what created nothingness?”

    Before I get to that, allow me to point out that Dr. Hawking bases his work upon a vast amount of theory.  A lot of it is also hypothesis and conjecture.  I reject the definition of a principle, law, or doctrine as synonyms for theory.  A theory is just that, a theory.  It is not a principle, law, or doctrine.  It is not proven, and within its own definition it is recognized to be “commonly regarded as correct” but is in no way, shape, or form, known to be correct.  It is not proven, it is not necessarily repeatable, and it is not established as truth.

    Dr. Hawking has to rest his theory (and theories) on many assumptions that we are only just beginning to explore and know little to nothing about.  Such theories as String Theory, The Big Bang, and Quantum Physics.  All of these Sciences are just what they claim to be, theories.  They are not concrete truths, rather they are a set of beliefs accepted on current observations (the keyword here is current – they are actually in flux as we learn new things each day).  Dr. Hawking accepts these things (as do many, many Scientists) based upon (dare I say it?) faith.  Literally a belief not based upon a proof.  He has no evidence to establish these things as true.  He accepts them based upon faith and is tainted by his own World View.

    Indeed, within String Theory itself is the notion that there are a seemingly infinite numbers of possibilities (and occurrences of) physical laws and physical universes.  A totally unproven and unobserved phenomenon.  Given the current definition of String Theory and its principles, I fail to see how Dr. Hawking could not conceive of a scenario where the physical interactions of the universe actually created (or produced) god (a deity) that then used supernatural capabilities to recreate the process into what is observed today.

    Dr. Hawking does a brilliant job of determining (mathematically) that something did indeed come from nothing as long as that nothing originally existed as both Matter and Anti-Matter (literally a positive – +1 and a negative – -1, which add up to zero, that then exploded into their respective parts.

    However his zero, which is absolutely nothing (a void), only exits with the realm of something – matter and anti-matter).

    One might beg the question as to where that nothingness came from.  Consider the fact that nothing (the vast emptiness of space), the void as it were, is actually as much a part of the physical universe as all of the real matter we can touch, taste, smell, feel, and experience.  We know it is cold, and yet it can be hot.  Light may travel in it and through it.  It allows gravity to work (to be true to its nature).  The emptiness of space is actually a part of the physical.

    So where did the void come from?  Dr. Hawking simply accepts this on faith.  Exactly the same way I accept God on faith.  Dr. Hawking can no more explain the void and its apparent existence, than I can explain God.  It is based upon faith.  His faith just happens to be different than mine.

    Isn’t it funny though that I don’t need to prove the existence of God.  But Dr. Hawking feels compelled to prove the non-existence of God.  In my world view the void is explained by creation.  God is not a physical being.  God created the physical, void included.  Dr. Hawking, for all his science and mathematics has yet to explain where the Zero, the nothingness came from to begin with and why there is so much of it out there.

    To get something from nothing, you have to have nothing to begin with.  There has to be the spark of (in Dr. Hawking’s parlance) matter and anti-matter to create the -1 and the 1.

    Perhaps the something and the nothing (all the physical) came from another, as yet, unknown source.  The Spiritual.  The something that exists outside of the physical.

    And isn’t it interesting that Dr. Hawking will acknowledge an almost infinite number (for all practicable purposes what we would perceive as infinite) of different scenarios of physical laws and physical universes, except for one occurrence and one occurrence only.  The existence of a God.  I am to accept that there may be billions upon billions of different quantum harmonics all over the physical creation, creating a plethora of different possibilities, but I am not to accept that even one of those could have a God.

    Find the void, and then step out of it, out of the physical, and into the other side, and there you will find God.