Paul L. McCord Jr.

"Meaning no disrespect to the religious convictions of others, I still can’t help wondering how we can explain away what to me is the greatest miracle of all and which is recorded in history. No one denies there was such a man, that he lived and that he was put to death by crucifixion. Where…is the miracle I spoke of? Well consider this and let your imagination translate the story into our own time — possibly to your own hometown. A young man whose father is a carpenter grows up working in his father’s shop. One day he puts down his tools and walks out of his father’s shop. He starts preaching on street corners and in the nearby countryside, walking from place to place, preaching all the while, even though he is not an ordained minister. He never gets farther than an area perhaps 100 miles wide at the most. He does this for three years. Then he is arrested, tried and convicted. There is no court of appeal, so he is executed at age 33 along with two common thieves. Those in charge of his execution roll dice to see who gets his clothing — the only possessions he has. His family cannot afford a burial place for him so he is interred in a borrowed tomb. End of story? No, this uneducated, propertyless young man who…left no written word has, for 2,000 years, had a greater effect on the world than all the rulers, kings, emperors; all the conquerors, generals and admirals; all the scholars, scientists and philosophers who have ever lived — all of them put together. How do we explain that? …Unless he really was what he said he was." –Ronald Reagan.

I remember back in the 1980’s I have seen Carman in concert several times.  I always liked the way he would tell a story in a way that would get people excited.  I have heard many people preach to me that his type of preaching does not produce a lasting conversion.  I believe you could say that about any teaching.  In any population, you are always going to have a select group that will be more committed to a cause than others.  I will say that after more than 20 years, I remember his concerts vividly.  Yes they did make an impact.  It is amazing how I have changed since then.  There was a time that I would spend hours in the Bible day and night.  These were some good times and although I do not spend the time that I use to do, I am still every bit as convinced that God loves us and sent Jesus so that we would be able to be with him.  Although I have failed him hundreds of times, I know he has never given up on me.  I continue to be blessed to this day.

I was listening to K-Love on the radio as I was posting the last post and this song was playing on the radio.  It caught my attention and I went and found this on Youtube to post it.

I often hear people complaining about politicians that are in Washington and how they should be replaced.  I have been guilty of that many times but recently I have been seeing some things that that should have been obvious to me but I have had my head in the sand.  The problems are not politicians but rather the world view of the people that are electing them.  Many people have come to a point where they are either opposed to religion (atheist) or just do not know how they feel about it (agnostic).  In either case, there is a lack of formal belief system.  Without a formal belief system, people tend to change their values depending on what the majority of people believe.

In this day where the majority of our culture falls into this category of not having a formal belief system, the mass media shapes the values of the people.  The media is a financially driven system where they are driven by ratings that equate to advertising dollars.  We can all attest to the desire to go outside when there is a siren nearby.  We are drawn out to see what it is about.  The same holds true when people drive on the freeway and there is an accident.  Even though the accident may only be on one side, both sides of the freeway are backed up because everyone drives slow to see what is going on.  These are often referred to as “rubber neckers”.

This human nature of being attracted to a controversy is exploited in the media making their reporting suspect and lacking objectivity.  If society’s value system is shaped by this non objective medium, then reality is skewed.  If the people’s values are not based on a non moveable system of beliefs then people can be convinced to believe anything.  The world cultures are swayed by the one with the loudest voice and with no standard of truth then people are constantly changing values.  The dangerous part of all this is that our culture is being shaped by television, and radio that is only driven by ratings.  Remember before that to get those ratings the media exploits this natural attraction to controversy.  They report on any type of story as though it is a controversy and always take the angle that someone is a victim.

This reporting centers on the unjust behavior of passing judgment on others in the form of hatred.  This so called hatred becomes hate speech and this become violence or a denial of someone’s freedoms.  So the theme of the reporting is that the only real truth is that it is wrong to judge anything because in doing so, it is hatred.  I am not talking about judging people but rather judging anything, behaviors, or whatever a person could conceive.  Over time, this reporting has worked because no one has a belief system that is based on a unchanging truth.  Once people have accepted that truth is relative except the one truth that judgment is wrong, then it is easy to convince people of the dangers of religion.  They go the extra mile and single out one religion and that is Christianity.  They portray Christianity as a tool of hate because it has immovable standards that cannot be twisted by the media.

In the world view where nothing is wrong except the passing of judgment, then there is no room for Christianity.  This portrayal of Christianity is completely misrepresented but that is not relevant in their eyes.  The end game is to eliminate anything that could be used to stifle unbridled chaos.  If the Bible is true, then one must face the reality that a person’s actions DO have consequences.  If the Bible is true then a person is responsible for the choices they make.  This reality of a person being responsible for their actions is just too much for our society to take.  We live in a society that does not want to take responsibility for their actions.  I am old enough to see the changes over the years and see how society has changed.

Unfortunately for this generation, truth is still truth whether the people choose to acknowledge it or not.  People often read stories like this and become hostile because their own conscience convicts them.  They know what they are doing is wrong deep inside yet they convince themselves that if enough people believe it, then it is okay.  They see stories like this and become anxious and mad at the person telling the story because they see it as passing judgment.  Remember, in this culture, the only absolute wrong thing to do is to pass judgment.  They often misquote the verse, Matthew 7:1 that says “Judge not, that ye be not judged.”  They have shaped this verse to mean we are not allowed to judge anything or anyone.  They take it out of context because they want to use the Bible as against those that would quote it.  This verse is making a point that a person reaps what they sow.  Basically if you judge you will be judged. If you forgive, you will be forgiven. You can see my point.  This verse does not mean you cannot discern right and wrong.

People become hostile toward those that would claim Christianity and claim that the Bible passes judgment and if you believe it then you are passing judgment.  They are completely wrong in this assessment.  The Bible gives guidance how we are to live and is truth.  We that have the world view that believe the Bible, we are not passing judgment but rather understand that we are incapable of living flawless according to the Bible.  We understand that if we were able to do this, then there would be no reason for Jesus to die for our sins.  I am as big of sinner as your average run of the mil axe murderer but I also understand that by grace, I am forgiven by my faith in Jesus’ death on the cross.  I do think we have an obligation to live as the Bible tells us to but when we fail, we have an advocate that pleas on our behalf (1 John 2:1).  As believers we get up when we fail and continue on.  We do not beat ourselves up and see ourselves as unworthy.  By ourselves we are unworthy but through Christ’s payment, we are worthy. 

This story is not an attempt to pass judgment on anyone but rather to point out human nature because we are fallen by nature.  God does forgive us but we have to repent, or have a meaningful change from our ways.  Those of us that follow the Bible are failures by any measures.  We get up when we fail and accept Jesus’ payment and go on.  Every person in the Bible with the exception of Jesus were terrible sinners.  David was a murdering cheat but God said he was a man after HIS own heart.

It seems to me that our problems in the world are not who the politician is but rather the world view of the people that are electing them.  That includes myself in this assessment.  Maybe we can focus our energy on doing God’s will and not on blaming the media, politicians, or any other groups.  This early Saturday morning where my wife had to work left me thinking about the world and the condition of it.  I just wanted to express my opinions on the issue.

I have noticed a trend that companies and even my work have begun to do.  This trend is toward paperless billing for your utilities, and services.  Most recently it has been my cell phone provider T-Mobile.  These companies are so hung up in this Cumbaya utopia called saving the planet.  This is where I need to throw in my disclaimer…

DISCLAIMER: I believe that common sense can be applied to just about anything including being responsible with the resources we have.  I believe it is wrong to willfully waste resources just for the sake of wasting.  I also believe that we are powerless as humans when it comes to changing the climate even if we wanted to.  I believe there is a political movement that has disguised environmentalism as an attempt to gain power.  The most militant of them are bent on destroying capitalism and are completely ‘off their rocker’.  If you watch these people intently you will see an agenda emerge.  There agenda is socialism if not outright communism.  Socialism as defined is when government controls financial and business matters in an attempt to more fairly distribute wealth.  Fairness is a subjective thing where the person defining fairness is usually the person that wants to take your rights away.

I believe the whole climate change movement is manufactured and has zero credibility to it.  I do believe the climate adjusts itself constantly through natural processes and humans are completely irrelevant.

I have no problem with paperless billing except when these companies force it upon you by charging you extra for a bill.  They forget that not everyone has a computer, much less the Internet.  Their motivation seems pure enough though I disagree with their premise.  Let us assume their environmental, climate change argument was valid.  Their ‘saving the planet’ by not killing trees is offset by the extra energy being wasted by running your computer.  Secondly they have to know that 90%+ of people that go online to see their statement will print them out on their own paper so they will have an archived record.  The government does this as well. 

For example: At my work they have taken all of the technical manuals and turned them into electronic documents where all the employees can get to them through their computers.  All the while they give out awards to the person that came up with the idea because it will save the environment and will prevent the unnecessary killing of trees.  Meanwhile another organization called ‘Quality’ is in action making rules that tell maintenance personnel that a manual is only current if it is in electronic form.  A person can print the necessary pages so they can do their work but that print out is only good for that day.  Each time you print out a technical manual, it prints the date that it was printed on each page.  If the maintenance personnel are caught using this material the next day, they are subject to disciplinary action.  These print outs are required to be destroyed each day.  If you have ten employees in your shop, then all ten of them have to print out the same material each day.  This results in an exponential growth in the destruction of trees.  These regulations are mandatory and must be complied with.

This is an example of what happens when the government gets involved in anything.  They have good intentions but the end result is that things are made worse.  I can remember about ten years ago when the government started advertising how they were going to try to go paperless.  The paperless government has turned their paperless effort into a massive growth in paper printing.

Almost every organization these days are trying to do their part in saving the environment.  They advertise on television showing the Earth in an almost worshipping way.  It sort of gives me the creeps because I see things happening that the Bible forecasted long ago.  The Bible talks about these days in great detail in Romans chapter one.

Romans 1:25 Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.

I think it is always important to read the Bible in context.  Although I only posted the one verse, I do encourage you to read the entire chapter so that you will get the proper context of that verse. I do not think it is a good idea to read just one verse because it can be manipulated and taken out of context.

The main point of all this is that I am hearing this environmentalism taken in a way as to almost worshipping the Earth (creature) more than worshipping God.  This is ironic that most of these environmentalists that I come in contact with do not believe in God but do believe in the evolution of Charles Darwin.  It almost seems as though these two theories are contradictory to each other.  If you believe that the world as we know it came into being through natural selection of the fittest then who cares about the environment?  I mean if we are ever evolving then there is nothing we can do about it.  Only the fittest species will survive and natural selection will do the work for us.  The evil humans will destroy themselves and the omnipotent Earth will return to its glory.  If you sit back and think you can see how foolish this really is.  It takes way more faith to believe that everything we know came from an accident than from God.

I am a firm believer that people want to believe Darwin because to think otherwise would mean they are responsible for their actions.  If God is then we have a responsibility to live a certain way.  If God isn’t then we can live free to do whatever we want.  As difficult as it is to believe that everything we know came from natural selection, these people want to believe it because it is an excuse for riotous living.

Yes, I have veered off the subject of paperless billing but that is because to make the argument that environmentalism as it has become is to deny common sense.  To argue that the world is so delicate that we could destroy it or even change the climate is to argue against natural selection.  If natural selection is for real then there is nothing that environmentalists can do about it because we are so inferior that we will eventually destroy the world.  We will make the world uninhabitable and natural selection will have prevailed and humanity will no longer exist.  Why fight it?  If natural selection wins out in the end then just eat, drink, and be merry! 

The truth is that God is real and he is in charge.  We are responsible for our actions whether people want to admit it or not.  The paperless billing may help people believe they are helping things but in the end it is nothing more than an empty hope.  The power is not in the planet but in Jesus.  There is power in HIS name and I know as I typed that, many people tuned out just as it gave me chills.  I am very confident in this and I hope that you will be too.  I know this may sound like a rant but it is not meant to be.  I just want to shine a light on all the hysteria we hear today about saving the planet and going green.  If you were to listen to the news you would be stressed out all the time.  Why not give God another chance and stop judging him based on the failures of his followers.  He is good and will forgive. If we could ever be perfect, then there would be no reason for Jesus to have died for us.  Spend some time in the Bible and ignore the stories you hear about individuals that have failed God.  The people are always going to fail and always come across as hypocrites.  Give him another chance independently of people and  you will see there is something real to him after all.  Now open your hymnals to page 256 and join me in a song .

June 25th 2009 was meant to be an exciting day with the first ever NBA draft for the Oklahoma City Thunder. With the Thunder getting the third draft pick it was sure to be a great day.  It was a Thursday that was going to be a Friday for me because I was taking off work on Friday.  What a sad day yesterday with the loss of two famous people in our country yesterday and three in the last week.  Those who have read this blog know that I am anything but a celebrity worshiper.  In fact, I often chastise others that do engage in celebrity worship.  With that said, I have to admit that Michael Jackson was a huge part of my teenage years.  When his Thriller album came out, I was in 10th grade and I will never forget the impact he had on my teenage years.  For the tough guys that I tried to emulate, it was not cool to listen to his music though we were all closet Michael Jackson fans. I remember no one would admit to listening to his music yet he sold more albums than anyone in history.  Someone was buying them.  I remember listening to his music and then when my friends would come over I would quickly switch the radio back over to the classic rock station so my friends would think I was cool.  Looking back I would never choose that life style again where I could not be myself.  For that reason to this day I cannot stand classic rock music.  I sometimes forget with my own kids the pressure that people put on you as a teenager.  The pressure they put on themselves to fit into the group.

Though he made some mistakes, I cannot deny his impact on my own life.  In fact here I am at 43 years old and I have more than 20 mp3’s of his songs on this very computer I am typing on.  He made some terrible choices that I would hope that he regretted afterward.  I know I have made some huge mistakes in my own life that I would change if I could do them again.

Farrah Fawcett was a part of my younger years with her role in Charlie’s Angels. Later she was in several movies including the Burning Bed.  That movie was a wake up call to anyone that considered being a spouse abuser for sure.  I remember all my friends had that famous bathing suit poster on their walls.  I never had one myself because my parents would not allow that at the time.  I often wondered what makes people act so crazy with celebrities and I still do.  In this case however, I lose any sense of rationale.  No one can deny that Michael Jackson was unusual and in some cases lacked some common sense.  Nevertheless his existence brought back my teenage years.  When I say he lacked some common sense, I refer to his continued exposure to children even after being accused of child molestation.  Most people would take that first accusation as a lesson to not put themselves in that situation again.

In all fairness, if this had been anyone else I would be less likely to give him a second chance in the same situation.  That double standard goes back to the nostalgia that he brought back to me.  This amazing news was just hours after hearing of the death of Farrah Fawcett and just two days after Ed McMahon.  Farrah’s fight with cancer was such an opportunity to shine the light on this disease to get people involved in finding a cure.  This opportunity was cut short with the loss of Michael Jackson, ironically by a heart attack.  Both heart trouble and cancer are the two largest causes of death in the United States.  I know it sounds like I am speaking in a way that Michael Jackson’s death was unfair to Farrah.  It may seem that way because I do have an emotional connection to both of these diseases.

I lost my mom in 2005 to a heart attack and my mother in-law in 2002 to cancer.  My mom had a serious heart attack when she was only 29 years old.  This attack caused permanent damage to her heart and she suffered many heart attacks over the next 30 years.  My incredibly supportive dad stood by her side stressing out for years.  He was so stressed at times that he looked terrible.  I really loved my mom and miss her so much.  It has never been the same since she has been gone.  My mother in-law had many illnesses over the years and one day we found out that she had cancer.  By then it was too late to do anything.  My mother in-law was a very good person and my wife is just like her.  Ever since then my wife has been actively involved in the American Cancer Society’s Relay for Life.  This helps her feel like she is doing something for her mom because she never had time with her own mom.

This blog post may seem a little down but a death always brings this out in me.  Michael Jackson was so big during my most influential years that it is difficult to believe that it is true.  With such a big event, this will certainly go down as one of the biggest events that I will always remember…even bigger than Elvis Presley’s death.  When these things happen it really makes me begin to think and put things into perspective.  It makes me think about our purpose on this earth.  Did we just simply land here by accident’?  Was there an explosion one day and living creatures just evolved from no where?  Is there purpose?  It can make a person begin to think of their value in this world. 

In my case it makes me thankful for what I have.  I have Jesus who died for my sins so that I would have a chance to be forgiven for my mistakes, and bad choices.  I for one believe we are not an accident and someone put us here for a reason.  This person is God.  Anyone that is honest with themselves and looks the creation of this world would have to admit that it is so well designed that it had to be done on purpose.  Just look at a tree leaf and see the awesomeness of HIS creation.  God is almighty and deserves a glory greater than all of man could give him.  He is honest, just, powerful, forgiving, loving, and fair.  I think he deserves our true worship.  With all the emotional feelings that a singer can give us, it cannot compare to the glory that God deserves.

I truly wish the best for Michael Jackson, Farrah Fawcett, and Ed McMahon and hope they were blessed enough to know that Jesus died for them and they had purpose.  I have watched countless interviews over the last 24 hours about how Michael Jackson as much money and fame as he had still desired purpose.  God loved him and that is the greatest purpose a person can have.  If he could have ever realized this, deep down it would give him a sense of value that a trillion dollars could not compare.  As bad as we all were at following the guidance that God has given us, he loved us enough to come to us in the form of a man to die in our place.  If that ever gets into your spirit, it will bring tears to your eyes that anyone could really care for you that much.  I feel blessed to have been able to know this revelation.  I feel blessed to have such a wonderful wife for the last 20 years.  God also blessed me with two incredible sons that I would never trade for anything on this earth.

It is interesting how a death can make you think about things that we actively try to avoid thinking about.  I have never met any of these celebrities but their loss made me think about what is important.  I hope I am not the only one that feels this way.  I know I am not because I scrolled across the radio this morning and I heard many stations that spoke of the death of Michael Jackson as an event they will never forget.  I heard those on the local sports station saying the same thing and they are famous for belittling celebrities all the time.  I have heard them make fun of him many times though this morning I heard the same people discussing this event seriously as a moment they will never forget.  In the end, this in my opinion is a good thing because death is something we all will face some day and many do not wish to think about it or their purpose.  Events like this make people think of them and can make people think about what is really important in their lives.

Today I took off work so I could go to the doctor to get the results of a heart echo that I had last week.  I often have these anxiety attacks where my heart starts racing and I feel short of breath.  Since I lost my mom from a heart attack, I often worry about them.  After talking to many of my family members I find that I am not the only one that has them.  It is scary when they happen and it makes me feel like I am not able to breath.  I found out later that the accelerated breathing makes it worse.  My results came back this morning and my doctor said that it looked normal.

Well now that I have pretty much “bummed out” everyone with my blog post I guess I will get on with a great weekend.  Remember to recognize what you have and be thankful for them.  It is too easy to focus on the bad things and miss out on the great things and people you have around you.

After a long couple years, the graduation is over.  Today I graduated the University of Oklahoma putting a lot of stressful times away.  This is tough enough when you are 18 years old but when you are 43 and have a full family life and a full time job, it makes it even more of a challenge.  This day was supposed to be a huge moment and it was to a degree.  I feel like the whole event was under the influence of drugs.  I have not slept for more than three continuous hours in a week and the doctor gave me some itching medication for my poison ivy that really made me sleepy.

It was a good day though and I have a wonderful family that was there for me.  My beautiful wife Sunday shown in this photo has made so many sacrifices for me in our 20 years of marriage.  She sacrificed so much for me in getting this accomplishment done that I really do appreciate her.  She is testament to the Proverbs 31 woman spoken of in the Bible.  She is so incredible that words cannot express.

Now that I have this behind me, I can get back to life again.  The time involved in completing this goal has been amazing.  Our whole lives have been adjusted to make time for this.  God has been very good to us but has taken an unfortunate back seat to this goal.  It is time to put HIM first again and remember where my blessings come from.

Our beloved General Motors has just been made a public example why you should never go to the government for assistance.  I do not care if you are on the verge of homelessness, never EVER go to the government for help.  When you do this, you are forfeiting your freedoms and subjecting yourself to humiliation.  The United States government is far more corrupt than any corporate scandal you may have heard about over the years.  The U.S. Congress is the most hypocritical organization known to mankind with the President running a close second.  Barack Obama is no more qualified to be President than a random prisoner in just about any prison in the United States.

Let’s be honest here.  Political Correctness has taken over this country and Barack Obama’s presidency is the biggest display of this.  The ONLY reason he is President is because of the color of his skin.  I am not saying that I oppose his presidency based on the color of his skin because that would be a complete injustice to what I am trying to say.  I as well as most would have to agree that you cannot legitimately judge a person’s character based on the color of their skin.  I do not want to be mistaken by all this by saying that my pointing out his flaws is an endorsement of the Republican party either.  Both of the major political parties has zero credibility to point the finger at anyone.  Whatever General Motors may have done to find themselves in their situation, it pales in comparison to what our corrupt leaders in Washington D.C. do on a daily basis.

General Motors biggest mistake was going to the government with their hands out because now they get to endure the embarrassment of being forced to walk naked in front of everyone while Barack Obama’s unqualified ignorance gets to play bully for a while.  I would rather go bankrupt than to go to the government and accept their strings that are always attached to things.  Shame on our local leaders like Governor Brad Henry for accepting one dollar of this criminally extorted payoff they call a stimulus package.  Shame on anyone that accepts any of this money that is spending our country into financial ruin.  George W. Bush was almost as big a disgrace as he spent himself out of control.  What happened to conservatism?  What happened to small government?  Our leaders on both sides are playing us and people are too stuck in this Republican versus Democrat fight that they do not even see it.

While we sit around buying into the other party is the REAL EVIL our own guy is stabbing us in the back.  Think about it… John McCain is not a conservative under anyone’s standard yet he gets the nomination for the Republican party.  He has burned the Republican party over and over again.  The Democrats are so far gone they are not worth even discussing.  The Republicans are racing to meet them in their left wing agenda.  The Republican party throws a bone to the conservatives by proclaiming their opposition to stem cell research, abortion or whatever topic the media thinks conservatives are against today.  They never substantially act on any of these proclamations just like Democrats never do more than throw bones to their constituencies.  Think about it.  Democrats talk about helping the little guy and saving them from corporate corruption so they create programs that never help anyone.  They spend more money on programs that never actually help anyone than if they had just given every American one million dollars each.  I am not saying the government should be giving everyone a million dollars or any money for that matter.  It is not the government’s job to be taking other’s property to give it to someone else.  This loosely interpreted statement in the Constitution about the “common good” is misinterpreted at best.

Of course it is the people that are allowing themselves to be duped.  I know what I am talking about because I have been guilty myself for this for years.  I put all my hope in the Republican party to be the saviors of our family values while they sell us down the river.  I meant what I said back over a year ago when I posted on February 9, 2008.  People gave a me a lot  heat for being anti conservative when I said that I was willing to concede this election to the other side to let our side know they are accountable.  There are times that I feel that I have made a mistake every time I see Obama open his mouth on TV.  When I think about it, I know I was right.  This never ending voting for the “least of the two evils” does not work.  I have voted Republican over and over again just to have each successive candidate be more liberal than the last.  Of course if you listen to the left wing media you would have believed George W. Bush was the most conservative right winger that has ever been in office.  You would have to either have your head completely submerged in the sand or be deliberately misleading people to believe that.  I am thinking it is the latter.  The truth is that George W. Bush though outwardly speaking semi conservative ideas was not committed to them.  It was just throwing us a bone just like his dad.

I think our side needs to know they ARE accountable to the people that elected them.  I think the time of allowing them to think they automatically have our vote just because our desire to keep the other guy out is bad policy.  I am glad our side lost this time as painful as it is.  I think it is time for us to communicate to our leaders that it was not an accident.  They needed to be thrown out of office so they can understand that we mean business.  Either they represent us or get in line at Obama’s welfare line.  I can remember arguing with people in the past saying we must vote for this guy or that guy just to prevent the other guy from winning.  I remember passionately defending Bush because of the danger of the other side winning.  Let me ask you a rhetorical question… Has this made our land a more conservative place?  Absolutely NOT!  Our guy feels comfortable betraying us because he knows that we will not vote for the other guy.  He plays us like a fiddle with the comfort that his own constituency will never vote for the other guy.

The checks and balances that our fore fathers put in place to save our land have lost balance because all the checks are in one pile.  Our liberal elected officials have stacked our courts with liberal activist judges that do not interpret laws against the Constitution but rather make liberal laws.  Our Congress does most of the corruption while blaming the President.  They sit and pass laws that are thousands of pages without even reading them.  They take your tax dollars and mine and spend them on their buddy’s projects padding their own nest.  They make a kingdom for themselves so in the RARE event they are not reelected, they will have a free ride when they are out of office.  They fail to do their duty and impeach corrupt Presidents and judges because they are so busy not paying their taxes just like half of Obama’s cabinet.  The only organization that is more corrupt than the Barack Obama administration is the United States Congress.

Of course this is where I get religious on you so you may want to tune out if you are one of those that engage in this behavior.  All this does have a common denominator and that is a lack of moral standard.  Our country was founded on fore fathers that made mistakes.  They were not perfect but they did believe in a standard and that standard was Christianity.  These fore fathers were miserable failures at this standard just like we are but they understood what Christianity was all about.  They understood that God’s word says in Romans 6:23

For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

They understood that since they were every bit as much sinners as we are that Jesus’ death on the cross was payment for their sins through faith.  They recognized God’s words as the standard to live by and made an attempt to live by those standards.  They made one mistake when they wrote the Constitution and that was their lack of clarification in the establishment clause of the first Amendment.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof

This lack of clarification in their intent has been used by those who oppose this standard as an excuse to forbid Christianity in almost every avenue of life in our country.  They speak of being a pluralistic society where there are differing cultures living side by side in our own society.  This pluralistic society also includes those of differing religions living side by side.  They use this as more evidence for not allowing religion in public life in the name of not offending one of those in the other cultures, religions.  They often speak of religion but they really mean Christianity.  There are several religions in our country just as they speak and the goal of all of them is to evangelize of get others to become converts.  The problem is that in the discussion of this false notion of separation of church and state is almost without fail relating to Christianity.  There is almost a hatred toward Christianity that is difficult to describe.

My point in all this is that our country was founded on Christian values whether those pluralistic crowd wish to acknowledge this or not.  True Christian values does not advocate violence toward any other religion.  I know, I know, this is where the argument about the Crusaders usually comes up.  Like I said before, true Christianity does not advocate this behavior.  Anyone can take on a title and claim to represent that title and do things that are opposite of what that title stands for. 

If we do not have a standard by which we measure morality, then everything is subjective and that is very dangerous.  If morality can be voted on then look out for slavery and violence against various groups of people.  With the media’s power and lack of objectivity they can have you hating blacks again if they chose to go that route.  They can have the public outraged at them for a fabricated injustice they have done.  I mentioned blacks because they are a group that most people can sympathize with and understand the injustices they have endured.  I could just as easily have mentioned any group.  My point is that if we do not sit down as a group and establish some immovable standards, then anything can happen.  The Bible already has those standards.  I am not advocating creating our government to enforce biblical rules but rather to acknowledge the standards by which our country was founded.

One thing that has still not learned is that every choice  you make has consequences whether good or bad.  Just because a person fails to acknowledge a moral standard does not eliminate the consequences of their actions. When people make a choice, there will be a consequence.  If not Christianity, then what?  If not Islam, then what?  If we continue to live in this relative world of no values then our greed will be the end of our country.  If you look at history you will find that no empire lasted forever and ours will be no different.  Instead of ignoring what went wrong in the past just to make the same mistakes again and again, how about setting some standards?  These standards already exist and have existed since our country’s founding.  Our problems are not the result of religion, they are the ignoring of it. If we continue to subsidize failure, we will have a very prosperous crop. 

It is no secret that people have differences of opinions on virtually any topic.  It should be no surprise that you are going to have people that want to legalize marijuana usage.  I have heard many arguments on both sides of the argument.  Those people wanting to legalize it usually post about how it can be used for medical purposes with a prescription.  Others that I run across are just opposed to the restriction because they do not like the government imposing laws on individuals.  After all any restriction is bad unless it is something that you oppose yourself.  This evening I ran across a post on Friendfeed from a guy that is known for starting controversy.  I purposely do not mention his name because it gives him unnecessary traffic when search engines pick up my post with his name.

This Friendfeed post was about legalizing marijuana and at the time of this post everyone of the comments attached to it were pro legalizing marijuana.  Although I disagree with this opinion he has a right to say what he wants.  What really surprised me was how one guy posts “I think the people who dismiss this as unimportant have no grasp of the scale and scope at which drug prohibition destroys lives.”  This opinion just defies logic to me.  How can a prohibition of drugs destroy people’s lives?  There opinions are that the prohibition drives up the costs and drug lords use the money to buy weopons and make it dangerous.  This is the typical liberal approach to things like this.  Others think that you should legalize it and tax it.  The problem with that is that people will go around the systems.  Have they not been paying attention to the mp3 downloading of the last six or seven years?  People opt for the cheap as in free if they can get it.  If Marijuana is legal and taxed people would still rather grow their own and not pay any taxes.  This notion that making Marijuana illegal is responsible for the violence in the drug trade are dismissing the fact that these countries are lawless already.  When they make Marijuana legal the dealers will go to the next drug that is illegal.  There is an attitude that people have that says that since someone is going to do something anyway then there should be no restrictions on them.  Sort of like giving condoms to children because “they are going to do it anyway”.  Why make drinking and driving illegal because “they are going to do it anyway”.    Why have copyright laws because they are going to share it anyway?  Why wash dishes because they are going to get dirty anyway?

It should be no surprise to me that people can be so opposite on some topics but I must admit that I am surprised.  The assumption that all parents have common interests and will be in agreement on such important things as a runaway child is another thing that was a wake up call for me.  Three years ago I had a 13 year old son run away on several occasions.  On each occasion we found that other parents were hiding him in their homes.  When confronted they would tell me they were told that I was abusing him.  I would return with the statement that if they suspected that I was abusing my son, then they have an obligation to report me.  It is illegal to hid a runaway from their parents but I was shocked to find that on every single occasion the parent would hid him from us.

We live in a lawless society now.  People will disregard every law as though it does not exist.  This is what makes me laugh when I hear people advocate new gun laws.  If the criminal is willing to ignore the law that says you should not kill someone, what makes you think they will obey the law that says you cannot have a gun?  This is a new day that we are living and if you have been alive for more than 40 years I am sure you have seen the change.  The people that acuse religious people of being the ones that bring hate and intollerance need to wake up.  We now live in a day where religion is virtual profanity .  We are seeing all sorts of sexual crimes on the news every day.  We are watching political crimes, corporate corruption, and a world that is spending more than they make.  We now have school shootings and all sorts of crimes daily on the news.  I guess the non religion crowd needs to see their way is not working.  It is not going to work either.  I am old enough to remember that we did not have cameras in school because we did not need them. 

The reason people do not want to even consider the existence of God is because that would be the recognition of the ultimate law.  If God is real then we are not at liberty to live totally free with no restrictions.  If God is real then we have to recognize there is a concrete right and wrong.  Again, I realize that people have differences of opinions but I still get surprised to the degree of differences.  Somethings are so obvious to one person while to another person the opposite is true. This is what you get when you have nothing that is immovable, non negotiable to base right and wrong.  When there is no religion there is confusion and wandering around.  You have people that operate on consensus or the majority rules.  This sounds like an innocent way to live until you put a few scenarios together.  What happens when you have three people in a room where there is two men and one women and the two men vote to rape the woman?  She must comply because the majority rules.  What happens when the media hypotheticallyconvinces the majority that slavery is acceptable?  The majority agrees that slavery is acceptable so it must be right.  Who dares to go against the group?  If there is no absolutes then who is to say.

Others think that anything is acceptable as long as it does not hurt anyone.  Who determines what hurting is?  What happens if the father decides that he wants to get into pornography?  It seems that no one gets hurt in this innocent activity.  Ask the wife if it hurts anyone. Pornography does hurt families and can result in families breaking up and the children actually do get hurt.  This post is not an attempt to preach my rules on anyone but rather to explain my position.  My position is that virtually every moral belief in our country has its roots in Christianity.  If you take away the concrete, absolute values that are in the Bible, then who determines what is acceptable or not?  There are those that would argue that religion has caused more wars and problems in the world than anything else.  In these cases you will find that it was usually someone that was operating against the doctrines but claimed to be operating under the doctrine.  An example of this would be the Ku Klux Klan.  They boast Christianity though the Bible opposes their actions.  It is easy to claim something even when you are not one of them.

You can agree with me or disagree but this is my feeling on matters.  I may be not be right on everything but this is my opinion.  Whether you agree or disagree with my opinions you must agree that it is amazing the degree to which people can disagree.  I do not expect everyone to agree with my opinions but I have a hard time understanding how some fundamental things can be seen with complete opposite points of view.  One group thinks slavery is acceptable while claiming Christianity while the very doctrine opposes it.  I just thought I would share my thoughts on this.