It looks like the Oklahoma State Cowboys performed very well against the Missouri Tigers.  It is good to see them succeed even though my team has been struggling.  Yes I do think you can root for both teams as long as you are not playing each other.  It is good to see our state do well when possible.

We should be getting our Internet switched over to Cox Communications this week so hopefully this will help some of the drop outs we have been having.  Again, I am not blaming AT&T for our problems but rather the old infrastructure in our neighborhood.  With the new Cox lines behind our house, and the new line to our house, I am hopeful this will help to give us a more dependable Internet experience.

A couple of weekends ago I started painting a window on the outside just to have it start raining five minutes after finishing.  The rain washed the paint down onto the brick and so I had to wait a while to finish the job.  Now that I am finished with the job, I have some masking tape that does not want to come off the window.  A razor blade gets most of it but it seems to be leaving a sticky residue on the window.  If anyone knows how to get that off, I would love the input.  The sun came out this weekend for the first time in nearly a month.  As much as everyone else wanted the sun to come back out, I actually enjoyed the cool, overcast, foggy, misty days.  It has been nice and fresh seeing the cool days where we can get some rain.  It seems like the last ten years has been so dry that I love to see rain any time we can get it.

At work it has been wild, busy, and just plain anarchy .  Since I work in a program office that has hundreds of airplanes world wide, you can count on having some sort of crisis non-stop.  There are times that I go in at 6:30 AM just to find there is a crisis already going on.  With the never ending presentations, updates, and rule changes, it is hard enough to keep up.  Now we have an operational readiness inspection (ORI) coming on November 1st.  If any of you have ever been through one of those, you know how chaotic it can be.  The preparation leading up to the even usually is worse than the event itself.  The one rule to always keep in mind in these inspections is to never offer information that is not specifically requested.  I have found that when you do this, you tend to open the door for more questioning that could potentially get you in trouble.  On top of all this, I have two trainees that I am responsible for and I hardly have time for them.  I feel sorry for them because every time I start to show them something, I get pulled off onto some other crisis that requires my immediate attention.  I am trying my best to get them up to speed because that will make my life much easier.

What ever happened to my photography?  I am asking myself that question because I never have time to go out much these days.  I love to take pictures and this is the perfect time with the leaves changing.  Autumn and Spring are the times of year that we get to see God’s beauty.  It is just amazing how pretty the trees can be when the leaves begin to change.  Just the same, in the Spring, the world breathes a new breath of life.  It is just amazing when you can stop and take in all that God has done.

Back to the family…  My wife and I are doing very well.  My wife got another job at the same place that turned out to be a promotion.  She is doing very well with her health.  Both of my sons are back home and life is going pretty well with everyone getting along.  My sister’s situation seems to be improving by the day.  My dad is also very happy.  When everything is going smooth at home, it helps to make it easier to see the wonders of the world when you drive around and see the leaves changing.  I can honestly say that we are blessed.   Like I said before, I am living the American dream and I am done setting career goals.  I have reached a point in my career that I am very happy with and my college goals have been met. 

It is time to start living before life is over.  One day I started to think and realize that ever since I got married, I have been building toward making a life for my family.  Then I realized that my kids are almost grown and life is passing us by while I am working toward a life.  Life is happening and I need to stop and enjoy it.  It is too easy to get caught up in working to make a life for your family and later you find out that your kids will not even talk to you.  If you are one of those, you may want to think about it and start living now because the clock does not stop whether you have your career or not.  I would encourage you to stop and look at what you have.  Give God the credit and be thankful for them.  Realize that your attitude can determine happiness.  You can look at what you have and decide to be happy now.  I know I have been guilty of this one myself.  I have told myself that when I get ______ done, I will be happy.  When the goal is accomplished, there will be something else.  Stop, be happy now.  This concludes my sermon for today.  Please turn to page___ in your hymnals.   Just kidding.

Sometimes I get too busy to get to this blog but I always try to make time to at least give an update from time to time.  Thanks for stopping by.

I have always liked University of Oklahoma quarterback Sam Bradford but after watching this video, I have an even greater respect for him.

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.

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 .

I spent the last couple of hours of my sleep time dreaming of the beginning of my Air Force career back at Davis-Monthan AFB.  I have been thinking about it in the current form since I just went to Tucson about a month ago.  Anyway, there are so many things going on that my mind is just racing.  I have been doing everything except giving it over to God.  Recently we have been so busy that we have virtually stopped reading the Bible and not thanking him for all that he has done.  I would just like to take a moment and tell the world what a great family I have and give God the credit that he deserves.  Sometimes we get so busy that we forget to acknowledge those that have helped us get where we are today.

My wife Sunday has been instrumental in helping me go through the Air Force, finish college, and raise two sons.  She has traveled the world with me and never complained.  What a great woman she is and I am so grateful to have her.  My oldest son has decided to get a place of his own and that really was hard for me to take at first but at the same time I am very proud of him.  My youngest son is still home in theory but he is growing so fast that he is hardly home either.  I do not blame him because I was the same way when I was his age.

I am thankful that I still have my dad around.  He has been a great friend to me and has done wonders for me.  I really do miss my mom though.  I lost her in 2005 to a heart attack and it seems that I have never had the chance to mourn her loss.  I miss you mom!  Well now that I have rambled on, the alarm is just about to come on.  It is really tough to sleep when you are thinking about 100 things.  I am grateful that I have so many things to think about.   I better get off here and get ready for work.  I have almost forgiven Gmail .  Yesterday I was having problems with it and you can read about it here.  I will try to post more often on here in the future.

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.

I must say that we made a decision last night that we are not going to worry about him because we made it very clear on Christmas Day that we loved him with no strings attached.  We did not preach to him about anything and gave him about the warmest welcome anyone could have asked for.  I am confident and have faith that God is in control and that some day he will get past this point in his life and realize that he has a family that loves him.  It is not worth being angry all the time.  I guess what makes it the most difficult is that people expect teenagers to be rebellious but when you have adults that condone it and enable it, that is hard to take. 

On another front, God has shown his greatness today.  Some of you may remember my older son having an accident in December just one week after getting his drivers license.  Well today we received our insurance renewal and to our surprise it went down $20.00 per month.  After a confirmation that it was not a mistake all we could do is praise the Lord!  I just want to say Geico has been really good to us and we have had them for 14 years.  My wife had an accident a couple years ago, I backed into a car about a year ago and now my son had an accident and they never once raised our rates.  That is a miracle in itself and I just want to thank God for this.  It is so important to me to give credit where it is due.  I just wanted to share this information with you and apologize if you were a target of my rage this week.  I do not like being that way but I allowed things to get to me.

This week I begin my final Thesis for the University of Oklahoma.  It has been a long and tiresome road but I am almost done.  It is hard to believe I am on my last course and it is almost over.

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.