I was watching a few of the Sunday news shows today. Kyle was there with me. He had to stay home from Church because of a fever the last few days. All the shows were covering the SC primary, and I got a chance to give Kyle a little lesson in conservative versus liberal values.
He asked me if I liked President Obama. I thought a moment how I might answer this, because I didn’t want it to sound like it’s a personal thing for me, because it’s not. I told him I didn’t like his ideas. He asked what I didn’t like. I explained that the President believes that it’s the government’s job to take care of people’s needs, and that he believes he should be able to take a lot of money from others who earned it in order to do this. He also thinks it’s not fair that there are some people who have more money than other people. I explained further that I believed that individuals need to take care of most of their needs on their own, and that having the government take money from others just to try to make things fair for everyone doesn’t work. Read more…
Unless you’ve been hiding under a big rock, you’ve heard about the ongoing fight in Washington as to whether Congress should raise the US debt ceiling. The Republican’s are holding the line that if we’re going to raise the debt ceiling, we must ensure there are cuts in spending that more than make up for any additional borrowing. They’ve also said that raising taxes is off the table (we’ll see about that, though). The Democrats want to do more with what they like to call revenue increases, which really means raising taxes. They figure if they say that the additional taxes will only be on the “millionaires and billionaires” and “private jet owners”, then most of America will be on board with that. Read more…
I’m hearing reports that the rapture is taking place on Saturday. This is quite shocking! I haven’t made any arrangements. I haven’t stopped my mail. I haven’t started on my bucket list. I’m not even sure what my bucket list is.
In Christian circles there are a few interpretations related to the rapture. Some think it will occur before the tribulation, which is that terrible time of suffering right before Jesus comes back to kick tail and take names. Read more…
The silly season is almost upon us, and we have a growing pack of Republicans who’ll be running against President Obama, who is the sole candidate on the Democrat side. We can expect that the question of abortion will come up. It’s an important question, but there are key follow-up questions that are never asked, and if they were, I suspect there would be some awkward silence. Read more…
I was reading an article in Popular Mechanics, which is basically a Q & A with Bill Nye the Science Guy about whether evolution should be taught in schools. It highlights major misunderstandings that many in science have, including Mr. Nye, regarding the role of science, and the theory of intelligent design.
In the article Mr. Nye bemoans the fact that a recent survey showed “only 28% of teachers taught evolution as a well-supported fundamental idea of science”. This actually surprised me, because I thought far more teachers were toeing the line, and were teaching what they learned in their biology books years earlier. The survey also showed that 13% of teachers taught Intelligent Design exclusively, and 60% are somewhere in between. He characterizes this as “horrible”, saying “Science is the key to our future, and if you don’t believe in science, then you’re holding everybody back”. Read more…
I just completed this animated video that I thought would be a unique way to highlight a case for the pro-life position. I’ve always thought it would be interesting to discuss the issue with a pro-choice advocate, so this allowed me to do a mock debate in a fun way.
Please take the time to watch it all the way through, and share it with others. If you have pro-life friends, I think this will provide them with some good arguments for their own position. If you have pro-choice friends, it will help them think through their position. It will challenge and expose some of the extraneous reasons often given to justify abortion, and drill down to the only question that is really important–what is the unborn. Finally, there are many out there who don’t have a strong opinion either way. If they watch this video, I hope it will help them realize the importance of the issue.
While my animated presentation of this information is pretty unique, I can’t claim the ideas as my own. Many thanks to Greg Koukl, President of Stand to Reason, and Scott Klusendorf, who used to work with Greg, and who is now the President of Life training Institute here in Atlanta.
Here are two resources from Greg and Scott if you’re interested in more on this topic:
A common tactic for atheists who are debating Christians is to throw out the problem of evil. If God is all good, then why doesn’t he prevent evil from occurring. Either he’s not all powerful because he can’t prevent evil, or he’s not perfectly good because he allows evil and created it in the first place.
But, the problem of evil is actually not a problem for the Christian, it’s a problem for atheists. You see, the Christian worldview explains evil. God created us as free creatures. Since we all have a free will, then we can freely commit wrongs against one another and against the God who created us. God didn’t create evil. Evil is not a thing in itself, just like dark is not a thing. Evil is the absence of good, just like a dark is the absence of light. Read more…
Nine years ago today a small group of determined, suicidal, religious fanatics killed almost 3,000 people. Every year at this time we’re reminded of every detail through haunting images and videos of that terrible day. I’m thinking back to how proud I am of the way we handled ourselves individually and as a nation at that time. I also can’t help but think about some of the mistakes we made after. Read more…
The Shroud of Turin is one of those wonderful mysteries that God seems to dangle in front of us as a way to test our faith. The fact that science cannot explain how the image was formed is fascinating. Of course, just because science is unable to explain something doesn’t mean we should jump to a religious conclusion. You have to follow the evidence where it leads. There are some that say the Shroud is a fraud, and they point to the Carbon 14 dating completed in 1988 as the definitive proof of that. But, they’re probably not aware of recent evidence that seriously questions the validity of that carbon dating, and which was corroborated by a scientist from the team that originally studied the Shroud. Read more…
The Finnish Government has decided that broadband is a legal right, and has ruled that all Finns should have immediate access to a 1 Mbps connection. They’ve also committed to increasing that to 100 Mbps by 2015.
The idea of broadband being a “right” seems pretty bizarre, but then again, let’s take a look at Finland. Economically, they are one of the most socialist of countries, even by European standards, and are a true welfare state. While the government provides a wealth of services to all of its citizens, it embraces wealth redistribution to accomplish that. They have a huge tax burden, especially for those with higher incomes, and they even determine traffic fines based on how much one earns. In fact, a few years ago a local heiress had to pay a speeding fine of 170,000 euros (about $204,000 at that time) for driving at 50 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone in Helsinki. Read more…
I was watching a few of the Sunday news shows today. Kyle was there with me. He had to stay home from Church because of a fever the last few days. All the shows were covering the SC primary, and I got a chance to give Kyle a little lesson in conservative versus liberal values.
