Sometime back, I sat down and really looked at what my philosophy on life and religion consisted of. What I have heard from all sides was giving me second thoughts as to what our position in the universe was.
There were positions on creation that I really couldn’t accept and likewise, the atheistic position of the complete rejection of a creator. What follows is that meandering thought:
Recently, there was a Presidential debate on YouTube and the same question keeps coming up.
Of course the media would like a candidate who espouses a strong Christian belief to disavow their faith which would give the populace a reason to doubt their sincerity and question their vote, or it could be they want to portray the candidate as a superstitious person who is unwilling to capitulate. Whatever the motivation, they want to create controversy to stir interest to sell their own story. Somehow, this question is never put to the leftist/socialist. The question they keep asking to the person of faith is: Do you believe in evolution or the Bible?
If the question were asked of me, I would say “Yes, evolution occurred. There is the scientific proof of evolution. And Yes, God created everything. This has basis in my faith and cannot be “proven”.
My belief is that God used evolution to get to this point. To say that the Bible version is an irrefutable and literal version of creation is very simplistic. A person that insists that creation occurred in the literal “six days” is saying that God could have only done it that way because the Bible says so.
The purpose of religion’s job is to explain “why”. I think the fundamentalists (creationists and Intelligent Design proponents) are suffering from a disconnect from reality. They don’t understand the “I Am” part of the Bible. Do many Christians really comprehend the first verses of the Bible? “In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth”. This phrase, in essence, says that God existed before the universe was created. Who or what God is, is open to conjecture. The New Testament says that “God is Love”. That for me is a good enough description. The reason the Bible exists, is a rule and guide of faith to explain why we are here,.
To tie God to the literal “six day” creation story is to belittle God. To look up into the night sky and not be struck with awe, would be unthinkable. To think creation was an “accident” is also unthinkable.
Science can only show the “how”. The duty of science is to explain the physical universe. It only deals with facts or hypothesis that can be proven in a laboratory or by previous observation or calculation. Science never promises anything, but it also has the ability to correct itself if proven wrong.
I can’t understand how an astronomer, or any scientist could possibly be an atheist. To see the immensity of the universe, the smallest life form, the growth of a crystal, or the birth of a child, only would serve to reinforce faith in a Divine Creator.
To follow the creation of the universe and explore the “Big Bang” is another question I’ve often pondered. What was that “singularity” How did it originate? What was before? How will this physical universe end? Our most powerful telescopes can only be compared to the poorest microscopes when we look into the vastness of infinity.
Humanity still has very few of the answers. We can only have faith and hope that the promise given in the Bible is true.
Sunday is Easter. As Christians, the day is celebrated as the basis of our faith. Without the Resurrection, that one defining event, there would be no Christianity. I’m afraid many have forgotten that one fact and have let immaterial “details” cloud their faith.
My wife was saying we need to get rid of the truck because it gets crappy mileage. Well, that would men we’d have to sell the camper, but OK. I was wondering, if we got another vehicle, what would we get? Well we’d have to have something powerful enough to pull the boat, and it would have to get good mileage. On top of that, I’d want something sporty. Well here ya go. I want one.
Filed under: Second Ammendment Rights, Uncategorized | Tags: Gun Rights, Second Ammendment
The Conservative Review newsletter today had an interesting article by Robert Novak. Instead of chopping it up, I’m posting the whole thing. If you are for individual gun ownership, this will make you cringe.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Preparing to hear oral arguments
Tuesday on the extent of gun rights guaranteed by the
Constitution’s Second Amendment, the U.S. Supreme Court
has before it a brief signed by Vice President Cheney
opposing the Bush administration’s stance. Even more
remarkably, Cheney is faithfully reflecting the views
of President George W. Bush.
The government position filed with the Supreme Court by
U.S. Solicitor General Paul Clement stunned gun advocates
by opposing the breadth of an appellate court affirmation
of individual ownership rights. The Justice Department,
not the vice president, is out of order. But if Bush
agrees with Cheney, why did the president not simply order
Clement to revise his brief? The answers: disorganization
and weakness in the eighth year of his presidency.
Consequently, a Republican administration finds itself
aligned against the most popular tenet of social con-
servatism: gun rights that enjoy much wider support than
opposition to abortion or gay marriage. Promises in two
presidential elections are abandoned, and Bush finds
himself left of Democratic presidential candidate Sen.
Barack Obama.
The 1976 District of Columbia statute prohibiting owner-
ship of all functional firearms a year ago was called
unconstitutional in violation of the Second Amendment
in an opinion by Senior Judge Laurence Silberman, a
conservative who has served on the D.C. Circuit Court
for 22 years. It was assumed Bush would fight Washington
Mayor Adrian Fenty’s appeal.
The president and his senior staff were stunned to learn,
on the day it was issued, that Clement’s petition called
on the high court to return the case to the appeals court.
The solicitor general argued that Silberman’s opinion
supporting individual gun rights was so broad that it
would endanger existing federal gun control laws such as
the bar on owning machine guns. The president could have
ordered a revised brief by Clement. But under congress-
ional Democratic pressure to keep hands off the Justice
Department, Bush did not act.
Cheney did join 55 senators and 250 House members in
signing a brief supporting the Silberman ruling. While
this unprecedented vice presidential intervention was
widely interpreted as a dramatic breakaway from the
White House, longtime associates could not believe
Cheney would defy the president. In fact, he did not.
Bush approved what Cheney did in his constitutional
legislative branch role as president of the Senate.
That has not lessened puzzlement over Clement, a 41-
year-old conservative Washington lawyer who clerked
for Silberman and later for Supreme Court Justice
Antonin Scalia. Clement has tried to explain his
course to the White House by claiming he feared
Justice Anthony Kennedy, the Supreme Court’s current
swing vote, would join a liberal majority on gun
rights if forced to rule on Silberman’s opinion.
The more plausible explanation for Clement’s stance
is that he could not resist opposition to individual
gun rights by career lawyers in the Justice Department’s
Criminal Division (who clashed with the Office of
Legal Counsel in a heated internal struggle). Newly
installed Attorney General Michael Mukasey, a neophyte
at Justice, was unaware of the conflict and learned
about Clement’s position only after it had been locked
in.
Time to clean house at Justice? I think so.
Filed under: Legislative Foolishness, Uncategorized | Tags: Bad Law, Nebraska, Property Rights, Smoking
The nanny society has finally come to Nebraska. The Legislature saw fit and the Governor signed the state-wide smoking ban. I don’t think they care that the implementation of this act is another step in the direction of removing property rights from the individual.
Please understand, I don’t smoke. I used too a long time ago and i still enjoy a cigar now and then. What angers me is the thought of some individual or group getting the government to tell someone what they an or cannot do with their property.
One more step in that direction is a bill that my own senator introduced and is now his priority bill. It is LB 810. The statement of intent specifically states that “a retailer who serves alcoholic liquor to an adult who is noticeably intoxicated, is liable for resulting death, injury, or damage if the retailer was reckless or negligent.”
Filed under: Political Races | Tags: Bill Balsamico, Candidates, election, Immigration
I can’t say it any better than this.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfcnB6kSdWU
Can this guy make a dent in the election?
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/02/28/gb.liberty.in.peril.gun.ban.cnn
I can’t say it any better.
