good guy bad guy

Kingdoms come and kingdoms go.
Visions of Grandeur.
Alexander tried it.
He died at thirty five.
Where is Hitler’s grave.
The Old Crocodile
Has gone.
He made it to Ninety.
Where is his resting place.
He didn’t want any one
To know.
His wife won’t tell.
There always seems to be
Someone who will
Tell everyone else what to do.

In case you didn’t know
The Old Crocodile
Lived in South Africa
And made himself King.
Make that President.
Pieter Willem Botha
One time nobody.
Was he a racist.
Did he tell the blacks
And the coloured
Where to stay.
Where might he have
Gotten the idea
That some human animals
Are not equal.

How many times
Has the nobody
Become the big star
Of the day.
M Begin sat in the gulag
And in Israel his home
He was an outlaw terrorist
But he took over from
Ben-Gurion and Golda
Mandela sat in jail
For how many years
In his own home land.
And
Look who he is Now

So I wonder who’s the next bad guy.

Notoriety

“No man is an island to himself.”
Some of them seem to be awfully lonely; they seem to be trying to stir up as much public attention as possible.

A year ago down under there were riots on the beaches. So Just now, Just when the beach season is coming up and people are waiting to see if there will be more trouble some one has to go and say something that causes waves rolling up onto the beaches all over the world – “comparing immodestly dressed women to "uncovered meat"!

Is it a clash of ideologies or someone trying to make hay out of the clash? After all I never heard of the guy before this. Hummmmm what can I think of to get my name spread all over the world?

The biggest problem in ethics is stillllll figuring out who has the authority to make up the system for everyone else to follow.

Facts and Fiction

“Electrons were once thought to orbit a nucleus much as planets orbit the sun. That picture has since been obliterated by modern quantum mechanics. But since quantum mechanics confounds even seasoned physicists, the image persists as a useful analogy. Like gravity acting on planets, an electromagnetic force attracts the orbiting electron to the nucleus. Classical physicists wondered that the electron didn't run out of energy. “
“Niels Bohr solved this mystery by introducing quanta, discrete energy states in which electrons may stably persist. Think of an elevator that only stops at discrete floors (i.e. not between them). And just as an elevator won't take you below the basement, there's a minimum state below which the electron simply cannot fall. Strange as it sounds, the Bohr model is actually much too simplistic, and has since been replaced by even weirder portraits of the atomic world. I'll leave those for your poor physics teacher to tackle. “
"It doesn't make sense to talk about a varying speed of light or electron charge. This is because the values of these parameters include units that might change. The speed of light, for instance, might be measured one day with a ruler and a clock. If the next day the same measurement gave a different answer, no one could tell if the speed of light changed, the ruler length changed, or the clock ticking changed.”
“We have an incomplete theory ……”………

(I do commend the author for saying that.)

So what they mean is that Niels did not “solved” anything. He just rearranged the topography so that we now asks different questions - as soon as we think of them. After all that I heard about Hitch Hikers Guide, and saw a couple of movies, it wasn’t till I read the book for my self that I discovered that … well now, if I say to much you will not think it necessary to read it for your self. Lets say that the book is more about the question than it is about the answer, 47. Science is fun. The earth is not God’s experiment, He made it for people. It is amazing what science has learned but it would be nice if they could get over the nasty habit of passing off their flights of fantasy as facts.

The Bible says do not say, “when I go to town tomorrow I will…”

Say, “the Lord willlling if I go to town tomorrow I intend to ……..”
(I am trying to learn the lesson, plan for tomorrow – live today !”)

Even when the words “We have an incomplete theory ……” are on their way to us the author of them is saying “evolution is a fact” (I’ll bet my boots) We say “it is cold today” but then we stop and consider, “Compared to the coldest place on earth right now it is really not that bad”. Now that sounds relativistic; W would probably say that it is just an excuse for my not wanting to commit myself but I do like to view any thing and every thing from every angle possible before I make my “final answer”, and no that does not mean that I believe in relativism. There Are facts; you just got to ferret them out. There is truth. There are absolutes. I can live with theories, they are Very useful, but I can’t stand it when they are preached as facts.

Preconception

Piltdown was particularly damaging for us in Britain, because British scientists clung to it for far longer than they should have done. It clouded their judgment and affected their interpretations of genuine fossils.

Part of the cleverness of the hoax was the way in which it suited preconceived ideas about what early humans should look like. (realllly ? ? IF)

Hopefully, the Piltdown saga has taught those of us who study the evolution of humans some important lessons that we should apply today. (‘evolution of humans’ is not a hold over from the good old days when the focus was on the death of God, get rid of Him any way that you can ? ! ? ! IF )
Firstly, we mustn't let preconceived ideas run away with us. Secondly, specimens have to pass certain basic tests. (like find out how OLD they are – not how old your preconceived idea says that they should be ! ! IF)
Science is also self-correcting. In Britain, during the first half of the 20th Century, people simply shut their minds to other evidence and continued to believe in Piltdown because it fitted their beliefs and was the only significant human fossil we had.

We now have genuine human fossils to speak of from Britain, including a shinbone and teeth from Boxgrove dating to about 500,000 years ago (500,000 yrs old give or take 500,000 years ?? ARE you reallllllllly sure they are human ?? Hows come sooo many fossils are not rock after 500,000 yrs and so many of them still smell?? How can you prove that the whole thing is not one giant hoax?? IF)

Theophany

theophany (thee-OF-uh-nee) noun

An appearance of a god to a person.

[From Medieval Latin theophania, from Late Greek theophaneia, from Greek
theo- (god) + -phaneia (to show).]

"Any mundane reality could yield a theophany, if approached with reverent imagination: a place, a rock, a tree, a man or a woman."
Karen Armstrong; Divinity and Gender: a God For Both Sexes; The Economist (London, UK); Dec 21, 1996.

Thanks to Word a Day

Wow, Karen shore has the imagination, though we wonders about the reverent part of it.
But wait, when I look at the definition again "the appearance of a god ..." I would have to agree that she is right. It is true, people will make a god out of anything. So why is that true? I found Isaac Asimov interesting in one of his books. Religion was used to get started recreating an empire, but it was displaced by prudent use of economic clout. Isaac is not the only one to use religion so, and in fact I am sure that religion in the real world has been used for all sorts of things. But why is the common person taken in by it? Why is superstition so rampent throught the world? And no I do not believe that knowledge and education superceede superstition, not for a little tiny bit of time do I. IQ and knowledge and education do not make a person any less superstitious, they just change the plain of the function of it.
If we say that a theophany is "an appearance of God to a person" then Karen is way far off. Too bad most of the world missed the greatest theophany of all, Jesus.

An Ounce of This or That

All of the gold ever mined can fit into a cube with 72-foot sides, Stuart Simmons, a researcher from University of Auckland, New Zealand sais. How did that song go “all the gold in California is in the bank in Beverly Hills in somebody else’s name …”

So which would you rather have, one ounce of gold or two Mindstorms. 349.99 cad. Lego. It would be nice to be able to keep some gold but like most I presume I would soon spend it. What better way than on a Lego robot?

I know we usually use the word “sterling” when we talk of someone’s character which is silver but I think it would be nice if there were a few more people around who had in addition to a heart of gold a character of gold too, ‘virtually indestructible’. Unfortunately such character is ‘extremely rare’.

Stressssss

LANSING, Mich

“The intent of the board needs to be very clear,'' said board member John Austin, an Ann Arbor Democrat. “Evolution is not under stress. It is not untested science.''

Gregory Forbes, a community college biology instructor, said “To suggest intelligent design is a scientific theory is inappropriate because it is not testable. ... It hasn't earned its way into the science classroom,''

I suppose that a quasar being 15 billion light years away is testable. Or a dinosaur being hundreds of millions years old is testable. I wonder if Gregory Disputin no Forbes has noticed the new study regarding the home island of Odysseus. That is only a few thousand years ago and we still do not know where he lived. There are now those who say that a certain isthmus was in fact an island in the past and that it was his home. I repeat, that was only a few thousand years ago !! Where was Troy? Etcetera. Etcetera. Etcetera. Did Sadam have weapons of mass destruction or not? How testable is that? Take all your ‘proof’ of evolution to court and see how good it is as proof. Why just the other day there was an eminent expert who said “everything sure looks like it was made by intelligent design.” Why do we refuse to believe that it IS in fact a duck?

Haven’t John or Gregory heard that science stood by the fact of a flat earth for years …. till we moved on and flat earth became moot. I challenge John or Gregory to prove to me that in an other five or ten or fifty years evolution will not become moot. When it does if I am already gone I will come back to haunt Johnny boy and dear Greg. “Remember how you said ‘Evolution is not under stressssssssss …..

The Goldilocks Enigma

Professor Paul Davies' The Goldilocks Enigma tackles fundamental questions about the nature of the universe and our attempts to understand it. And central to finding this solution, he says, is answering the Goldilocks Enigma - why is it that "the universe seems 'just right' for life"? (could be because it is, it was made that way…IF)

Two major developments have bolstered scientists' confidence that the answers lie within their grasp.
The first is the enormous progress made in cosmology - the study of the large-scale structure and evolution of the universe.
The second development is the growing understanding of the microscopic world within the atom (how many times is that now that we have almost had the answer? The first time that science thought it had all the answers was how many millenniums ago? May be 42 is the answer, hitchhikers guide, what we need is to figure out the question …I like the official question, how many roads must a man walk down? IF)

These spectacular advances hint at a much grander synthesis: nothing less than a complete and unified description of nature, a final 'theory of everything' in which a flawless account of the entire physical world is encompassed within a single explanatory scheme.

If almost any of the basic features of the universe, from the properties of atoms to the distribution of the galaxies, were different, life would very probably be impossible.

a biofriendly universe looks like a fix - or 'a put-up job', to use the pithy description of the late British cosmologist Fred Hoyle. It appeared to Hoyle as if a super-intellect had been 'monkeying' with the laws of physics. On the face of it, the universe does look as if it has been designed by an intelligent creator expressly for the purpose of spawning sentient beings. Like the porridge in the tale of Goldilocks and the three bears, the universe seems to be 'just right' for life, in many intriguing ways. (If it looks like a duck, it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck … I wonder how goldilocks would respond if I were to take him to court to prove that he is not the author of this new book The Goldilocks Enigma? And he has the, well what ever it is, to proclaim that God did not create ….IF)

No scientific explanation for the universe can be deemed complete unless it accounts for this appearance of judicious design.
Until recently, 'the Goldilocks factor' was almost completely ignored by scientists.
Perhaps we have reached a fundamental impasse dictated by the limitations of the human intellect. (by all appearances God made everything But we Will figure out a way to prove that He did not. We have it almost in the bag they say ….IF)

those age-old questions of existence may evaporate away, exposed as nothing more than the befuddled musings of biological beings trapped in a mental straightjacket inherited from evolutionary happenstance (well may be goldilocks wishes so …IF)

More wonderful BBC headlines

“Catholic experts are set to advise the Pope to abolish the state of limbo for babies that die before baptism.” Like the Pope could do that !

For centuries many Roman Catholics have believed that the souls of babies who die before baptism remain in limbo. But the concept has never been part of official teaching, and it is thought Pope Benedict may be keen to do away with it.
Catholic is concerned about the grief suffered by the parents of stillborn babies, which could be compounded if they believed the souls of their children were to be excluded from heaven.
The theory of limbo was expounded in the Middle Ages as a solution to the theological question over what happened to the souls of babies who had not been cleansed by baptism of the "original sin" Catholics believe is inherent in all humanity, but were too young to have committed any sins of their own.
Limbo has also been held to be the final destination for people who lived virtuous lives before the time of Christ. Our correspondent says some have suggested that the possible change is an attempt by the Vatican to prevent people in developing countries with high infant mortality rates turning to Islam - Muslims believe the souls of stillborn babies go straight to paradise.
John MacDaid, a theologian and principal of the Catholic Heythrop College at the University of London "What I would say to any parent who loses a child and who is anxious about the destiny of that child is that we must have complete confidence that that child is now embraced by God in heaven."
Theo logic.
I don’t know why God chose to leave a whole lot of things out of the Bible, like this issue. Didn’t He know that it, and all those others, would be our big concerns ??

crossing the line

A new modern art exhibition by collector Charles Saatchi has been given a parental guidance warning.

I had a discussion with some about naming things. Why do people insist in calling their group of intimates ‘family’? To extend that discussion; Why do homosexual people insist on calling themselves ‘gay’? Is it because they know that they do not have what the word designates but they think that by some magic, in naming themselves what they want they will have it? Earning the right to have what is desired has always been the recognized way of obtaining what is wanted. We will never get what we want in a relationship with an other person if we rip their veil off; we have to earn their trust to get what we really want. Everyone knows that a million dollars means something very different to someone who has worked for it and earned it than to someone who wins it or otherwise controls it without having put some personal effort into it. See there we go again “win” a million. Why use the word “win”?

Art is art. Music is music. A rose by any other name is a rose.

Sound that is not music is not music even if the whole world spends their last nickel to buy it in the name of music. Something that is not art is still not art even if the would world calls it art.

Why not call a spade a spade? Why not call garbage, garbage? While I pity Charles S and would defame him if I could I am more worried about the ‘world’ that views what he puts on their plate. There is an old computer saying that I don’t hear so much any more but it is still most applicable GIGO (garbage in garbage out). The world devours Charles bill of fare and what are they going to regurgitate? More pollution.

There are a whole lot of people worried about world pollution and rightly so … when are we going to start worrying about moral pollution? There is good and there is bad and Charles has crossed the line.

No Veil

2Cor 3
You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: you are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart. God has made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. For if the ministration of condemnation (the covenant made at Mt Sinai) is glorious, the ministration of righteousness exceeds it much more in glory. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: not as Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: but their minds were blinded: for until this day the same veil remains untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which veil is done away in Christ. But even to this day, when Moses is read, the veil is on their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.


Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, by the Spirit of the Lord.

If our gospel be hid, it is hid to those who are lost: we preach Christ Jesus the Lord. God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to [give] the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. I sinned. Jesus died. Jesus rose from the dead. If I acknowledge that I deserve to die and I accept what Jesus has done on my behalf in terms of reconciling God and me then God will raise me up to a new life with Jesus.

That is it. There is nothing to hide in true Christianity. There is no hidden agenda, no esoteric knowledge, and no secret. We each can have direct access to God if we follow that simple plan.

No Veil.

Final Authority and the Bible

A chart showing the chain of command for an organization begins with the Final Authority of that organization. The concepts of a chain of command and an organization together show that the chain of command is the sole domain of and exclusive realm of people. Animals or inanimate objects such as books cannot occupy space at any level of the chain. The concept of a chain of command for an organization precludes any person who does not belong to that organization from occupying a space in that chain. The chain of command also demands that a living person who has open two way communication with the organization occupy each space in the chain.
God as the supreme authority of everything is the Final Authority in the chain of command of the Church and as such all arbitration will be resolved by Him. Jesus Christ the second member of the Godhead, the second Adam of the human race and head of the church is the second in the chain of command. These two are of course not on earth at present however they do maintain office space on earth that is occupied by their personal representative, the Holy Spirit. There are two opinions as to the location of the office that He occupies. One states that the office is the Church, giving the Church an identity of its own that is separate from the individual members of the Church. The other states that the office is the heart of each individual member of the Church which members collectively compose the Church. The first would suggest a wholistic view of the Church in that it would be something more than, and different from, the sum of all the individuals in it; where as the second views the body of the Church, the body of Christ, as a group of people defined by their common faith and family relationship to each other and God (faith as trust rather than creed, doctrine and theology). The first would suggest a church conscience that the individual’s conscience would be subservient to while the second would maintain that each member’s conscience answers to God alone; we do not go to a priest or pastor for absolution of sin (a bit exaggerated maybe, for the sake of emphasis). The first would therefore claim that the Church (governmental hierarchy) is next in the chain while the second would populate the next space in the chain with the collective voice of the members, all the members. The church for the most part, and for all practical purposes is the local congregation. Jesus said “where two or three are gathered, I am there”.
Some would give the Bible third place in the chain and move the church to fourth place. This claim would declare that the Bible is the Final Authority on earth, all matters of daily living and of arbitration must conform to the ordinances of it therefore it must be in the chain. Actually ordinances are documented ‘in’ the Bible. The Bible does not ordain anything, it holds some of the Word of God it contains some of the Word of God. Jesus is called the Word of God in the Bible, He is the living Word of God and without Him the Bible is a dead book. Jesus said that He sent the Holy Spirit to teach us the things that He Himself had said and taught. It is true that the Bible IS the Word of God - in that everything that is recorded in it was put there by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, what is recorded in it IS what God said! It is true. It is true that God will never contradict Himself, when He makes a judgment it will not contradict the Bible; when people regardless of their personal relationship to God, or lack thereof, do something wrong, for example murdering someone, they are guilty and guilt is documented in the Bible. The point is that they are not guilty because the Bible says so but rather because God the Sovereign Judge says so! Christianity is based on a personal relationship with a living person named Jesus, His personal representative officiates in my heart! How do I know that the Bible is the Word of God? It does not become the Word of God when I come to understand that it is so or when it comes to have meaning to me. Because the Christian life is a personal relationship with a living God there cannot be a book that has exhaustive content on how I should live. The Bible does not look like ‘Back to the Future’ – “well, we didn’t get it right that time so turn ahead to page five billion and thirty seven and do what it says, tomorrow you can back up and give it another try”. The Bible comes to be authoritative to me when it is illuminated to me by the Holy Spirit (emphasis on ‘to me’. It is authoritative whether or not I think it is.). I accept it as God’s Word because I have the confirmation of the Holy Spirit. It is a fact of life that people read and study the Bible all their life long and never come to know God or what the Christian life is, because they do not have the Holy Spirit in their life confirming it to them and giving them a comprehending heart. It is a fact of life that even people who claim to be Christians and are in fact recognized to be so by others in the general christian community do not all agree on what the Bible says; many is the time when those who claim to agree do not. Did God mean for us to understand the Bible? He certainly meant for people to comprehend what Jesus did for us by coming to earth and dying but He did not mean that each, or any, of us should have comprehensive exhaustive understanding of it. Witness Daniel, he wrote part of it and God told him to close up the book because even he would not understand what he wrote. How many versions of the book of Daniel do we have? Of the book of Ezekiel? Of the book of Revelation? How many versions of the story of David and Goliath? How tall was David when he killed Goliath? The Bible is a small book and there are more questions raised by it than are answered; while it is the only written authoritative statement of God’s will that we have it is not an authority in matters of living the Christian life or in matters of difference or conflict. We still have to go to the living head of the Church for those things. Love, forgiveness, faith, hope and all the other attributes of a Christian cannot be obtained from the Bible. Discipline, reproof and rebuke cannot be derived from the Bible. We do not derive our New Life in Christ from the Bible. I do not pray because the Bible says that I should, I pray because Jesus said to and because I want to.
There are clear concise direct specific statements in the Bible. Then there are statements that are obscure and difficult to understand and try to implement. “You shall not kill!” is a direct clear statement. Then there is “whoever kills someone by man he shall be put to death.” God has a list of other capital crimes as well as killing; if we are not to kill how can we execute capital punishment? To try to explain this apparent contradiction we put another spin on it; we say that the Bible says “You shall not murder!” But under the Mt Sinai covenant even if a person accidentally killed someone he was liable to capital punishment. Let a modern jury look into the case of Achan. He stole and the Bible does not apply capital punishment to theft so the jury would let him off with community volunteer work and if they were to follow the Bible he would be required to pay back two or three times what he stole. But God said to execute him and his family! God said “the son shall not pay for the sins of his father”. ?? Then there is a broader implication of “Do not Kill!”. Are animal life and plant life part of the jurisdiction of this command?
Jesus said, “You must be born again”. Paul said “old things are passed away all things are new” and “we know that the old man was crucified on the cross with Jesus”. We have illustrations in the Old Testament of New Birth. Noah went into the ark and when he came out the world was different. Moses went into an ark and when he came out he belonged to a different family. Jonah went into the fish and came out a different man. But most Christians are still firmly convinced that we are schizophrenic; we have two natures, we are sinners and we have a new life; or that we are still sinners period.
What does the Bible say?
Point is that without some kind of interpretation the Bible does become ambiguous in the hands of people. It is true to itself and it does say only one thing but which one? Even Reform Theo says there are three tests for finding what the Bible says; direct statements, examples, and good exegesis and deduction. The Bible is not an authority in the chain of command; the head of the church is Jesus and next in line is the church, whichever way you view the church’s identity.
The Holy Spirit is not in the chain of command either; the Holy Spirit is the advisory board along side of the church and of the individuals in it.
Many christians have lived without any book but the Bible and even then without the whole Bible. The churches in Ethiopia, for example, lived through the second world war without anything but the New Testament. The Bible is our reference, hard copy memory. Without the Bible there is no new birth, it is the only revelation of the Gospel that we have; but the Christian life, after the new birth, is a relationship with a person.

Responding to a Person

Christian freedom is freedom of conscience, freedom from a legal system that couldn't be kept. It is freedom from the depressing awareness that we can't measure up to God. Christians do measure up in Christ. We have been "accepted in the Beloved" (Eph. 1:6).
The Galatians Christians had been adopted as sons of God, indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and freed from external ceremonial law. They were free in the Spirit to act out their own maturity and liberty from within. That was Paul's theme. Christianity is not slavery to a religious system; it is absolute freedom. Through Jesus Christ we have been delivered from the tiring, relentless performance of religious ritual. The Old Covenant law was external. It was given to demonstrate what true holiness is, and to show men that they couldn't make it. The ceremonial practices were symbolic lessons that taught that DEATH was the punishment for sin. They pictured the final sacrifice of Christ. Once the reality came, there was no longer any need for the symbols.
Christian liberty is being free from having to fulfill the legal code to please God, and free from the frustration of not being able to keep an external set of rules. In a positive sense, it is the freedom to function by the internal working of the spirit, ours and the Holy Spirit. We are free to do what is right, and what is good, and what sustains and builds up life. Because Christian liberty begins with faith in Jesus Christ, Paul tells the Galatians not to put their ongoing day by day faith in circumcision or any other type of ceremonialism. According to Galatians 4:10, they had regressed from their freedom to observing "days, and months, and times, and years." For that reason Paul said, "I am afraid [for] you, lest I have bestowed upon you labor in vain" (4:11). They were trying to accept Jewish rituals that no longer had any value.
We are not reacting to a code. We are responding to a Person.

John 3:16 as: "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that everyone who has faith in him may not perish but have eternal life."
If the call to faith is to be liberating, faith must be understood as trust rather than as belief. To claim that we are saved (or are members of the church) by having the right set of beliefs about God and Christ is merely to substitute a new form of law for the ancient codes.