Jesus is coming for me, to take me to a place He prepared just for me, so I can be where He is.   My final sleep is my awakening.  I’m going to the land of the living.  When my last day comes, I spend my next with God.  Now, that is adventure.  Whatever suffering I may face is insignificant to my welcome from the Creator of the universe.  Thrill seeker?  You bet I am.  Nothing on this Earth comes close to seeing God.  Much less living with him.  You see, I have to leave.  Jesus will be standing by my side.  Why should I be afraid?  I’m on my way to Zion.

My departure raises me from darkness to light and from weakness to strength.  It kills no part of me.  It brings me closer to God and perfects my faith by sight.  It gives me to those I’ve loved and lost.  It rids me of fear and change.  Yes, it’s cause for celebration.

My only regret is that we can’t all go together.  But, love is stronger than death.  Each tear from each eye brings us closer to our eternity.  Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.  Sometimes, those waiting just need silence, patience, and tears.  Miss me.  Cheer for me.

Sir Isaac Newton said, “There are more sure marks of authenticity in the Bible than in any profane history.” . . . . I have a fundamental belief in the Bible as the Word of God, written by men who were inspired. I study the Bible daily.”  What are these “sure marks?”  I found them grouped in logic, social commentary, mathematics, science, and literature.

The Proof of Logic

When I stripped away the verbiage, I found some tangible, elemental issues of logical proof.  An example comes from the eighteenth-century British naturalist William Paley and is called “the Watchmaker argument.”

“In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it lain there for ever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer.  But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer, which I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there…. The watch must have had a maker: that there must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use…. Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.”

No one of sound mind, Paley explains, would ever conclude that the watch was the product of bits of dust, dirt, and rock being shuffled together under natural processes.  Even if the natural processes were allowed to operate for a very long time, there would still be no rational hope for a watch to be assembled.  Yet, as all the naturalists of Paley’s day admitted and all the biologists of today emphatically concur, the complexity and capability of living organisms far transcends anything we see in a watch.  If a watch’s complexity and capability demand an intelligent and creative maker, surely, Paley reasoned, the living organisms on our planet demand of Maker of far greater intelligence and creative ability.

Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274) had a version of the Cosmological Argument called the Argument from Motion.  He stated that things in motion could not have brought themselves into motion but must be caused to move.  There cannot be an infinite regression of movers.  Therefore, there must be an Unmoved Mover.  This Unmoved Mover is God.

Many years ago, scientists were called to Great Britain to study concentric rocks and holes:  Stonehenge. As studies progressed, it became apparent that these patterns had been designed specifically for astronomical predictions. Many questions remain unsolved. But one thing is known—the cause of Stonehenge was intelligent human design.

Compare Stonehenge to the origin of the universe and life itself. We study life, observe its functions, contemplate its complexity, and what are we to conclude?  Stonehenge might have been produced by the erosion of a mountain, or by catastrophic natural forces working in conjunction with meteorites to produce rock formations and concentric holes. But what scientist or philosopher ever would suggest such an idea?

No one ever could be convinced that Stonehenge “just happened” by accident, yet some expect us to believe that this highly ordered, well-designed universe, and the complicated life it contains, “just happened.”  To accept such an idea is, to use Dr. Wysong’s words, “to break stride from what is natural to believe” because the conclusion is unreasonable, unwarranted, and unsupported by the facts at hand. The cause simply is not adequate to produce the effect.

I am a descendant of Lawrence Washington, former owner of Sulgrave Manor: the site of Stonehenge.  Image telling the grandchildren, “you kids go out and play on the henge.”  The beginning of backyard play structures?  There is a letter, in a British museum, from the King’s Architect, to Lawrence, saying basically, “You moron.  Next time you find metal castings with strange and diverse inscriptions, don’t melt them into pots.”  Apparently, Lawrence found the instructions to Stonehenge and melted them into utensils.  We were a practical lot.

R. L. Gregory made a very elegant observation about the an eye.  The problem of how eyes developed is a major impasse to the Darwinian theory of evolution by natural selection. We humans can make many entirely useless experimental models when designing a new device, but this is not possible for natural selection, for each step must confer some advantage upon its owner, to be selected and transmitted through the generations. But what use is a half-made lens? What use is a lens giving an image, if there is no nervous system to interpret the information? How could a visual nervous system come about before there was an eye to give it information? In evolution there can be no master plan, no looking ahead to form structures which, though useless now, will come to have importance when other structures are sufficiently developed.  Something had to plan all this in advance.

The Proof of Social Commentary

John Kerry embellished his military achievements and there was instant outcry.  Witnesses stepped up to challenge his claims.  Books were written about the falsity of his claims.  Miles of print media challenged him.  Hours upon hours of television featured people who had evidence he fabricated things.  Image the stir had Kerry claimed to heal the sick and raise the dead!  Yet, there is no rebuttal, in Christ’s time, to the claim that Christ was who He said He was.  He was widely known and completely accepted as a man doing miraculous things. If anything was an exaggeration, someone would have surely written something.

Proof exists for the New Testament, since Christians were strongly persecuted by both the Jews and the Roman government.  If the New Testament writings were false, these two groups would have produced a great deal of evidence to stop the growth of this “sect.”  None exists.  Further, the New Testament writings,  before they were assembled into the book, circulated during the lifetimes of thousands of people who had actually seen Jesus’ miracles and other historic events. No one ever refuted the New Testament writings.

Secular history supports the Bible. For example, in The Antiquities of the Jews, book 18, chapter 3, paragraph 3 the famous historian Flavius Josephus writes:  “Now, there was about this time Jesus, a wise man, if it be lawful to call him a man, for he was a doer of wonderful works—a teacher of such men as receive the truth with pleasure. He drew over to him both many of the Jews, and many of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate, at the suggestion of the principal men amongst us, had condemned him to the cross, those that loved him at the first did not forsake him, for he appeared to them alive again the third day, as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day.”

In 115 AD, P. Cornelius Tacitus wrote the following passage that refers to Jesus (called “Christus,” which means “The Messiah”) in book 15, chapter 44 of The Annals:  “Consequently, to get rid of the report, Nero fastened the guilt and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for their abominations, called Christians by the populace. Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty during the reign of Tiberius at the hands of one of our procurators, Pontius Pilatus, and a most mischievous superstition, thus checked for the moment, again broke out not only in Judaea, the first source of the evil, but even in Rome, where all things hideous and shameful from every part of the world find their centre and become popular. Accordingly, an arrest was first made of all who pleaded guilty; then, upon their information, an immense multitude was convicted, not so much of the crime of firing the city, as of hatred against mankind. Mockery of every sort was added to their deaths. Covered with the skins of beasts, they were torn by dogs and perished, or were nailed to crosses, or were doomed to the flames and burnt, to serve as a nightly illumination, when daylight had expired.”

Overall, at least seventeen non-Christian writings record more than fifty details concerning the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus, plus details concerning the earliest church. Most frequently reported is Jesus’ death, mentioned by twelve sources. Dated approximately 20 to 150 years after Jesus’ death, these secular sources are quite early by the standards of ancient historiography.

Altogether, these non-Christian sources mention that Jesus fulfilled Old Testament prophecy, performed miracles, led disciples, and that many thought he was deity. These sources call him a good teacher or a philosopher and state that his message included conversion, denial of the gods, fellowship, and immortality. Further, they claim he was crucified for blasphemy but rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples, who were themselves transformed into bold preachers.

A number of early Christian sources also report numerous details concerning the historical Jesus. Some, such as the writings of Clement of Rome, Ignatius, and Polycarp, date from A.D. 95-110, or just ten years after the last New Testament book.

As Sherwin-White says, “The confirmation of history is overwhelming.”  And that “any attempt to reject its basic historicity even in matters of detail must now appear absurd. Roman historians have long taken it for granted.”

The Proof of Mathematics

This quest finally led me to use some of the probability and statistics I so happily snoozed through in college.
The odds of being struck by lightning in a year = 7 x 10exp5 or 1 in 700,000
The odds of being killed by lightning in a year = 2 x 10exp6 or 1 in 2,000,000
The odds of becoming US president = 1 x 10exp7 or 1 in 10,000,000

Approximately 2,500 prophecies appear in the pages of the Bible, about 2,000 of which already have been fulfilled to the letter.  The remaining 500 or so reach into the future.  Since the probability for any one of these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance averages less than one in ten (figured very conservatively) and since the prophecies are for the most part independent of one another, the odds for all these prophecies having been fulfilled by chance without error is less than one in 10exp2,000.  That is 1 with 2,000 zeros after it.

If you were to conceive just 50 specific prophecies about a person in the future, who you would never meet, what the odds that this person will fulfill all 50 of the predictions?  How much less likely would this be if 25 of these predictions were about what other people would do to him, and were completely beyond his control?  For example, how does someone “arrange” to be born in a specific family?  How does one “arrange” to be born in a specified city, in which their parents do not actually live?  How does one “arrange” their own death - and specifically by crucifixion, with two others, and then “arrange” to have their executioners gamble for their clothing?  How does one “arrange” to be betrayed in advance?  How does one “arrange” to have the executioners carry out the regular practice of breaking the legs of the two victims on either side, but not their own?  Finally, how does one “arrange” to be God?  How does one escape from a grave and appear to people after having been killed?

Professor Stoner put his probability pencil to just one: that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.  He and his students determined the average population of Bethlehem from the time of Micah, who made the prophecy, to the present; then they divided it by the average population of the earth during the same period.   They concluded that the chance of any one man being born in Bethlehem was one in 2.8 x 10exp5 or about one in 300,000.  After examining only eight different prophecies which they could actually quantify, they conservatively estimated that the chance of one man fulfilling all eight prophecies was one in 10exp17.  Ten to the seventeenth is not a number many people can deal with.  10exp17 seconds is 3 trillion years.  Take 10exp17 silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas.  They will cover all of the state two feet deep.  Now mark one of these silver dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state.  Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one.  What chance would he have of getting the right one?  Just the same chance that the prophets had of writing just these eight prophecies and having them all come true in any one man, from their day to the present time.  Read that again.  That certainly puts things in perspective.

In financial terms, is there anyone who would not invest in a financial venture if the chance of failure were only one in 10exp17?  This is the surety of the investment we are offered by God.

But wait.  We are talking about just 8 prophesies.  There are 456 prophesies dealing with the Messiah, all fulfilled.  In another calculation, Stoner used 48 prophecies and arrived at the extremely conservative estimate that the probability of 48 prophecies being fulfilled in one person is 10exp157.  Now we are talking astronomical magnitudes.

But wait again.  There are about 2,000 prophecies already fulfilled.  Those odds are entirely too huge to even comprehend.  Emile Borel postulated, in Borel’s Law, that anything past 10exp50, is never going to happen no matter how long you wait.

Mathematically, anyone who rejects Jesus as the Christ is rejecting a fact proved more absolutely than any other fact in the world.

One of the strongest arguments for the accuracy of the Bible is its 100% accuracy in predicting the future. The Old Testament was written between approximately 1450 BC and 430 BC. During that time, many predictions of the future were recorded in the Bible. Of the events that were to have taken place by now, every one happened just the way they predicted it would. No other sacred writing has such perfectly accurate predictions of the future.  There is no other book, ancient or modern, like this. The vague, and usually erroneous, prophecies of people like Jeanne Dixon, Nostradamus, Edgar Cayce, and others like them are not even in the same category, and neither are other religious books such as the Koran, the Confucian Analects, or similar religious writings.

The Proof of Science

A great deal of scientific evidence supports the accuracy of the Bible: paleontology, astronomy, meteorology, biology, anthropology, hydrology, geology, physics, mathematics, and cosmology.

Nearly 25,000 archeological sites have been discovered which pertain to the Bible.  Even though archeology does not prove spiritual truth, archeological confirmation is amazing evidence of the accuracy of the Bible.  Archeologists consider the Bible a very accurate source.  It wasn’t always so and some would doubt the Bible based upon archeology.  For example, what about the Hittites?  The Bible has Hittites but none existed!  Well, at least not until 1876 when Hugo Winckler unearthed Hattusha, the ancient Hittite capital.  Five temples, a fortified castle, and 10,000 clay tablets.   Yes, we had lots of Hittites.  Another piece of evidence was added to the ever-growing mass of facts verifying the Bible’s accuracy.

And then there was Sargon, King of Assyria. Isaiah said: “In the year that Tartan came to Ashdod, when Sargon the King of Assyria sent him, and he fought against Ashdod and took it.”  Oops, no record of Sargon from the Assyrian Empire.  In fact, a well-known list of Assyrian kings completely omits Sargon  But in 1843, Paul Emile Botta began searching for ancient bricks with cuneiform writing on them. Not only did he find the bricks, he made one of the most magnificent finds in archaeological history.  Buried under the entire side of a hill stood the remains of King Sargon’s palace. This palace was of such size that it has been described as “probably the most significant palace the world has ever seen, covering an area of more than twenty-five acres.” Among the ruins, Sargon left numerous inscriptions detailing his military conquests. Not the least among those inscriptions was a particularly revealing inscription discussing his actions against Ashod, the very city mentioned in Isaiah 20:1.

When I realized the scope of Archeological proof, I simply accepted it as it is far too voluminous to digest in my remaining lifetime.

Sir Isaac Newton looked through his telescope and saw God.  Contemporary cosmologists have been at odds with the Biblical creation and any deity behind it.  God simply hadn’t revealed much of that science.  Then, He dropped the Hubbel on us.  Now cosmologists are claiming the universe came from nothing and was accomplished in an instant with supernatural precision.  Christians are sitting back saying, “told you so.”

Stephen Hawking says: “It would be very difficult to explain why the universe should have begun in just this way, except as the act of a God who intended to create beings like us.”  The discovery of this degree of design in the universe is having a profound theological impact on astronomers.  Hoyle said that “a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology.”  Davies has moved from promoting atheism to concluding that “the laws of physics… seem themselves to be the product of exceedingly ingenious design.”  And, “there is for me powerful evidence that there is something going on behind it all…. It seems as though somebody has fine-tuned nature’s numbers to make the Universe…. The impression of design is overwhelming.”

Astronomer George Greenstein, in his book The Symbiotic Universe, “As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency - or, rather, Agency - must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being?  Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?”

Vera Kistiakowsky, MIT physicist and past president of the Association of Women in Science, commented, “The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine.”  Arno Penzias, who shared the Nobel prize for physics for the discovery of the cosmic background radiation, said, “Astronomy leads us to a unique event, a universe which was created out of nothing, one with the very delicate balance needed to provide exactly the conditions required to permit life, and one which has an underlying, one might say supernatural, plan.

Hawking and Penrose’s colleague George Ellis made the following statement in a paper delivered at the Second Venice Conference on Cosmology and Philosophy: “Amazing fine-tuning occurs in the laws that make this complexity possible. Realization of the complexity of what is accomplished makes it very difficult not to use the word “miraculous” without taking a stand as to the ontological status of that word.”

Cosmologist Edward Harrison says, “Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God - the design argument of Paley - updated and refurbished.  The fine-tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design.  Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one…. Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument.”

Allan Sandage, winner of the Crafoord prize in astronomy, remarked,  “I find it quite improbable that such order came out of chaos. There has to be some organizing principle.  God to me is a mystery but is the explanation for the miracle of existence, why there is something instead of nothing.”  Robert Griffiths, who won the Heinemann prize in mathematical physics, observed, “If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to the philosophy department. The physics department isn’t much use.”

Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow, a self-proclaimed agnostic, best described what has happened to his colleagues, “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream.  He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Could it be any other way?  We are simply discovering what God did.  The more we learn, the tighter it fits.

I’m amazed, and somewhat ashamed, that I need so much proof.  Evolution argument?  Child’s play.  Think much bigger.  I’m sitting here with no apparent motion, other than a little rocking from fishing till dark in 5′ seas, yet I’m revolving at 900 miles per hour as I rotate the sun at 90 miles per second while the sun is moving one million miles a day through a galaxy of over 100 billion suns that is 100,000 light years wide and 18,000 light years thick as things are whizzing out of my screen at 12 million miles per second hitting the back of my eye that wouldn’t be here except by the planning of God.  Yeah, explain that without a God.  How silly to step out this evening, see it all first hand, and still seek more proof.

The Proof of Literature

Both the Old and New Testaments are strongly supported by manuscript evidence (the evidence of early hand written copies). The Dead Sea Scrolls are one example of the Old Testament evidence. These documents came from the library of a settlement founded at Qumran before 150 B.C. and abandoned about 68 A.D. Some of the manuscript copies were made during that period, and some were written earlier (third century BC) and brought to the settlement.  Ignoring spelling changes the Dead Sea Scrolls match the Hebrew text behind today’s Old Testament, in spite of the passage of over 2,000 years.

Over 24,000 known manuscripts document the New Testament text.  This makes the New Testament the most reliable document of any document written before the printing press.  These manuscripts vary in size from a part of a page to an entire Bible.  The earliest New Testament manuscripts date from the second century (100-199) AD.  These manuscript copies were written in different languages by people of different nationalities, cultures, and backgrounds.  In spite of all those differences between them, the New Testament texts all agree.   In comparison, the second most available ancient manuscripts are from Homer’s Iliad, for which there are 643 manuscript copies, while most ancient documents have fewer than 25 existing copies.

Important is the time interval between the actual events, the date of writing, and the earliest known manuscript copy. For the Bible, manuscript copies or portions thereof exist that were written within 35 to 160 years after the originals. Recent dating of one manuscript of a portion of the Gospel of Matthew, the Magdalen text, suggests that it was written in about A.D. 50: only 17 years after the crucifixion of Christ. If these findings hold up, it means that the Gospel of Mark, which predates the Matthew Gospel, was written as early as A.D. 40: only seven years after the crucifixion.

The interval between the historical events and the written evidence is far better for the New Testament than any other ancient manuscript. For example, the first account of Buddha’s life was written 700 years after his death. The earliest copy of Caesar’s works is 950 years after being written, and the earliest available copy of Plato’s works is dated 1250 years after the original. Yet we do not question the authority of these other works.

Even more impressive is the degree of textual variance in existing copies. Considering the enormous number of ancient New Testament manuscripts, there are only nominal differences in the various copies. The data for the New Testament is phenomenal.

Further support for the Bible comes from the fact that events of the New Testament are supported by writings outside the Bible. Corroboration is available from several secular and Jewish historians of antiquity such as Tacitus, Suetonius, Pliny the Younger, Epictetus, Lucian, Aristides, Josephus, etc.

In addition to its being externally verified, significant further evidence of its reliability is the internally consistent nature of the Bible. It is truly an amazingly consistent document. The messages of approximately 40 different writers of the 66 books of the Bible, written over 1,500 years, in three different languages, all fit together like the pieces of a giant jigsaw puzzle. There is one continual theme throughout—God’s plan of salvation from sin won for the whole world by the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This consistency itself attests to the miracle of this book.

Its mere endurance speaks for itself. For thousands of years people have explored every nook and cranny of the Bible. Alleged difficulties have been systematically answered. Upon examination, there are no errors or contradictions.  It is a miracle in and of itself.

In addition to hard evidence, there are some observations that point me inextricably to God.  First is the grounds of the testimony of Jesus Christ himself.  Also the harmonious unity of the Book.  The fact that it is victorious over every conceivable attack.   The inexhaustible depth and influence of the Book.  Compare countries without Bibles to countries with Bibles.  Interesting.  I am also attracted by the character of those who accept and reject the Book and by the immeasurable superiority of the teachings.

This is my summary of why I choose to be a universal traveler on a phenomenal spiritual adventure.

What’s the next quest for truth?  The obstacle to the impact of God is not lack of answers but our failure to live them.  I had a friend who questioned the supernatural aspect of any spiritual conversion.  He insisted that conversion was nothing more than a decision to lead a more ethical life and was not any different among any ethical religions.  But then he said something that cut to the bone: “If this conversion is truly supernatural, why is it not more evident in the lives of so many Christians I know?”

Forget about any fundamental flaws in the evolutionary model such as violation of the second law, sheer complexity of DNA, and no record of a genetic mutation ever causing an improvement.  Let’s just look at some numbers.  No biology.  No chemistry.  Just math.

Emile Borel is a famous mathematician and one of the world’s foremost experts on mathematical probability.  Borel’s law states that the occurrence of any event, where the chances are beyond 1 in 10 to the fiftieth  power, is an event that we can be certain will never happen no matter how much time is allotted and no matter how many conceivable opportunities could exist for the event to take place.  To put that in perspective, 10 to the fiftieth seconds is well over 3 trillion years.

Harold Morowitz is a former professor of Biophysics at Yale University.  He estimated the probability of formation of the smallest, simplest living organism to be 1 in 10 to the 340 millionth power.  I don’t know if he’s even close but he’s an expert and he’s infinitely less probable than what Borel says is already a mathematical impossibility.  If you do the math, anyone who accepts the theory of evolution as fact must, by definition, believe in miracles.

If we are going to accept violation of the second law to account for formation of a living cell, how much more likely would be the formation of simple inanimate objects like metal spoons.  Mathematically, there would be a complete, randomly formed Walmart on every corner long before we even get close to the probability of a living cell.

Just because we believe something doesn’t make it true.  What does math say about God?  Is Jesus who the Bible says he is?  In the Old Testament, many people, from many different places, at many different times gave us recorded prophecies about the coming Messiah.   Christ fulfilled well over 300 old testament prophecies.  These events are often recorded by multiple historical sources outside the text of the Bible.  The odds of a single man fulfilling just any 48 of the prophecies is 1 in 10 to the one hundred fifty seventh power.  Impossible by random chance.  It’s no accident.  He is who he said he is.

Oh dear, my $300,000 home isn’t worth as much as I wish it was.  Crisis is living in a cardboard box in the middle of the African desert, eating mud cookies for breakfast and watching your children dye from diarrhea.  Nothing in America remotely qualifies as a crisis.  Temporary inconvenience at worst.  But, “temporary inconvenience” doesn’t attract many radio listeners.  Thus, we make catastrophic sensationalism and pretend we have it so bad.

Reagan inherited an economy from Carter that was, by most measures, worse than the current one.  He had a stimulus package of his own:  he cut taxes and spent like a drunk sailor.  Record deficit.  He passed the consequences on to Bush #1 whom it crumbled.  The difference between his package and Obama’s is who gets the first tier money.  With Reagan, it was defense, star wars, a bust superconducting supercollider, and enough pork to gag Jimmy Dean.  But, he had an “R” after his name so we were happy and optimistic.

Now, same tune, second verse but because the Pilot has a “D” after his name, we’re shaking in our boots to the point we get stupid and wish for failure.  I don’t care if the President is a one-legged Eskimo named Yamamoto.  I hope beyond hope that whatever he is doing works.  I don’t have a monopoly on effective government and let’s not forget that it was my fellow Republicans, over the past eight years, that added another trillion to the debt, failed miserably with the February 2008 bail-out, and steered us to this mess in the first place.  Is it any wonder that the country is not terribly interested in what they have to say at this point?

Oh no, you say, “Clinton caused this financial mess.”  Actually, it was our own Republican
Senator from Texas, Phil Graham, who slipped a 262 page amendment into the omnibus appropriations bill;  the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.  The essence of the act was the deregulation of derivatives trading (financial instruments whose value changes in response to the changes in underlying variables; the main use of derivatives is to reduce risk for one party).  The legislation contained a provision, lobbied for by Enron, a major campaign contributor to Graham, that exempted energy trading from regulatory oversight. Basically, it gave way to the Enron debacle and ushered in the new era of unregulated securities.  Graham’s wife, Wendy, had been part of the Enron board, and her salary and stock income brought in between $900,000 and $1.8 million to the Graham family prior to the passage of the Commodity Futures Modernization Act.  The Act also eliminated a tremendous amount of regulatory oversight in addition to Enron’s energy trading.  It also undid the Glass-Steagall Act and set the stage for the collapse of the predatory capitalist mega-banks and mortgage companies.

It’s time to quit our pathetic panic whining and realize we screwed up.  Let’s give someone else a chance to do better.

Let’s consider the first tier stimulus recipients.  For stimulating the general economy, it matters little who gets the money directly from the fed.  Whomever gets it turns it quickly and it explodes through the economy.  When I get a fat check, I pay my contractors and suppliers, who pay theirs, who pay theirs, and the whole amount explodes through the economy all the way to the bottom of the economic food chain in a matter of days.  Other businesses are exactly the same: whether it’s Lockheed building Reagan’s space ray guns, your local school district wiring buildings for internet, or some landscape company re-sodding the mall.  Stimulus packages have worked, for this very reason, since the Biblical days of  Caesar Augustus.

The nice thing about this one is that the first tier recipients can actually do something for me.  It’s mostly infrastructure that I am connected to: roads, bridges, educational capital investment, medical procedures, etc.  Sure, there is other people’s pork we think is a waste.  Just don’t eliminate my pork.  Let’s not forget the prime objective is creating jobs and, in that light, sodding the mall could quickly be very effective.   The first tier recipients are doing things we need done.

Some of us want an exalted nation and prayed for a righteous leader because God says that is what it takes.  We got a saved, baptized believer who isn’t the least bit bashful about sharing his testimony and his daily prayer for revelation of God’s will in his life.  What are we afraid of?  The radio talking heads have us so worried about tomorrow that we can’t enjoy today.  My God is bigger than any economic mess and bigger than Rush.  My God is also Obama’s God.  To me, that is more important than party affiliation.  “Don’t be anxious about tomorrow.  God will take care of your tomorrow too”,  Matthew somewhere.

If they can’t speak the language, the are socially and economically dysfunctional.  They are marginally employable and will be forever victims of the American dream.  Imagine being in a foreign country where you cannot speak, read, or write.  You better be proficient at charades.

As sad as this is for the illiterate Mexicans and Mexican-Americans, it does have its bright side.  For loose change found in my couch, I can hire one of these pseudo citizens and have my weeds pulled, my driveway swept, and the dog turds plucked from my backyard.  Gracias.  Mucho Gracias.  If these guys have to learn English, they can get real jobs and I’ll have to pick up the turds myself.  Yo no quiero eso.

So, be happy about the bi-lingual subtitles.  They promote a steady supply of dirt cheap unskilled labor with no hope of breaking the mold.  Shop at stores with bi-lingual signage and, by all means, join LULAC and help maintain Mexican-American functional illiteracy.

Seriously now, take a piece of paper and make two columns:  one for McCain and one for Obama.  Under each candidate, answer the following questions.  Don’t guess.  Write only what you are sure of.  Put a question mark when you don’t know or are unsure.

How much less tax will you personally pay in 2009 under McCain?  Under Obama?  Projected 4-year change in deficit spending under McCain?  Under Obama?  Projected 4-year increase in national debt?  Projected troop reduction as of June, 2009?  First year cost of economic stimulus package?  Projected 4-year change in military spending?  Favor of Fascist Corporatism for economic bail-outs?  Favor of intelligent design theory?  Does proposed healthcare plan allow free second opinions?  Proposed 4-year change in border security funding?  Support of gay marriage ban amendment?  Believes sexual orientation is not relevant?

That’s a lot of question marks.  We are pathetically uninformed.  What little we do “know” is too often only opinions from other people who don’t know much more than we do.  When my Sunday school class did this exercise, the only two answers, that were not question marks, were in the wrong columns!

Way too often, we are influenced by outright lies presented as fact.  All too often, these lies clog my inbox and are from a long list of forwarding Christians.

False witness is serious business. Serious enough to be number nine of the ten commandments.

Did you get the latest email about “Obama explains national anthem stance” on meet the press?  Refusal to salute the flag, rewriting the national anthem, changing the flag design, he and Michelle attending several flag burnings, etc.?

Wow, that is pathetic.  I must forward that to everyone on my email list!  We must expose this!  I suppose liberals get similar lies about McCain but the hate mail I receive is about Obama so I’ll use this as a typical example.

The problem is, the Meet the Press gig didn’t even happen. Obama was not there. Guests that day were Tom Friedman and Joe Biden. This email began more simply in October of 2007, nearly a year before the fictional broadcast. The lies to include Meet the Press and General Ginn were embellished recently. Second, there is no Dale Lindsborg, the alleged author, at the Post. It takes all of 90 seconds to figure this out.  The email is totally bogus slander.  Lies.  False witness.

This whole thing was started by a photo taken at an Iowa political event where Obama had his hands folded in front of him while others on the platform had their hand over their heart. What the photo didn’t tell you was that the anthem and flag ceremony hadn’t started yet.  That didn’t stop the lying Christians.  They had a photo and that’s all they needed.

While this picture was making the rounds (October, 2007), political columnist John Semmens, a political satirist at the Arizona Conservative, wrote parody about it in his “Semi-News” page  (http://azconservative.org/Semmens118.htm).  He wrote a mock explanation making up the obviously false quotes.  Humor.  Someone read it, it fit their agenda, and they started an untrue email campaign presenting it as genuine statements from Obama. It is, and always has been, political humor. Other spoofs in that Semmens page included mandates requiring employers to distribute free fruit in the workplace, distribution of contraceptives to 11 year old girls because of the Lewinksy episode, fines for obese people who order high calorie meals at restaurants, and “opening our borders and extending a welcome to the teeming masses yearning for the free education and free health care that our wealthy country owes them.”

Obvious satire.  Presenting it as fact is bearing false witness.  Forwarding that email, as fact, is bearing false witness.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40).  If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).  God didn’t say VOTE for Obama. He very explicitly said LOVE Obama just as we love ourselves and just as God loves us.

Spreading false witness is not love. It tells the world that our faith is merely situational and we choose to love what is convenient and choose to slander what is not.  It does nothing for our great commission and only makes us look foolish and ignorant.  I can look foolish and be ignorant quite well all by myself and don’t need the help of anti-so-and-so zealots.

“A truthful witness does not deceive, but a false witness pours out lies” (Prov. 14:5).
“The righteous hate what is false, but the wicked bring shame and disgrace” (Prov. 13:5)

The world sees the truth and we are not part of it.  The world sees the hypocricy and it is us.   Our children see our example and imitate us.

Instead, why are we not celebrating our generous gift of democracy?  No party has a monopoly on good policy and we all agree we could use a deeper pool of constructive ideas.  Our nation has problems but it’s far from falling apart.  Other countries can only dream of conditions as good as our crises.   We are passionate, and critical, because we have tasted what freedom and democracy can cause and are challenged to perpetuate and expand them.  What foreigners see as a country of spoiled whiners is actually a nation intent on improvement.  If we allow our passion to become anger, we lose focus, we lose progress, and we eventually lose our country.

As we vote for the candidate most politically like us, what are we really after?  We will never agree with everyone on everything but the common goal is an exalted nation.  We want a leader to lead us to exalted nation status.  “Righteousness exalts a nation” (Prov. 14:34).  “A throne is established by righteousness” (Prov. 16:12).  In my human viewpoint, I’ve been looking in the wrong place.  I was worried about tax policy, foreign policy, economic stimulus, and VP qualifications.   From a divine viewpoint, I should be looking for righteousness.  A candidate tuned in to God is always going to be the better choice.  Not just a Christian, but a man who seriously seeks God’s will.

What is a righteous man?  “John came to you to show you the way of righteousness”  (Matt, 21:32).  “The righteous will live by faith” (Romans 1:17).  “This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ” (Romans 3:22).

God’s choice is the righteous candidate.  Not the perfect candidate.  Not one over another because there is an “R” or a “D” after their name.  He wants the one tuned in to Him.  The one He can work with.

How do we know a righteous man?   Our hearts are known by our actions.  But, in a political campaign, the clowns will tell us whatever we want to hear whenever it is convenient for getting another vote.  Personally, I ignore what others say about them and look directly at what they say and write.  Preferably, what they say and write before the campaign starts.

In this election, we do have a clear choice regarding righteousness.   Consider these quotes and writings of our two candidates, with names omitted, and see if a righteous one emerges:

When asked pointedly, “is Jesus Christ your personal savior?”, candidate responded, “I am a man of faith. I have deep religious beliefs and values.”  Righteous or not?  I don’t hear “yes” and Bin Laden also has faith and deep religious beliefs and values.

“And during the course of that sermon, he introduced me to someone named Jesus Christ. I learned that my sins could be redeemed. I learned that those things I was too weak to accomplish myself, He would accomplish with me if I placed my trust in Him. And in time, I came to see faith as more than just a comfort to the weary or a hedge against death, but rather as an active, palpable agent in the world and in my own life. It was because of these newfound understandings that I was finally able to walk down the aisle one day and affirm my Christian faith. It came about as a choice, and not an epiphany. I didn’t fall out in church, as folks sometimes do. The questions I had didn’t magically disappear. The skeptical bent of my mind didn’t suddenly vanish. But kneeling beneath that cross, I heard God’s spirit beckoning me. I submitted myself to His will, and dedicated myself to discovering His truth and carrying out His works.”  Righteous or not?

Regarding baptism, one candidate says “I’ve been in discussions with Pastor _____, and we’ll continue those discussions.”  Righteous or not?

“It means I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and that I am redeemed through Him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis. I know that I don’t walk alone. But what it also means, I think, is a sense of obligation to embrace not just words, but also through deeds and expectations that God has for us. And that means thinking about the least of these - acting justly, loving mercy and walking humbly with our God.”  Righteous or not?

Righteousness exalts a nation.

Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert. However, it can be detected, because it impedes every reaction with which it comes into contact. A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over four days to complete, when it would normally take less than a second. Governmentium has a normal half-life of 4 years; it does not decay, but instead undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neutrons exchange places. In fact, Governmentium’s mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization will cause more morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron promotion leads some scientists to believe that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass. When catalyzed with money, Governmentium becomes Administratium - an element which radiates just as much energy as Governmentium since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons.

There is something you are not being told.  This is getting out of hand and it’s time someone spoiled the fun.  Odd as it may seem, I’m one of the few people in the world who have modeled radiant energy in the atmosphere and conducted empirical research to back it up.  (Radiant Cooling to the Night Sky, 1982).  Global warming is a function of the greenhouse effect.  Here’s how it works as briefly as I can make it.

Every object radiates energy and the wavelength of that radiation depends on the temperature of the body.  Hot stuff, like the sun, radiates in short wavelengths which, in the case of the sun or the very hot filament of a light bulb, or a lightening strike, our eyes can see.  Cooler stuff radiates at longer wavelengths and we can’t see it.  Many materials are transparent at some wavelengths and opaque at others.  Glass, for example, is transparent in the visible spectrum but opaque in the 8-12 micron wavelength which is where stuff the temperature of the Earth radiate.  In a greenhouse, visible light from the sun, at a short wavelength, goes right through the glass and heats up the soil and plants.  The soil and plants, because of their Earthly temperature, radiate at a longer frequency and the glass is opaque at that frequency so radiant energy does not escape and the greenhouse gets hot.

Easy enough.  No glass on the Earth but the atmosphere has a host of components that keep radiation from escaping.  The only one we hear about is CO2.  Yep, it is opaque to the critical wavelengths.  Holds heat in real well.  Even though CO2 levels have increased 5% over the past 10 years, there just isn’t enough of it to have much more effect than atmospheric dust.  The biggest problem with CO2 is that it doesn’t correlate with temperature.  That is, an increase in one does not cause a corresponding increase in the other.  They are not related.  Go measure it yourself.  I did.  Graph it and it looks like a shotgun blast.  No correlation at all.

All the greenhouse gases combined, even with atmospheric dust, don’t make doodly squat difference in trapping terrestrial radiation and causing a greenhouse effect.  One single chemical, all by itself, accounts for 75% of atmospheric attenuation contributing to a greenhouse effect and it correlates extremely well with surface temperature.  Go measure it yourself.  I have.

Before we expose the real menace to the Earth’s greenhouse effect, let’s look at what some smart people say about temperature.  Not pandering politicians.  Not quasi-scientist with an agenda.  Not a programmed tree-hugger.  Atmospheric radiant balance IS rocket science.  Let’s ask a real rocket scientist.  I pick Dr. Phil Chapman, M.I.T. staff physicist, NASA astronaut, and Apollo 14’s Mission Scientist.  Yeah, he’ll do just fine.  “Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of CO2, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.”  Chapman, and others, noticed the very close correlation with sunspot activity and terrestrial temperature.  Ok, but I want to talk to the guys that actually hold the thermometers.  NASA measured 2007 Arctic sea ice at 772,000 square miles more than the last three years’ average.  They also measured it 4-8 inches thicker.  Denmark’s Meteorological Institute stated, “We have to go back 15 years to find ice expansion so far south.”  Not exactly “melting planet” rhetoric.  The University of Alabama’s data from satellites launched in 1979 show a warming trend of a quarter of a degree per decade.  True.  But, the part the media leaves out is the next sentence: “This warmth peaked in 1998 and the temperature trend the last decade has been flat even as CO2 has increased 5.5%.  Cooling began in 2002 and, over the past six years, global temperatures from satellite and land temperature gauges have cooled 0.22 degrees.”  NOAA ocean buoys have recorded the same cooling since their deployment in 2003.

So, what is the single greenhouse gas that is responsible for 75% of the atmospheric greenhouse effect?  Hydric acid.  Dihydrous Monoxide.  DHMO.  Whichever name you choose to call it, the vapor form of this chemical accounts for 75% of our greenhouse effect.  Go measure it yourself.  I did (Proceedings - Seventh National Passive Solar Conference).  It’s out of control.  It now pollutes virtually every body of water on Earth and corporations continue to dump as much as they want directly into our domestic water supplies.  The US military has spent billions of dollars trying to contain it.  There are plans for a $54 million containment facility just 15 miles from my home.  Even brief exposure to its solid form causes severe tissue damage.  It is no safer in it’s liquid form; killing thousands every year and destroying acre upon acre of wetlands habitat.  Ingestion symptoms include bloating, excessive urination, and vomiting.  It is found in pesticides, domestic poisons, excised tumors from terminal cancer patients, and fire retardants.  Al Gore says it poses no threat and does not consider it’s 75% contribution to global warming to be as significant as CO2’s 11%.

If only “ifs” and “buts” were candy and nuts?

Yeah, I screw up. If only, if only, if only. If only I could do over. If only I had figured it out sooner. If only I would have seen it coming. If only I could undo it. If only I could get past it.

We all do regrettable things. For starters, we hurt others, we hurt ourselves, we make the wrong choices (often premeditated), we say things we regret, we waste our time, we let the important things drift, we do foolish things.

It’s a given: we make mistakes and we will make many more. What do we do about them? Well, if nobody really noticed it, why not just bury ‘em. Like when we harden our heart and give that self-righteous look to the man outside the convenience store with hair on his face, surly dreadlocks, and shame in his eyes, begging for some change. We walk by like he’s not there and think “get a job, slob.” Just tell yourself it’s no big deal. Minimize it into oblivion. After all, everybody does it. Rationalize it into oblivion. Why should you be the one to help this bum? Just lower your standards and go on. It’s not your responsibility in the first place.

It doesn’t matter what the regret is or how important it is: slouching at work, screaming at the kids, or little white lies to your spouse. Burying it won’t fix it and it won’t make it go away. Unresolved regrets come back to haunt us like Jason Voorhees. You never know when or where but the zombies are always buried just beneath our skin. Repression is a polluted way to live. To misquote the Bard, your insides become a “festering canker blossom.”

Let’s try something else to release our regrets. Let’s just blame others. What could be simpler? And, it works; sort of. At least it’s well rooted in history. When Adam took that egregious bite in the garden of Eden, he took it manly and immediately blamed his wife. It didn’t work for him and it hasn’t worked for anyone else either. When I screw up, it’s just about me. Deflecting it to someone else may get me through the day but I still sleep with guilt. Cindy and I have few rules but one is never go to sleep with anger, regrets, or unresolved problems. We’ve had some late nights but, when we do this, little things aren’t allowed to grow and we always wake up with a clear conscience. Pick milestones in your daily schedule and draw the line. Fix mistakes at work before you go home. Make everything right with your kids before you put them to bed. Release regrets with your spouse before you go to sleep.

Oh, poor me. If we can’t bury our regrets and we can’t just blame others, why not just blame ourselves. Oh, poor me. I must beat myself up. I can pay for my guilt with depression, self-punishment, setting myself up to fail, and even through sickness. How many Hail-Mary’s is this going to take? It’s a subconscious response we may not even realize. Self-condemnation is so convenient. All I need are prescription drugs, alcohol, and razor blades. Ok, maybe with a mix of burying regrets and deflecting regrets to others, I can leave the razor blades off the list. We can waste decades paralyzed in self condemnation. How do you know when you’ve punished yourself enough? The guilt doesn’t go away by just blaming ourselves.

As usual, our human viewpoint won’t get us where we want to go. We are not free until we fix our regrets with man AND God. With boogers at work, it can be as simple as a little overtime. With people, it can be as simple as a sincere apology. If you’ve done some big-time damage, it can take dedicated effort over time to repair what you’ve messed up. Nobody said it would be easy. It takes character.

With God, it is so simple we try to make it hard. “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us of all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). Hey! Cleansing is what I want. I accept my regrets, quit making excuses, and turn the condition over to God. “People who cover over their sins will not prosper. But if they confess and forsake them, they will receive mercy” (Proverbs 28:13). Confessing is such an elegant solution. “Forsaking” can take concentration, effort, and time, but it causes happiness and I’m all about that. Throughout the Bible we are told to do something in order to receive something. Believe in Jesus and receive eternal life in heaven. Love God and receive blessings. Have faith and receive strength. Confess and receive mercy and forgiveness. God is ready; willing, and able to clean our slate. All we have to do is ask and accept. Don’t let pride get in the way of asking and don’t let our human viewpoint get in the way a accepting. You have to do both. “there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). If you don’t belong to Christ, you’re on your own so keep right on denying it, passing the buck, and punishing yourself because that’s all you’ve got. If you do belong to Christ, accept His forgiveness and mercy, forgive yourself, right your wrongs, and focus on the future. Do all these things and wake up with a clear conscious and free spirit everyday. “Do not remember the past events, pay no attention to things of old. Look, I am about to do something new; even now it is coming. Do you not see it? Indeed, I will make a way in the wilderness, rivers in the desert” (Isaiah 43:18-19).