camel eye

There probably is a God.  He is not threatened by the theory of evolution.  In fact, you can say He is proven by the theory of evolution: so long as those impressionable young minds are taught probability and statistics along with the single cell from cosmic ooze idea.

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.

When your flight hits turbulence and starts to bounce, you don’t tear up your ticket and jump off.  You trust the pilot.  So why are we right wingers now having conniption fits?

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.

Ring ring.  Apriete uno para español (press one for spanish).  Americans get torqued, “those Mexicans should learn the language!”  There oughta be a law!  Whoa, let’s think about this.  With LULAC campaigning for bi-lingual government documents, Walmart blasting us with bi-lingual signage, other big boxes following suite, bi-lingual public schools, and Mexican sub-titles everywhere you look, we are promoting a sub-culture of non-English speaking misfits.  Rather than requiring everyone to learn the language, get it over with, and become productive and upwardly mobile, we encourage a large mentally impaired class by prolonging and accommodating racial illiteracy.

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.

Point seven of Jim’s healthcare reform measures:  let plaintiff attorneys run the ambulance services.  They are already chasing them and transportation would be free to the consumer (on a contingency basis).

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.