Category Archives: Uncategorized

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The first and last day of my prayer challenge.

“If ye ask anything in my name, I will do it” – John 14:14

“Therefore I say unto you, what things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.” – Mark 11:24

I’m participating in this weeks 2nd most popular Facebook topic to conduct an experiment. For the number one most popular thing I see is in regards to the lottery now passing $500 million dollars.

I aim to combine them in an experiment that should last no more then a day.

Thanks for playing along.

Seventy percent of America believes in God, about 30% are dedicated Christians that adhere to the standards laid out by what they believe to be are the earthly spiritual leaders of God Himself.   This is in spite  of the fact that there does not appear to be a uniform standard even though they all share the same “infallible” text books. If the quoted scriptures above are true – and they are the literal unshakable word of God, then logic dictates that about 20% to 30% of our population should have drawn the same winning lottery numbers tonight and will share equally in God answering their prayers.

If instead, God is supremely prejudicial in answering prayers, then the most devout, the one with the most sincere prayers and the one who has lived a most deserved life will become a very rich person while all others will be subjugated to being valued members of a his infantile children’s club.

If instead a third outcome takes place and some one off group or individual wins the lottery who other then the tribal response to such things, lets out a “thank you Jesus!”, then one of two things will have happened. Either the scriptures are not the literal word of God or God is a liar.

If either of those two outcomes make you feel uncomfortable, there is a third option. In contrast to Genesis, we made God in our own image to serve our own needs and to make ourselves feel good.

Nearly every fight for equality in this country has found its most staunch and arbitrary resistance in biblical reference throughout our history. This has been reinforced by the false interpretation that we where founded as a Christian nation much as modern Iran was founded to be an Islamic nation. We, America, was not and the founding fathers went to some lengths to annotate that fact for posterity while being somewhat encumbered by a lack of literary vernacular, historically removed far enough from clutches of centuries of church based rule.

As we are now coming to mandate the teaching of creationism with absolutely no foundation save for the “literal word of God” in our classrooms, we should pause. As we continue to deny sexual equality for no other reason save for the literal interpretation of a few cherry picked old testament passages that lie in conflict with the New Testament, we should pause.

There is no historical precedent for the faithful having any form of edge in picking winning lottery numbers, just as there are exceptionally few incredibly wealthy and retired fortune tellers.

We should use caution when applying doctrine as justification for law. While there are a number of anecdotal stories of relevance, there are no infallible truths in the bible. The earth is not flat, it never flooded, it is older than six thousand years, and Adam and Eve were not the origin of mankind.

I’ll not deny the benefit of prayer as an indirect tool in living less mindlessly. If praying about winning the lottery makes you more mindful of your budget and the value of charity – great. But I refute unequivocally the suggestion that a magical extraterrestrial mystery dude is going to help anyone win the lottery – or answer a single prayer.   Ever.

Tonight we find out.

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Why Did So Many People Fail to Vote in 2014?

I posted this on Facebook but I thought it might be fun to post this here to help get the ball rolling. Any thoughts about why so many Americans refused to vote in 2014?

My takeaway from the 2014 general election? Both parties (but especially the Democrats) should be embarrassed at total voter turnout. Looks like roughly 36% of registered Indiana voters turned out, the lowest turnout in the country. Maine led the way with a scorching 59.3% turnout (I say that in jest). 50% of Floridians voted (I just heard that on NPR) and roughly half of those came from early voting.

So winning an election made up of less then 50% of registered American voters should really give pause to everyone involved. Are the results even legitimate (I know mechanically they are)? Heck, Gallop noted before the election that 27% of the people planned NOT to vote all before the election! And then another additional 23% or so also failed to turn out.

Does that make anyone feel good about our process, our fellow Americans or our government? Not me. I get the idea that if you don’t vote you lose your ability to bitch. But I think it is also safe to say (and accurate) that so many folks are just so turned off on the choices and our process that they do have that they feel like voting has no impact at all. That is my guess at least as I know Americans work harder then anyone in the world (so I DON’T think it is being lazy).

“Moreover, the 41% of U.S. adults saying they have given “quite a lot” or “some” thought to this year’s election is the lowest Gallup has recorded on the eve of any of the last six midterms. The 58% saying they are absolutely certain they will vote ties with 1998 for the lowest….The clearest indication that turnout will be lower than four years ago is that more than a quarter of U.S. adults — 27% — say they do not plan to vote in this year’s election, up from 20% in 2010. This does not mean that all others will in fact vote, but it is a useful metric to gauge relative turnout across elections.”
http://www.gallup.com/poll/179147/voters-especially-independents-lack-interest-election.aspx

http://bluenationreview.com/2014-saw-lowest-voter-turnout-since-1940/

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While visions of sugar plumbs danced in their heads…

By the time you read this, perhaps the most successful of all spacecraft programs will have returned to earth for the third time after an unprecedented and flawlessly combined 1700 days in orbit with three return trips to our home world before commandeering all of Cape Canaveral.

Yes I am talking about the super classified X-37B.

What we know as the space shuttle program was gross attempt at a 37,000 unique heat shield tile prototype for a reusable heavy lift vehicle. It’s only sustaining grace was the human crew capacity.

A year after the shuttle program was cancelled, the X-37B was into its 2nd test flight of more than 600 days. No humans on board and absolute precision to execute the electronic orders sent to it.

Given that it has a Geo-stationary lift capability greater then the cargo space of any Toyota Pickup truck in production, it kind of makes you wonder how it has been complimenting the NSA (its stated mission during Bush II).

For the curious, it lands tomorrow night at Edwards AFB for the last time before taking over the recently vacated shuttle’s home in Florida.