American Spirit

I want to change the tone here for just a second. As I look around at all the crap going on the world right now, and specifically, in the United States, it would be easy to throw up my hands and give in and admit that the U.S. is going to become a communist country. However, although in many ways, our government continuously stabs us in the back, I think the vast majority of Americans still believe in the capitalist, American dream that has turned us in to the superpower that we are. I believe that most Americans still want the government to stick to protecting the country, building roads, and policing the streets. Otherwise, they would like the government to stay the heck out of their business! It makes me smile to see Americans thriving even in the economy we have now. Sure we have our pockets of liberals who are crying to the government to bail them out, but most Americans who have lost their jobs look at it as an opportunity to start fresh. Times like these are breeding grounds for innovation. The people who didn't have time to finish planning their life changing invention because they had to go to work everyday, suddenly have all the time in the world. Others who have been trying for years to finish writing that novel will finally get the chance. It really reminds me again of what makes me love the people of this country so much. We don't give up. As bad as things look now, somewhere in the back of our minds we know that all we have to do is keep moving and eventually it will get better. Don't loose hope America, and remember, only through the fire can the gold be refined.

A response on "Bad" words

You can read the post here to which I am responding. This is a great blog by a close friend of mine, I just happen to disagree with him on this issue. I have included here my original comments made on his blog:

While I agree that no word is bad in and of itself, there is a lot of weight put on the words we say in the Bible. We can't say that Jesus said a certain word is bad, because Jesus was speaking a different language while he was on earth and the words would have to be translated to English. I know what you are saying here, and I do think that lots of Christians are hyper sensitive to "bad words" for no more reason than they have been told they are bad, but just like stereotypes, they exist for a reason. Paul says everything is open to us, but not all things are prudent. We can use foul language if we want to, but we need to ask ourselves if that is the way Jesus would have us represent him to the world? I think we should all ask ourselves that a lot more. (please don't run out and buy a bracelet)

I wanted to dig into this a little deeper because I feel strongly that the language we use greatly affects how seriously we are taken as Christians. The main point I want to get across on this issue is that as a Christian we can not, (must not!), think only of ourselves as we live out our lives day to day. We must consider how every choice we make about how we present ourselves will affect the opinion of those around us in respect to our savior Jesus Christ. That was something Jesus was so good at while he was here. He could walk into any dive in any town and speak to the people on their level without belittling them and without participating in anything that would harm his testimony. Obviously, Jesus set the bar very high, but if we are comparing ourselves to anyone else, we are only fooling ourselves. All that to say if there were words in Jesus' day that were considered 'bad' words, I don't believe Jesus would have been using them. If he was hanging out with 'sinners' (as the religious love to call those who don't live up to their standards) I don't believe he would berate them for using those words, but I can't imagine him participating.

As for Christians, however, I believe Jesus would have some very strong words if he heard one using foul language. There are words that our culture considers to be 'bad' words, and as Christians we should want to avoid using those words so as to not offend, or cause to stumble someone who is less mature in the faith. We also don't want to give the impression that we are no different than 'those who have no hope'. Here's where the balancing act comes in. We want to be different, but we should never take pride in being different. We strive to be holy, but should never say 'I'm more holy than you'. We must be clear in our own heads that the reason we don't speak like that is because we feel there is more expected of us, not that we are too good for it. When a non-Christian is surprised at the foul language he hears from his friends mouth, there is something wrong with that picture.

It all boils down to this: We are on this earth with everyone else. Everyone has sinned and the only difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is that God has called the Christian, and the Christian has responded to that call. Both are still flawed, and both struggle with what is right every day, but God expects the Christian to behave differently than the non-Christian.

Evolution

It's odd to me that Evolution is pretty much accepted as the definitive answer for how we all came to be here when there is so little evidence to support that. Now, when I speak of Evolution, I am speaking of the theory that life on earth started as a single cell and evolved into all the animals and plants we know and love today. This is absurd on so many levels.

Let's start with humanity. In order to believe that Evolution brought us into existence, we have to believe that Evolution got Homo Sapien right, not just once, but twice within a very short time span. And even then, it couldn't be just any human, it would have to be one male and one female human in order to further the species. Some may retort that over millions of years the progression was made from ape to human, but even with that theory you have to have a male and female evolving at the same pace to keep the species going. At some point, some being had to come into existence in an asexual way, but only be able to reproduce in a sexual way. At the same time, another such being of the opposite sex had to be available for that species to continue to exist. Not only that, but they had to be brought into existence within a very limited distance of each other in order to run into each other at some point in their life time.

The next level of fault I want to address is the fact that we have so many species out there. If Evolution is moving life on earth to a heightened state, why is everything so different? Wouldn't all life be moving towards a central, efficient, life form? If wings are the way to go, why don't I have wings?

All of that being said, I don't have a problem with survival of the fittest, or a species adapting to it's environment. I believe that the only "Evolution" that has ever actually happened has been adaptation, not Evolution at all. Now, I happen to be a Christian who believes that God made earth and everything in it in 7 - 24 hour days, however, if I find out somehow that 7 days in Genesis is really 7 million years, I don't have a problem with that either. I know that the only way Evolution would ever be possible, is if there is an outside force making changes and encouraging along the way. Otherwise, this earth would have reverted to chaos a long time ago. So if I find out that God created new life forms every 7 million years, I can take that in stride and not loose any sleep.

What bothers me about how society accepts the theory of Evolution is that they are basing their belief on scientist who are setting out to prove the theory, not looking at the evidence and coming to a conclusion. I have to laugh every time they hit a wall and the only way to get around it is to say, "looks like the earth is x number of million years older than we though!" What they are really saying is, "In order for this theory to work, we need to add more time. How much time do you want to add this time?" and then they add a few million years to the age of the earth. The fact is, the more time the earth has been here, the less likely that Evolution would get us to this point instead of dribbling into nothing. As easy as it is to say that Creationism can't be proven scientifically, the funny thing is, Evolution can't either!