[AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is NOT a paid endorsement. I’ve received no compensation of any kind for writing this article. I have chosen to write about this company because I use their products and endorse them only because I believe in them.] About a year ago, my wife and I decided to move closer to our grandchildren. We left north Georgia and the city where we’d lived our entire married lives down near Florida, where the word “swelter” was probably invented. It was already hot when we moved in April, and it only got hotter as the summer progressed. Out of necessity I was involved in quite a bit more physical than normal, which meant that I was sweating more often and more profusely. The water down south seems a bit harder than the water where we’d lived previously, and I often chose to drink iced tea instead. Thus, I wasn’t properly flushing my kidneys on a regular basis, and within a couple of months I’d developed a kidney stone roughly the size of a guitar pick, or so it appeared on the MRI scan. Without getting too graphic, when a kidney stone passes from the body it must exit through the meatus, and an object approximately the size of a guitar pick cannot fit through a hole that small. It had become a very serious health concern that required a surgery called a lithotripsy, which without going through all the gory details, made for a miserable month of July as surgical stents were implanted to keep my kidneys from experiencing renal failure until the surgery could be performed, and lasers pulverized the stone into gravel. It became an important learning … [Read more...]
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The Associated Press SUCKS
On October 10, 2022, Auron MacIntyre famously tweeted, "You don't hate journalists enough. You think you do, but you don't." And MacIntyre wasn't the first person to express this sentiment, either. Earlier in August of that same year Carl Witmer may have been the very first one to declare, "No matter how much you hate the media it’s not enough." Naturally, many others have followed suit and more or less said the same thing. If you want to know why I hate the media as much as these other people, check out the headline of this story from ESPN, of all places: "Vice President Vance Fumbles Buckeyes' Championship Trophy." Okay, so the anonymous author from Associated Press earns a single point for the use of proper grammar, and that is awarded begrudgingly. That same author loses all the other points by writing the rest of the story that goes with the article. Follow this hyperlink to read the story at ESPN, but first watch the accompanying video to see how exactly the Vice President "fumbled" the trophy--it literally fell apart when he tried to pick it up because the trophy wasn't attached to its base. The word "fumble" typically conveys a sense of carelessness or recklessness. In football, a fumble is almost always a bad thing. A fumble is a blunder, and in football it means a failure to maintain possession of the ball. It most often describes a mistake by the ball carrier. Even a forced fumble is still a turnover. You can't sugarcoat it--a fumble is an error, a mistake. Furthermore, as you watch the video, please notice that Ohio State running back TreVeyon … [Read more...]
Did Saul/Paul have free will?
If you've read my book The God Conclusion or some of my articles at Southern Prose, you'll know I'm a rather strong advocate for the concept of free will. While many atheists and secularists would love to assert that intelligence is the defining characteristic of one's decision on whether to believe in a God, that simply isn't true. There are many intelligent people who believe in a supernatural God. Likewise, there are more than a few stupid atheists. Probably the most important factor in religious beliefs is free will. We may choose what evidence we are willing to view and consider and many simply refuse to even look at any evidence that appears to conflict with their existing worldview. Some intelligent people choose to pursue evil goals and may be classified as a criminal mastermind. Others may choose to pursue noble goals and become detectives who solve crimes. Determinism is the idea that our choices are mere illusions. Chemical reactions in our brain and our environment determine our fate. Contrary to the opinion of people like Sam Harris, free will appears to solve so many problems--it potentially answers very difficult questions such as why does evil exist, if God is good? But free will can only effectively solve philosophical problems if it can be demonstrated to exist. If evidence can be identified that contradicts the idea of free will, the existing worldview should be modified or perhaps even discarded. Then the question becomes, could free will only be an illusion? On the other hand, if free will exists, could it exist with rare … [Read more...]
Unkind and unloving Christians
Allegedly, The Ragamuffin Gospel author Brennan Manning once said, "The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians who acknowledge Jesus with their lips and walk out the door and deny Him by their lifestyle. That is what an unbelieving world simply finds unbelievable." I'm coming up on the third anniversary of launching The God Conclusion Facebook page to call attention to the fact I wrote a book with the same name. My purpose of my book is to reach out to the people who read The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and thought it was a great book. I thought The God Delusion was a very well written book, but practically every word in it was wrong. Thus, my primary targets audience for the book are atheists. However, I thought Christians interested in arguing with atheists about the existential questions might also appreciate the last third of the book, which presents scientific evidence explained in a logical manner and could prove useful in a debate. I'll never give up on looking for new readers. In fact, I will cheerfully give away a free PDF, Kindle, or audio copy to just about anybody who asks (audiobooks are available in the US and UK only.) One person once asked for a copy that he intended to use to wipe his buttocks after eliminating his bowel waste, and I had to point out that the print books are not given away free and what he wanted to do with my book was an not advisable use of an electronic device. Atheists can be quite childish at times, but the attacks from people who claim to be fellow Christians do occasionally bother me. I've … [Read more...]
Wes Huff killed Goliath
If you’ve never heard of Wesley Huff before, don’t feel too bad. I’d never heard of him either, until a few weeks ago. Suddenly, he’s famous because of an impromptu debate he had on a podcast with Billy Carson, founder and CEO of a company called 4BiddenKnowledge and a self-proclaimed expert on “ancient texts and tablets, scriptures, papyrus, and cylinders.” Carson has complained in the past that Christian scholars have refused to debate him but all that changed when his good friend Mark Minard invited young Wesley Huff, a Canadian Bible scholar still working on his PhD on his podcast to debate Billy. Huff accepted the challenge to debate Carson with only 24 hours advance notice to prepare, but he didn’t need more time. Huff didn’t merely defeat Billy Carson in their debate, he embarrassed him. In fairness, Carson later revealed he had not been feeling well and had been recently hospitalized with pneumonia, even coming near death. Perhaps in hindsight it would have been better had the debate been postponed until Billy felt better, although Billy has refused to debate Huff again now that he’s fully recovered. Though the conversation went on for roughly two hours, the debate was probably over in the first ten minutes. Huff began by asking Carson a simple question to clarify their individual positions, asking Billy if he was referring to Codex Sinaiticus when he claimed the Sinai Bible did not contain any references to the crucifixion. Carson said yes, and then Huff promptly pulled his own personal copy of Codex Sinaiticus off his bookshelf. … [Read more...]
