The Parenting License

"Some people should have a parenting license before they have kids..."
- Emi Spicer

I agree. Maybe not a license, but at the very least basic training. Have you heard about the tragedy of the kids who died when they locked themselves in a car trunk? There's an apparent dissonance when one of the parents blamed the police. The truth, of course, is that the parents are to blame. And the sad part is, that one parent is taking this to court. He thought the police searching for the boys had a higher responsibility. He didn't want to take responsibility for his own negligence. Blaming is a natural self-defense reaction, especially if you think you can do no wrong. Still, the parents should have had the common sense to watch their kids. Not only that but they should have briefed their kids on simple things like "don't get into a car trunk, that's where you store things and dead people" and "don't be as stupid as me." The principle is true, there needs to be a requirement that if you're going to have kids, my word, swallow your pride and learn from wise people how best to take care of them. There's much more to child-rearing than the first six years and then just coasting along when they go to school. And even then, most parents just wing it and do what their parents did and rely on what they learned before they had kids (which usually amounts to nothing). Responsibility and education go hand in hand. The more you have to look after, the more you have to learn how to look after it. There are so many resources to raising a child right, it's not even funny. And yet a quick look at book sales shows that books about child rearing past kindergarten decline sharply and only books about ADD and strong-willed children generate sales (the latter among Christians mainly, of all things). Kudos to those parents who do their best to learn everything about child-rearing all the way to when the kids get married. And even then, they still need to learn to communicate to their kids as adults. Learning at every stage of the game, that's the key to raising well-adjusted people. It's the toughest job on Earth, but it can be accompished.

Intelligent design or something else?

An article by a Rabbi Gerard spoke against intelligent design (ID) claiming it is based on false assumptions. He discussed a lot of basic arguments opposing ID, but doesn't go in-depth. The article is more of a thought provoker than a thesis. Even then, I'd like to counter the arguments he presented. He began the article by asking the supporters of ID to explain mildew, mosquitoes, lower back problems, cancer, and childhood leukemia. I sat there thinking, What about them? To me they're minor issues. Yes, I'm aware that minor issues tend to be a stumbling block to people. "I just get stuck at childhood leukemia," he writes. Really they don't want to submit to the idea of being accountable to God and would use any excuse to not understand, even simple things. He doesn't want to understand because he has a fundamental misunderstanding of God and the Bible.

The essence of his article, and a question many people ask is, if this God who designed the universe is a good God, why does he let these bad things happen? So his article is not so much ID, but "the seeming irreconcilability of a good God and the world all around." It's the reason he can't get around those five "bad" things he mentioned. Why he's a rabbi and doesn't have a basic understanding of the Bible, I wouldn't know. His rabbinical school must've left a few things out. Or he slept through Torah class and missed a few good points about life and God. He tells a story about a conversation between Tanna, one of the earliest rabbis, and a person who asked why fruit rots. Tanna's answer: "so that produce merchants cannot hold on to their merchandise indefinitely, selfishly driving up the price." Much like Bryan's answer to Darrow's question "Where did Cain's wife come from?" Bryan: "Why are you asking about another man's wife?" Cute and curt, but it doesn't answer the question and it is a bad example for creationists and ID supporters. (For that Bryan could've at least said that Adam and Eve had more children other than Abel and Seth. And if he knew any genetics, he could've at least said that the gene pool was still clean and free of mutative effects.)

Gerard goes on to say "scientists claim the problem with ID is that it's not subject to testing; it can't be proved or disproved and thus remain in the realm of religion. But this is an unsatisfying conclusion because it leaves us with the possibility that it might be true. And it can't be." All I have to say to that is, the claims of evolution also leads scientists to the same conclusion, that "it can't be proved or disproved and thus remain in the realm of religion." Evolution is nothing more than modern man's origins myth, a religion of the self with science terms ornamenting it. Gerard's statement is an extension of his problem - he can't figure out the answer to the good God question so everything else can't be true. He compares Darwinian evolution (DE) and ID saying that if DE is accurate then some things will look intelligently designed while others not and if ID true then all things will look intelligently designed "and very clearly it is not." I know a provoker opinion article isn't the place to state scientific findings, but he should have at least presented one. Those five he mentioned aren't good enough, and, fortunately, not much of a challenge. I'll take on one of them (I won't be too detailed, just want to give an idea):

One problem he mentioned is lower back pain. Evolutionists believe that humans have lower back pain because we were originally hunched over quadrupedally before our ancestors decided to stand bipedally. But we still naturally want to hunch over, much like one of the middle pictures in the debunked “evolution of man” chart. Evolutionists believe that the spine was a suspension bridge rather than a tent pole and only over time did we start to develop a stronger lumbar region. I’m sorry, but our lumbar region has no clear sign that it ever acted like a suspension bridge. It was like that from the very beginning because it was created to be that way. Many years ago, because evolutionists believed the lumbar lie, they developed a method to treat lower back pain, but with negative results. They were confounded when they realized that the treatment needs to be based on the simple fact of keeping the lumbar erect with good anatomically correct exercises instead of treating it like an evolutionary anomaly (ie they suggested to bend forward like an animal). Lower back pain is usually the result of poor body mechanics, a sedentary lifestyle, and obesity, not because of an evolutionary change. People in Third World countries have dramatically less instances of lower back pain than in Industrial nations. They actually move around and do manual labor instead of sitting in front of a computer all day in an office, hunched over like a Neanderthal.

To get back to the important issue, Gerard simply doesn’t understand God. He doesn’t have good Theology proper. Rabbi Gerard, the reason why the world is messed up is because the first humans rebelled against their Creator God. (This account is in the Torah if you want to read about it. And no, it’s not a metaphor.) God made everything good, but because man sinned, everything was shot to pieces. Death, disease, destruction (and lower back pain) entered the world because man disobeyed. He didn’t want to choose God. He instead chose to elevate himself and sinned and everything in creation was negatively affected. Once you get that from the Torah, realize that there’s more scientific evidence out there supporting what you studied in rabbinical school than there is on the defunct ideas of evolutionists, which amounts to nothing more than science fiction.

Self-defense training is a must

“Many believe that the problems in society start with unloved children with little self-esteem. Duncan seems to have felt loved so we can rule that out. But Duncan, like most mass-murderers before him, was not suffering from too little self-esteem but too much. Maslow, you bastard idiot, the problems of humanity stem more from selfishness than from lack of self regard.”
- taken from The Jawa Report http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/100103.php

Shasta Groene
The remains of Dylan Groene, 9, was finally found in a Montana campsite. How in the world did this guy JD3 (won't even dignify him by mentioning his name) even get away with this? He bound then killed Dylan's mother, her boyfriend, and his 13 year old brother. He later killed Dylan, and leaving his little sister, Shasta, for last and sexually brutalized her for three weeks. She told investigators he did the same to her brother. May that animal be tied to a millstone and sent to hell. If it wasn't for the customers and the intuitive waitress at the Denny's, most likely he would've done more of his evil on her as well. Knowing this type of monster, he would've moved on to other victims. Got me enraged when I first read about this a month ago. (Don't even get me started on that human excrement who killed his daughter and her friend. I'm glad he was caught. Also glad he didn't have the intelligence to cover his tracks. Time for him to die, obviously.)

I don't know the details of what went down, but if the killer had enough time to tie up the entire family, there was definitely a chance for any one of them to fight him off. My word! Was the boyfriend of the mother a little wimp or something?! Was he that intimidated by the attacker that he couldn't mentally handle it? JD3 had a shotgun and a hammer. Was the boyfriend in that much of a stupor that he couldn’t do something, anything? And from what I read, the mother had time to wake Shasta and bring her to the living room. Why did they not fight back?

The society we live in unfortunately places a low priority on efficient self-protection. Selfishness can kill people. Asocial behavior is nothing more than the purest form of selfishness and expresses itself in criminal actions. And people are potential victims if they are too prideful to think that they’ll know what to do in an attack without proper training. Either that or they’re just gullible about the evil in the world. The law isn't good enough to fully protect children. You can have all the laws to protect a child and catalog every single person who talks about doing anything to a child, but it won't help in the long run. It's up to the family and the child to learn safety and survival skills. And if that includes learning how to fight efficiently then great! I'm now more inclined to teach a seminar or two on children's self-defense. The classes I teach are for 13 years old and older. Not that I don't like teaching young children, but my experience in the past was that most parents send their kids to karate for baby-sitting and discipline. From what I recall, that's the parents' job, not the instructor's. The instructor only reinforces what the parents teach. But that’s another issue.

A seminar for a couple of hours I can deal with. Kids really don’t need prolonged self-defense training, anyway. It would be idiotic to think a kid can go toe to toe with someone more than twice their size and weight. No, there’s a different approach and it’s a whole lot better than forcing them into karate training for a few years in order to learn “self-defense” and then giving black belts to ten year olds after three years of training. It can help but usually what they learn at the local McDojo isn’t enough. A combination of training in self-defense, street smarts, and survival skills are absolutely necessary for a child. Confidence and caution should be taught concurrently. Both parent and child need the self-protection training. And it doesn’t take years to accomplish this, just an afternoon of learning and a monthly or even annual retraining. Parent and child can practice at home as well.

There are a lot of programs out there and they aren’t expensive. A parent who cares will take a little time to research and find something with a decent price and exceptional teaching. It's sad to hear about anything evil done on children. We can't totally eradicate it, but we can at least help prevent any more of that evil from happening.

Torture at Guantanamo?

So, why are liberals causing such a stir with the "torture" and "abuse" at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo? Well, apparently they don't like Bush or anything connected to what he does, specifically this war. People write whole books to that, which is why I don't need to discuss it here. There is absolutely no reason why this issue of "torture" needs to be politicized. Obviously, those soldiers were wrong in doing it. Embarassing someone is never a good thing and I personally look down on unprofessional behavior. But take it in context of what's happening with the rest of the war: there should be more uproar about the terrorists beheading people than all this complaining about the rights of the captives. In fact, the US actually follows Geneva convention rules about taking care of the enemy. Those bozos who try to kill us are fed better than some poor people in the US and have been given everything they need to practice their religion and make them as comfortable as possible while being held. Then you have the other side who only follow their ideology of hate and can't even take care of themselves much less their captives. And the best way to keep rations is to behead another hostage. Of course you have to videotape it first to make it count for allah and send it to al-jazeera to display to the rest of the world. Must be a sub-section to the fifth pillar. There were reports of 15 detainees, some disillusioned by Islam, mishandling their own Korans using it as a pillow, ripping pages out of it, attempting to flush one down the toilet, and urinating on it. As always, the media gets it wrong and says that a US soldier flushed one Koran down the toilet (which was later disproved and was retracted) and, oh man, it's one of the worst of these atrocities against the misunderstood Islamists. When the leftist US media and al-jazeera blew it way out of proportion, it resulted in the deaths of 16 people in Afghanistan. I hope the average American citizen will notice the dissonance. The "average" blue PA citizen wouldn't necessarily agree with me, nor would they notice their own entrenched liberal programming. They seem to like being brainwashed by anything they listen to or watch, instead of making a well-informed, thoughtful decision based on different sources. I'm not even going to get started on political blogs. All I'm saying is their focus is wrong. Instead of blaming our soldiers, these people making their unnecessary ruckus should divert their energy to questioning their view of the world and do something constructive like getting their information right for a change. They seem to be ignorant of the true definition of "peace." They have this communistic utopian view of peace that is myopic at worst, callow at best. In their minds, peace is merely the absence of conflict. In truth, peace is the freedom won after conflict.

Dissent is healthy, spreading false reports and information isn't.

The Uganda Project

Back in the '80s, Uganda had one of the highest AIDS rates in the world for its population at 30%. Ugandan President Museveni couldn't afford to buy condoms from Western countries so he launched the ABC campaign: Abstinence until marriage; Be faithful in marriage; Condoms only for high-risk groups. It was a nationwide project with messages on billboards and various other ads about the dangers of sex outside of marriage. Over the next ten years, the AIDS rate in the country dropped down to 6%, still more than the US AIDS rate, but the drop was incredible. AIDS researchers were amazed and studied how it happened. One researcher, an epidemiologist named Dr. Stoneburner, was denied several times over a ten year period by U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID) from publishing his findings. Dr. Stoneburner found that condoms do not prevent the spread of AIDS. USAID and their financial partners kept him quiet. Years later, another researcher, a Harvard anthropologist named Dr. Green, found that the first two points of the campaign, abstinence and marital fidelity, played a greater role in AIDS decline than condom usage. When he and his co-researcher presented their findings to USAID and friends, USAID was embarassed and horrified. They didn't want to believe the findings because they wouldn't have a profitable market. In the mid-90's, Dr. Green advocated condom usage to control Third World population and poverty. He is no conservative, but because he prides himself as an objective researcher, he had to follow the evidence concerning AIDS even if he didn't like it. USAID didn't publish Dr. Green's findings because it wouldn't have made money for their friend Population Services International, a condom distribution company. Instead they demoted Dr. Green, hired someone else, and began to tout that condom usage leads to AIDS decline. Like in most things, follow the money and it'll uncover the truth.

Japan AIDS rate rises

"In a nation that has excellent healthcare and widespread condom use, many in Japan's health community are wondering why the disease is growing so rapidly..." - taken from a Health section article of The Express-Times Lehigh Valley edition.

This one's a no brainer: Condom use does little to prevent the spread of AIDS. Let's start off with a little basic science, shall we? Back in the early 1990s, a study was done to find out the effectiveness of condoms. Researchers found little pores that naturally occur in latex when it was produced. Industrial latex gloves had 1 micron wide holes. A condom, because it is used to prevent pregnancy, had holes that were 5 microns wide. The average diameter of a sperm's head is 3-5 microns (for those in the know, that's where the 97% effectiveness comes in). HIV's size is 0.1 microns and is both an intracellular virus and a free floating virus. Only in recent years did condom manufacturers try to heighten their standards by doing things like double dipping the latex to make the condom stronger. Quality checks showed better results than before and latex for condoms are better than industrial gloves now. Then again, only a few condom companies in America have those standards. And, by the time a shipment of condoms arrives at a retailer, most of the time the integrity of the latex breaks down because the transport standards aren't strict. Then the chances for breakage increase. At least that problem can be easily fixed. There are many other factors involved in the spread of AIDS like drug-use, inconsistency of condom usage, and other types of sexual activity like oral sex. Simply put, anytime there is an exchange of bodily fluid, there is the possibility to spread the virus. Sexually irresponsible people spread well-established lies about the benefits of condom use in AIDS prevention and are the most likely to spread the disease as well. They are also the same people who are the most active in complaining about the lack of research into the cure for AIDS. From studies done over the years, when a person with HIV has sex with someone without HIV, it only takes a year and a half of occasional sex until that partner is infected. And it takes AT LEAST 3-6 months for a person to be HIV positive, but USUALLY it will take close to two years before someone will truly know, that is if the person periodically gets a check up. The emphasis on condom usage with only little emphasis on abstinence and fidelity only encourages more sex and greater AIDS spread. If permission to have sex is granted with one exception, people tend to make that exception an option rather than a rule. Controlling behavior on the other hand by shocking people with information about consequences curtails rampant sex and decreases the odds for AIDS to spread. It's not about forcing people not to have sex, but giving people information about the results of uncontrolled sexual activity, thereby allowing them to make a thoughtful decision. So that should be simple enough to answer the question. The next entry will have specific evidence on what I just stated.

Volumes of Issues

Over the next who knows how long, I'll be writing about my stance on a number of issues being fought over in America today. Understand that the issues are merely the branches, leaves even, of something more important. So if you figure out the underlying theme throughout all these articles, you will find the trunk if not the root of the many challenges Christians face in today's culture.

Come on, Lucas!

George Lucas's greatest blunder to date is not Howard the Duck. No, it is in one of the last scenes in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith. Obi Wan and Anakin are fighting in the lava world. Obi Wan, in an emotional fit, cries out to Anakin, "Only Sith lords deal in absolutes!" Whoa, the respect meter went down considerably on that instance. Either Obi Wan made a verbal fumble with his Force philosophy (since he was an emotional wreck at that point, not very becoming of a Jedi) or Lucas made a dialogue error (one of many or should I say the entire movie was filled with bad dialogue) and made a fumble in his Force philosophy. In fact it was quite the strange line for Star Wars. The very idea of having the Good side of the Force and the Dark side of the Force is based on absolutes. There is never the Gray side of the Force. From what I gather in the movies, the Gray side is the slippery hill where you slide down one side or the other. It's the "lop off Count Dooku's head" area or "toss the Emperor over" area. That's if there is the "Gray side." Lucas most likely confused the word "absolutes" with "extremes." There's quite a big difference. Simply put, an absolute is complete and unconditional while an extreme is fringe and outermost. Yes, extremism may need absolutes, but absolutes do not necessitate extremism. Extremism just needs one idea to go on, whether or not it's absolute. I'm sure Lucas thought that a person with absolutes qualifies him to develop into an extremist. And I'm sure he knows the difference, but he didn't seem to clarify it in that one instance. And yet there is that phrase in Empire Strikes Back where Obi Wan pretty much says truths are different for each person, or, to quote Bruce, your truth is not my truth. Hog-freaking-wash! Even some secularists agree on the inconsistency of relativism. There is only yes or no, true or false. Of course there is a "depends on the circumstance" but even then those decisions are based on working within the framework of absolutes, otherwise you'll be inconsistent. It's not just Aristotilean dichotomy, our minds are naturally binary. As Schaeffer puts it, it's either thesis or antithesis. Synthesis is sloppy when it comes to dealing with absolutes because it leads to contradiction and dissonance, a result of relativism.

Lucas, you either do or do not, there is no gray.

Terri

From the June 2005 Citizen article "Vital Signs," by Karla Dial.
The timeline of Terri Schiavo.

2/25/1990: Terri Schiavo collapses.

1991: Terri's husband, Michael, puts her in rehab center; bone scan finds several fractures. Terri's condition improves; Michael moves her to nursing home.

1992: Michael receives $1.5 million in malpractice trial.

1993: Michael orders staff not to treat Terri for potentially fatal infection. Terri's parents sue to remove Michael as guardian.

1995: Michael moves in with girlfriend.

1997: Michael announces engagement, begins claiming Terri said she'd rather die.

2000: Florida 6th Circuit Judge George Greer rules to remove Terri's feeding tube, denies request for swallowing test. Terri moved to hospice for terminally ill.

4/24/2001: Terri's tube removed.

4/25/2001: Michael's ex-girlfriend tells local media he lied about Terri's death wishes.

4/26/2001: Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court Judge Frank Quesada says new evidence compels him to resume Terri's feeding.

2002: Terri's scond trial before Greer. Greer orders January tube removal. Family appeals to 2nd District.

2003: 2nd District upholds Greer.

10/15/2003: Terri's feeding tube removed. Terri's Bill introduced in state legislature.

10/21/2003: Terri's Bill signed into law; feeding tube reinserted.

2004: Pinellas County Circuit Court Judge W. Douglas Baird strikes down Terri's law.

2005: U.S. Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal of Terri's law.

3/18/2005: Feeding tube removed for third time.

3/27/2005: Terri given last rites Easter Sunday.

3/31/2005: Terri dies at 9:03 am EST.


I only heard about the Terri Schiavo case last year, year and a half. If I only knew the whole story, I may have been a bit more active in getting the news out to more people. But then, what could I have done? There was no way for me at the time to do more than spread the news like Focus on the Family tried to do. Even then I didn't hear much about it. Or I didn't want to involve myself too much into politics. And when I did, the elections were on and I had no idea about it other than an occasional update from my wife. There were so many other issues to face, I neglected one of the more important ones. As the "Vital Signs" article said, this isn't the end. The incident has put the issue on the forefront.

As of now, I will say that Michael had no right to unplug the feeding tube. Terri was not in a persistent vegetative state, which is actually quite a derogatory term. In fact, she was disabled, not too far from that of a quadriplegic. She was still able to breathe by herself and could respond well to verbal stimuli. I can only imagine how angry I would be if my quadriplegic friend, Brooke, was denied food because she couldn't feed herself and the government denied her the right to have a feeding tube. It's scary because at least Terri was able to breathe without a machine, Brooke needs a whole lot of help with eveything, even a breathing machine. I can understand unplugging someone from life-support who was brain-dead if no one was able to financially care for the person anymore. But even then, that's a rarity because some people contribute to keeping those people alive. Unfortunately, because of the apparent cognitive dissonance in Judge Greer, he was not intelligent enough to use common sense in this issue, especially when the facts proved against Michael and for the Schindler family. The issue was never about Michael's right to decide for Terri. The issue is always about the facts and hard evidence, especially when it comes to deciding over life. Fact: Michael did NOT have evidence that Terri wanted to be unplugged. Fact: Terri WAS disabled and NOT brain-dead. Fact: Michael was known for wanting Terri dead. Fact: Michael's new marriage to another woman dissolves any legal bond between he and his former wife. Conclusion: Common sense dictates that Terri should have been given over to her family. The whole "right to my wife" idea was merely an excuse, a distraction if you will, to the truth. The government should never have been involved because it would give even more power to an entity that shouldn't decide in these matters, especially if a non-criminal's life is at stake.

I just hope that America's judges would stop ruling by "the letter of the law" (and I use that phrase very generously) and to decide by "the spirit of the law," the underlying principles that provide life along with liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Blogging?

I wasn't really interested in blogging. In fact, I hated blogging. Yeah, I had my online journal and my websites, but I did my best to stay away from blogs. Then I realized the need for conservative Christians to have more of a web presence. I am now part of a growing group of people to represent the political right, the independent conservative, the dialogical apologist, the Christian activist. Most importantly, I will do my best to represent Jesus Christ.

Preparing for battle...