Asking for a Friend

 Brief and to the Point

I had a mind to write a poem for the occasion, but instead chose to make a few short statements or declarations.

1. Over the course of this year, I have been shaken to a point of despair.  Lost beyond a loss of my identity.  To that end, I hereby denounce, disavow, and withdraw this entire blog.  While much or most of it contains valid truth, I am no longer the mind or heart that penned/entered what has gone before.  ~ fin
2. For my friend, Todd, after so long, it's no wonder so much has changed.  I try not to be so affected.  We all have so much water under the bridge, it's a wonder we still know one another.

Trunkie Junkie

Last week was 'halloween'.  I have not taken part since I was a kid.  Occasionally, the topic and question come up, 'why?'  I understand that there are many community churches that offer a 'fall festival' or 'trunk or treat' as an alternative.

Why the alternative?  Why not jump right in?  Maybe I'm being lazy by writing a post about it, or maybe I would like an answer that I do not have to try to remember verbatim whenever the question comes up.  My attempt here is to simply offer some info I have found with a few internet searches that should be self explanatory.  I do not intend to go into to much depth with this answer, but enough for folks to have an answer that makes sense even if they don't agree... 
Just some links, that's all..

Those who find it significant

Interview with a 'witch'

A final note:  The connection to 'evil', 'death', and 'fear' is really all I need for a reason to avoid this tradition.

Heard it from a friend

Here is a forwarded email that makes more sense than CNN:

Subject: Fwd: Mathematical logic

Who needs logic?

Conundrum

  "A gun is like a parachute. If you need one, and don't have one, you'll probably never need one again."

The definition of the word Conundrum is: something that is puzzling or confusing.  

    

Here are six Conundrums of socialism in the United States of America :  

    

1. America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.  

    

2. Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.  

    

3. They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.  

    

4. Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.  

    

5. The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.  

    

6. They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries.  

    

Think about it!  And that, my friends, pretty much sums up the USA in the 21st Century.    Makes you wonder who is doing the math.  

    

These three, short sentences tell you a lot about the direction of our current government and cultural environment   :  

    

1. We are advised to NOT judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a few lunatics, but we are encouraged to judge ALL gun owners by the actions of a few lunatics.  

    

Funny how that works.  And here's another one worth considering...  

    

2. Seems we constantly hear about how Social Security is going to run out of money.  But we never hear about welfare or food stamps running out of money?  What's interesting is the first group "worked for" their money, but the second didn't.  

    

Think about it.....and Last but not least:  

    

3. Why are we cutting benefits for our veterans, no pay raises for our military and cutting our army but we are not stopping the payments or benefits to illegal aliens.  

    

Am I the only one missing something?

The Show-Me State

Academia is devolving into an arena for truth claiming.  By this, I primarily mean that students are taught that the only valid statement is one that you can support with evidence.  On the surface this sounds like progress, not progressiveism.  In many venues, this is a good thing.  However, when we train kids to think that every statement must have accompanying evidence, we are doing a disservice to them, society and ourselves.  If I have to provide evidence that lying is morally wrong before someone agrees with the statement, we have a 'Show-me Syndrome' on our hands.  Many things do not and should not require a court case in order to be accepted as reasonable or as a fact.  When we raise a generation to require winning a debate with evidence for any and every statement, we are steering culture into a reality that excludes aspects of life for which there is no evidence.  What is love?  What is morality?  What is conscience?  What things are immeasurable? What is faith?  The Show-Me Syndrome is dangerous because demanding proof for something that is not provable.  The lack of proof does not prove something is not true.

Here are a few links I have found so far:

http://www.qcc.cuny.edu/SocialSciences/ppecorino/PHIL_of_RELIGION_TEXT/CHAPTER_5_ARGUMENTS_EXPERIENCE/Burden-of-Proof.htm

I heard this somewhere

At some point there was a discussion about vets and vietnam... Some say that returning vets received poor treatment is an urban legend.  I have for you some evidence

Genderalities

So gender identity politics list hundreds of genders?  Really? Is that the case or do I need to research the stats?  To say that science has identified anything more than two genders is just this: bad science.  My favorite case for this is genetics.  Mother has exactly 2 recessive X gender genes.  Father has exactly 2 genes (X from his mother and Y-dominant gene from his father).  There is nothing chauvinistic about this statement, just science.  Mother passes one X gene (her only available gene to pass) and Father passes the other.  Now for the fun stuff.

1. Gender ties uniquely to reproduction and propagation
2. Gender *confusion* is a result of perversion of the true state of humanity
3. For those who claim to be a new or transgender might change everything about their bodies to make them their gender of preference, the one thing that will never change and forever keep them their true gender is in the genes.  XX genes will always be XX and the same for XY.  No amount of opinion, preference, hormone treatment, or genital surgery will change that (refer to item 2.)
4. Just for the record, while it may be possible to disguise as another gender through all of these processes listed above, it is still just a disguise.  A guy trying to be a girl looks like a guy trying to be a girl, not a girl.  A girl trying to be a guy looks like a girl trying to be a guy, not a guy.
5. The whole pretend thing has led to folks being all mixed up about reality to the point that they want fantasy to become reality and in many cases think that it is reality.

Anyway, item 3 is what prompted me to drop this post.

Scientific Religion

*Draft*
More than 1/3 of ideas I write about wake me up in the morning or night.  Here is the back story for this post in general.  There are many arguments in the debate between "theists" and "atheists".  Two of these arguments I have heard from someone I know.