A Will Clinic

The only will clinic I could ever stomach...

A libertarian says, "God willed that mankind should will."
A Molinist says, "God willed what he knew man would will."
A compatibilist says, "Man wills what God willed."
A determinist says, "God wills, period."

Or so it seems to me.

Who cares what an atheist says, that one is a fool.

The Choo Choo Index

I was watching CNBC while I ate lunch, and saw something that gave me a boost. Years ago, I moved within half a mile of a double, double RR crossing. Every train that crosses both crossings in either direction blows its horn 4 times for each crossing. Suffice it to say, I have an ear on the economy. I can gauge how well we're doing economically, just by what my ears tell me.

Now, I've never been afraid to spill my "secret" economic tell to friends in casual conversation, but that news report told me bona fide economists pay attention to similar things, albeit a bit more scientifically and accurately. They watch the number of truck drivers actually working on the road and the number of vehicle miles travelled to gauge how the economy is doing. BTW, it's quiet around here, and the economy is not doing well!

The long and short of all this: from now on, I won't be so quick to doubt my perception of how the economy is going. I might not be able to count on the Bureau of Economic Analysis to give me the straight poop, but I have an ace in the hole in the infallible Choo Choo Index!

Take A Hot Bath, Kill A Polar Bear

The temperature of the world has been much warmer than it is now--not millions of years ago, but only about 1000. During that warm period, there were Polar bears roaming the Arctic, Polynesians thriving throughout the Pacific, and ice pack weighing heavily upon Greenland and Antarctica. At least no one is suggesting otherwise.

Yet, today, there is a chorus of panicked voices warning us that our energy usage and the carbon it pumps into the atmosphere is threatening (through the mechanism of global warming) the extinction of the Polar bear and flooding Polynesians out of their ancestral homes. In near history there have been extensive periods that were much warmer than it is today, or even will likely become according to global warming predictions. None of those things happened then.

Our collective, highly educated, global warming panic attack spurs the question, "have we finally gotten too smart for our own good? There's no question that we're too big for our own britches. We've arrived at the place where we don't need an antiquated notion like the Devil to scare the bejeebers out of us anymore. We may need truckloads of Xanax to calm our irrational side, but in our evolved hubris, we instill fear and a sense of doom just by asking, "What if?"

On the other hand...

If you live in the far north, where the polar bears roam, a hot bath may well be the safest place to be should a ravenous specimen, stressed by climate change, break into your house. That species prefers its meals swimming in frigid water, and so it may well turn its picky snout up at the likes of you. But then again, if the global warming gurus are correct, the collective energy consumed in heating the world's baths might kill off the problem before it ever comes snarling through your front door. 

So go ahead and take a hot bath despite any global warming guilt, even if you don't live in the far north. You might kill a polar bear, but then again, you might just be saving a life. 

Jesus Did the Work, But the Paycheck's Mine

I have no doubt whatsoever that I am saved by works. The Bible says so, both old and new testaments. If you are saved, or ever will be saved, it will be by works or you won't be saved at all. Good theology is based on the premise that the saved are saved by works.

I'm not saved by going to church, tithing my increase, giving alms, or voting Republican-- not even by paying my taxes and refraining from kicking the dog. Generally, I hate Christian television and music, so I don't even get any brownie points for torturing myself with those things! Yet, I am 100% certain that works have delivered me unshakably into the arms of heaven.

Outrageous of me to think such, I know, but think it I do and with biblical confidence, I might add. It's not my works I'm depending on, but those of Jesus Christ. What I could not, and never could do, he did for me in my place, perfectly. He did the job so well, that it's finished with nothing that can be added to it to improve it.

His work has saved me, and I'm totally dependent on it. My life, however it not lived in the idleness of the rich and famous. Jesus did the work and I got the paycheck, so now I plan to spend all of it getting to know him.

The Ark of Safety

We like to cite widely occurring flood myths, complete with fortunate families escaping destruction in a boat, as evidence for Noah's flood. A common thread spread broadly across culture and race says something, after all. According to this article by Jonathan Cheng in the Wall Street Journal [HT: The Drudge Report], the idea is not confined to the ancient past. Is God still giving folk a vision to build an ark, or can it act as a bastion of safety, a charm, in troubled times like these? No, I don't think so, the only ark of safety any of us need today is the Lord, Jesus Christ.

The World's Background Noise

It's been said that the mass of humanity is sheep-like, following whomever seems to know where to go. There doesn't have to be a logic to it, boldness is sufficient to turn the masses. Adolf Hitler's strategy was to tell the biggest lie he could as boldly as he could, and the sheep would follow in tow. Hitler as Bo-peep, now there's an image you won't find on the average blog, boy, I wish I had graphical skills!

It doesn't take anything as dark as Hitler to reveal this quality in the human race, we see it in the rather silly and less threatening realm of fashion and celebrity. A star wears the outrageous or impractical and the stores can't stock enough to staunch the crescendo of bleating. Though we're all adapting to the concept of the viral in the internet age, I wonder if its roots trace wa-a-a-a-ay back before Al Gore's famous creation to the fawning of a new age introduced by bobby-soxers' hysteria over Frank Sinatra.

Does one little match really set the forest aflame?

It makes one wonder, at least it does me, where my ovine tendencies are leading me. Whether it be election year musings, or some more profound stirring of soul, I'm asking myself whose lead am I truly following. We all know the PC (preferred Christian) answer: Jesus!-- but does an investigation of our trail  to this point reading this silly blog, confirm or belie that contention?

There are many whose wool rises above the heights of any other's in the vicinity. They write books for dummies, testify to the greener grass in the pasture they know the way to. They host TV shows, wool carded and sounding not b-a-a-a-a-d at all. They get on soapboxes in the public square and blather until we choose, between them or that other blatherer standing on a different colored soapbox, which to follow.

Where are we going following them? 

It's time for us to begin checking credentials at the door. You know, that door to your life (thanks Bill Bright). We're not made of iron and these stars we follow are not made of neodymium. We can't follow two masters, two gurus, or two directions at once. Jesus rose from the dead so his credential trumps everyone else's. So, regardless of what anyone is selling, or supposedly knows, or thinks they can guarantee, put all your eggs in Jesus' basket.

We don't need to be like the world, we don't need to have what the world thinks we do, we don't need to fit into their mold, and we don't have to see things their way.

The ruckus of all that bleating, even the howls of wolves, are just background noise.