I've been thinking about writing another nonfiction book in the same vein as Divine Evolution and Counterargument for God. The tentative title of this planned new work is God or Good Luck? The difference between this new book and those first two books is that I don't plan on quoting anybody else, only to cite their work and suggest to my readers that they should investigate on their own. No footnotes, or end notes, and no need for a bibliography. In my opinion, not only should you doubt everything I say and investigate it on your own, you should take that approach with anything you read, no matter who wrote it. This time I plan to begin my argument at the beginning and take it straight through to the end in the most coherent manner possible, so the point I'm trying to make is so crystal clear and no one could possibly claim to be confused, not even my harshest critic (who skipped over most of the book he critiqued). Even the title of this proposed new book is pretty self-explanatory...the best explanation of "everything" or anything can be easily boiled down to a dichotomy of only two real choices: it's either God or good luck. Any and every other potential answer can ultimately be shown to be an inferior (and inadequate) substitution for one or the other--whether that suggested alternative is claimed to be science, nature, multiverses, quantum physics, string theory, an invisible wizard who lives in the sky, or even a flying spaghetti monster. Every one of them is a form of good luck, or represents a god. Absent a creator God, the existence of our universe becomes … [Read more...]
My Top 10 Song Covers
I've been working hard for a while now, mostly editing with a few articles written for American Thinker, and hard work isn't always a lot of fun. When I'm not writing, I'm usually reading something, and even my "pleasure" reading has a purpose...for example, as I continue finishing what has turned out to be an almost complete rewrite of my first novel, Coastal Empire, and my editing and "other" work on the Rootstock epic fantasy series written by L. H. Leonard. Legend of the Storm Hawks and Path of the Spirit Runner are already available in ebook or print (audio still to come), and the final two novels in the collection are scheduled to be published before the end of summer. John Sandford Like I just said, when I'm not writing, editing, entertaining animals or trying to clean house, I'm usually reading something, and it was probably written by John Sandford, my favorite author of mystery and suspense novels. Quite frankly, John Sandford is my role model. Before I die, I can only hope that one of my novels will be half as good as his average effort in the "Prey" series featuring Detective Lucas Davenport, or his other series of novels featuring BCA Investigator Virgil Flowers. Sandford's plots are typically brilliant, and his dialog both razor sharp and realistic. His timing is impeccable, whether comic and dramatic. John Sandford is so good that it was more than ten years and maybe twenty novels before I ever found what I clearly knew was a mistake in one of his novels. And if the reader wasn't a John Sandford fanatic like me, the mistake wouldn't have even been … [Read more...]
A glimpse into the mind of a Bernie Bro
My personal policy on Facebook is to accept friend requests from almost everyone who asks. As a result, I’ve become social media “friends” with a very wide cross-section of society with friends who range from evangelical Christians to atheists, with representatives of every faith welcome as well, but only up to a point. On the political spectrum my friends range from transgender conservative to fairly radical liberals. No two people think exactly alike. My personal opinion is that it's impossible to learn if you never listen to people who disagree with you. I’m a firm believer in open dialog and listening to what the other side has to say. Up to a point. The price of my willingness to listen to a contrary or even disturbing argument is the opportunity for me to speak in turn. Sometimes I find out the door of friendship was left a little too open to virtual strangers, and a raving lunatic reveals himself. It usually doesn't take very long. In fairness, I already knew the Bernie Bro in this conversation was considerably more liberal in his philosophical worldview than me, but this conversation I'm about to share revealed exactly how insane these people are. I cleaned up his grammar and spelling only as necessary to maintain readability. The content has not been altered. The conversation begins as the Bernie Bro's comments on a parody article from the Babylon Bee. In other words, this all started with his response to a JOKE, proving that socialists are humor-impaired. Bernie Bro (BB): Show me (where) Bernie (is) promoting for violence. Show me what … [Read more...]
A passionate letter opposing impeachment
Guess who? Well, this ought to frost your Wheaties. Let's play a game: I suspect you might have a little trouble guessing the identity of this letter's author, now that I've edited the content enough to mask it and the president to whom he was referring, but let's see how you do. Now, I've got some pretty smart friends on social media. Some of you will guess correctly, I'm sure. Some of the letter's content that would constitute a dead giveaway had to be deleted in order to maintain our aura of mystery. So, I shortened the original content and changed a few words to hopefully keep you in suspense for a couple of minutes, anyway. Without further ado (I don't want anyone thinking too much and guessing before reading the letter), who wrote the following, and about whom? Mr. President, this is a day of solemnity and awe. I rise humbled that we are participating in a process that was mapped out more than 200 years ago by the Founding Fathers and that the words we say today will be looked upon by historians and future Congresses for guidance. That is quite a responsibility.I began this process in the House where it degenerated quickly into bitter acrimony. I would like to say to the Majority Leader and Minority Leader, and to my new colleagues who have wrestled with this case, that I deeply appreciate your fairness and patience and the way this has been handled with such dignity in the Senate.Growing up, our country and its government seemed like a mighty oak — strong, rooted, permanent, and grand.It has shaken me that we stand at the brink of removing a President … [Read more...]
Crushing an atheist’s spirit
[EDITOR'S NOTE: After one last scan of the article, it occurs to me the title needs some explanation. This isn't the actual goal of Mr. Doopy--he's trying to convince the other party in their debate that STL actually has a soul that can be crushed. No one was physically harmed in this battle of wits, if that's what this should be called.] Personally, I've begun to shy away from engaging with liberals or atheists in debate on the Internet because it's a tremendous time-suck, I'm not getting any younger, and my books unfortunately won't write themselves. It's just not a very productive use of my time, in my opinion, because the typical online debate adversary tends to assume several things that are inevitably untrue: these include the supposition opposing arguments cannot be supported by evidence, that arguments believed by consensus must be accepted as true, and that modern religious beliefs are only held by uneducated fools. Most often, this anonymous Internet opponent proves to be immune to all logic and reason, and devoid of any common sense. The effort usually strikes me as a colossal waste of valuable time so gradually, I've removed myself from groups where the trolls lurk, never seeming to have anything better to do than try to annoy me with ridiculous, ill-conceived arguments that usually degenerate into nothing more than childish insults or ad hominem. Nobody is ever going to admit, "You're right. I concede that my argument is inferior to yours."--no matter what transpires in the course of the debate, it has been my experience that the opponent never admits … [Read more...]
