Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. -- Carrie Fisher The line above is from actress Carrie Fisher's one-woman play titled Wishful Drinking. Superstar-famous due to her iconic role as Princess Leia in the Star Wars franchise, Fisher weathered the storm of dealing with personal addiction problems and mental health issues while under the intense media scrutiny typically accorded a Hollywood A-lister. She is an accomplished author as well as a famous actress -- Fisher's novel Postcards From the Edge was a bestseller, made into a movie. In Wishful Drinking, Fisher confronts the demons that have caused so much pain in her life with grace and humor, sharing with her audience the pain of her husband leaving her for another man, which led to her brief stay in a mental hospital. Near the end of her show Fisher said, "I heard someone say recently that many of us only seem to be able to find heaven by backing away from hell. And you know, while the place I've arrived at in my life isn't precisely everyone's idea of heaven, I could swear that sometimes, if I'm quiet...I can hear the angels sing." Fisher paused and then somewhat pragmatically added, "Either that, or I've f##ked up my medication." … [Read more...]
Can a Christian believe in ghosts?
My novel Secondhand Sight won the 2013 Reader's Favorite international book award for Fiction in the Horror category. However, the novel is not one that I'd recommend to everybody because the plot involves paranormal activity. Ghosts are treated as real entities in my book, because I believe they really exist. I do realize that not everyone believes in ghosts. It even seems that some of my Christian friends agree with my non-Christian friends about the subject of ghosts, even though they disagree about practically everything else. Most atheists reject the idea of ghosts because they don't believe any supernatural or paranormal phenomena is real. Yet I've had Christian friends also say they don't believe ghosts are really the spirits of dead people. They think ghosts are actually demons pretending to act like a dead human, presuming that we know how disembodied spirit should normally behave. Some of my Christian friends don't think there is a biblical basis for believing that ghosts are real, but they are mistaken. In my opinion, Christians should be open to the possibility that ghosts exist because of something that's in the Bible, words spoken by Jesus himself. Luke 24: 36-39 describes the first encounter that Jesus had with the disciples, after his crucifixion and resurrection. The New International Version Bible (NIV) reads: 36 While they were still talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "Peace be upon you." 37 They were startled and frightened, thinking they had seen a ghost. 38 He said to them, "Why are you troubled, … [Read more...]
On the formation of the universe, by C. W. Bobbitt
Unfortunately, I decided to begin my book Counterargument for God with my criticisms of Darwin and worked backward, instead of beginning with the Big Bang, the beginning of the universe and working forward. As a result, many atheist readers stopped reading before they reached my observations on the evidence for the Big Bang, because they couldn't accept the truth when I shed light on what I believe to be the obvious flaws in Darwin's theory of evolution. After reading my book and corresponding with me, professor C. W. Bobbitt was kind enough to allow his personal thoughts in regard to the existential questions to be published here on my website. He offered this excellent suggestion as he wrote, "I think it best to have you read and mull on it for a day or so. I will just mention a couple of things to pique your interest: visualize God commanding "nothing" to split into two universes of matter and anti-matter (some might think of this a right-handed and a left-handed system) with each flying away from the other to its pre-assigned space and each experiencing an initial behavior which we mortals call the Big Bang. Thus our universe comes into being in a way consistent with scientific thinking... after God initiates it." Without further ado, here are Professor Bobbitt's thoughts on the Big Bang theory. ON THE FORMATION OF THE UNIVERSE by C. W. Bobbitt We suppose that the universe had a beginning, that it came into being by an act of creation, that the creating agency was (is) God. As mortal men we seek to know how it came into being, how God performed this … [Read more...]
The Pearl: 15 April 2015
What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector? The taxidermist only takes your skin. -- Mark Twain Few professions have been the butt of more jokes or inspired more scorn and derision than a tax collector, known in modern times as an IRS employee. Even Jesus the Christ used tax collectors as the stereotype of humans behaving badly, saying: "For if you only love those who love you, what reward have you? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?" Ronald Reagan joked that, "Government's view of the economy can be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." Sadly, there is an element of truth in that joke. But there is always hope for the future...at least one politician running for President in 2016 understands the true nature of America's growing tax-and-spending problem. Senator Marco Rubio said, "We don't need new taxes. We need new taxpayers, people who are gainfully employed, making money, and paying into the tax system. And then we need a government that has the discipline to take that additional revenue to pay down the debt and never grow it again." What we need is a tax system that is designed to fund the government, not a system designed to redistribute wealth under the guise of "fairness." In other words, we need the FairTax. … [Read more...]
The Pearl: 14 April 2015
Always go to other people's funerals, otherwise they won't come to yours. ― Yogi Berra Baseball season officially started a week ago, and the Atlanta Braves have already exceeded my expectations by winning six of their first seven games. Of course, the season is long, but after management traded away most of the team's existing stars in the offseason, my expectations were set extremely low. I never expected the Braves to get above .500 after the first game of the season, to be brutally honest. So in honor of the start of baseball season, I thought I'd dig up a couple of quotes from the immortal Yogi Berra, notorious for his verbal gaffes and malapropisms, who allegedly also said that, "Ninety percent of the game is half mental" and "I never said most of the things I said." Quotes like those cause me to wonder if Yogi might have started playing baseball before the catcher's mask was invented. After all, his more memorable utterances sound as if they came from someone who had one too many foul tips bounce off his skull. … [Read more...]
