Any fool can write a novel but it takes real genius to sell it. -- J. G. Ballard Today is April Fool's Day, when it becomes customary to pull childish pranks on friends and family before shouting "April Fool!" Some may find this hard to believe, but I've actually outgrown this annual ritual, reducing the number of ways by which I may be caught behaving childishly by one. No, this isn't a silly prank or a gag. Until this morning, I had never heard of the name "J. G. Ballard" before. But I did know of his work -- he wrote the novels Empire of the Sun and Crash, both of which were made into movies. I try to heed good advice in order to learn from the success of others. I've figured out the "fool" part -- I know how to write a book. Six have now been published, and a seventh will come out later this year. The "genius" of knowing how to sell them in mass quantities has thus far eluded me, however. Much work remains to be done, if I hope to one day become a genius. … [Read more...]
Unforgivable sin
Once upon a time, Jack Henry Abbott was serving time for forgery and manslaughter. However, Abbott managed to become pen pals with author Norman Mailer from his prison cell and then turned their correspondence into his bestselling book titled In the Belly of the Beast, which received a rave review from the New York Times. Despite the fact prison officials vehemently opposed his release and considered him unstable, Abbott was paroled after numerous liberal "Hollywood" elitists had championed his cause. Actress Susan Sarandon even went so far that she honored Abbott by naming her son with actor Tim Robbins "Jack Henry." Yet six weeks after his release from prison and with a nice five-figure advance on royalties in his pocket, Jack Henry Abbott senselessly murdered his waiter in a New York restaurant only the day before his book received that untimely rave New York Times review. It wasn't merely because he wrote well that Abbott was so readily forgiven his many horrible sins by people like Norman Mailer and Susan Sarandon. Jack Henry Abbott became successful in part because he wrote what liberal elitists wanted to read -- about how the criminal justice system was unfair to criminals, regardless of whether or not the criminal actually deserved punishment as decreed by our judicial system. What the elitists forgot, of course, was that forgiveness requires repentance. If you aren't sorry for your sins (all crimes are sins, but not all sins are crimes) then you don't deserve forgiveness. Jack Henry Abbott should not have been released from prison. Even so, … [Read more...]
The Pearl: 31 March 2015
You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might also pray in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance. – Khalil Gibran You're familiar with the expression, "Great minds think alike?" Proving the truth of that old proverb, the Lebanese poet Khalil Gibran and Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw have both said basically the same thing about prayer: that we pray for the wrong reasons. We don't give thanks to God for what we have. Instead, we mostly beg our Creator to give us what we don't have, as if God exists to serve us. … [Read more...]
Stupidity in higher education
If you don't know about the latest scandal revealed by James O'Keefe and Project Veritas, you should check out the link below. An undercover reporter posing as a student advocate for Hamas and ISIS was told by an assistant dean at Cornell University that representatives of those terrorist organizations would be welcome on campus, and "grant" money might even be made available to help pay for the expenses of their visit. An associate dean at an Ivy League school doesn't know that ISIS are the terrorists beheading the prisoners they don't burn alive? Or doesn't care? … [Read more...]
The Pearl: 30 March 2015
The only source of knowledge is experience. – Albert Einstein Albert Einstein was arguably one of the greatest scientists of the 20th century. This quote is particularly interesting because there are some renowned modern scientists who would try to convince you the opposite is true -- they actually claim that careful inference is superior to personal experience. However, seeing is indeed believing. In my book Divine Evolution, I wrote about my personal experiences -- yes, I do mean to imply there were multiple occurrences -- with ghosts. Many of these paranormal experiences were witnessed by other people. And in another chapter, I wrote about my personal encounter with the risen Christ on the night I connected the dots that linked Matthew 7:7 and Revelations 3:20. Then in my Counterargument for God, I sought to examine what I perceive to be a connection between the near death experience, or NDE, and ghosts, which of course could be called ADES, for after death experiences. My personal experiences were not hallucinations. They were nothing less than evidence that strongly indicates that the mind and brain are actually separable entities. There is scientific evidence to support my claims, known as corroborated veridical NDE events. These events involve a person who has a medical emergency of some nature that puts them temporarily in a state near death, and they claim to have out-of-body experiences. What makes these claims of particular interest are two facts: their medical condition can be verified, and these people make a specific claim of acquiring … [Read more...]
