If you've never heard of Derald Cochran before reading this article about him, don't feel bad. He isn't famous. But if Derald Cochran's story is true, his life was literally saved by an angel. Derald had been racing full speed down the path to his own destruction, abusing both alcohol and drugs after his younger brother Mike was murdered and set on fire in a drug deal gone bad. He was raging out of control. "I had a lot of hate," Derald says. "I reeked in hate. It radiated from me. My eyes were black, from what I've been told by people who knew me." After a five day non-stop binge of partying, Derald found himself "on my hands and knees on the floor puking up blood. Then all of a sudden I felt a warmth, an incredible warmth all over me." From an incredibly bright light, Derald claimed that he saw the figure of an ethereal being emerge. Then he heard a voice say, "You have been chosen to be a light unto others." Derald's reaction was fairly typical for a nonbeliever of the supernatural or spiritual phenomena. "I knew then I'd finally flipped," he said. "I'd lost it. Gone right over the edge. The next thing I remember was this incredible feeling of peace." Once upon a time, Derald Cochran had lost his own biological children to children's services. After his transformative experience, he became a foster parent and even adopted a child. Once an alcoholic and drug addict, Derald Cochran eventually served on the board of directors for BARN, the Bangor Area Recovery Network. Police officer James Owen, who knew Derald before his life changed, said, "He was a … [Read more...]
Breaching “The Bulwark”
According to the dictionary, a bulwark is a defensive wall-sort of like the wall President Trump wants to build on the southern border to prevent illegal immigration. Hadrian's Wall and the Great Wall of China are probably the two best known examples of bulwarks constructed in an attempt to halt the advance of an invading army. The Bulwark is a website that curiously describes itself as “a news network launched in 2018 dedicated to providing political analysis and reporting free of the constraints of partisan loyalties or tribal prejudices.” Which really means The Bulwark probably ought to be called The Bulls##t instead, because they are full of it. Question: do podcasts count as televised news programs? These people certainly are not competing with Fox News or even CNN for viewers. Founded by former conservative, former radio host Charlie Sykes, The Bullwark employs Never Trumpers such as Bill Kristol, Sykes’ former boss at The Weekly Standard, and Mona Charen, the theoretically conservative author of propaganda such as “How a Democrat Can Win Over a Never-Trumper”, published at Politico. They are the closest thing resembling conservatives that this alleged “news network” employs. Most of the other writers seem to be pure liberals with credentials as contributors to CNN and MSNBC, or members of Common Cause, which is currently raising money and advocating for mail-in voting. Tim Miller is described as “senior adviser to the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC”, whatever that’s supposed to be. This might explain why the website hasn't become more popular…I remained … [Read more...]
A Universe From Nothing
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...]
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...]
