Protecting Our Rights to Protect Our Children

Everyone should be appalled at the killings which occurred in Connecticut yesterday. There is nothing more evil than a person who would harm innocent children - whether out of hate for an individual or group, or for an ideology. A prayer for the victims and mourning families is the appropriate first response.  The second response should be to make sure it never happens again.
There is no question that firearms were involved. We will all learn more about the types of weapons, how they were used, and when and where they were purchased.  But less than 24 hours after the attack on the kindergarten class the battle lines for the fight over gun control and gun rights are being drawn. The mayors of New York, Boston, Seattle, and the Governor of New York are demanding national level action from the President to implement control over guns. Film maker Michael Moore was quoted in a tweet of “The NRA hates freedom. They don’t want you to have the freedom to send your children to school & expect them to come home alive.”  President Obama’s tearful press conference yesterday signaled his emotional intent to support any and all measures to take guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens. (Read More)

GOD’s SUDOKU (Part 1)

Deriving the presence of God in our World and Lives

I have been struck by the growing number of people who are publicly proclaiming that God does not exist. From the well known atheists like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins, and Penn Jillette, to lesser known groups who like to refer to themselves as “free thinkers.” While their arguments range from high minded intellectualism to wanton pleasure seeking, they all boil down to the simple premise that we cannot prove that God exists anymore than we can prove unicorns or fairies exists. They then point to the plethora of differing religions which all claim to be the one true religion and then argue that none can be true.  

I enjoy working Sudoku puzzles.  They can be quite challenging. Their design so simple: a block of numbers, nine squares by nine squares, divided into nine blocks of nine blocks each, requiring the arrangement of the numbers 1 through 9 in each row, column, and block so that all nine numbers appear without repeating in each.  This simple puzzle requires exercises in logic, eliminating possibilities, identifying possibilities, and using inductive and deductive reasoning to finally arrive at the only answer and number which can fit.   
In many ways, finding God by arriving at the conclusion that He exist is like finding the number which fits into a particular block on a Sudoku puzzle. And figuring out how he fits into the rows, columns, and blocks of our lives becomes clearer when we learn to understand and appreciate the progression and logic of where and how He fits in.

One of the major premises of Atheism is that it takes a scientific approach to all aspects of life, including how life came into existence.  Scientific Atheism believes that all life has occurred by random chance and natural selection. It supposes that science has somehow proven that God as Creator cannot exist. Or, at the very least, scientific method requires that we must scientifically “prove” God exist before we can acknowledge him.   

So, let’s do some math.

Molecular biologist, Dr Doug Axe, points out that it takes at least 250 proteins for the simplest life form to function.  Each of these proteins would require the sequencing of at least four amino acids. He gives the probability of this happening randomly for a single organism, in a given pool of primordial soup, at 1 in 1 trillion⁶ (that’s 1 Trillion x 1 Trillion x 1Trillion x 1 Trillion x 1Trillion x 1 Trillion).[1]  It is important to note that this is the probability for the line-up for these amino acids for a single organism in a perfect environment. But it would take at least two to reproduce. The probability of those two organisms reproducing and then evolving into the millions of plant and animal species we have on earth today, all living within their perfectly balanced ecosystems, with their multitudes of sensory capabilities, and finally developing the human species capable of learning and creating great technological developments and societies, capable of acts of reason, kindness, and cruelty beyond all other animals, is even more incalculable.

But even this part of the equation is incomplete: let’s also consider the probability of the occurrence of the environment in which that perfect primordial soup could exist to support the creation of that first simple organism and its multiplication and evolution into the current form of our species on this earth. In looking at the billions upon billions of solar systems in the universe, what is the probability of a single planet, achieving the perfect mass and gravitational size and rotation to hold its perfectly composed and balanced atmosphere and perfect orbit around a perfectly situated star with the perfect balance of mass, gravitational pull, heat and stability to hold that planet at the perfect distance to provide the constant temperature ranges and variables to support life?  In pondering this question, we must also consider the probability of that planet having the perfect rotational spin to provide the perfect mix of daily light and wind speed to provide a perfect range of moisture, oxygen, and climate for an environment that would nurture life and not destroy it. If the earth’s rotation were any faster, the winds on the surface would become so fast they would scour the earth’s surface, eroding the top soil and permanently clouding our atmosphere with dust.  If it were any slower, our earth’s surface would experience extremes of temperatures from prolonged days and nights which would destroy the daily and seasonal stability required to support life as we know it. 

We must also consider the perfect rotation of our single moon around this planet we call home and the environmental stability it provides.  If we had multiple moons, our ocean tides and atmospheric conditions would be thrown to minimums and extremes totally changing our environment.  When the moons were are on opposite sides of the planet, there gravitational pulls would create daily tsunamis and sand bars.  When the moons align, their combined gravitational pull would cause massive global tsunamis and could rip our precious atmosphere away from the earth and into the vacuum of space.  If we had no moon, our oceans’ tides would be much more stagnant, preventing the necessary churning of oxygen and temperature variables necessary to maintain our environment.

There are those who consider the idea of an intelligent designer of our eco-system and life to be unscientific.  Many wish to view the development of life as a random occurrence for which only science can provide answers and are of the belief that scientific discovery eliminates the need for, and even the possibility of God. But scientific discovery and math point to the literal impossibility of life occurring anywhere in the universe without the presence of a highly intelligent creator.  

To argue that life on earth was created by random chance without the presence of a Creator is akin to arguing that it is possible for a single person to win a dozen of the world’s national lotteries on the same day without some sort of fix.  (The probability of winning the Power Ball lottery is calculated to be 1 in 175 Million.)  Would any self-respecting scientist make such an argument?   

The Creator is real, and he speaks to us.  His presence can be felt, and He reveals His identity to us. But each of us has to work through His Sudoku puzzle to make it all fit together in our lives.  
More blocks in this puzzle to follow……

More by William Russell at www.williamrussell.net

Shipping Out On Sequestration

Shipping Out On Sequestration

   I received an email link today from my friend, Joseph John, a retired Navy Captain, and Chairman of the Combat Veterans for Congress.  It is a great entry for the opening salvo on the Strategic Theory page of this site.  He links to a interview with Admiral (Ret) James A. Lyons. It demonstrates how domestic policy discussions can have massive impacts on our national security and that when the President places a higher priority on political power than ensuring the safety and security of our nation, he is courting disaster. A strong economy is vital to maintaining a strong military, and a strong military is equally vital to protecting our economic and political security. It demonstrates how important it is for political leaders to communicate these links and to present a coordinated national strategy to maintain our nation’s freedoms.  It also demonstrates what a devastating failure President Obama, and unfortunately much of the Republican leadership, is on this front.

   Here is the opening introduction from CAPT John: 

   “Going over the Fiscal Cliff will result in sequestration, yet the devastation resulting from sequestration is being covered up by the left of center liberal media establishment.  Please view the video in the below listed link as Admiral James Lyons, Jr. USNA ’52 USN (Ret), former Commander-in-Chief of the US Pacific Fleet, explains what sequestration will mean to the US Navy; it will result in having less ships in the entire US Fleet that the US Navy had before World War I------and less US Navy ships than Admiral Lyons had in the US Pacific Fleet, when it was under his command.   Sequestration will not only unilaterally decrease the capability of the US Navy; it will also unilaterally decrease the capability of each of the other service branches.  The American people should ask themselves why the Commander-in-Chief is unilaterally decreasing the capabilities of the US Armed Forces in face of the serious increasing threats facing the nation from China, Russia, Iran, and Islamic Terrorists."

http://www.foxbusiness.com/on-air/lou-dobbs-tonight/index.html#/v/2000966522001/would-sequestration-cuts-be-disastrous-for-us-military/?playlist_id=164630

THANKS FOR THE BACON,  MR. REAGAN

Presidents are usually so far removed from us that most never appreciate how they can impact our daily lives.  Here is how Ronald Reagan touched two lives on opposite sides of the Iron Curtain: ours.

BILL  

  I grew up as an Air Force brat. In 1962 my father was stationed Newfoundland, Canada where I was born.  By age 11, I had visited or lived in 19 states and traveled to six foreign countries.  From 1971 to 1973, my family lived in Taiwan while my father flew combat missions in and out of Vietnam.  I had the early experience of knowing our next door neighbor, Capt Mariel Maison who was shot down and killed during the 1972 NVA offensive.  In 1975, two years after my father retired, I was sadden by the fall of Saigon. In the following years I was, perhaps, a little more aware than the average teenager of the atrocities being committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia.

Comment below or read the full article at: http://www.williamrussell.net/Reagan_s_Bacon.php