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Our Daily Thread 9-10-12

Good morning!

This is the daily thread. Talk about whatever you’d like.

Quote of the Day

“Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.”

Winston Churchill

52 thoughts on “Our Daily Thread 9-10-12”

  6. 2 of 7

    The Experiment.

    The experiment would require the following.

    1. A country isolated from all outside contact. (Current example: North Korea). (Past examples include countries controlled by Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Oliver Cromwell, and the Ayatollah Khomeini).

    2. A dictator with absolute power. (Current example: Kim Jong-un).

    3. A devoted band of “cult-like” followers willing to follow the leader’s goals and rules. Not sure what would be the best example in today’s world. Examples that come to mind are Iran, and North Korea, again. But neither quite fits.

    There would be some differences from the examples I provide. For example, most dictators are evil. The dictator I envision would mostly be curious. (Like me, for example). (Of course, curiosity might lead to evil results.)

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  10. Well, my Chrissy starts her part-time “apprentice” job today. She will be going along with Lee to help him out, 2 to 3 days a week. (They are long days.) He is able to have her come with him because he is an IO – Independent Operator.

    This will help our daughter, who has Asperger’s Syndrome, to get her feet wet out in the working world. I’m hoping she’ll build some confidence from this, too.

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  12. In other news, my niece is engaged to her boyfriend. “He” gave her a one & a half carat diamond ring!

    Why the quotation marks on “he”? Because “he” used to be a she. (Technically, “he” still is a she, but really does look & act like a “he”.)

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  13. Other than the gift of eternal life. I would say that the greatest gift God gave me a wonderful wife of 35 years. She is the glue that holds me together when everything else seems to be flying apart. It is a good thing when a man finds a wife. Proverbs 18:22

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  14. Modesty is too modest to say benevolent dictator, so he is sticking with curious 😉 I will have to go back and catch up on the premise of this experiment.

    QoD: Hubby and seven kids of course, but after that I would say an intuitive sense, an ability to make poetic connections; it has stood me in good stead as a writer.

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  15. Good morning all.

    The greatest gift that I have received is my beautiful wife. She is the greatest reflection of Christ that I have experienced.

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  16. Not to worry, Random, even in your little model country, there will be believers. because God tells us that even creation speaks of Him and we have the Truth written in our hearts.

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  17. Mumsee, I always loved that Psaml 19:1 (The heavens declare the glory of God;
    the skies proclaim the work of his hands) and Romans 1:19 (since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them) both speak to your point.

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  18. Was that the premise or your experiment, Random? To isolate people from any exposure to religion to see what happens? And your expectation is that they’ll all be atheists?

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  19. Which is why I, from a very early age, though living in an unbelieving household and attending public school, still knew I desperately needed God to intervene in my life. I say I became a believer at fourteen but it would be better to say that I became aware that I was alive in Him at that age. He had long been working on me.

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  20. Hello all. Back to work after a lazy weekend.

    Greatest gift: my godly parents who raised me in a Christian home.

    Karen, that’s interesting. My youngest sister has what appears to be Asperger’s as well, plus something else like bipolar or something. There are many signs that fit Asperger’s well but it pretty clearly goes beyond that also. My parents have had some real struggles trying to care for her.

    As to your second comment, man this world is messed up.

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  21. Modesty is too modest to say benevolent dictator, so he is sticking with curious I will have to go back and catch up on the premise of this experiment.

    Every dictator starts out intending to be “benevolent.” Good intentions seldom (if ever) stand the test of time. Just as the word “gay” sometimes means “happy and jolly” and sometimes means sexually attracted to the same sex, the word “curious” sometimes means “inquisitive” and sometime means “odd and eccentric,” which I surely am.

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  22. Not to worry, Random, even in your little model country, there will be believers. because God tells us that even creation speaks of Him and we have the Truth written in our hearts.

    I am not worried, as I know I will die (whether I want to or not), so I might as well indulge myself in “cheerful despair” (the tag on my atheist business card). In the imaginary country, I suspect there will be believers, but the proof is in the pudding. (I am visualizing a bunch of people in Hell drowning in chocolate pudding. Or maybe in Baked Alaska, perhaps prepared by Sarah Palin.)

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  23. Was that the premise [of] your experiment, Random? To isolate people from any exposure to religion to see what happens? And your expectation is that they’ll all be atheists?

    My hypothesis is that people raised without exposure to religious belief would become religious. However, scientists test hypotheses and pay attention to the facts whether they like the results or not. I am not a very good scientist. My daughter is a pretty good scientist, and I have known one very outstanding scientist, (whose name you never heard of — Donna Weistrop). Because of her scientific specialty, I wondered if Donna was a religious believer but I chose not to ask her. However, Donna did reveal something quite astonishing to me (though it has no bearing on religious belief).

    Actually, my hypothesis is that some people in the imaginary country would become religious; some would not. The religious people would form different belief groups. The atheists would form different unbelief groups. The various groups would fight wars and kill each other. Then they would say, “Why are we killing each other?” and try to stop such behavior, with indifferent success.

    But that’s just a guess, not even good enough to qualify as a hypothesis.

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  24. QOD. Well I don’t believe in “gifts.” I do believe in blind luck. 1. My wife and I — who met through blind luck — remain married after 46 years, even though we are 80% incompatible. 2. My daughter is a great “kid” (even though she is now 46. (As you can see, I cheat — naming two good lucks.)

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  25. AQOD (Alternative question of the day). My first AQOD was about how you became a believer. The answers were eloquent, moving, and interesting, and I read them all with careful attention. AQOD #2 (again I caution you I have mischief in mind) have you ever brought anyone to Christ? If you can describe how and whom without violating confidences, I would find that interesting as well

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  28. Random, I can truly say that I never brought anyone to Christ. I have explained to non-believers how God lovingly calls unbelievers to faith in Christ. I then have called them to repent. Some have repented and are now believers. Some rejected. As to examples, I recall a young Jewish sailor that came to visit the Servicemen’s Center in Vallejo. We sat down together and I explained to Adam from the scriptures how Yeshua was his Messiah and that Yeshua was also his High Priest. Adam prayed with me and with tears streaming down his face, he embraced me and said with confidence that Christ was his Lord and that Christ was making intercession for him at the right hand of the Father.

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  29. Mumsee, not only that, I believe that certain individuals are born without an inclination to religious belief, and even a genetic disinclination. (Such as me. And why I ask, “What kind of God would make me disinclined to believe in Him? Isn’t that predestination?)

    At the last atheist meetup, one woman spoke of being raised by Jehovah’s Witnesses. (BTY, are JW’s “real Christians” or like Mormons, not the real deal?) Anyway, everyone else in her family were and are JWs, and don’t speak to her at all. As a child she believed and knocked on doors and was fairly isolated from other influences.

    “How did you, alone in your family, decide to break away?” I asked her. She said, “As I grew up, I gradually just stopped believing.” She also married an atheist and moved away from Arizona to Washington, to get away from (and take her children away from) her family.

    “And YOUR children?” I asked her.

    “It’s a little touchy. My son is leaning toward religious belief. I am very careful around him,” she told me.

    We are complicated and confusing creatures, are we not?

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  30. Drivesguy, thank you. I may drop on some Jews interested in genealogy at my favorite Christian church in a couple of hours today. If they ask me why I am there, I will tell them I am up to mischief. However, I have a strong suspicion that no one will be there. But you just never know. Probably, on the day he was murdered, Osama bin Laden thought that everything would be fine. Just as on the day the WTC went up in smoke, everyone thought everything would be fine.

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  31. The greatest gift I have received outside of salvation is being the mother of my son.

    As for bringing someone to salvation, I have probably played a part in someone getting to salvation but I have not been one to be there when a person was led to the exact moment when they accepted Christ as Lord and Savior. There are usually a number of people who play a part through teaching, preaching, witnessing, sharing, meeting personal needs, befriending, etc. I am one of those to many different people in my life.

    As the Bible says in 1Corinthians 3:5-9, “What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building.”

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  32. Random, and so it is with my dad and brothers. They have often said they envy the belief of others and wished they believed. But they can’t. (Though they can if God is so inclined to make them alive though they are dead in their sins.) They envy the lives of believers, though they live good ethical lives of their own. But they cannot bring themselves to believe. True. They can’t. Dead people cannot make themselves alive, it is a work of God.

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  33. So, Random, if you believe that some people are inclined toward believing in God and others are inclined toward not believing, from where do you get your confidence that the ones who are inclined toward not believing are right and the believers are wrong.

    Also, if people are in some sense “programmed” or however you want to say it toward believing or not believing, what’s your theory about the ones who spent decades as atheists and then come to faith as well as the ones who are faithful believers for decades and then stop believing?

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  34. My step mom, for example, came to belief in Christ when she was eighty. She was not surrounded by believers, though she was prayed for. She was surrounded by the pain of her own sin and wanted to have freedom from her emotional pain. Ten years later, she is contented and joyful and peaceful, knowing that the Truth has set her free.

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  37. If you tell them you are up to mischief, Random, they will probably chuckle with you, because they know your sense of humor.

    I personally would be very saddened Random if you should pass away. I consider your dry humor rather enjoyable, but then again, I have always enjoyed people with wit and a sense of humor. As King Solomon once wrote in Proverbs 17: 22 “A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

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  39. It’s a miracle! I remembered my password! My mother died with Alzheimer’s. My father’s oldest sister died with Alzheimer’s. Your best bet with me is to get to me while I am logged on but have no idea what I am doing. Would that be a legitimate conversion? My sister (the religious one who cared for our mother and babbled non-stop in her ears about Jesus apparently thought so).

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  40. If you tell them you are up to mischief, Random, they will probably chuckle with you, because they know your sense of humor.

    I was quite mistaken about the meeting. It was all about genealogy (not especially Jewish genealogy). What culture is it where people worship their ancestors? China? Korea? (My understanding is that Korea is one of the most Christian countries in Asia.)

    OK, the Internet (which may be a false God) tells me that ancestor worship if very common around the world, not just Asia. The people at the meeting (all white and probably most Anglo-Saxon) all clearly worship their ancestors.

    The Internet tells me the Phillipines is #2 (90%) and Korea is #3 (in East Asia) with about 50%. So catch a plane to Korea; there is work to be done.

    The people at the meeting do not know me and were telling each other jokes that hugely amused each other. I said nothing. It was not the right audience for me. I am about to head out to a Red Cross meeting. I will tell them that the Pacific NW will be destroyed in a huge Cascadia earthquake. They all know this and will make quiet jokes about it. We all share a very dry wit, much laced with black humor. some of us are atheists; some are religious believers; we all believe in facing facts and saving lives. Make sure you have a Go-Pack (with a Bible in it if your taste so runs).

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  41. Hello all. Long day. Tired. I am doing some things I love. I am training a new agent and teaching a little bit. I now have 3 computer monitors with two programs opened on each that I am monitoring and working in. I feel like I am on the flight deck of the USS Enterprise!

    The greatest gift is of course Baby Girl. As I said yesterday she is what I never knew I always wanted.

    Gotta go and prepare for tomorrow’s lesson/training. I’m the instructor!!!!!

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  42. QOD: Great Family! My wife is the only person who would put up with me. She stayed at home and did a great job raising our son. My job was easy. 2nd place: Great churches!

    CB, You are a youngster. My law school at the University of Texas only cost $200 a semester and that included tickets to the football games to see Earl Campbell.

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  43. I studied my family genealogy Random. It turns out I am a distant cousin to Chief William McIntosh of the Northern Creek Nation. Our common ancestor was John Mour McIntosh, high chieftain of McIntosh clan who came to Georgia to defend Savannah Georgia when Oglethorpe was Governor of Georgia. All my Creek relatives settled in Eufala Oklahoma.

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  44. OK people. Really? Seriously? Is this some kind of joke to teach me about restraint or something?

    Saturday’s Daily thread has been sitting there at 197 for hours and hours now. Must you taunt me so? You know I want it, yet it seems unseemly now for me to take it. And you guys just stopped at 197. You’re killin’ me. It would be the very first 200! ever here. That’s a milestone of sorts, at least for me. But I can’t do it. It would be tainted, a hollow victory at best.

    😦

    Now will someone please go down there and rectify the situation. I would be most grateful.

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  47. I saw that 197 and thought how close it is to 200. I thought how easy it would be to take it to 200. But I thought no one else was looking back and that no one would even notice that it had gone to 200. Well, I can see it was being watched. I am glad it made it to 200, too!

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  51. Random, I finally answered your first “Alternate Question of the Day” on this weekend’s thread (Our Daily Thread 9-10-12).

    My answer to your AQOD #2 is that I have not led anyone to Christ. The Holy Spirit does that.

    I have been an influence on people, no doubt, for better or worse. I had a piano student once who was named Student of the Month, or something like that, at her school. As part of that, when she was interviewed and asked to name a role model in her life, she named me. There were times over the years that I spoke with her about my faith, and when she graduated from high school, I shared the gospel with her, but if she comes to Christ some day, it will be entirely the Lord’s doing, and none of mine. Human beings can provide an example, but no human can make another human alive in Christ, as others have correctly noted here.

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