Nothingness

While doing some reading for school, I came across a reference to a philisophical world-view known as nihilism.

A good summation is " Existential nihilism begins with the notion that the world is without meaning or purpose. Given this circumstance, existence itself--all action, suffering, and feeling--is ultimately senseless and empty." (emphasis mine)

Let me sum it up.

• There is no God, no devil, no angles, no heaven, no hell, and no life after death
• We're nothing more than a cosmic accident
• We're nothing more than animals
• There is no higher authority than mere human contrivance.
• Right and wrong are abstractions created by the human mind. There is no right and wrong.
  
• There is no meaning to life
• There is no purpose in existence.
• We are born, we live, we die and there is nothing more than that
• All values, all goals, all accomplishments are, in the end, meaningless and temporary. Humanity's greatest achievements will not last.
  
• The ends justify the means.

This mindset, mixed with marxist dogma, explans where most liberals come from in their perspective of the world. They are steeped in this and conflict theory.

Since all that exists is now, and evil isn't real, we are to live our lives to maximize our pleasure and enjoyment in life. Whatever flips your switch is ok, as long as you don't bother me.

So all that is in the world is materialism and sensuality.

Also, since there is no objective right and wrong, the ends justifies the means.

No hope, no real joy, no meaning, no purpose, nothing that lasts. Nobody really matters.

These poor people don't know how deluded they are! Folks, there is a God!

Therefore I have a purpose. I have joy, meaning, and hope. I know that what I do matters. I know I matter, and I'm more than just an animal. There is a future, and right and wrong are not matters of opinion but fact.

Conformity

There are different types of conformity.  

Conformity is usually viewed as an evil.  It is not universally so.  

Conformity allows us to live in a society.  In order to live in peace together, we must conform our behavior to the norms of society, such as not killing people, not stealing, not abusing people, following the rules of the road, etc.

Conformity also identifies our membership in peer groups.  Every group has its own standards to which  its members must conform, and the group is identified by the those standards.  From the glee club to the Hell's Angels, each has its uniform and code of conduct.

Conformity also shows respect.  If I bow to a Japanese man, I am not materially conforming, just honoring the custom of the society.  If I wear a tie to a job interview, I am not 'putting on airs', but rather saying , "I respect you and your business and so I am conforming to your idea of how an interviewee is supposed to look"

Conformity, however has a bad side.  We are pressured by others to conform to their ways, in order to "fit in"  This conformity usually involves sacrificing our principals, morals or deeply held beliefs.

Basically, there are two types of conformity  internal and external conformity, or rather  immateriall and material conformity.  However you wish to define them, the basics are these.

Material conformity is conformity that requires you to concede a core principal, moral or standard, while immaterial conformity does not.

• If conforming requires you to change who you are, it's material.  
• If conforming requires you to change what you stand for, it's material.
• If conforming requires you to change your beliefs, then it's material.
• If conforming requires you to act in a way you feel is wrong, it's material.
• If conforming requires you to mistreat others, it's material.

Material conformity is usually wrong (unless, you're value system is way off base)

Immaterial conformity is a natural part of human society, and society couldn't function without it.  A smoker is conforming when he does not smoke in my house.

I say this because I know too many people who are see non-conformity of all stripes as honorable and right.   They confuse the two types.

Funny Video

This is a funny video I ran across on YouTube. It is a news pariody about Obama supporters after the election.

Worst President?

Guessing game. Which president am I talking about?

• Admitted to spending money on military items without Congressional approval ( a felony)
• Suppressed an armed uprising in Haiti with US Marines, at the cost of over 2000 Haitians
• Pursued homosexuals in the naval service, even using entrapment as a method of investigation. (Actually had sailors pursue homosexuals to drum them out of the service)
• Withheld from the public serious medical conditions that could effect his judgement as commander and chief
• Campaigned on a promise to balance the Federal budget, and then increased governmental spending by some 80%
• Tried to appoint radicals to the Supreme Court to allow his radical legislation to pass Judaical review. This attempt was rebuffed by congress.
• Promised to keep the US out of war, but secretly pursued a path to involve the US in a war.
• Violated international law by supplying by selling munitions to belligerents (nations at war. This is ok as long as the selling was open to both parties. It wasn't, however. It was one-sided, and thus was an act of war)
• Used the IRS to investigate his enemies
• Pulled FBI files of political opponents.
• Raised the effective tax rate by 700%
• Propped up a foreign dictator who brutally suppressed his own people.
• Imposed programs to redistribute wealth
• Imposed more government programs on the nation than any other president.
• Locked up people with no trial in military camps, some of whom where American citizens who did nothing.
• Actively supported secrete nuclear weapon research do develop a weapon to use against other nations.
• Is known to have cheated on his wife with more than one woman, at least one of whom worked for him.

Who are you thinking? Reagan? Bush? Clinton? Carter? Nixon?

Nope. It's liberalism's iconic leader, Franklin D. Roosevelt. He is praised as one of the best presidents of all time, and Bush is repudiated as one of the worst.

Food for thought.

I think Bush was a mediocre president.

• In foreign policy, he didn't attempt to persuade our allies on many issues (such as removal of North Korea from the list of terrorist nations, without talking to South Korea).
• He failed to communicate his core beliefs and reasoning to the American people.
• He allowed the news media to set the agenda
• His frequent blunders in speaking will brand him among the lower third of presidents.
• Iraq is really iffy. If it turns out ok (read no dictator worse than Saddam taking over when we leave) then it might be worth the cost (in gold and blood). But it is a big gamble.
• Bush's stance on illegals was laughable and pathetic.
• He was a big spender

Even so, Bush had some good qualities

• He had the courage to stand for what he believed in, even when he knew the media would distort and ridicule him for it.
• I believe that his actions were to protect this country from further attacks.
• Bush tried his best to do the best job possible.

Distinctive Christian Doctrines

The Last Blog I did on the idiots from Westboro made me wish to discuss the 'real' doctrines of Christianity.


Total Depravity - Man is not 'good' in any sense of the word. Man (and to the woman out there, man is used as in 'mankind'. It is inclusive of you) fall far short of God's standards (Romans 3:23, 5:12, 6:23). Our thoughts are evil, and our hearts aren't pure (Gen 6:5, Jer 17:9). There is nothing good in us that God says, "Hey look! I've gotta have him for my child.


Justice-God is just. He cannot wink at our sin. There has to be a payment for the sin. We have a similar sense to us. When we see those who commit crimes turned loose by our farce of a legal system, we feel the burning indignation in our hearts that injustice was done.


Love-The bible says that there is no greater love than a man lay down his life for his friend. Since God's love for us is so great, he came up with a way to appease his sense of justice and take care of the punishment for our sins himself.



Grace-God, in his love for us, gives us grace. Grace means unmerited favor. It means getting what I don't deserve. It's like mercy on steroids. Mercy is not getting what you deserve (the cop letting you go with a warning when you deserve a ticket). Grace is getting much more than you deserve (the cop in the example above, not giving you a ticket, but giving you $100,000 because he wanted to.) God's plan is based on grace. It's not about how good of a boy I can be (thank you Jesus. I'd not have a chance). It's about how good Jesus was. It was about Jesus paying for what I did by his death on the cross.



Forgiveness-By grace, we get forgivenes. The bible says that our sins are as far from us as the east is from the west. When God looks at us (once we accept the gift God paid for, that is) he doesn't see me and my sinful self. He sees Jesus. My sins are covered by the blood Jesus shed.

Westboro Baptist Church, aka "God Hates Fags"

About the Wesboro people.


There is a "church" in Topeka, Kansas that protests funerals. They've done the funerals of soliders, homosexuals, even the Sago Miners who died in an accident.

Here's an interview with them.


They state "God Hates Fags" and that "God Loves Everyone, the greatest lie ever told"


These people are so wrong for so many reasons. Let me list a few.

1. God doesn't hate fags. John 3:16 says "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son.." Folks, this includes all sinners, including homosexuals. God hates sin. He hates mine, he hates the sin of the homosexual, he hates the sin of the adulter, the fornicator, the liar, and the thief. Romans 5:8 says, "but God Commedeth his love towards us that, while we were sinners, Christ died for us"
2. It is one thing to say "homosexuality is a sin" (It is, by the way, and that is not "hate speech" no matter how loudly the liberals scream it.) It's quite another to be mean, hateful, and spiteful and try to cause pain to those who lost someone they loved. There are only two commandments in the Bible. First, love God with all your heart, mind soul and spirit, and to love your neghbor as yoruself. The golden rule, so oft repeated, is "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you". I doubt that they would like someone causing them additional pain when saying goodbye to a loved one.
3. The Bible says to "Speak the truth in love". Telling a soldier's family that he's burning in Hell right now at his funeral is as far from love as I can fathom. Let's assume that they're right (although I doubt they do any research to see if the person whose funeral they're picketing was a Christian). Let's assume that the solider did died in his sins. Millions fall into hell every day. Why protest this one? What do they gain by causing even more suffering to the family? I doubt that they'd have anyone jump up and say, "Gee, I realize now that I need Christ because you're making a butt of yourselves!" What they gain is publication and notaritiy. I would never condone lying to family members about what the scripture says about salvation, but when someones heart is broken it is not Christ-like to ground glass into it. Speak the truth in love. There is no love there.
4. They say "The only lawful sexual connection is the marriage bed. All other sex activity is whoremongery and adultery, which will damn the soul forever in Hell" They are right about the only lawful sexuality. But they are wrong about damning the soul. Salvation is not by works but by Grace. God saves use because of what JESUS ALREADY DID. Any sin, not under the blood of Jesus Christ is enough to damn the soul to hell. That includes little white lies, or cold-blooded murder.

In Defense

I was in class on Thursday (11/6) when my teacher started to go on about Obama's victory in the polls, and what it meant for us.


I don't have a problem with the sharing of political or religious ideas in college. I discuss both topics often and with great vigor. Furthermore, it is quite normal and expected for teachers to share their personal feelings and ideas with their classes.


This was not the simple sharing of personal feelings, but rather a leftist rant that was way over the top. It had no relevance to the subject matter (economics), was at least 20 minutes long if not longer, and was completely one-sided.


The teacher lambasted Republicans in general, and Rush Limbaugh and Ronald Reagan in specific. She let the class know that she had a special place of loathing for fundamentalist Christians in her heart. She accused all the above groups of spreading hate and strife.


She talked of her days in the sixties when she thought that any differences due to race, gender and sexual orientation would fade away, and everyone would love and help one another. She repeatedly implied that to disagree with her interpretation of reality was either disingenuous, stupid, or mis-informed.

She talked about crying when McCain gave his concession speech, and crying again when Opera cried. She told us that we now have an opportunity to change the world (I'm assuming that the opportunity to change the world only exists when a Democrat is in the White House) by being the change. The final point, I guess, was that Democrats should be gracious in their victory, not evil like the Republicans.

During most of this, I kept quiet. Really. I knew that by speaking up, I'd only turn the monologue into a discussion, and I had to get home to help Laura (my nine-year-old daughter) with a school project.


I wasn't really angry. Obama won, I expected gloating. Aggravated, that the gloat kept going and the topics covered kept widening. Frustrated that she'd use her position and abuse the trust between student and teacher in such a partisan manner. But, I'm a big boy, no sweat.

She went on to say that Jesus wasn't a Christian, and that she was afraid of fundamentalists, and brought up the killing of abortion doctors by Fundamentalists as if doctors were falling victim every day to the hands of the deranged. At this point, I had to speak up.

After all, there have five, maybe six abortion doctors murdered. At least one or two of which were not done by fundamentalists.


Branding every Christian who believes in the literal interpretation of the Bible (which is a defining characteristic of "Fundamentalists"), is as fair as saying every member of PETA is a murder because some animal rights nuts kill scientists who use animals in their experiments. It's about as fair as saying all gays want to kill Christians because Christians voted for the Constitutional Amendment in Calif.


I made several points. I don't know if any got through.

• I explained that I was a fundamentalist Christian, who taught each Sunday. Since it is obvious that my knuckles don't drag the ground, nor is there a puddle of drool around my seat, I hoped that I could be an example what Christan's really are, instead of the fear-mongering image portrayed in the media.
• I said that I can believe that a behavior is a sin without hating the person doing it.
• I said that two people can look at the same data and draw two different opinions from it, without one being brainwashed or ignorant.
• I am not ignorant, stupid or misinformed just because I don't happen to agree with her

Sometime during the discussion, Lisa Ramey came in. Lisa and I go to church together, about the teacher was talking about about me being a fundamentalist, and Lisa says "We go to church together".

A little later, the teacher started to chide Baptists because of the complete morons at Westboro baptist church (aka. the "God Hates Fags" groups who picket funerals. )


Lisa says "We go to a baptist church". It was almost funny.

Regular Expressions, and strong coffee

It has been awhile since last I wrote. In the inerviening time, I have graduated from school with an applied associates in Computer Science, joined a gospel group (playing bass and not singing...yet), and have started back to school to get my BA (I wanted a BS, but I have kids who are growing up too quick to spend the time it would take)

So, while swilling a large cup of strong coffee (to stay awake since I've started back to school, it's up every morning at 4:30AM, work at 6am) I stumbled across something sweet. VB dot net 2005 has built in support for regular expressions!

For those who are not aware of this very handy but weird language, regular expressions are a way to search for patterns in text. A simple exaple, [0-9] would return a match of any number 0 to 9. Regular expressions are extremely useful for pattern matching. Visit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regular_expression for more information.

I've been working on a manual for our heirloom management system I wrote. I am working to move heirloom production from me to our customer service unit. I'm trying to be concise, but I am up to 27 pages, and I still have at least two sections left.

I've been using Gimp's screen shot feature for creating diagrams and illistrations for the manual. The screen shot features is found under the file menu, then aquire. It's easier than using the printscreen feature of Windows.

Refugees

Something interesting happened to us (the family) Tuesday. We came home from work, like normal. My thoughts were of accounting homework that needed to be done that evening.  Instead, we were surprised to see several of Kanawa County Sheriff deputies.

When I asked what was going on, I was told that they had just busted our neighbor for operating a clandestine meth lab. http://www.statejournal.com/story.cfm?func=viewstory&storyid=34479

So we loaded up the family and stayed down at the in-laws.

Cooking meth is dangerous. They blow up, they poison children, and just isn't a good thing to do. I have two kids. You want to kill yourself, go ahead. When you bring my family into it, that's something else.

Divided Minds

The Bible says that a double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. I'm tettering right now. There is a couple of major decisions that MUST be made in the next few weeks.

I should be graduating in May with my AS in Computer science. Now, I work as a programmer, and an AS degree would be useful. My wonderful and loving wife has put up with about four years now of me being a part-time husband, since school demands so much attention. I am also tired of homework, tired of working 40 hours a week, coming home and helping with housework, and then having to stay up all night studying.

On the other hand, a bachlor's degree would be more useful, and to be honest, more respected. If I say, "I have an associeates of science..." most "educated" people say, "oh, so what" It's like saying "I finished the 8th grade, and it only took five tries!"

A bachlors is the minimum for most State jobs. Should I continue in school, and put my family out, or continue on to help out my family's financial situation?

One is intensly personal, intensly private and the details of which I'm not going to share. I've been asked to do something that, while I understand and agree with the rational arguments for doing so, my heart says something else. Basically, it's a decision between what I want and what would be better for someone else.

These decisions must be made soon (within a month or so), and I must live with the consequences for the rest of my life.

Busy time, new baby

Well, it has been quite a while since I last wrote. To be honest, I had forgotten both my user name and password. An update would be warrented to the one or two people who may stumble across my rantings.

In Feb. 2007, we found out that we were going to be parents again. A little later, we found that we were having a son. On October 19th, Benjamin was born. Check out the link to the online birth announcement I posted. Ben is a healthy, happy, BIG Boy. His big sister thinks that he is simply the greatest

Work is still busy. I have been given (temporarily) the responsibility to make the Heirloom Birth Certificates until I finish the Heirloom order entry system. I'm doing it in VB 2005 (every time I mention the term "VB" my wife snickers as she says it sounds like I'm saying "VD")

Funny thing about programming is that you have to continually update your skill set, and the most effective way to do so is to write the software in a new language. This is both fun and frustrating. Fun because you learn new stuff, but frustrating because the thing that you can do in ten seconds in the old language takes you days to figure out how to do in the new. In VB NET, Microsoft decided that all database access should be done through a disconnected data set.

Yes, I know, the data reader object allows forward-only connections and SQL commands can be issued over the COMMAND objects. The problem is that they went from easy rs.fields("fieldname").value = myString to parsing a SQL command string. In DAO, I could connect to the database in four statements. In ADO, I could do so in three. In ADO.NET, I'm into five statements just to open a database for read only, and reading values is a pain in the butt.

Anyway, if you're programming over the net, this makes perfect sense, but did they forget that VB is primarily used to design database front ends for a client server architecture? I have two main gripes with Microsoft. First is that they work to make money first, even if it screws the end users, and second, they think were all stupid.

They don't care. Just like they broke compatibility with VB 6 when the dot net stuff came out. The dismissed the idea that many companies have invested tens of thousands of dollars in a custom code bases and are reluctant to throw away the investment.

Just like the stupid tool bar(aka ribbon bar) that the microsofties foisted upon Office 2007 users. There are several degrees of computer users. Some users adapt to changes easily, and love to learn new ways of doing things. Some view computers as the devil's work, and interact with them the same way you interact with a plague victim, as little as possible. Companies have invested lots of money in user training. From Office 97 until 2003, the user interface remained mostly stable, allowing folks to take what they've learned from older versions and apply it to newer versions with little headache. Now I understand the desire to improve user interfaces, and I don't fault Microsoft's attempt to make things easier, but come on folks! How hard is it to provide a menu system in addition to the bar? I am not a novice user by any means, and I struggle to find where they hid the option that I need, when I knew exactly where it was in the menu.

NASA Fails Again

I just read This Article about the future lunar vehicle. It seems that the visionaries at NASA are going to reuse the Apollo and Shuttle technologies in this "great effort".

Come on folks, think about this for a moment. NASA used to stand for cutting-edge technology, and pushing back the boundaries of the unknown. Ever since the Challenger and Columbia Disasters, NASA has lost its way. Instead of being on the vanguard of exploration, they want to play it safe.

The article states, in part

"There were great technological pushes to make those systems fly," Jeff Hanley, NASA's program manager for Project Constellation, said of NASA's past spacecraft. "We're not in that situation with the Orion. ... We're not pushing the edge of the envelope in terms of designing and building this system."

The push to the moon created innovation after innovation that we are still enjoying today. The extreme challenges and dangers faced by both the moon shot and the shuttle programs brought the human race into the future. Now, NASA wants to return to the past, to play it safe, to stay in the yard instead of venturing out into the woods.

Exploration is never safe. There is an inherent risk associated with facing the unknown, and pushing back the limits of the unknown. NASA has lost its edge and needs an overhaul.

barnyard

We took Laura to see Barnyard yesterday. It was the funnest movie I've seen in quite a while. It far surpasses Cars. Not only is it funny but has a good message as well.

Camping

Well, it's been awhile since I last blogged (you know, that sounds almost obscene.) Nothing much has happened, except I finally got around to fixing up an asp page on the church's webpage to allow non-coders to update the news and the prayer requests.

We went camping this past weekend with Elizabeth, Roger and their brood. We left on Thursday after work, and drove to Pipestem State Park. I had a family reunion there this past Saturday. Pipestem is the ancestral home-place, which makes it the logical choice.

Anyway, we got up there and I, the mountain man that I am, began to pitch camp. Now, where I work, we have a dress code that requires me not to wear shorts or jeans. So I was wearing a white dress shirt and khaki pants while I pitched the tent. I'm sorry to report that my pants did not survive the encounter. They were stained and crotch got ripped out when I was squatting down to drive in a tent peg.

But that's ok, the pants were well worn, and I wasn't too concerned. Rebecca and Elizabeth left to get food, and I started the campfire with nothing more than pine needles and wood (and a lighter of course). I felt rather proud of myself seeing that my camp was set, fire was burning and life was good.

The girls got back rather late with the food since they couldn't find a KFC in the same county as the park (why KFC I'll never know). So we ate chicken at about 10:00 PM, climbed in the tent and went to sleep.

About an hour later, we were woke by the sound of rain on our tent. We had a rather miserable night. Water had collected to a depth of about 3 inches over the night, soaking everything and everyone in the tent.

On Friday, we had to pack up all of our stuff and drive to a laundry mat to dry it out. It rained all day Friday, all night Friday night, and into Saturday. We couldn't cook because it was too wet for a fire. Our tent is a small three-person tent that is just about too small for the family to sleep in. It is way to small for us to stay in all day.

The reunion was ok. The most interesting (and morbid) thing was that we visited several cemeteries in the area that had my relatives buried in (date of death before 1900 folks!)

On Saturday, Roger noticed that two guys were setting camp across the field from us. As he watched them struggle with the tent for hours, he wondered if it was two friends, father and son, or something gross.

Gross won out. Here is a tip for anyone who goes camping. If you are going to have sex in a tent, please do so with the lantern off. The light will cast your shadow on the tent walls, and makes it a show to be endured by all those around you. Yuck!

On Saturday night, we got in a football game with some other campers, and played until it was too dark to see, and pulled cars around and shined the headlights on the field and finished the game.

Sunday was a beautiful day, and we had to leave.

Busy Busy

It is Friday, and thank the Lord for it. This week has been crazy and busy, and I'm looking for a quiet weekend studying for the upcoming finals. (yuck!)

This week, we've got two new employees, done some staff reassignments, and had to put in for some year-end procurement (expiring monies).

Doesn't sound like much, unless you understand my job. My job is a hodgepodge of various duties and responsibilities that defy easy explaination. Job number one is software development and support. I create, update, maintain and train users to use software that automates our workprocesses. I also am the leason with our IT Department, which means any trouble calls usually go through me first. I try to take care of any problems that I can before I pass them on to our techs upstairs. I also help the other programmers in providing support to the users of our BIRTH registratoin software in hospitals around the state.

I am also deal with any telephone issues, which has been a lot busier since we started getting the Lucent i2021. We've had problems with every one we've gotten.

I also deal with administrative details of my office like determining procurement specificications for IT (and other office equpment) purchases, hasing out work-process changes, do the paperwork for creating new user accounts and so on.

Staff reassignments means moving the employee from one cubicle to another. That means coordinating with the IT unit to swap the phone, move the computer, scheduling with outside venders to move their equipment, making sure that the cubicles are set up to the requirements of the employees, and coordinating with the facilities to get any pieces that they need.

New staff means training on the software I created, and answering question after question. I like training new staff. I believe that the best way to learn is learn the "why's" not the "what's", but most people want to teach only the "what".

The procurement process involves a lot of research and investigation to try to find the "right" product to buy at the best price. It is funny how difficult that can be. There are so many different venders offering many different products that have slightly different features, all of which have pros and cons. Next is trying to write justifications for any "non-standard" equpment, and then submiting the request for approval for puchase.

All of this, plus I was made the supervisor of the Imaging Unit. So.... lots to do.