Sometimes we live with what I call "The Tyranny of the mundane". You see all these biographies of famous people in the movies or you hear Joel Olsteen talking about the life of one convert or another and the notion may arise "Yeah, it's just one good thing following hard upon another before you know what's happening". We know life isn't like that. If you watch a soap opera such as today and you see a person breathing their last breath before they expire and you know that death is one of those things that's as regular as eating and sleeping on a soap opera. It means virtually nothing. People wonder "when their ship will come in". We are growing an impatient society in America today. It's really a sign of the degradation of our culture that gambling is so popular because it shows a mass desire to "get rich quick". Oddly this same impulse may be the one that causes a ghetto resident to start using drugs. It's borne out of a despair for the future. The funny thing is that the popularity of gambling in our society shows a despair of the poor and the middle class about their own future, and oddly all this gambling began taking place and being legalized during the Reagan adminestration. In former times it would have been called a "lack of character" or an abandonment of the "Puritan worth ethic". People are impatient, all right today. One talk show host was despairing over the loss of the American family farm. Well, farming is a slow way of life. Often the image of the farmer is used in the Bible to illustrate the need for patience. I get impatient living around here. Just the past couple of weeks I thought I had a chance of getting an actual girlfriend around here, when her "boyfriend" went into the hospital. Well, I found out. Even though the guy is a total jerk and treats her like crap, she still pines after him rather than show an interest in me.

In the news we're all looking for something interesting, but sometimes it's like watching grass grow, and I don't mean bamboo. George Bush at his press conference today was asked about this incident with North Korea giving nuclear technology to Syria and Israel bombing the place, but the President, even after a month since I mentioned it on one of my postings, would not talk about it. It's another of those lingering mysteries. Today on the Stacy Taylor show, or was it Johnny Wendell, they asked the question whether the soldiers (and I used that term advisedly) in Blackwater should be put on trial by the Iraqi government for murder. I say that they should, because they're a private company not subject to the uniform code of military justice. But others think they shouldn't be accountable to anyone. Sixty Minutes has lurched to the right in that they had an apologist for Blackwater on their show. It was strictly a propaganda piece the right wing wanted out there. Of course "everybody" in the media is virtually calling General Petrayas's speech last month as a great success. Of course one of those lingering soap opera issues, (like "who is the father of Little Ethan) that seems to linger on forever is this whole idea of an attack on the nation of Iran. You think now it's off the table but now we learn people are still thinking about it. Four fundamentalist Christian groups including James Dobson and the family research council, are putting out propaganda campaigns and alledgedly spending millions of dollars (?) to try and perswade people that invaiding Iran would be a good thing. The extent to which the right wing has taken over the media can hardly be over-enphisized. Now they point out that that the Rockies baseball team has a high number of Born Again Christians on it and no doubt we're going to be hearing a lot about that. Of course I'd like to know who is watching all these Political Debates of the candidates we've been having. We only have to go on what the media chooses to share with it. They want us all hung up over the bathroom exploits of Larry Craig and they ignore the important issues. Bill Cosby gets a whole hour to explain to us all what Blacks aren't doing right. I really think there are more tactful ways of handeling issues like that. I do not believe seventy percent of black births are illigatamate.

Some criticize Joel Olsteen for his positive confession messages. It’s no crime to want liberation from your hum drum life, any more than it was a crime for Hebrews to want freedom in The Ten Commandments. It’s a basic yearning of the human spirit not to want to feel constrained by sometimes irrational limits. Olsteen is thoroughly Biblical in saying that “God has appointed our set times for prosperity”. You can find Bible verses to support all sorts of Olsteen’s messages. Some would say that Jesus Christ wasn’t giving “the whole message” as to “what it is to be a Jew”, so this criticisum is nothing new. People have had enough of the pastor-centric church where you turn your life over to some arbitrating and arbitrary dictator to run your life. People don't want to bother with all that theological baggage like spiritual regeneration, transsubstantiation and whether Jesus was really God incarnate. Even words like salvation and redemption and Hell and Eternal Life seem a little ethereal today. People don’t want to get lost in a theological maze. People are just people with ordinary problems they’d appreciate a little help with, if that’s possible. I believe Olsteen is genuinely touched by people’s infirmities and cares for their needs, and people sense this. Joel Olsteen may have rescued me from the brink of atheism. Where stuff like “rationalism” and “discipline” comes in is stuff, in my opinion, where you need to turn to the teachings of Scientology, to meet these needs. If Gary says he’s seen God, well I say if he had a clear mind with no engrams, he would be in a much better position to know for sure, wouldn’t he? People need to know what is psychological and what has a true basis in reality. Capish? Keep in mind that the difference between a Calvary Chapel and Olsteen is that Olsteen says "You never know what good things God may have in store for you any day now. Don't lose hope". The Calvary message is "I've got Mine because Me and God are so tight. I f you don't have Yours then you haven't discovered the secret to "flowing in the spirit" like I have so "nya - nya" to you. You may never rise to the level of Me because God in his wisdom has chosen to justify anything I choose to do.

I’m going to have to take issue with Thom Hartman on the issue of Christianity. Thom says being religious is like someone coming to a group of blind men and talking about the color Red and the blind men saying “Come on. There’s no evidence for any such thing”. According to Hartman one belief is just as good as another even if one is based entirely on rationality and the other has absolutely no rational evidence behind it. The essence of Faith according to Hartman and Dad is that it is Unreal. Of course I know about the Talosians on Star Trek where you think there is a hole blasted in a wall and there really isn’t or visa versa. But such illusions are made evident by further investigation, whereas you can investigate Religion till the cows come home and you will never be pointed to any evidence that will “answer your doubt questions”. It makes as much sense to say you believe in UFO’s as it does in Christianity. Hartman apparently never heard of the adage “You can’t prove a negative”. Think about that.