Marriage

1. "A marriage isn’t two people finding ultimate fulfillment in each other; it’s people joining up as partners to pursue some higher good together, helping each other along out of love for the other." (1/14/13)
2. "what the state means by “marriage” and what Catholics mean by “marriage” are radically different, and that what the state means by “marriage” is wrong." -George Weigel (11/15/12)
3. Thinking of marriage as just a piece of paper is like thinking of a college education as just a diploma.
4. "The value of marriage is not that adults produce children but that children produce adults" -Peter de Vries (2/19/12)
5. “It takes three to make love, not two: you, your spouse, and God. Without God people only succeed in bringing out the worst in one another. Lovers who have nothing else to do but love each other soon find there is nothing else. Without a central loyalty life is unfinished.” 
   ― Fulton J. Sheen, Seven Words of Jesus and Mary: Lessons from Cana and Calvary (2/29/12)

My Rules

1. Love God with all your heart with all your soul and with all your mind.

2. Remember we are all of equal value in that we were all created in the image of God.

3. Love your neighbor as yourself.

4. Love yourself. Never allow yourself to be in a position, that is disrespectd by others.

5. Your body is your temple. Exercise 6 days a week.

6. Take a day off every week.

7. Never let the sunset on your anger. Forgive everyone everything everyday.

8. Wake-up the same time everyday before the sunrise.

9. The trick to waking up early and refreshed is going to bed early.

10. Live in the moment. Don't worry about the future or regret the past.

11. The only person's behavior you can change is your own. Don't try to change others.

12. Never give advice unless it is asked for.

13. Don't ask a women if she is pregnant unless you se a baby's head poking out from some orifice.

14. Always be positive.

15. Don't do anything you would not want it to wined up on the headlines of your local paper.

16. If your enemy causes you to lose your temper you lose.

17. The government is evil. Avoid it at all cost.

18. Never try to top another person's story even if you can.

19. Always keep your word even if it hurts.

20. Go to church every week.

21. Give at least 10% of every penny you make to God and save alt least 10%.

22. Read as much as you can.

23. It is more important to listen than to speak.

24. Don’t worry about being rich. Do what is right and your money will take care of itself.

25. Drink a glass of red wine everyday.

26. When you do something wrong admit it and ask for forgiveness.

27. Never say anything behind a person’s back that you would not say to their face. Sooner or later they will know what you said.

28. Always take the high ground in a disagreement.

29. Don’t get involved in disputes that do not belong to you.

30. Get rid of everything you have not used in over a year.

31. Have a place for everything and keep everything in its place.

32. Focus on bring the best there is at one specific thing, rather than being mediocre at many things.

Relationship

We can only know ourselves in a relative sense is in relationship to others. The only way we can know ourselves in an absolute sense is in relationship to God.

Socialism

"The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money [to spend]."

-Margaret Thatcher

Proof for The Existence of God

1. Things just don't magically happen without a cause.
2. Therefor, something caused the Big Bang.
3. Whatever caused the Big Bang created the universe.
4. By definition, God is the creator of the universe
5. Therefor, God exists.

Pornography

1. Research indicates that porn use can cause sexual dysfunction by numbing the body’s response to normal sexual pleasure (10/20/11)
2. "Catholic teaching on the subject is clear. Use of pornography is a “grave offense.” The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “Pornography … offends against chastity because it perverts the conjugal act, the intimate giving of spouses to each other. It does grave injury to the dignity of its participants (actors, vendors, the public), since each one becomes an object of base pleasure and illicit profit for others” (2354)." (11/19/11)

Majority Now Consider Themselves Pro-Life

I think this trend will continue with new technology such as high resolution 3-D ultrasounds and one day we will look back on abortion with the same disgust and outrage that we look back on slavery and the Holocaust with.

Skepticism

Skepticism is maintaining an open mind.

Hell

1. “It is the suffering of being unable (indeed, unwilling) to love.”  Dostoevsky (3/1/12)
2. Hell is like an eternal drowning. We need God more than we need air. (11/17/12)
3. "Hell is a freely chosen identity based on something other than God going on forever." -Tim Keller (7/11/11) 
4. “the ultimate safeguard of man’s moral conscience” (Pope John Paul II). (3/1/12)
5. "We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves: "He who does not love remains in death. Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." Our Lord warns us that we shall be separated from him if we fail to meet the serious needs of the poor and the little ones who are his brethren. To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from him for ever by our own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called "hell."Pope John Paul II, Audience Talk, 28 July 1999  (7/14/11) 
6. “every shutting up of the creature within the dungeon of its own mind is Hell.”- C.S. Lewis (3/1/12)
7. "As a man lives, so shall he die." -St. Augustine (3/15/12)

"Gay Marriage"

1. Companies  that support it
1. Starbucks (LifeSiteNews 1/30/12)
2. Effect on children (9/1/12)
How different are the adult children of parents who have same-sex relationships? Findings from the New Family Structures Study (Social Science Research Volume 41, Issue 4, July 2012, Pages 752–770, 9/1/12)
3. I believe in free speech. I therefore believe that those who believe in "gay marriage" are free to call it "gay marriage" and those who believe it is an abomination to God are free to call it an abomination to God.
4. Is used to prosecute those who believe homosexual sex is immoral. For example: (7/21/11)
1. Vermont inn sued by ACLU after refusing lesbian ‘wedding’ reception (7/21/11)

Antichrist

1. There is a lot of confusion in the media and our culture as to what or who is/are "the Antichrist" when it is actually quite simple. You are either pro-Christ or Antichrist.
2. As Jesus said "You are either for me or against me."

Organized Religion

When people say "I don't believe in organized religion," does that mean "I believe in unorganized religion?"

Church

1. Attendance
1. Calling yourself a Christian while never wanting to go to church seems to me a little like calling yourself a sports fan while never wanting to go to the game.(5/24/09)
2. Going to church once a week because you feel obligated to is like having sex with your spouse once a week because you feel obligated to. If you have sex with your spouse only because you feel obligated than there is something wrong with your relationship. If you go to church because you feel obligated than there is something wrong with your relationship with God. (10/26/11)
3. “Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than standing in your garage makes you a car.” ― G.K. Chesterton (1/2/12)
2. The Church is truly the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth (11/29/11)

Spirituality v.s Religion

For years I having been trying to figure out what "spiritual but not religious" means. The best I can figure is it is code for: "I don't go to church but still do not consider myself shallow" for you can not be truly spiritual without a religious basis. Religion in its broadest scene is a set of briefs about the nature, purpose and creation of the universe. How can you be spiritual if you do not believe in something beyond the physical universe and if you believe in something outside the physical universe than that is a religious brief.

2/19/11: Religion is to spirituality as reading the owners manual is to driving the car. Spirituality transcends religion. The problem with religion is that some never reach spirituality, by punting religion into practice. How tragic it would be to have a new car but never drive it because you are to focused on the owners manual. At the same time, reading the owners manual is be a big help

(7/15/11) Religious practices increase the strength of our spirituality. This may be a way to teast if our religious practices are true by if we are growing spirituality.

Spirituality without theology is just making stuff up.It, like a technology without any scientific basis, is doomed to fail. (8/30/11)

Democrats and Republicans

Choosing between the Democrats and Republicans is a lot like choosing between Communists and Fascists.

Abortion

1. Risk
1. Mortality (9/6/12)
1.  Compared to women who delivered, women who had an early or late abortion had significantly higher mortality rates within 1 through 10 years (Med Sci Monit 2012; 18(9): PH 71 - 76, 9/6/12)
2. Abortions Put Mother and Future Children at Risk (7/17/11)
3. Largest ever study finds abortion increases risk of severe mental health problems by 81% (9/1/11)
4. Post Abortion Trauma (9/1/11)
2. Abortion is the opposite of love  (LifeSite News 2/29/12)
1. Love says, “I sacrifice myself for the good of the other person.” (LifeSite News 2/29/12)
2. Abortion says, “I sacrifice the other person for the good of myself.”  (LifeSite News 2/29/12)
3. "Human life must be respected and protected absolutely from the moment of conception. From the first moment of his existence, a human being must be recognized as having the rights of a person – among which is the inviolable right of every innocent being to life." (CCC 2270, 3/11/12)
4. Abortion is not about abortion as much as it is about sex. Those who consider themselves "Pro-Choice" are not as much pro-abortion as they are pro-fornication. It is not coincidence that almost all politicians caught is sex scandals are pro-abortion.
5. I do not want to live in a country where abortion is illegal as much as I would like to live in a country where abortion was unthinkable. (5/16/09:)
6. Women do not go to hell because they had an abortion. Women have abortions because they chose hell.  (6/21/11)
7. "The so-called right to abortion has pitted mothers against their children and women against men. It has portrayed the greatest of gifts - a child - as a competitor, an intrusion, and an inconvenience." -Mother Teresa (7/26/11) ‎
8. "Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person’s formal cooperation becomes manifest (understood, in the case of a Catholic politician, as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws), his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church’s teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist." - Cardinal Ratzinger (7/3/12)

Sarcasms

Sarcasms is not a good sense of humor. Sarcasms is a bad sense of humor.

Faith

1. "Faith is the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, inspite of your changing moods." - C.S. Lewis 910/28/12)
2. Faith is the ultimate way of knowing truth and is not dependent on reason or observation (2/8/12)
1. Faith is knowing (2/8/12)
1. Faith is not the same as belief. (2/8/12)
1. The difference between faith and belief is the difference between knowing and believing. (2/18/12)
2. Knowing transcends believing. (2/8/12)
1. Faith has been defined as "belief and trust"(2/8/12)
1. This gets to the idea that faith is more than just belief alone. (2/8/12)
2. See story of The tightrope and the wheelbarrow (2/8/12)
2. There is always doubt associated with all believing. There is never doubt with knowing. (2/8/12)
1. "Lord, I believe;help thou my unbelief."  (2/8/12)
3. You can believe something is true without knowing it is true. You can not know something is true without believing it is true.
3. Belief is the choice  to accepting something as true.  (2/8/12)
4. Faith and knowing are not a choice because they can not be denied. (2/8/12)
5. Sometimes a thing must be believed before it can be known but you can not chose to know. You can only chose to believe. (2/8/12)
1. Knowing is not a choice and is therefor a gift. Therefor faith is a gift.  (2/8/12)
2. There are three ways of knowing truth: (2/8/12)
1. Faith  (2/8/12)  
2. Reason  (2/8/12)
3. Observation  (2/8/12)
3. Reason and observation are dependent on faith therefor faith can not be dependant on observation or reason (2/8/12)
1. Reason is based on faith (i.e.  You can not have reason without faith) (2/8/12)
1. “Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all.”- G.K. Chesterton (3/28/12)
2. To those who say they have reason without faith I ask "Do you have faith in reason?" (2/8/12)
3. The fundamental propositions of reason can not be proven through reason but must be accepted by faith. (2/8/12)
1. Fro example, If A=B and B=C than A=C can not be proven by reason but is accepted by faith. (2/8/12)
4. To discover the truth using reason reality  must obey the laws of logic.
1. There is no way prove that reality obeys the rules of logic is the true using reason. (2/8/12)
2. To try to prove it is true using reason would be circular reasoning.  (2/8/12)
3. Therefor it must be accepted on faith. (2/8/12)
2. Observation is based on faith  (2/8/12)
1. We must have faith in the idea that are senses are representing what is really there in order to use our sences to know reality.  (2/8/12)
3. An Example of a truth known by faith: If A=B and B=C than A=C  (2/8/12)
1. This statement can not be proven using reason  (2/8/12)
2. This statement can not be proven by observation  (2/8/12)
3. This statement is true  (2/8/12)
4. Therefore this statement is true on faith (2/8/12)
4. Synonymy of faith  (2/8/12)
1. Self evident  (2/8/12)
2. A priori  (2/8/12)
5. Faith can never contradicts reason.  (2/8/12)
1. Faith leads to truth just as reason leads to truth. Truth can not contradict truth.  (2/8/12)
2. "Faith" that contradicts reason is not faith but foolishness. (2/8/12)
6. Faith is not believing the unbelievable. Faith is trusting in what you already believe.
7. "The issue of faith is not so much whether we believe in God, but whether we believe the God we believe in" (Knowing Scripture,R.C. Sproul, p.35, 7/9/11) 
8. Faith is what love sees when it looks to the future. (6/10/11)
9. "It is a law of the spiritual life that every act of trust makes the next act less difficult. Trusting becomes like breathing, the natural unconciousness of the redeemed soul." (The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, Hannah Whitall Smith, 7/6/11  )
10.  "Faith without works is dead." --St James (8/6/11)

MySpace

MySpace

In The Image of God

If we metaphorically think of God as a great painter and all creation as paintings than human beings would be a self portrait.

(8/26/11) In the image of God means that humans have a spirit as God's a spirit.