Sunday, November 22, 2009

Guest Post - The Stop Sign, Part 1

Guest Post

I am happy to present another guest post by my friend, Dan Schobert. I thought I would do this one like the old-fashioned serials. Enjoy! Dan said he would like to hear from anyone who wants to email him.

The Stop Sign, Part 1

“And that, my dear students, is the end of my talk on evolution.” Professor James Wilson began putting his notes away. It was the conclusion of Evolution 101, a 13 week class in which college students were given an introduction to the background of evolutionary science. As was his usual procedure, and without lifting his eyes, he asked: “any questions?” It was the question he always asked when concluding a day’s lecture but he seldom received any responses from the close to 300 students crowded into the state university lecture hall. Wilson sometimes wondered if the students were alive, let alone awake. But he didn’t care because, in a few weeks, he would be going into retirement.

Little did he know that things were about to change. Believing things were normal, Wilson lifted his head and scanned the audience to see, if by some slim chance, someone actually had a question. Moving from left to right across the hall, he was surprised to see an uplifted hand in the fourth row, fifth seat.

“Oh, what a surprise. We have a question. Stand up young man and lets hear what you have on your mind.” Slowly the student rose. It was 20-year-old William (Billy) Lynch. A quiet student, Billy seldom made much fuss in class, keeping to himself most of the time. His six feet, two inch frame was attired in the typical fashion of the day; army fatigues, Nike shoes, torn shirt. At least the clothes were clean. He rose slowly from his seat, ran his fingers through his wavy brown hair and cleared his throat.

“Thank you Professor Wilson,” he began. “I’ve been sitting here for these several weeks as you have lectured on evolution and I have found your comments very interesting. I have been trying to put all these things together, to make sense to me.. and I’ve come up with a question.” “Well spit it out boy; we’ve got things to do,” said the Professor, with a bit of anxiety in his voice, hoping he could be finished with this student in quick order. “With all due respect Professor Wilson, I realize you have been teaching the course for years and you will probably think my question to be unreasonable but I was just wondering this: Why do we have stop signs?”

The class broke into an uproar with laughs, whistles, hoots and hollers. Professor Wilson had to restrain himself to not join in the ruckus, knowing that no question is unreasonable though this one seemed a bit out of context. Clearing his throat and hoping the question would easily be answered, Professor Wilson said: “My boy, that seems like a good question and my answer is this: We have stop signs to inform people that they need to stop at a particular intersection.”

Dan Schobert, W9MFG@charter.net

Friday, November 20, 2009

Families – Threats – Absentee Fathers

From our Introductory Post:

“The righteous have sat back and allowed the wicked to take over our relationships to God, families, churches, governments, schools and colleges, journalism, entertainment, sports, sciences, and a whole litany of other endeavors in our society.”

Families – Threats – Absentee Fathers

In our previous post we considered the topic of Threats to Families, specifically Materialism. We will now take a look at another threat to the family, Absentee Fathers.

This one is personal for me because my dad, except for his money, was absent from my life beginning at the age of 10 until I became an adult. As I got older and gained a little wisdom, I discovered that my dad was a hard working person who loved his family, but did not understand how to show it. He wasn’t nearly as bad a fellow as I had been led to believe. Sadly, he died at an early age so I did not get to know him very well.

It is safe to say that the problem of absentee fathers is of great concern to our whole society regardless of political affiliation or religious belief. Absentee fathers are easy targets, and everyone considers them a lower form of life. Many state legislatures have passed “dead beat dad” laws in an effort, not to get dads back in their homes, but to recover money to be distributed by dedicated government bureaucrats.

One can find all kinds of statistics at the website, http://www.dads-daughters.com/absentee-fathers.html . I encourage you to visit this site to see how bad the situation really is. According to an older article in USA Today we learn that, “Communities across the country are experiencing success with counseling for unwed fathers plus other mentoring initiatives.” See http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1272/is_n2638_v127/ai_20954306/ . Apparently a real genius wrote this article because the conclusion is, “kids still need two parents to protect and prepare them for life as adults.” Imagine that! Even “Manchurian candidate” Obama went after absentee fathers in the black community, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/16/us/politics/15cnd-obama.html . Has anyone heard him say much about it since his election as president? Well, at least he models fatherhood with his two girls as far as we can see. However, some of the comments offered by his daughters during his campaign did make one wonder about their respect for their father.

Analyzing statistics and assessing blame is all well and good. The solution to the absentee father problem is found in Scripture. “1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. 2 Honour thy father and mother; (which is the first commandment with promise;) 3 That it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. 4 And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:1 – 4) If a father is to bring children up, he must be present in the family, the mother must support him in his efforts, and the children have an obligation to obey the parents and honor the father and mother. Perhaps the situation with the “absentee” fathers is being aggravated by un-submissive wives and disobedient children. Just a thought!

Summary

This post has examined Absentee Fathers as a major threat to families. We discovered that the solution is obedience to the commandments of God for fathers and children found especially in Ephesians 6:1 - 4. Our next post will take a look at another threat to families, Lack of a Stay-at-Home Parent.

I remain yours in the name of Jesus Christ, the Creator and Name above every name.

“Mr. Phil”

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

Families – Threats – Materialism

From our Introductory Post:

“The righteous have sat back and allowed the wicked to take over our relationships to God, families, churches, governments, schools and colleges, journalism, entertainment, sports, sciences, and a whole litany of other endeavors in our society.”

Families – Threats – Materialism

In our previous post we considered the topic of Threats to Families, specifically Negative Influences of the Media. We will now take a look at another threat to the family, Materialism.

It almost seems un-American NOT to be a materialist and collect as many TOYS as possible. However, we discover from the Bible, a founding document of our American nation, that at the root of materialism is covetousness.

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s.” (Exodus 20:17)

“And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.” (Luke 12:15)

We would do well to consider the dictionary definition of materialism.

“materialism, noun.1. the belief that all action, thought, and feeling is made up of material things and not of ideas. Ex. In the latter half of the 1800's, materialism severely challenged the traditional spiritual view of man (Science). 2. the tendency to leave out or forget the spiritual side of things; worldliness. Ex. Our materialism has produced too much dependence upon industry (Atlantic). 3. the ethical doctrine that material self-interest should and does determine conduct.” (World Book Dictionary)

Some pretty good advice comes from a surprising source, Disney Family.com. This from what appears, on the surface, to be an organization dedicated to covetousness and “making dreams come true.”

“What do you do when you notice that your child is right -- she really is the only one at school without an iPod?”
• “avoid competitive ‘Keep up with the Joneses’ thinking”
• “set the stage for the discussion by explaining that each family is different”
• “learning to cope with disappointment is an important growth skill.”
• “Tell him (your child) that you'll make sure he has what he needs, but beyond that it's a process of negotiation.”

http://family.go.com/parentpedia/preteen-teen/behavior/teen-materialism/ (Disney)

The obvious solution to this threat to our families is “Thou shalt not covet.”

Summary

This post has examined Materialism as a major threat to families. We discovered that the solution is obedience to the commandment of God not to covet. Our next post will take a look at another threat to families, Absentee Fathers.

I remain yours in the name of Jesus Christ, the Creator and Name above every name.

“Mr. Phil”

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Negative Influences from the Media

From our Introductory Post:

“The righteous have sat back and allowed the wicked to take over our relationships to God, families, churches, governments, schools and colleges, journalism, entertainment, sports, sciences, and a whole litany of other endeavors in our society.”

Families – Threats – Negative Influences from the Media

In our previous post we considered the topic of Threats to Families, specifically Divorce. We will now take a look at another threat to the family, Negative Influences from the Media.

Marshall McLuhan, a futurist or philosopher of the 1960s wrote a piece in which he stated, “The medium is the message because it is the medium that shapes and controls the scale and form of human association and action.” Parents are increasingly aware of this in their children in today’s world. In fact, children seem to be lost in their iPods, G3s, cell phones, or whatever.

The dictionary definition of mass media, “any forms of communication, such as the press, television, radio, and motion pictures, which reach large numbers of people,” demonstrates the scale of the problem with the negative influence on families. Influence is “the power of persons or things to act on others, seen only in its effects.” Influence, in its verb form, works to produce “change the nature or behavior of.” In the case of today’s media the change is not for the better.

Although the mass media is influential in the life of the family, it has become irrelevant because it is sending messages that are “not important or meaningful.” In other words a family spending a lot of time interacting with mass media is wasting valuable time attempting to recover positive messages from irrelevance.

I suppose there are some good things running through our sewer systems on occasion or, perhaps, buried in dumpsters and landfills. Do we spend time cruising through the sewers or mining dumpsters and landfills in order to recover the few “gems” that might be there? Anyone doing this would not readily admit it for fear of being declared insane. Why do we continue allowing and even encouraging our families to cruise the sewers and mine the dumpsters and landfills of the mass media?

Summary

This post has examined Negative Influences from the Media as a major threat to families. Our next post will take a look at another threat to families, Materialism.

I remain yours in the name of Jesus Christ, the Creator and Name above every name.

“Mr. Phil”