The Bookstore

I was in Barnes and Noble the other day when I got the idea for today's blog. This would have been Monday's web log entry, but I took a mulligan. I intended to work on this Monday evening, as I posted, but the virus making rounds in our house reared it's ugly head, and I was not feeling too well. Could it have anything to do with the allstar lineup of the Democratic National Convention? I never planned on watching, but the mere thought of Jimmy Carter, Nancy Pelosi, and Michelle Obama had an adverse affect on my bowels. I'm not sure about inspiring hope, but those three inspire something inside of me. And it wanted out! On a side note: Are the Democrats trying to lose?

Anyway, back to the issue at hand, my trip to the bookstore. I really only have some random thoughts on a couple of three or four things. And to set this into motion, I will mention that I was reading things I wouldn't normally read and trying to understand some views that I don't agree with. I do this from time to time. I honestly try to see things from more than one viewpoint and desire to be well-rounded in many areas. I don't always expose myself merely to things that I appreciate or even comprehend. It's not logical to oppose something in one's mind without understanding why, or even what, the reason for the opposition is to begin with. So it is along these lines of open-mindness that I found myself reading the things that I was reading on this day.

First up was Michael Moore's Guide to the 2008 Election; and I really don't know what to say about it. I honestly couldn't discern what was being written as sincere or what was tongue-in-cheek. Granted, I'm not brilliant, as Mr. Moore is, and I couldn't make heads or tails of his guide to the election. But then again, I have a difficult time understanding what he's talking about most any time. Then that always leads me to wonder, who does understand him? And why am I so much more the ignorant? My intelligence quotient has been as high as 165 and I still didn't get it. And I really don't know what else to say about it...

Moving on, I stumbled upon a copy of, "The Audacity of Hope". And on a side note, I noticed that Mr. Obama even has a children's version... I think Michelle wrote this one...His marketing is amazing. Never has someone who has done so little appeared to have done so much! He's like a political pufferfish. But back to the Hype, I mean Hope; The book seemed as "nuanced" as everything else Obama seems to do. It just seemd to go on and on. And on. And on. And it never really gave much reason for hope. When there was a glimpse of substance, it was either old news or common sense. But to be fair, I didn't read the book in it's entirety. Maybe he tied it all together somewhere that I overlooked. But all I read was more of the same of his speeches on hope. And it always angers me! I know that politics are now about manipulation and demographics and such, unfortunately. But for some reason Obama's pandering hits a nerve. He is always telling us to not let fear rule our lives and to not fear change and not fear this and not fear that, so on and so forth. My take is that this is in itself, fear mongering. Most people get angered and outraged, but few have any real fear. At least until some smooth-talking snakeoil salesmen writes a book and makes a speech about fear. And doesn't Obama's ideology require fear to enable itself to function? Wouldn't it really be better to focus on actual hope instead of fear if one was trying to peddle hope? Maybe I'm so brilliant, after all, that I have crossed that fine line between genius and idiot. But again, I just don't get it.

Next on the agenda was the religeon/philosophy sections. Now I could really get on a soapbx here, but will digress some. I will try to digress, anyway. One of the first things that I noticed was that so many atheist write books about the non-existence of God. Now I'm not certain about this, but if I didn't think that something exists, would I go to so much trouble to write a book about it? And would I be so passionate about it? Or so angry? The dogma of the atheist seems pretty religeous to me. Of course I was still somewhat afraid after reading The Hope Manifesto, so I may not have been as cognitively sharp as usual. But the sheer number of athiest's defending their belief, or lack of belief, or whatever it is, is staggering. And by the way, did you know that the Pew Research Center found that 21% of self-described atheists say that they believe in God... Yeah, read that again...This statistic makes me wonder if they know whether they are atheistic or not; and why did they try to write a book if they didn't have this essential doctrine of atheism understood?

Maybe these people are merely tired of being backed into a corner by "church people". Maybe they are lashing out against those who believe anything that is told to them; without learning and applying God's lessons for themselves. "This is how we do it in church so it's not for me to question", can polarize people. Even Christians. Just maybe the atheists are tired of people that don't practice what they preach. Maybe they walked down the Christianity isle of the bookstore and saw the same books that I did. Books telling you that if you give a certain amount of money that God will make you rich; when the book should say that if you give a certain amount of money that God will make them rich. Books by people they see on television telling them that they will pray for the hungry and oppressed, then get into their jet and fly to one of their million dollar homes, never to consider the poor and oppressed until they are before another packed arena of potential donors to their cause. Not God's cause, their personal cause. They preach hope for a price.

And sadly, there are some very good books by some very good authors among these books of feel-good religeon. Books written by men and women trying to truly imitate Christ. Books written by people who understand God's priciples because they have searched and prayed and found God's way to be truth. Books by authors that work with homeless, at home as well as abroad. Authors who give 90% back to the church and live off of the 10% left; a reverse tithe, so to speak. There are good books with sound doctrine and real ministry hopes nestled in between shills and flim-flam artists. The true lillies among the thorns.

It would be easy to side with the millitant atheist if it weren't for the Holy Spirit in my life. And my heart breaks for a true atheist. If it weren't for God's riches in my life and Jesus sacrifice on the cross, I could buy into the atheist docgma. If I were to base Christianity on so many Christians instead of Christ I could be that atheist. There goes I, but for the grace of God...

I didn't intend on such a diatribe, but I can rarely think of atheism or Christianity without giving in to my passions. I would apologize but I am not sorry. Some things need to be said.

After calming down and my ire subsiding, I decided to glance at a magazine. And the article I came across was another "potential, probable, possible" deal, along with an artist's rendition of the "maybe" occurrence. If that didn't make sense to some it is because I am using the same logic and reasoning as the scientist. I wrote about this in an earlier blog, but it was dealing with a "potential planet that may possibly contain life"...read that one again...This time is was dealing with the Higgs Boson, otherwise known as the God Boson. The Higgs boson is the only undiscovered, yes I said undiscovered, boson of the Standard Model. So how is the Standard Model accurate if it is incomplete? And how is so much scientific theory considered fact when using this incomplete Standard Model? Then we move to the Higgs Boson itself. How can something undiscovered have a name? Or maybe, why? I thought the discoveror named his find. So who named this one? And how can science presume this God Boson exists and treat it as a fact so to make it fit all of the other theories in existence? Could science be wrong? Could their dogma of the ficticious be hindering the real truth? Could many fields of science be askew? I think not. They have an artist's rendition to support their opinions, I mean facts.

So now my stomach was beginning to cramp and I wasn't sure if it was my daughter's virus, lunch, the National covention, or all of the mental garbage I had consumed over the past hour in the bookstore. We all know what happens next, no need to be graphic. So I headed toward the men's room with five copies of Michael Moore's book, just incase they were out of Charmin.