Spiritual Survey

Spiritual Survey

Here is a spiritual survey.  No, not the kind leading to a gospel presentation, just a survey.  At the end it gives you a score.  Nothing too serious, just fun.  I answered honestly, from my own worldview (evangelical Christian), although you can really see the different worldview in the answers.  I got 95 – highest category – “candidate for clergy”.  I don’t know if the high score is for consistency or for getting the answers right.  I might take the quiz again and consistently answer from a secular humanist worldview or mix up my answers and see what I get.  

Protecting America

A friend of mine sent me a good article by Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., which I found on-line here. I thought this to be must-reading. You will definitely want to read the article before trying to make sense of my comments below:

"…the question should be: Would we forgive ourselves, and our leaders, if — out of an unwillingness to infringe in any way upon civil liberties in time of war — we fail to bring such tools to bear, only to discover after another horrific attack occurs that these measures would have enabled it to be prevented?"

Problem is, Bush-bashers are bashing for both reasons. He's doing too much and not enough at the same time – wherever they can ‘score points’. Liberal politicians are putting ‘scoring points against the president’ above the safety of the people. This is a problem.

"the disclosure of this highly classified program ... prompted denunciations from organizations like the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). ... "All Americans should be concerned about the apparent trend toward a two-tiered system of justice system ..."”

I'm concerned about what they think they need to hide when sampling the air near their building causes such a reaction. They can sample the air outside my house if they want. If they find something, I'd like to know about it. I’d pay for such a service. I'll be proud to submit a sample of anything if it helps them to keep me and others safe. If they are really peaceful people that are just misunderstood, they would understand that the actions are to protect all people, including Islamic people. That's a one-tiered system of protection, not a two-tiered system of justice. They certainly understand that protesting in such a manner doesn't help their cause and only makes them look more suspicious. Complaining about the 'justice system' BEFORE they are even in the justice system is reason enough to believe they are hiding something.

As a conservative, I believe in a limited federal government. However, it is a legitimate function of the executive branch of the federal government to protect the people from these types of threats (see Article II of the Constitution). The Bush administration needs to do this type of investigation using all of the tools they have available.

UPDATE: I've posted some related comments on a similar topic over at
Stones Cry Out.

Nabbed by the Spy Sheriff

I had a serious curve-ball thrown my way today. It was called ‘Spy Sheriff’. These guys have a web site, and appear to sell a legit product. However, they are criminals.

Suddenly, I got a pop-up on my computer saying I had a spyware problem. Funny, since I have a pop-up blocker and a virus scanner/blocker that usually works.  My screen turned blue and said my computer could not go on until I removed the spyware. Then Spy Sheriff started running. It reported that it found a large number of spyware problems and wanted $19.95 to register the software and remove the problem. (Note: many of the spyware removal programs offer a trial version that detects only, and you pay to get the full version which will remove problems). This scheme is known as Malware.   This is a serious Trojan.  Turns out my virus blocker (trend micro) even lists this on their virus/trojan list.  However, it got through somehow.

See a more detailed description and a reasonable solution here.
I did that, including the extra things found in the notes and e-mails below.

When I was done, I used Ad-Aware (free version) which can be downloaded here.

When done with that, I used Ewido – which is a member of the product category “Anti-Malware” (something more we have to have,) and can be downloaded here.
I’m still on the 14 day trial, we’ll see how I feel in a couple week.

Turns out there are a lot of malicious spyware programs. I found a list here.
There is a ‘short list’ of good ones there as well as a lot of good tips.

Check out the reports of the FTC getting a few of the guys, yet the list has grown to over 200. Guess the FTC can’t keep up. Computer users need to get smarter or the bad guys need to find Jesus. Let’s work for both.    

After Christmas

We had a great Christmas here at Chocolate Acres. My Dad and nephew were here for the whole weekend. On Christmas day, another family came over. They have five children. That made a total of 15 people! Three of the other family's kids were young. It's great to have young kids around on Christmas day. They went out and saw the animals, including sitting on the pony. The highlight for me was giving everyone a ride in the bucket of the tractor. (I have a 'trip-bucket' loader for my '57 Allis-Chalmers). Then it was tubing rides behind the snowmobile (I have a '72 Artic Cat and a '80 Kitty-Kat). Funny, all the toys, etc., and still the best stuff is those animals, that old snowmobile, and that old tractor.

Today (day after Christmas) was just as great. I spent much of the day playing with my 4 kids. We played foosball and video games. We all got hooked on some 'retro' games which you can now buy embedded into a single joystic. Pole position, Ms Pac Man, etc. Too funny. Just 'bonding', as they say. Quality time ... sure ... but there is something to be said for quantity of time as well.

Intelligent Design Debate

I have a new post on Stones Cry Out.
Make sure to check out the site I reference and the Clayton Cramer, site mentioned. His whole site is good.

New-Age gal

For those that don’t know me, I travel a lot for work. This week, I had to go to NJ Monday and return Tuesday. All was aggravating, as travel is this time of year. When I travel, I usually speak with and get to know the person sitting next to me on planes. This is somewhat unusual behavior in itself. Most people put their nose in a book and never even look at anyone. However, I’ve found that people do like to talk about themselves, so asking a couple questions gets people to open up. I had 4 legs of air travel, and met 4 very nice people.

1. Christian Bookstore guy. He sells gifts to Christian book stores.
2. Toothpaste girl. She works at a toothpaste factory, and knows everything about toothpaste.
3. Sweden guy. He was coming back from his aunt’s wedding in Sweden.
4. New-Age gal. Former Catholic, now ???

As a committed Christian, I’ve been studying New Age a little lately, trying to understand what they are really teaching. This is part of a leadership training program through my church. I found New-Age difficult to understand. The thought processed seem a little disorganized and incoherent, not clear and concise. I had become doubtful to believe that anyone actually thought in this manner.

Then there was New-Age gal. I was reading my Bible, and beside me she was reading a a book by Eckhart Toole. I glanced over and noticed part of the title was something about ‘Awakening your Life’s Purpose’. I opened by saying that her book’s title resembled something I’ve read recently, Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven Life”. I figure Toole has recognized the success of Warren’s book and was hoping his title would also boost sales. Surprisingly, New-Age gal indicated that she had read the book, and that is was from a different perspective than this one (duh?). She said she didn’t like Rick’s book because it said your life was all about the church, which is just a building. Buildings are material, and a life about material things is egocentric. I tried to explain that the ‘church’ meant the PEOPLE of God’s church, not the building. She said she didn’t get that at all, but got that Rick was one of the most egocentric authors she ever read.

I went back to reading my Bible. How could she have missed it that badly. Obviously, without the Holy Spirit, her thinking was VERY cloudy. I contemplated this as I re-read John 7-8 where he talks about being the Christ and listened to Narnia soundtrack. {United has a Disney channel on the in-flight headphones. I actually got to hear Delirious, Jars of Clay, Jeremy Camp, and Kutlass among others, courtesy of United Airlines}. After a while I prayed, saying “God, she’s probably a lost cause, but if you want me to try, I’m willing”. Well, eventually she indicated she had a paragraph in her book she wanted to show me. {I guess God was answering my prayer – as usual}. I was presented with a paragraph of nonsense, where Tolle indicates that Jesus said “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life”, and we all can be like that, we all have the Truth. Anyone can be the “I Am”. Then went on to say ‘Truth’ was found in the other religions as well. She explained that Jesus was one of a number of ‘enlightened’ people of history and there are many ways to God because God was within.

My response was that Jesus claimed to be God. That the next verse Tolle wasn’t including was “No one comes to the Father except through me.” Therefore, if Jesus claimed to be part of God and the only way to God, how could he be enlightened and wrong? This didn’t seem to bother her at all. She just repeated he belief that Jesus was one of many ‘enlightened’ people of history. Apparently, facts and logic don’t matter in New-Age. This makes it very difficult. I shared my testimony with her. However, I lost her when I talked about Satan. Apparently, in the New-Age, we all have God within, but there is no Satan. She wasn’t impressed. She was nice and the exchange was pleasant.

Ultimately, I’m not sure what God is going to do in her life, but I suspect it is something. He has a purpose for her life too Like everyone I see on planes, I probably will not ever see her again. However, you never know … there’s always heaven.

This is me with my youngest son Caleb 

Welcome

Welcome everyone to my new Blog. Check back later for interesting stuff. It will probably be mostly about faith, politics, family, and tractors.