Punishment or consequence

I remember as a kid in Jr High, a major incident that effected my whole life would happen. I was told by my mother, to clean my room, but I wanted to go outside and play with the neighborhood kids. Mom said I could only after my room was finished. I decided to climb out of my room window and join in the fun that was unfolding outside. The neighborhood kids were riding their bikes in short drag races and seeing how close they could stop to a point in the street. I had recently got a new bike with brakes on the handlebars instead of pedling backwards to stop. It was a Huffy 10 speed. It was yellow and fast. The neighbor kid next door and I were up. Ray was his name and he hated to loose, but I had the advantage and everyone knew it. When Mary, his sister, dropped the scarf, it was ‘go’ time and I was flying down our street, and while Ray was trying his best, I was in front. I squeezed my brakes, but with handlebar brakes, the right hand brake was for the front and the left hand was for the back tire. My right hand gripped the brake hard and fast while my left hand timing was slightly off so the front tire brake slammed hard on the wheel. It would not have been a problem had I been sitting instead of in the standing pedal position to give me a slight boost when peddling. The balance was off and when the front tire stopped and the rear didn’t, I flipped the bike. I hit the ground hard and landed on my face. My face was numb, but I had a shooting pain in my mouth. I had broken my front tooth and the nerve was dangling from the stub. My mom had to take my to the hospital on a Sunday. The dentist was not open on the week end. Had an emergency visit to the dentist Monday morning for a root canal and a preperation for a crown. That moment has effected me in more ways than I can count. I have had problems with my front teeth every since then. A few years later, I had an abcess develope in the next tooth that seemed to absorb the novacain, so after 3 injections by the dentist, I could still feel pain, so the dentist had no choice but to perform a root canal with no more anesthesia. That was the longest 2 seconds of my life. Imagine a root canal that you can feel. I think my fingernail impression is still in his chair. Fast forward a few years and while biting down on a peice of beef jerky, my front tooth next to the crown snapped off causing that tooth to need a crown. I think it safe to say that over the years, clearly a third of the dental visits, root canals, dental complications, cleanings of the effected area and subsequent dental surgeries can be attributed to that one moment when I flipped my bike and broke my tooth. Some might say that all that pain and suffering, my dad having to pay the hospital and dental bills, my multiple visits subsequent to that moment was punishment for disobeying my mother. But no, it has been and will continue to be a consequence for my actions.

Sometimes, it is human nature to blame God for our pain, but if you think about it rationally, it is not Gods fault, but a consequence for our actions. Even in todays turbulent world, with a War in the middle east and in the Ukraine between them and Russia, with the riots in our Universities and so much crime, the pain we feel, the hurt emotionally, mentally and physically that some feel is not Gods fault, but a consequence for actions taken.

Many of us laughed at the stupidity of McDonalds having to print on their coffee cups ‘Caution, contents may be hot’, but that was a consequence of an incident where scalding hot coffee was spilt on a woman in the McDonalds drive thru giving her 2nd degree burns in a very sensitive area no woman wants injured. Now, the temperature of hot coffee is regulated and coffee cup lids fit a little more tight. All a consequence of a spilled coffee and injuries caused by it. She wasn’t being punished by God, but her suffering was a consequence of actions, an accident.

There is a scene in the movie “Bruce Almighty” where Jim Carrey is speaking with Morgan Freeman who is playing God where Bruce played by Jim was saying how hard it was to get people to love him when they had free will and Morgan, playing God, says to him ‘if you figure that out, you let me know’. That pesky thing called free will. Without free will, we would be like robots. But God made man with free will granting us the power to make choices that maybe we should not make. I wonder if God regretted giving his greatest creation free will. It is because of free will that God had to send his Son into the world, live and experience life as a man and become the blood sacrifice to pay for all of our ‘bad choices’.

If someone robs a bank and gets caught, he is put in prison. Some say it is punishment for breaking the law, but it is a consequence for his actions. Someone runs a red light and ‘T-bones’ you, God is not punishing you but your pain and suffering are consequences of an action. Chase God out of schools and teach kids that there is no God, the actions of those kids are a consequence of the action of corrupt education. A nation that turns its back on God will suffer chaos. That chaos is not punishment from God for betraying him, but a consequence of not following Him and instead, thinking we, as a nation, no longer need to follow His laws. Punishment or consequences. Think about it.

There is a difference between men and women

This is something I learned at a very early age. I was born in the 60’s which was a strange time for me. I remember little snippets of things like the time my favorite aunt took me to go to the movie theater on the Navy base to see the new Disney movie “Blackbeards Ghost”. Even today, one of my favorite movies to watch, thank you aunt Betty. Or watching “Born Free” at a baby sitters house. This was a time that while people where wearing tie dye t-shirts and protesting something I didn’t understand at the time, I still saw women wearing dresses, and men wearing suits. That right there was a hint to me that there was a difference. Another difference was the shape of people, men were taller and barrel chested while women had a different chest shape. Girls and boys had different interests also. Girls were playing with dolls like Barbie (that doll had everything from cloths to houses with a Corvette convertable car in the garage while boys had ‘action figures’ of GI Joe. Mine had an Army Jeep with a Howitzer, but I also had steel Tonka trucks and steel Tonka bulldozers. My mom had a hard time keeping my pants patched at the knees because I must have put over a million miles on my Tonka toys. At the time, the girls were playing with their doll houses and us boys were playing cowboys and indians with our cap guns outside. The girls didn’t want to get dirty playing with us boys and us boys had no interest playing with the girls with their doll houses, not that we were ever invited which was fine with us. Remember the riddle “Girls are made of sugar and spice and everything nice while boys are made of snips and snails and puppy dog tails” only in the version I first heard was mud and snails and puppy dog tails.

Children naturally played differently and had seperate interests. Girls were in dresses and had their hair in pony tails with little pink hair clips and us guys were in jeans and t-shirts and short hair. Guys liked sports, and when girls played sports with us, we had to be gentle. In dodge ball, we couldn’t throw as hard on the girls because we could hurt them. Even in the third grade, an eight year old boy could hurt an eight year old girl with a hard throw, and throwing hard was the idea of dodgeball. In football, you would tackle the guy with the ball and in baseball, you would slide into base. Guys were always getting dirty.

Sometime in the early 70’s, I got a look at my first Playboy. There I saw girls, but they were much different than the girls in school. I saw the ‘Vargas girls’ and they wore dresses, or shorts and sometimes shear clothing. It was obvious that girls and boys were not the same. Biologically, we are different. Boys/men have external plumbing and girls/women have internal plumbing. When I got into Jr High school, biology class, we learned about genes and DNA, those things that are the blueprints that make us who we are. Those super small things like chromosomes that determine at conception what gender you will be. XX or XY, female or male. XX being what in science is called homogametic or two of the same chromosome while XY is male or heterogametic, two different chromosomes. Each cell in our bodies has this DNA blueprint which tells the cell what it is and its function like a heart cell will pump whereas a liver cell with filter and an eye cell will translate light (rods and cones). Now the moment the sperm cell (male) fertilizes the egg cell (female) the conceived cell starts dividing, but the blueprint for the person is already locked. The DNA strand dictates biologically that persons sex, or gender, hair color, skin coloreye color, basically the biological person. Environment will also effect that person, but the important and unchangeable part is locked away in each of that persons cells. It is called the ‘miricle of life’ and when you study it, it really is a miricle.

I believe in God, not a god with a small g, but God, the God of Abraham, the God of the Bible. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit triune God. And it really is a miricle that is indescribable how everything a person will biologically be is created at conception.

Maurice Chevalier sang a great song entitled “Thank heaven for little girls”. I have to agree. The movie “Adams Rib” has a great scene in it called viva la difference. Yes, thank God for the difference between men and women. That little difference in chromosomes make a big difference in people. It is only a woman that can give birth. And I think I am safe in saying that if men could give birth, the human race would die out rather quickly. Think about it, humans have only 23 pairs of chromosomes and just look at the variety of unique humans are in this world with just 23 pairs of these micro mini things that we can’t see with the naked eye. No surgery can change this DNA pattern. The cells themselves are locked in function, dictated by the very DNA blueprint created at conception. No elixer, no chemical compound, no scalpel can change what the cells are programmed to do. I have to laugh at the thought of some transgender person that had surgery to make a guy look like a girl and he still has to get a prostate exam. Just because a surgeon cut things off and made a guy ‘look’ like a girl will not change the fact that every cell in his body is clearly programmed at conception to be and act like a biological male. You removed the spout, added pillows to the chest and slapped lipstick on the lips to ‘look’ like a girl but you can’t fool your DNA…you are now a biological male that has been not neutered, but mutilated.

I look at my grand children and wish that they could have the childhood that I did. I hope that they retain their childlike innocence for as long as possible. We need to protect or children from corrupt ideas. Let our children have a childhood. Let them discover the world in time. Don’t let some corrupt people spoil the child like innocence of our youth, that would be childish. Thank God for our children and thank God for the difference between XX and XY.

Over taxation

Have you ever really thought about how much our government taxes us? Think about it, you are taxed on how much you earn, then, with what is left you pay taxes on what you buy. If you were able to create any savings, that too is taxed. If you leave any to your family after your untimely demise, that is also taxed. Are you starting to create a picture? It does not end there. Let us postulate that you purchase an item and pay the sales tax on it. Now let us further postulate that you decide to sell it online on someplace like ebay or another website. Taxes are, yet again, taken on an object that the sales tax has already been paid. So I must ask if you ever really own an object if the government can force you to pay taxes on it multiple times.

Let us set up another situation. Let us say you buy a house at $100,000.00. You pay taxes on that house every year in the form of property tax. But it doesn’t stop there, does it? Every year, your house appreciates in value. So what you purchased for one hundred thousand dollars next year is valued at one hundred and ten thousand. The government taxes you on the extra ten thousand dollars. Twenty years later, your house is now worth three hundred thousand dollars. The government now taxes you on that value even though you only paid one hundred thousand. That is un-realized value, not worth that money until you sell it. So I ask again, do you ever really own that house/property? Even though you have paid off that property, you continue to pay taxes on what you already paid for.

With our government borrowing so much money and spending it on things they have no authority to spend it on, our intrest payment on that debt is over a trillion dollars a year and that is just the intrest on the debt, not actually paying down the debt. As of October 12, 2024 at 5:00 pm MST, Americas debt is thirty five trillion plus dollars. That makes the debt portion for every man, woman and child at $105,760.00.

When the government, who does not and has not worked within a budget in decades, needs more money to give to Ukrane, or secretly fund projects around the world, how do you think they will fund it?

Margret Thatcher is quoted in saying “The problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money”. Guess who ‘other people’ are. You. Our government considers you a personal bank account and will make a withdraw whenever they need or want it. After the last two hurricanes, FEMA claims to have run out of money after spending billions in supporting illegal aliens that have illegally come to be a drain on our society (Cloward and Piven socialism stratagy being followed by the current Biden/Harris administration).

How do you like financially supporting illegal aliens while allowing American citizens to die?

We must force our government to do what we all have had to do, live within our means.