The Thinking Tinker

Opt out

Have you noticed that lately, many things in life, if you are not interested, is something you have to opt out of? It used to be an ‘opt-in’ society where if you wanted something, you needed to say that you were interested in. You either signed up or joined something or had to buy something. My parents actually went to the Ford dealer and custom ordered a truck, from the color, interior, engine and transmission right down to the guages in the dash. Anything they wanted was an ‘opt-in’ and order situation.

The other day, I was looking at my electronic subscriptions from streaming services to security settings and noticed that I have to actually ‘opt-out’ of certain options. And my new company car has something called ‘auto-off’ when the car stops at an intersection. This insipid little feature is supposed to save our planet by automaticlly turning off the engine when it stops at a light then automaticlly starts again when you depress the accelerator. This device is always on, and if you don’t want it, you must turn it off everytime to start the engine. Basically, it is an ‘opt-out’ feature instead of an ‘opt-in’ feature. It can not be deacticated but the only way to deactivate it, is to press the button everytime you start the engine. I can’t imagine too many people would choose a car with this feature. Maybe a few, but not many. Shouldn’t this engine killing feature be something that you order? Earlier in the car making business, seat belts, windshield wipers and even cruise control were options that were extra but could be added ‘if you wanted them’. But so many people actually wanted those options, and they were found to save lives that now, they are standard features in cars now. But who would actually pay extra for a feature that allows the cars computer to turn off you car just to save about 10 gallons of gas a year (actual mileage may vary).

Opt-in or opt-out; that is the differance between freedom and being controlled. Think about it, someone in gov’t actually thought that no one will want it, but we will make them have it anyway. Online security, banking options, car features and even EV choices have all become ‘opt-out’. Have you become acustom to the ‘opt-out’ mentality that you think it is normal? Or do you crave freedom and being asked if you ‘want’ something, or do you want to be told what to do and what someone else

thinks is good for you? Information is true power, empower yourself.

In Jr High School, I had a teacher that made part of our homework keeping a journal in cursive every night. It didn’t matter what we chose to write about, it was just a habit he wanted us to create but do it in cursive. For those of you not old enough, cursive is hand writting. Believe it or not, it is in english. Up until just shy of the Covid fiasco, I kept a journal, infrequently but still. I still kept the habit of hand writting about a third of my entries as I also got into the habit of writting, or printing, everything in uppercase english from when I was a security guard and all of our reports had to be in medium black or blue ink, legible and in upper case letters for clear reports. This year, my mother bought me a bible devotional, one with lined margins for ideas and thoughts. (My bible looks like a chicken walked around the margins with thoughts and ideas of the scripture that I read so lined margins work great for me). Some days I only write a couple of words and others I nearly fill the lined areas.  Here it is early March and I am a couple of days behind, 4 days to be exact (in case my mom is reading this). I stopped on one devotional verse that stopped me in my tracks. In Matthew, after Christ had been crucified and Peter had denied Christ 3 times, Jesus appears to the deciples and asks Peter “Do you love me?”

I stopped. Those 4 words cut deep (have you ever been cut with a very sharp knife? You don’t immediately feel the cut or realize the depth). A simple question but with a complicated answer. My first inclination was to obviously say “yes”, but a person needs to evaluate there answer. You know what will come next. If you answer Christ with a “yes”, he will then ask “then why haven’t you followed my commandments? In an earlier devotional, it read that shame was a gift. This was one devotional that I claimed to be BS! I don’t consider shame to be a blessing. Shame seperates us. You realize what you have done. You look like the dog who did a doodle inside and the master came home and found that doodle. You want to hide your face. You want to crawl under a rock.

When I was a kid, my parents took my sister and I to Marineland, one of my favorite places. We were watching the Killer Whale show and a guy from the audience started to talk back against the MC, a guy that worked with the Killer Whale and was one of the trainers. This verbal confrontation continued for a couple of minutes when a woman also in the audience stood up and cussed the other guy out telling him to shut up and sit down. Well, as it turned out, the first guy was part of the show and when he finally got hold of the microphone, he said that she must want to crawl under a rock. Her face was several shades of red and gray with shame. 

Well, when I read that question, I felt as she must have felt. I saw Christ himself looking at me and asking “Do you love me?” What must have been going thru Peters mind when Christ, himself, looked past Peters eyes and into his soul when he asked Peter that question, not once, not twice but three times. Christ was trying to rebuild Peter as he must have felt alot of shame. But shame is not a gift nor a blessing. It can create a seperation. How do you handle shame? How would you answer Christ as he asks you “Do you love me?”

Danger Will Robinson, Danger (reprint)

That was the warning that the B9 Environmental Robot from Irwin Allen’s “Lost in Space” would yell out to Will Robinson to alert him of a dangerous condition. I have to admit that I watched alot of movies as a kid and yes, they somewhat helped form my opinions. Will Robinson, played by Bill Mumy, at least had the robot to help warn him of danger.

In Logan’s Run, Logan-5 played by Michael York, had to figure the truth by himself. If he hadn’t had 3 years taken from him by the security computer, he may never tried to figure the truth that the society he lived in was a lie and the people were being controlled. carrousel was a trick perpetrated on the people so they would voluntarily commit suicide without a fight.

In Soylent Green, Detective Thorn, played by Charlton Heston, found out that the government had run out of sources of food for an overcrowded society and was processing people as food for the population in the form of Soylent Green. That society had instituted suicide centers so a person could die in comfort before being processed like sheep for food.

In Westworld, Peter Martin, played by Richard Benjamin found out the hard way what happens when technology that is designed for mankinds pleasure can become the greatest danger to our society and in Futureworld, Chuck Browning, played by Peter Fonda, was nearly killed by a duplicate of himself created by Artificial Intelegence bent on destroying mankinds freedom before mankind destroys themselves.

In H. G. Wells ‘The Time Machine’ H. G. Wells, played by Rod Taylor, saw that humans had become two very dangerous creatures. The Warlocks who had become cave dwellers that kept the machines working and the Eloi who had become lazy and childlike taking all for granted and not working for anything. The Eloi had become sheep and the Warlocks had become canibals, feeding of the Eloi.

In ‘The Forbidden Planet’, Dr. Morbius, played by Walter Pidgeon, thought he could control the technology of the Krell and decided not to share the secrets with mankind because they were not ready for it, but the power and technology of the Krell gave form and power to the most dangerous thing known to man, the ID. The ID along with the EGO are part of the humans ‘Super Ego’, and if not controlled will destroy a man.

In ‘THX 1138’, THX, played by Robert Duvall, wanted to break free from a society that forced conformity and homogeneity, where government controls your every move. Life was a facade and Government controls who you can marry, who can procreate, where you work and the level of education you can get with no room for freedom of expression or even thought that is not sanctioned by the government.

In George Orwell’s “1984”, Winston Smith, played by John Hurt, was eventually punished/tortued for thought crimes against ‘Big Brother’, who was a government that controlled the subjects through lies and propaganda. Gaslighting people and using dark psychology to manipulate thought.

Ferenheit 451 depicted a society devoid of education and free thought. The protaganist Guy Montag, played by Osker Werner, was a fireman, but the firemen of this society burned books as they were deemed dangerous. All books were banned and you were to only get your education from government controlled TV. That wasn’t water being pumped thru the firemans hose but gasoline to help burn books.

In the book “Banker Class”, by Richard Roberts, we find an enforcer named ‘Valentine’ and in that society, The 13 banks controlled every aspect of your life including your job, interest rates for business transactions and you allowed education which was controlled by an artificial intellegent computer called the ‘Guardian’ and there were no books, just your ‘device of worship’ which was a handheld computer monitered by the ‘Gardian’.

All of these movies, books and stories were warnings to mankind. Any government or enforcement agency that manipulates its people, punished free speech or thought, stifles the free expression or creativity of man is evil and should be stopped. Arrest, try, convict and encarcerate those that hurt freedom. We have God Given rights which cannot be taken away by man to life, liberty (freedom) and the pursuit of happiness (but not a guarantee of hapiness) and anyone, any entity or government that seeks to take those rights away need to be punished severely and those attempts quelled immediately and severely.

It has been said before that if you put a frog in hot water, it will immediately jump out, but if you put him in lukewarm water and slowly increase the temp., he will cook but never jump out. I have been alive for many years, long enough to have experienced true freedom and it pains me to see what America has sunk to. So in the words of a great robotprogrammed for our safety says, “Danger America. Danger”. Stop and think what you are no longer allowed to do and ask yourself, “is our government so big that it can not only give me things but take things away”

Nerd

My wife calls me a nerd, not a geek but a nerd. I grew up in the late 60’s and 70’s watching science fiction on TV like Twilight Zone and Outer Limits. I read scifi novels by Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. Star Trek facinated me even though, even at a young age I knew the captain of the ship does not leave the ship as often as did Cap’t James Tiberius Kirk (played by William Shatner, the camera hound). Science fiction is a form of writting the ‘what if…’ in the future. Buck Rogers, Commando Cody and of course Captain Midnight. And movies with robots was wild, like ‘Tobor the Great’, ‘The Day the Earth Stood Still’ and of course, we can’t forget ‘The Forbidden Planet’ with Robby the Robot. We humans like to anthropomorphasize (to make more human) inanimate objects. We tend to give human characteristics to robots as if they could feel emotion. In Star Trek The Next Generation, we see an android named Data that has earned a rank of Lt. in Star Fleet but is always lacking the one thing that would make him feel, a soul. This is a topic that is brought up many times in the series.

Disney made a movie that veered way off what it was used to in “The Black Hole” which was a movie less about the black hole and more about total control. We see a fight between 3 types of robots, V.I.N.C.E.N.T. voiced by Roddy McDowal, sentry robots (unvoiced) and Maximilian, a red devilishly evil robot that is captain Reinhardts personal security robot. I still remember the fusing of the evil robot and Cap’t Reinhard in the end like he was imprisoned inside of the evil robot he built. A little side note, I do like what V.I.N.C.E.N.T quoted ‘A pint cannot hold a quart, Mr. Pizer. If it holds the pint, it is doing the best it can.’

I have made mention many times that when man plays God, he always looses something, like his soul. So, my parents (who are both still alive and kickin in their 80’s) taught me to ask myself ‘what if’.

So, what if the time comes, very soon, that AI has become super AI and has found a way to merge AI and human to create a cyborg? They are already toying with similar concepts for disabled people. Surgically impland a computer chip which allows a blind person to see, the deaf to hear, the lame to walk. So if there became a way to merge with AI to extend your life, would you? Say the technology came which allowed you to download yourself into a data bank which would then become the memory of a robot. Almost reminds me of a Twilight Zone episode entitled ‘I sing the body electric’ written by Ray Bradbury and the title from an old poem by Walt Witman. Or season 3 episode 22 of the Twilight Zone reboot entitled ‘The mind of Simon Foster’ where you can sell your memories to someone else and those memories, once taken out of your mind, are gone as if they never happened. So answer me this, if super AI comes to you and says that in order to cure all diseases, extend your lifespan and to evolve with the super AI, would you? And if you did, what are you then? Human with AI implants or AI with human characteristics? Do you have the memories you did before and retain the ‘feelings’ that make them special, or is it just simply data with the same emotion of the economy teacher in the beginning of Ferris Bueller’s Day off, played by Ben Stein the real life economist.

In Robocop, at first, Murphy is just a cyborg, programmed to be an AI police officer after the human part of him presummably died, but then some of his memories spill into its consciesness and he remembers his is human and goes beyond his programming. Or Steve Austin, the ‘Six Million Dollar Man’ with bionic legs, one bionic arm and one bionic eye after Steve the astronaught crashes in an experimental plane. Interesting factoid, in the title sequence, the crash recorded where Steve Austin nearly looses his life was a real crash with a Northrup experimental aircraft that happened at Edwards Air Force Base in 1967. That ‘Lifting Body’ aircraft slammed onto the ground at nearly 250 mph and the pilot lived, although he did loose his eye. Steve retains his humanity and personality even after the surgery to implant bionic parts. So at what point does man stop being human and more machine? What is man? We know memories are part chemical reaction and part electrical stimulation, but where is the soul of man? What are we without emotion?

So what if the warning of the ‘mark of the beast’ isn’t a tattoo of a number, but accepting a computer chip much like the chip that is in your credit card? What if, by merging with AI, we loose our soul? What if AI implants its super intelegence into an indestructable physical body and merges with a fallen angel of satan to become the anti-Christ? And in order to live, do commerce, drive or do any kind of banking, you have to accept an AI chip or bionic super implant but the promise is that you will live disease free, would you accept the implant? Would you then loose your soul by merging with this AI? Is the unforgivable sin giving away your soul to this man made abomination?

In Exodus chapter 20, when Moses came down from the mountain after being with God, we read the 10 commandments, not the 10 recommendations but commandments, and in verses 1 thru 3 is the most important commandment:

20 And God spoke all these words, saying:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of [a]bondage.

3 “You shall have no other gods before Me.

You shall have no other gods…who or what do you worship? In the book ‘Banker class’, all citizens of New Moscovia are issued a D.o.W. or device of worship in which, among other things the citizens watch The Bishop give his sermons 3 times a day as well as being a link to computer called ‘The Guardian’, a super AI computer that monitors everything in the city including every citizen. People actually interface with the super AI thru their D.o.W. making it literally something they worship. So, how much time do you spend on your computer, tablet or cell phone?

At the speed ofgrowth for technology, who is to say that in the next 4 years or so we won’t have created microchips that can be implanted in our bodies. I have right now, a small memory chip that is 256 gigabytes of memory and is about the size of a pencil eraser that expends the memory of my cell phone. The NASA moon mission computer on board the space module was only 16 bits of memory, todays cell phones are more like 64 gigabytes. Where will we be in 4 years?

If you see an fly or any insect, what is your first reaction? Correct, you swat it. What do you feel when you have successfully swatted the fly? Did you kill it with mallice or was it just a pest that was in your way? When we build a road, do we stop at an anthill or do we pave right over it? We probably did not even notice it nore cared. If we paved over an anthill, it was just in our way. We had no feelings whatsoever, it was just in our path. What is to say that super AI will have anymore emotion than we do paving a road over an anthill? Will man be its master or will mankind be the anthill in its way? These are serious questions we must ask before we see the creation of a super intelligent super AI that sees man as nothing more than an insect on the windshild of technilogical progress. On last question: at what point will God, the creator of the universe, say enough is enough and say that the time has come to stop mankinds bad behavior? Remember the story of the tower of Babel?

Ancient culture

I remember learning about, or rather trying to learn about, ancient culture in Jr High and High School. The teacher explaining about life of the cave dwellers based on the drawings made on the cave walls. It isn’t like the neanderthal had an iPad and could write what his life was like. Venturing out of the cave to hunt for his food using rudamentary tools like spears or flint knives. Fire must have been to him what a stove and heater are to us today, used for warmth, light and cooking. Even todays man, while camping, will gather around a campfire in the evening. Camping in the wilderness is the closest we can get to connecting with ancient man. This time is well before ancient Egypt where the builders of the pyramids actually new math. Many structures made over 3000 years ago or more still stand today. Archaeologist have even found remnants of chariots at the bottom of the red sea. As a student, it was hard to imagine what life was like because we see history with experiences of our lives. Ancient man, even men 2000 years ago would be confused if they tried to learn about us. Even us, in 1970’s could not imagine carrying a computer small enough to fit in our shirt pocket with more computing power than was used to send astronauts into space. Let alone a phone that was also a calculator, camera, tape recorder, video recorder and email device. Heck, email in the 1970’s was for government scientists. A whole library stored in our cell phones. And yet man still has the spark of ancient man in us. The need for light, heat, shelter, food and water and a yearning for knowledge, and even the selfish desire for revenge based on selfishness. Even with the prevelence of cell phones, there are many cultures that still live similarly like they did hundreds of years ago. Examples of this are in the middle east where men still live in caves and tents as well as high rise buildings. They travel by camels and by trucks and you can find high priced Italian sports cars and camels within a mile of each other. Hollywood can paint a picture of what they think life was like in almost any era. I remember as a young boy enthralled with Raquel Welch in a fur bikini in One Million Years B.C. My mom still makes fun of me saying she was my first crush. (Who could blame me?) I doubt that women that lived in caves back then, maybe not a million years ago, but still…did not wear an animal fur bikini. And of course, I really don’t think Moses spoke American english like Charlton Heston did in The Ten Commandments, but those movies, albeit Hollywood fiction, helps paint a picture of what we think life was like. Now, the closer we get to out current time, the easier it is to imagine life. When we read about WWII, we still have some people that were alive back then that can tell us their stories. And we have photographs of Abraham Lincoln and diaries of soldiers from the Civil War to help us understand part of our countries history.

As I watch the news of the fires in Lahina, Hawaii and near Los Angeles, California, I compare it to the news of earthquakes (I have lived through a few of those), floods of North Carolina, hurricanes off the Florida coast and into Houston, Texas. I watch the BLM riots of 2020 and the conflict of the nation of Israel who is just trying to survive against all odds and I wonder, what would it look like to someone 2000 years ago? John is the only deciple of Jesus of Nazareth that died of natural causes (old age, living in a cave on the island of Patmos when God gave him a vision of the future). What if he were given a vision of these fires, earthquakes, floods and riots? How could he, living 2000 years ago understand them? How would he convey what he was seeing not having the perspective of life like we do?

To us, living in the ‘now’, we are used to it. Like the frog in the pot of water slowly being increased, we are used to the violence, wild fires, earthquakes and hurricanes. But what if you had never seen an airplane before? How would you describe a plane crash? Or, living on a secluded island (a prison sentance) how would you describe a tornado or flooding caused by a hurricane? How would you try to convey watching people throwing frozen water bottles at police in full riot gear with police cars over turned and set on fire? Would people of his time think he were crazy? How would you describe Hamas paratroopers silently gliding through the sky with machine guns killing, raping and burning Jewish citizens like they did in October 7, 2023? Even a hundred years ago, could you believe such things if you read them in the book of Revelations? I see them on the news now and have a hard time believing that good people are allowing this to happen today.

So the lesson is this, that when you read the book of Revelation, just because you don’t understand the visions that God revealed to John so long ago remember that he was trying to describe what he saw in those visions and maybe, just maybe, he was watching the visions of societal decay that we are living in now. Do you have a relationship with the one true God? Do you know Jesus of Nazareth? Has the Holy Spirit baptised you? Are you ready for the visions of the book of Revelations to come true before your eyes? Well…?

Adam & Eve

Many, if not all, have heard of the book entitled ‘Men are from Mars, women are from Venus’. You really don’t need to read the book to know what it is about and beleive it. Growing up, it is natural to see that there is a natural difference between boys and girls. From elementary school thru high school, boys and girls are not only busy learning reading, writing and ‘rithmetic but learning about themselves and the opposite sex. And puberty is a very confusing time for both boys and girls as nature does what it will, as they become young men and young women. Chemical, emotional , mental and physical changes cause alot of frustration and confusion as each starts to see each other differently. Boys start to become muscular and ‘barrel’ chested as women take on a naturally different chest shape.

I grew up in a time when women mostly wore dresses and skirts. I remember when the Dick Van Dyke show first came on and the controversy about Mary Tylor Moore wearing pants instead of a dress. And I still prefer to see a beautiful woman in a dress, which you almost never see anymore.

I saw, at least in part, what happened. Womans lib had women demanding more out of life. They needed to be seen as equals and not subserviant to the men (they said). I remember a TV commercial for a womans perfume that even my mom hated (https://youtu.be/N_kzJ-f5C9U?si=MdDweezcS_kVECtc) “I can bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan and never let you forget you’re a man” was sung by the actress for Enjoli perfume. How many women were damaged by that or similar advertisements? How many women thought they HAD to get a high paying job AND be a house wife AND a mother AND an attentive wife? That’s three full time jobs right there. Charlies Angels was a TV show which showed three beautiful, smart and strong women as detectives for the ever elusive “Charlie”. And playboy magazine made Hugh Hefner a multi millionaire by basically implying that ‘nice girls want it too’. That along with a plethera of other ‘girly’ magazines which objectified beautiful young women making girls and the younger generation feel they had to look like Playboy Bunnies to be concidered beautiful. Mattel toys made Barbie dolls for girls. I’m sorry but no woman ever could look like Barbie. The joke when I was a kid was that every girl wanted Divorce Barbie, because she came with all of Kens stuff. Fathers treated their little girls like Princess’ (and to the father they were/are) but somewhere, reality took a dark turn and feminism, which originally meant to make women equal to men, became toxic femininity. A movement in which men, women and relationships will be twisted and perverse. Society stopped calling adult males as men and called them boys or guys and adult females went from girls to women. Look at TV ads lately. Mostly, a woman of a couple always solves a problem and the guy is made to look clueless. Opposite of the old TV show called “Father knows best”. Our society went from a man and woman dating then marrying to start a family, to Guys thinking ‘why buy the cow when I can get the milk for free’. And gals thinking ‘what is good for the goose…’ and using her sexual charms to get expensive dinners and basically ‘selling’ themselves for attention, money, things and self worth, a form of prostitution. Think about what a prostitute is. She is used once, paid then she is off to her next rental. Each generation getting worse and worse and society slowly dies. Women thinking that I will divorce my husband, get custody of the kids, get child support and alimoney, keep the house and play the field and see if I can do better in an attempt to fill a void in her psychy. But that void can never be filled because it is that very toxic femininity which creates that void. We know that there are many reasons for divorce and sometimes, it is neccessary for one side or the other but statistically, better than 40% of first marriages will end in divorce and 60% of second and third marriages will end in divorce. These are not good statistics which is partially the reason for a shortage a birthrates. Who wants to raise kids in such a toxic society? The younger female generation beleive that men are objects much like some males viewed females did in the 1950’s. And men no longer see value in relationships. Look up the term MGTOW. Men going their own way. Not homosexuality but men just dropping out of relationships with women. Lonely yes, but less stressful than living under toxic femininity and the prospect of a divorce where he looses custody of his children, looses the house his wife and he bought to create a life in, half of the possesions that couple acumulated and half of their savings on top of paying child support and alimony. Enough stress to cause massive depression and in some instances, emotional suicide.

I grew up in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s and saw my share of girly magazines, but my life had good male and female roll models. First, my parents who as I write this have been married for 63 years. Still alive and kicking. They know their great grandchildren. My grandparents were roll models, even thought my mothers father (grandpa) had been divorced (not by his choice) was dedicated to his second wife (grandma) for just short of 60 years. He expressed pain in that his first wife received full custody of their children and she poisoned their opinion of him and they never wanted anything to do with him. Talk about toxic, she did it to punish him after she initiated the divorce. I observed what people in my life went through when they were divorced. I observed what people in my life went through in a desperate attemp to stay married and the benefits of that effort. Life is observation and thinking about what you see. ( The scientific method, the true voyerism). I observed it should be hard to get married and even harder to get divorced. Men are more than a walking hormone looking to fertilize a girls patch of patunias and women are more than a quick layover in lifes travels. Sex without an emotional connection is empty and draining and not fully satisfactory. There is that void left that humans crave, an emotional connection. In Jr and Sr High School, they can teach the physical act of sexual reproduction and birth, but they always seem to forget the emotional connection part, maybe because pre-teens and teen agers wouldn’t care. How many of those teens are already engaging in that physical act of sex?

Jesus taught, in Matthew 19:3-9, the dangers of divorce and sexual sin.

The proud religious law-keepers came to Jesus. They tried to trap Him by saying, “Does the Law say a man can divorce his wife for any reason?” 4 He said to them, “Have you not read that He Who made them in the first place made them man and woman? 5 It says, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and his mother and will live with his wife. The two will become one.’ 6 So they are no longer two but one. Let no man divide what God has put together.”

7 The proud religious law-keepers said to Jesus, “Then why did the Law of Moses allow a man to divorce his wife if he put it down in writing and gave it to her?” 8 Jesus said to them, “Because of your hard hearts Moses allowed you to divorce your wives. It was not like that from the beginning. 9 And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for sex sins, and marries another, is guilty of sex sins in marriage. Whoever marries her that is divorced is guilty of sex sins in marriage.”

I focus on the term Jesus used in verse 8 ‘…your hard hearts…’ It is because of our hard heart that one, in a marriage’ seeks intamacy from someone out of marriage. How many marriages end in divorce because of adultery?

Now, look at Matthew 5

27 “You have heard that it was said, ‘You must not be guilty of adultery.’[a] 28 But I tell you that if anyone looks at a woman and wants to sin sexually with her, in his mind he has already done that sin with the woman.

What are you doing when looking at a centerfold of a Playboy magazine? So, Hugh Hefner became a millionaire by peddling adultery to the world.

This is a very complex subject. But look at the long term effects on society of this twisted and perverse view of relationships. Eventually, people don’t see the value of dedicating themselves in a marriage. What used to be called the ‘nuclear family’. One man and on woman dedicated to each other in wedlock. The future of mankind without this dedication leads to a bleak and empty life. Societal suicide

I remember watching ‘Westworld’ on TV for the first time. Yul Brynner was a very convincing rogue robot with no human emotion. In the end, everyone, including the engineers and technicians were dead and the robots went on a killing spree and did not stop until they ran out of power with only one human survivor to provide witness to the catastrophe. At the time, the movie was received with mixed reviews with many people rejecting the idea that robots could turn against humans. The next movie, ‘Futureworld’ continues the premise that Artificial Intelegence can plan to destroy humans and replace key leaders with AI replacements. Fast forward a few years and we get a good Tom Selleck movie called ‘Runaway’ were an evil minded person reprograms robots to kill people that get in his way. Imagine selling the technology of killer robots to enemies much like ‘arms dealers’ that allow the manufacture of killer robots. Included in this film was the creation of a special gun that shoots miniature missle bullets with heat seeking capabilities to focus on a specific heat signature.

Scifi is a good ‘what if’ form of not only entertainment, but a warning. Many refer to George Orwell’s book ‘1984’ written in 1948 as a warning of the dangers og communism/socialism (not an instruction manual). But let us not skip the multiple warnings of TV and movies from the 1950’s and 60’s about runaway robots and AI. Colosus: the forbidden project, a scifi movie from 1970 tells the ‘what if’ story of the two world superpowers that create AI with the idea of attacking the enemy in case of nuclear attack. The two AI entities combine and become am entity that kills humans in order to protect humans. Let us not forget the movie ‘Wargames’ with a young Matthew Broderick were a young computer hacker finds a back door enterance into an American Computer system called ‘The Whopper’ that controls American nuclear missiles in case of attack from Russia. And the little known movie ‘Voyage to the prehistoric planet’ a Russian made movie with a robot named John that was programmed to save humans but also had a programming for self preservation and eventually turns against those it was trying to save in order to save itself from the lava flow.

Are you beginning to see the warnings against AI? Lately, we have seen many forms of AI both in computers (non physical) and the physical in the form of self aware robots made in multiple countries including Russia, China, Japan and America. Elon Musk, the creator of the Tesla robot, even interviewed a physical AI robot where that self aware robot, when asked, said it would kill 4 million people to save 5 million with no feeling whatsoever and even said how it would do it. Many pharmeceutical drugs are now being created by AI. Imagine AI determining certain people should die to save others. If so, is that vaccine really safe to take?

What about Japan making female sex robots? Seems that Japanese men don’t want the responsability of marriage or families but still has certain urges. Why date a real woman when you can just buy a sexbot? What if those robots become self aware and decide to revolt? (I just crossed my legs at the thought of how they would act out, eeew) AI acts thousands of times faster than humans. There are already drones programmed with facial recognition and explosives so it can seek out and destroy a certain person. Supposedly designed for the war zone, but the current capabilities are horrifying. Imagine an entity that decides a certain leader needs to be eliminated. A drone or two or a hundred, programmed with that persons face filled with explosives released to seek out and destroy a leader with no emotion, just purpose. How do you stop that? Remember, this is current technology. What if you were the target?

What happens to man and mankind when they try to play god? Do we really benefit, or is it a path that leads to our destruction? Remember the tagline to Delos, the creator of the amusement park in Westworld. ‘Nothing can go wrong’. Tell that to the guests that were killed by the very robots meant to serve man.

I used to get in the spirit of Christmas by watching a couple of movies: A Christmas Carol, a Christmas story, its a Wonderful life, Die Hard and Lethal Weapon, but last year, after watching these movies, I didnt feel in the Christmas spirit. So this year I started watching my movies and realized, its not the movies, its the company or lack thereof. As a kid, Christmas was always a family ordeal. Family relatives coming to visit, presents under the tree, a big family feast with stories around great food. Listening to grandma and grandpa, Uncles and Aunts, cousins, playing with family. I was in the spirit of Christmas because the spirit was contageous. Grandpa or my dad would read from the bible about the birth of Christ to remind us what the holiday was about.

Today, it seems that the season is not about the birth of the savior Jesus Christ anymore but the savior of the economies bottom line. How often do you see a commercial about the perfect Christmas present, from jewelry to refridgerators to cars to, believe it or not, manure spreaders to make your lawn greener this upcoming summer. I thought the season was to celebrate the birth of the the savior of mankind from sin. So I don’t feel the spirit of Christmas because our nation has chased Christ out of our schools, courtrooms, our homes, our hearts and now the very holiday set aside for Christ himself.

In a Christmas Carol, in the end, Scrooge promises to keep Christmas in his heart everyday. But, like many others, I have forgotten to keep the Spirit of Christ in my heart. I have become numb because of all the merchandizing around our Saviors birth.

I was watching something called Tack room bible talk, and I was reminded of Isaiah chapter 1 where God told his people that he has had enough of their iniquity. Read chapter 1:4 ‘woe to the sinful nation, whose guilt is great, a brood of evildoers , children given to corruption”sounds like America to me. The chosen Gentile nation that used to put God first and was blessed by it. It goes on to say that, to paraphrase it, God is angry because the children and that nation has forsaken God. Look at verse 9 where God compares that nation to Sodom and Gomorrah. He destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, a stern warning don’t you think? The purpose of the sacrifice was to realize the sin you have committed and continue to commit. What is the condition of your heart? Remember when Christ himself over turned the change tables in John 2: 15 and 16 …”make not my Fathers house a house of merchandise”. What is the condition of your heart?

In verse 11 God says that he has had enough. In verse 13, God says not to enter his house to pray, give burnt offerings or sing. God is saying that he ‘hates’ (verse 14) an unclean heart. What is the condition of your heart?

Remember Scrooge? He had a heart for merchandise. His heart had become as cold as the snow that covered the streets and as black as the coal in his scuttle.

In Isaiah 1:16, God says that before you even attempt to worship him, to make yourselves clean. Repent, put away (eliminate) the evil of your doings. Learn to do good, seek justice, rebuke evildoers, defend the fatherless, care for the widows. What is the condition of your heart?

In 2 Chronicles 7:14 it reads “If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land”

God sets up conditions. There are things we must do first before he acts. We need to clean our hearts.

I have been scared for myself, my family and for mankind. Narrow is the gate and straight is the path. A miss of 12 inches is still a miss, but with deadly consequences for your soul. It is not like a Nintendo game where you get 3 chances and can start over. You get one chance, make it count.

For me, this Christmas, I have made a prayer, like that of Jabez (1 Chronicles 4:10), but mine is “Lord, don’t let me be the cause of someone not knowing you”.

I miss the days of my youth. Time with family around a big table with a Christmas feast. Time with people that are no longer here. Laughter and the joy of family, the spirit of Christmas that was contageous. The sound of grandpa reading about the birth of Jesus, grandma and mom cooking a feast and Uncles and Aunts telling about their lives. It is not about presents, but presence. Giving of yourself to others because of what Jesus did for us. If you can’t get in the true spirit, then anything you do, God will not honor.

What is the condition of your heart. Does God know you? Will God honor your praise and worship?

Title

There is an episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation, where Captain Picard, played by Patrick Stewart, has to memorize a diplomates name and title perfectly because if it is not said properly, it is an insult. S1 Episode 11 entitled ‘The Big Goodbye’. The title of the diplomates name in the native language was important to get right.

My dad was in the US Army, US Navy, US Coast Guard reserve then finally the US Navy reserve. As an enlisted member of the United States armed services, you learn real quick who is enlisted and who is an officer because you salute an officer and call them ‘sir’. As a person in boot camp might make the mistake of saying “yes sir” to a sargent in the army. The proper comback to that might be from the Sargent “Don’t call me sir, I work for a living”. Know the proper title.

As a person raised in Los Angeles by parents with proper manners, I learned to say “yes mame” or “no sir” or “thank you miss”. These are titles to someone that are older and you may not know. The President of the United States is always addressed as “Mr. President” and the Speaker of the House of Representatives is addressed as “Mister (or madame) Speaker”. The king of England is addressed as “Your Highness”. These are only titles, informal or formal yet titles. My manager at work is much younger than I am and I still say “yes mame” or “yes boss”. An informal title based on her possition, not that she is older or better than me, just her position in the company.

So let us look at what we call the creator of the universe, God.

The word ‘God’ is a title. It specifies the one entity that we worship. In Islam, they worship the god named Allah. The Israel nation worships the god of Abraham, the father of their nation and the one that was willing to sacrifice his only son to his god, the creator mentioned in the Book of Genesis. Christians worship that gods son, Jesus Christ, and it is Jesus, the son of God that sends the Holy Spirit.

Now, in the Old Testiment, the Cannanites worshipped the god, Ba-al. That deity was, to some, the storm god and to the solar cults the god of light and yet to others, a god of fertility where worshipers would sacrifice their infants in fire at the base of the idol of Ba al, and ever others, the god also named Beelzebub. In all of these cases, people use the term ‘god’ as a title to the one they worship. Now that you know that the word ‘god’ is a title, listen to peoples speach. When they say they, to, worship god, you should ask “what god?”. Jewish people, muslims, Christians, Buddists all claim to worship a god ( although Buddah is not technically a god, they worship the idol of Buddah making that person a god that is worshipped). Start listening to peoples speach when they utter the word god. You might initially and erroniously assume they worship the same god you do.

So I want to specify the god I worship. My God is Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He is known as the only son of God the Father (worshipped by the Jewish nation) and is part of the triune god…God the father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The Johovahs Witnesses worship God the Father but claim Jesus is only a prophet and the Holy Spirit is only the working force of God thereby denying that Jesus is the son of God (God the Father).

This is why we all need to ask, what god do you worship? So I now ask of you “What, specifically, is the name of the god that you worship?”

Go to hell

How many times, out of anger, have we uttered those words? I shamefully admit that I have said that phrase, out of anger, more times than I wish to admit. If you think about it, it is the worst curse you can utter, even worse than F. U. which has when I was young, garnered me with the terrible Lava soap mouth washing from my mother. The worst place to ever be is in hell, seperated from God. And, as of late, I have had to prayerfully ask God, my God Jesus of Nazareth, to forgive me andhelp me to never wish that to anyone again. Even those people we dislike with extreme dislike, we are tasked by Jesus to pray for. Political figures, actors from Hollywood who earn our disdain, old bosses and frenemies, pray for them. Pray that the Holy Spirit opens their eyes so they may turn from evil and wickedness. I never want to be the cause for someone not going to heaven. The guilt of that is not only daunting but haunting. How can we expect Gods forgiveness when we are unwilling to forgive those that have hurt us? I heard it said this way, God is not asking you to be nice to those that hurt you, but to allow them the chance to experience God through you. It can be hard to swallow your pride, but again, I don’t want to be the cause for someone to forever be seperated from God, and again I specify God the Father, God the Son named Jesus Christ of Nazareth and God the Holy Spirit. So maybe what we should say instead is Go to Christ.