Monthly Archives: October 2024

Inquiring Minds Need to Know

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Hopefully some scientific minded reader will see this post and provide some answers to a layman’s questions. Any takers? Please respond.

When the traffic cop shoots his radar at your car as you come whizzing by, there are assumptions that must be made that need consideration, for instance, was he sitting still? If so, then whatever the display showed would be your speed relative to his – in this case, zero. If he was moving, his computer has to know what his speed was relative to yours – if he was moving towards you, his speed relative to the speed limit sign (ground) must be subtracted from the radar total, which the patrol car’s processor can easily do. I guess the point my premise which will be of significant importance to this discussion, is that speed can only be determined, or assumed, by relativity of two points. The object moving and a separate object of reference that determines the apparent speed the moving object is going.

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All my life I’ve heard that Albert Einstein produced those cosmic speed limit signs posted throughout space that say the speed of light cannot be exceeded. Mr. Einstein was undoubtedly a brilliant mathematician, and I would never attempt to debate his propositions, but there are nevertheless some questions.

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1st question: You are travelling through space minding your own business at say, 99.99% of the speed of light (relative to an imagined “stationary” point in space). One of Einstein’s stellar traffic cops is whizzing in the opposite direction towards you at the same speed, relative to the same presumed stationary spot. The only way your speed and his can be determined is by their relativity to each other, because in reality that stationary point doesn’t exist. If the actual speeds of both objects relative to each other was measured without subtracting his own speed, what does his radar readout say? Put another way, if you had a head-on collision with him, what would the impact velocity be? Are you, relative to him, exceeding Einstein’s cosmic speed limit, and if so, how is this possible?

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We have no way of knowing how fast nor in what direction our universe is going – the whole thing. Scientists are discovering that space itself is expanding, and that all points in the universe are moving away from all other points. (Let that sink in – according to this theory every point in space is the center of its own universe). Some objects in the deep universe appear to be moving away (from us) at speeds exceeding the speed of light – if this is so, how do we see them? Maybe we’re just seeing where they were billions of years ago, but if that’s the case, how do we know where they are now? If we don’t know where they are now, how do we know how fast they’re going? If the whole universe is moving, how can any speed of any object in the universe be determined with no stationary point with which to reference it? We can only determine cosmic speeds of objects as the results of their relativity to other objects. If you are cruising through space at what you think is 99.99% of the speed of light and your drag racing buddy is cruising along at 99.98%, will you overtake him and wave as you go by? After all, you only know your and his speeds relative to each other. In reality you might be going as slow as snails, with no other reference point than each other. Or you might be going a thousand times the speed of light!

As the universe expands, what is filling the void that is being created at some unimaginably phenomenal rate? I’ve not read of any discoveries of new matter appearing to fill these, so one would presume empty space is being created, but then empty space is something. Right? How, then, is something being created from nothing? Distance, at the very least, is being created if the expansion theory is correct. The known observable universe is thought to already be in the neighborhood of 90 odd billion light years across, so if we assume the expansion theory is correct, some scientists believe there will come a time somewhere down the road when no objects, not even atoms, will be within billions of light years of each other. Now if you have bothersome neighbors like some of us, that might not seem like such a bad thing, but borrowing a cup of sugar is going to be a real pain.

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I guess the whole premise of this post is just to point out that though we have been nurtured to believe in the infallibility of science, unfortunately due to the new revelations they discover almost every day – revelations that often refute the “laws” they held dear, indeed revelations that absolutely disprove the “laws” of physics as we have believed them to be, then how on earth (there’s a pun there somewhere) can they be so absolutely sure that our God doesn’t exist? Wouldn’t that be a much simpler explanation for how things can be created from nothing? Why couldn’t “Let there be light” account for the sacred “big bang”? And no, “What was going on before the big bang?” is not an invalid question – that’s a weak cop out of an answer.

These science guys are undoubtedly some brilliant people, but I believe that when they get to the point (which they invariably do) where they begin to argue against the existence or the Supremacy, of the Almighty God, their theories come unraveled. I also believe this will continue to be the case. I also believe there are many in the scientific community who do actually believe in God, but even many of them have determined (imagined) that using their science, they might be able to develop ways to undermine Him – see folkpotpourri post on CERN.

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In the grand scheme of things, science, improperly applied, can just be another of the many tools of Satan. The apostle Paul uses the terminology, “science, falsely so-called”, to describe those scientific efforts that attempt to disprove or defy, or even to put man on some kind of equal footing with God. The sad part is all of those brilliant minds being wasted pursuing nonsense that could be applied to doing the work of Jesus Christ. What an army that could be gathered to resolutely affirm and spread knowledge of the divinity of our Creator! If only they could open their eyes and see how they could direct their efforts to the benefit of mankind by – among other things – improving the moral foundations of humanity.

As it stands, science and technology have become a kind of sorcery, the understanding of which only comes by years of study, and at intervals throughout, accepting “laws” and doctrines that seem to invariably be disproven somewhere down the road. In the end, the Almighty God will show His Omniscience, and I do not relish the idea of eventually being an ignorant old hillbilly in a position to say I told you so, for then it will tragically be too late for so many smart people.

There may be perfectly reasonable answers to the queries this post postulates, and if so, please respond. Although by design, there are no logical scientific explanations, neither is there an argument (at least for us believers) that Jesus Christ is who He says He is, and that our God created this universe. If there was any valid argument to disprove that, it would have already been made long ago. Outside of that absolute truth, that void being created by the expansion of space could well be filled by my own ignorance of science. But then, maybe that’s a good thing.

May God bless all.

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MK

Weaving the Tapestry of Faith

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Over the years, over the centuries, Christianity has gotten a bad rap. Our predecessors were fallible human beings, as we all are, and as such were vulnerable to attacks from the enemy. Obviously, they didn’t always win. In order to be able to gain some appreciation for the power of evil that has ever been arrayed against us, it would be prudent to understand that this enemy has a plan – a plan that has been developed and fine-tuned for millennia, and he is wise and cunning. Things that are happening today are not happening by any kind of coincidence, they’ve been planned out for ages. We’re temporary beings who are playing our parts in only one act of the great play. There were others yesterday. There were others in the first millennia, the first century, but the plan was in progress for the whole production.

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Satan obviously took control at various times through the years in order to give Christians a bad name. The Spanish Inquisition, the Crusades, and other times and efforts were perpetrated so that in the end days there would be people who could point out those eras to disparage Christianity. He’s been working on this for a long time. Although one of the goals of his plan seems to have been to alienate the Islamic faith from the Christian, God has maneuvered events so as to bring believers together, and ironically, if we look closely, we are finding it possible to be able to see God through each other’s eyes. Many of us Christians see the devotion of Moslems with their daily prayers and the way they teach their children in righteousness and wish our fellow Christians would do likewise. Islam also teaches of Jesus Christ, some sects say He was a prophet, but some recognize His Divinity as the Son of God. This is important – we’re not all that far apart. Conversely, Talmudic Judaism teaches that Jesus was an imposter, and His soul is in torment – that’s way apart from what Christian Gospel or Islam teaches. Christianity is no threat to Islam, we believe differently, but neither religion teaches that murder is acceptable, although some of our predecessors on both sides have ignorantly thought it acceptable to kill to “protect” our faith. Come on, y’all – if our God is indeed Almighty, He doesn’t need any of us to kill someone to defend Him. Especially when Jesus Christ Himself teaches us not to harm others.

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Today’s iteration of humanity is currently being inured to death and destruction on a scale not witnessed since the last world war, but this time things are different. When people become sufficiently apathetic to this genocide, they will be prepared to accept anything, no matter how evil, although one would be hard-pressed to expect anything any more evil than the murder of children. Today’s Christians are being asked to accept the notion that the deaths of innocent people on this incredible scale is somehow justified so that we can rationalize an acceptance of it taking place. For the Christian who reads and understands the Gospel of the New Covenant, for the few who seek the narrow gate, the murder of innocent people cannot be justified, period.

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Those defenseless victims who are undergoing this inhumane slaughter are obviously hard-pressed to connect the barbarism levied against them with the will of God, but as with all things that happen in the course of mankind’s occupation of this earth, God knows what’s happening. It is of utmost importance to understand and believe that the Almighty God who created us has not abandoned us! He is intimately aware of each wound, of each drop of blood of every child, and His wrath on the Day of His vengeance will be a terrible thing to behold! Imagine the very heavens being shaken with His fury, His immeasurable anger at those who have perpetrated this unspeakable evil upon poor and innocent women and children. The “leaders” who send bombs and death shall be horrified, seeking holes in the ground, rocks and mountains to fall on them to hide them from His face, but on that Day, they will face their reckoning.

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It is also of utmost importance to bear in mind that there is another life after this one. This is the one concept that can make our suffering bearable so that we may endure the evil that is upon us. Those innocent peasants who are being mercilessly slaughtered will undoubtedly be greeted and welcomed into a magnificent kingdom of peace and joy, unimaginable joy in which the tribulations of this life will be forgotten. Mothers who have lost their children, be comforted in the knowledge that those little ones are in a new home of serenity and that God shall wipe the tears from their precious little eyes. Only God knows the pain and despair you are undergoing, but God does know – believe that! The day of reckoning approaches, and justice will be visited upon those who brought this horror upon you. Jesus Christ will Himself lead an army that will utterly destroy those servants of evil who actually think they are in charge now.

When this conflict is rightly seen as a great battle between good and evil, and when the parties involved are rightly identified as to which is good and which is evil, it is interesting to observe who Satan is going after. He doesn’t seem to be worried about any of the great American megachurches – none of the “faithful” or false prophets of the congregations appear to be having any abnormal conflicts, the government isn’t bothering them. Of course, the wealthy seem to be living high on the hog – no earthly conflicts to deal with. People who profess to be atheists or even Satanists aren’t being bombed and massacred. Why is the devil assailing the poor Palestinians? Could it be that they are the true Semitic peoples? Are they the last ancestors of Abraham and Moses, et. al? Are the few Christians among the Palestinians all that remain of the true Church? After all, some of the oldest Christian churches in the world were in Palestine and Syria. I don’t know the answers to those questions, but anyone can see that for some reason, Satan is intent on destroying all that are left of those people.

Jesus gave us the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5. Read them and see if you can see the Palestinians – I can:

3“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are those who mourn,
For they shall be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
For they shall inherit the [a]earth.
6 Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
For they shall be filled.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
For they shall obtain mercy.
8 Blessed are the pure in heart,
For they shall see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
For they shall be called sons of God.
10 Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
For theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Do not give up hope – it’s one of the greatest gifts we have. Trust in the grace and mercy of the Almighty to see us through these troubled times. Allow Jesus Christ into your heart and experience the faith that you need to look forward to a better time. Tears are abundant now, but they will not always be. Christian people who have Jesus in their hearts cry for you – pray for you. There’s a better life beyond us. Do not give up on love – it is the greatest of all gifts, for God is love.

[1 John 4:8] He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

May God bless all whose hearts are broken – may Jesus Christ give us strength to endure.

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MK

Tribute to the Best of Soldiers

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Van Nathan Kitchens Junior. We just laid him to rest Saturday. It was about as glorious of an autumn day as you could ask for and the military honors were a solemn and well-appreciated addition to his departure. He would have been pleased to have seen it, and somehow, I’m pretty sure he did.

He had turned eighty-six years old in May and his health had been on the decline for the last several years, but he stayed on his feet as long as he could, although someone in the family told me he had at last resigned to forego deer-hunting this year due to his physical condition. That would have been welcome news for the local deer herd, because even at his advanced age, he was ever a yearly threat to them.

The eldest of a family of ten kids, he grew up with his hands full helping his mom and dad with his younger siblings. His dad worked at odd jobs before settling into being a butane (now days it’s all propane) delivery man, which didn’t pay much, so Van Junior, known as Rip to his family, grew up in a poor family. Once he got grown, he didn’t seem to particularly like talking about his childhood nor adolescence, and that was probably why. Not having an abundance of provender on the table when he was young could also account for his love of hunting and fishing, as it was an extraordinary welcome bounty for the family to bring home some venison or fish – it was mostly catfish back in those days, caught out of a lazy meandering old silt-laden river, the Neches, in East Texas where he spent most of his early years. He became exceptionally good at hunting and fishing; in fact, he was among the best I ever knew. He knew how to cook it up, too.

All of his brothers and sisters remember sitting around the old house late in the evenings as he told them stories – he was especially good at it, and the kids listened attentively to each yarn he would tell them, hanging onto every word. This was in the days before cell phones, neither were there TVs in every home, and certainly not in the Kitchens household, with the much-beloved Pentecostal Matriarch, Billie Jewell who would not even think of allowing a “hellivision” into the house. Looking back, those old Pentecostal believers were right about the TVs. Back when we were having the discussions about the morality of TV, harmless shows like I Love Lucy, and Leave it to Beaver were the staples, but look what it’s morphed into today.

He left home to join the Army while he was still a kid, it had to be an exuberating venture, especially to finally pass the demands of big-brothership on to younger siblings, who I’m sure were ill-prepared for the baton – Rip had grown up with it, so he undoubtedly stepped into great freedom when he put on the uniform. Rip became passionate about his service to the Army and was more loyal to its mission than most.

He grew up with a very special sister, Verna, with whom he had a special bond – more so than with his other siblings, but I guess that sort of thing happens in families, some kids become partners in crime and have closer relationships with each other than with other siblings. As youngsters Rip and Verna together experienced travails that were common to post-depression children. Especially those who happened to be children in families that were another level of poor. They both did well as adults and were able to rise above their meager beginnings. Verna passed away back in 2013 while living in Colorado, and it was a terrible loss to the whole family, but it was easy to sense it being extra tough on Rip.

His first marriage lasted long enough for he and his wife to raise a daughter, Kim, and a son, Van III, but eventually the marriage would fail, and he would go on to meet his special love, Becky, with whom he absconded to Missouri and set up a nice ranch in the Ozarks. After a while he received the tragic news that his son, Van Nathan Kitchens III, had been killed in an automobile crash out in the Colorado mountains. The son was known to the family as Bubba, and everyone in the family knew and loved him. He served in the Army and did a tour in Iraq in at least one of the operations over there. Before the accident took him, he had married and had his own son, Van Nathan Kitchens IV, who I had the pleasure of meeting at Rip’s funeral. Number IV has a son of his own, a handsome, happy toddler and of course, his name is Van Nathan Kitchens V. Rip took Bubba’s death especially hard, as would be expected, a tragic episode in life which only a parent losing a child could know.

Rip spent a lot of his time in Missouri raising beef cattle as long as he was able, then as the late autumn stage of life closed in and age began to catch up with him, he gave up tending the herd, spending his hours reading, or with Becky and occasionally with family members. He had a couple of brothers who also came to Missouri with whom he visited as often as they came by, or he could get up their way. Van was serious about the church business as well. He was a devout Sunday school teacher and was dedicated to the work of the Lord; a stalwart Christian, and he will surely awaken from his rest no longer clad in the decrepit old carcass he wore out here on earth, but in the new eternal form the Lord will bestow upon him.

The blue jays are out this time of year in Southern Missouri, and everything is peaceful as dry autumn breezes waft through gold-gilded hickories standing somberly against the indigo October sky. I go out into the woods a lot in the fall, it’s my favorite season and it reminds of days gone by long ago – an innocent time in life when Rip would take a little scamp, fifteen years his junior, with him to hunt squirrels. That little tag-along was me. He was – and ever will be – my beloved big brother.

We will see him again soon in the company of Jesus.

May God bless all and may you Rest in the blessed Peace, Van Nathan Kitchens Junior.

Special condolences to Becky and Kim.

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MK

P.S. Some of the numbers, i.e., junior, senior, IV and V, were mistakenly out of order in the earlier versions they are hopefully corrected in this edit. Sorry.

When Madness Pretends to be Conflict Strategy

Wow! How clever they are! Their “intelligence” people developed a way to put explosives into cell phones and pagers that killed and injured a lot of mostly innocent people and managed to turn even more of the world against them without accomplishing anything significant towards advancing their cause(s). They have only one ally in the whole world, and it would be a safe bet that a growing majority of the population of that country, the US, are coming to realize and resent what their government is doing in this scheme of murder and criminality. The evil being supported by the US today is also working to give citizens reason to reflect on past odious behaviors of the US – American Indian genocide, Hiroshima, Dresden, Vietnam, Afghanistan – we have rarely been the good guys we were always led to believe we were. It’s turning out we are not the least bit happy about it, especially since it involves the wholesale slaughter of innocent people, of children who just want to play in their homes in safety – slaughtered by bloodthirsty savages with American bombs.

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The pager murders only killed a few dozen people, and a plausible case can be made that few or none of them were enemies of the Zionist occupiers – at least enemies who may have been some kind of strategic threat to the IDF or citizenry of the occupation. If I’m a general or commander of resistance forces and some idiocy like this happens, I wipe the sweat off my brow with relief, because now I understand the “threat’ of the occupying forces’ “intelligence” is of much less concern than I’d feared because they spent a lot of their “genius” and resources for quite some time devising silly fireworks to try and scare people and produced no threat of any significance to my forces. In fact, I’m dumbfounded that these “invincible” enemies with unlimited resources would spend all that time and money on terroristic foolishness when there’s a conflict coming (that they started, the “started Oct 7” nonsense is unadulterated propaganda). Now I’m certainly not making light of the casualties nor the injuries that people sustained from the exploding devices, but in the grand scheme of wartime conflict, this idiocy accomplished nothing but making the vaunted IDF more enemies. Most of all, the leaders of the resistance can take some comfort that this “intelligence” isn’t all that intelligent after all. Sure, they got a lot of attention from all over the world, but attention doesn’t win wars, and stupidity surely doesn’t.

Somewhere along the way, the notion that making people fear your army was somehow a winning strategy became vogue. Shock value became a desirable method of accomplishing this and that’s just plain stupid. When the world found out that GITMO and Abu Ghraib torture was happening, it certainly shocked everyone, but it didn’t do our military guys any favors, because if you think about it, in a battle when the enemy is on the ropes and ready to throw in the towel, if he has reason to believe he’ll be treated decently as a POW (don’t even start with that “enemy combatant” nonsense) it stands to reason he’d be willing to surrender more readily. Take that same situation where the enemy soldier has reason to believe he’ll be tortured when he gives up and chances are he’ll fight to the death, thus killing more of your soldiers. Just plain stupidity and I don’t care if some cognitively challenged demons with stars on their lapels graduated from West Point (with honors) allowed this madness to happen, they should be castigated – whatever form that might take. It also makes you more enemies and gains you the enmity of more of the world – look at the success of BRICS today vs. the decline of the west.

Our genius politicians who were apparently all born yesterday look around at the tatters of the US flag, the tatters of the US reputation – and have the temerity to wonder why in the world everyone hates us. Think GITMO, Petraeus. Think Abu Ghraib and European black sites, Pompeo. A respectable General like Lee or Patton would have y’all up before a court martial for getting their troops killed because of torturing enemy soldiers.

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The obvious madness behind all of this nonsense is that it is what the great deceiver, Satan wants them to do. When seen through that lens, it’s easier to see why the smarter guys with morals and honor have all resigned from our military. None, except possibly a small handful of representatives, are to be found in the US political crowd either. This exit of people of conscience (Josh Paul comes to mind) is also happening in the Zionist occupation forces. Only the most ignorant, least honorable, enemies of humanity hang with entities who practice such Cheney/Rumsfeld travesties as torturing and murdering civilians. This applies to our congressional leaders, presidents, presidential wanna be’s, and certainly to the IDF political and military leaders.

How they cry and moan when someone shoots back at them, for their specialty is murdering those who are weaponless, defenseless, hopeless. Onward they bravely march with rigged up pagers, thousand-pound American bombs, broomsticks with which to torture their captives, and loudly call on all through such benevolent mouthpieces as Ryder, Miller, Kirby, Sullivan, et. al. to all the resistance guys to please don’t shoot back at them when they murder your children, for that would be “escalation”. Note that it’s not escalation when the Zionists assassinate, trigger communications devices, carpet bomb Gaza and/or the West Bank, but when someone reacts to such barbarity by trying to defend themselves, it magically then becomes “escalation.” Note how it only becomes escalation when the resistance shoots back.

The servants of evil have had a long time to screw up the world as it is now, and only Jesus Christ will be able to sort it out when He returns. Satan has started playing his high cards for the world to see, and when you can see his behavior this plainly, see all of these servants falling in line for him, you should also be able to understand how powerless we, as humans, are to stop him – only Jesus is able to do what has to be done, we just need to make sure we are on the right side of things, Jesus’ side, when He appears and you can rest assured He’ll be bringing justice with Him. This thing can be, and will be won by the forces of good, but only by the army of Jesus Christ. I’m serious, folks – we all must get right with Jesus asap. There is no other way.

John 14:6 – Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.

May the blessings of the Almighty and Merciful God find and keep us all in these troubled times.

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MK