Answer: Someone’s gonna lose a trailer.
Harold Camping made millions preaching that the world would end on May 21, 2012. In his own words, May 21st was one of the worst days of his life. I suppose it would have been a better day if everyone died? He claimed to preach from the Bible, but apparently somehow overlooked Matthew 24:36.
Here are some disasters can you can definitely predict:
- a volcanic eruption
- a divorce (for the selfish and unfaithful)
Here are some disasters that you cannot predict:
- mega-earthquakes
- when the world will end
In between these extremes there are some that you can “sort of” predict with varying reach-out-into-the-future time-frames:
- a tornado - by a few minutes to an hour
- the price of oil - up to weeks ahead
- if you buy Lotto tickets there will be one less car during your life that you will replace.
Conservative estimates of money spent world-wide to study earthquakes is in the $50 Billion range - but with no success. The top earthquake scientists I have talked with, friends of mine, tell me that well, no, we can’t actually predict earthquakes. You can forecast the statistical likelihood of one, but this makes the assumption that the earthquake-generation process is somehow linked to past events, which is a pretty shaky proposition - because then we should be able to predict them in the first place.
Some things are random - or at least we cannot find a discernable pattern to them. Roulette comes to mind. However, your ultimate success at Roulette is NOT random: You. Will. Lose. Some apparently random events may simply have causal factors still unrecognized or obscured. This hope has driven some brilliant people I know to gamble their entire professional careers on earthquake research, and they have all seen little for it. So far.
When something doesn't make sense, you can either invoke magic - or conclude that you are missing information. There is at least one reason, one causative variable, for EVERYTHING that happens.
The reliability and safety of your online credit-card purchases depends on being able to generate a random number. Really: it has to be something that someone else cannot duplicate and therefor use to predict the encryption key.
But here’s the fun part: generating a truly random number is impossible. Mathematicians and computer scientists have spent decades trying to do this - but hardware that can generate a number by a certain process can be duplicated. Mathematicians have gotten really, really good at generating pseudo-random numbers: numbers that sure seem to be random... but the fact is that the NSA was able to eavesdrop on conversations in Islamabad that were supposedly encrypted on and after May 1, 2011. Massive computing power in Fort Meade wins again. No, the Pakistani leadership really didn’t know that Osama bin Laden was watching porn in their back yard, though in retrospect it sure seems like the best place to hide, doesn’t it?
The take-away here is that nothing just happens. The Big Bang didn’t just happen. SOMETHING causes EVERYTHING.
And Someone knows all the rules governing them.
~~~~~
Thanks for calling me selfish and unfaithful. Divorce is often more complicated than selfishness and unfaithfulness.
ReplyDeleteIts really hard for divorced members to stay in the church, especially men, because people like you project and perpetuate this self-righteous attitude that you are better than them, especially divorced men.
Then you shun us as if we have some sort of communicable disease. Where is the compassion? Where is the Christlike attitude? Do you love your neighbor with an asterisk? "Love your neighbor lest he is divorced, then you can publicly shame him, shun him, and treat him like dirt, especially if he's a guy because it was surely all his fault."
I'm divorced because my ex couldn't treat me like a human being. I did all I could but I was never good enough. Then just because I was of the more unholy sex I was called out in fast and testimony meeting, shunned by my congregation, and treated like dirt otherwise. I'm not alone. Several men report being told to not teach somebody's children, have their testimony questioned, asked to leave a meeting, contradicted on doctrinal truths, shunned, belittled, forced to be released from callings, or just plain abused. They can me innocent in all things yet they're treated like they raided a brothel, and beat his wife with a cudgel every day.
Meanwhile, the woman, no matter her crimes is invited into homes, comforted, and welcomed with open arms.
We are supposed to be a Christlike people, not a damning people.
Ben, I never said that all divorces are the result of selfishness or unfaithfulness. I DID say that divorce is predictable in those cases, and it's certainly clear to me that divorces happen for other reasons.
ReplyDeleteI'm sending a more detailed response via personal email. I agree with your last sentence with all my heart - but like you I have seen people who are not very Christ-like... yet. That's probably why they are still stuck on this planet.
Thank you for your response. I'll read the email when it comes through. I appreciate the sentiment.
DeleteI don't encourage divorce in most cases, but its never our part to judge (unless we're called to do so). If a bishop can still love, respect, and encourage a member then so can his ward. This week's lesson is on supporting the Priesthood, maybe that should be a point, supporting your bishop by supporting the members he supports, or something like that.
Now that I know what you meant by that comment, Jeff, I understand. I agree with both you and Ben with a slight adjustment in the gender thing. While I know it happens and think all the things Ben went through is shameful, I felt I was treated much the same way. Even when I moved from Texas to Washington and finally had the supportive bishop, the married women of the ward wrote nasty rumors about me and "held their husbands closer when I was around". Fortunately I have a very strong testimony to carry me through, but it made me sick. I think one person out of each couple shows selfishness and unfaithfulness and very rarely can actually base a divorce on "irreconcilable differences" or "incompatibility"...unless you are Gweneth Paltrow...which movie stars and divorce can almost always be predicted :)
ReplyDelete