spotlight

[DrGadget]

Answers must be at least one sentence long.

My apologies if these answers are too short. Let me know.

1) What is your position on the war?
Clearly, our enemies think it's important because they are meeting us there. The war has been successful so far in that there have been no major attacks on America since 9/11. I know it's not for the lack of people who would like to destroy us. So the war itself is being fought exceptionally well.

The peace however, is much different and much harder to achieve. The goals are not always easy to understand or effect. It's also questionable that we could ever truly democratize Iraq. So far we've seen some progress toward that end, but not enough imo to balance all the time, treasure, and blood we’ve spent securing it.

Hopefully we can pull out of there soon and maybe leave a minimal presence like possibly an air field in Baghdad. I hope that’s what McCain is talking about when he says we’ll be there for another 50 years. So long as it’s a very low ops tempo like our bases in Korea, that wouldn’t take a whole lot of effort for us to maintain. Korean bases are not draining us dry.

2) Do you feel that as a fellow Christian on the forum, that (claybon) has left you out to dry when you bear most of the blame from non believers on this site?
No. Sometimes people jump in and help. Sometimes they jump in and stab. Sometimes they stay to the sidelines. Each time I assume I’ll be going in alone, so if he or anyone else ever offers help, I appreciate it.

3) What do you do for a living?
Computer programmer.

4) If God is supposed to come before anything, even education. What happens if you drop out of school? Will God give you a job?
God is unpredictable, mainly because we can’t think like Him. He might give you a job. He might let you rot on the streets for a few years. He might let you die. A lot of the prophets in the Bible were treated like garbage, but they were still in God’s will.

Education in itself is not a bad thing. Unless God specifically tells you not to get an education, I think the default is that you should. But in learning, you can still celebrate God.

This is like saying that God comes first so don’t eat. I can even think of a verse or two of Scripture that could be twisted into saying that. But it’s not true. Eat, but eat celebrating God. Invite God to the table. Dine with Him.

So go get your education. Thank God for making it all possible. If He specifically sends an angel to tell you not to go, then don’t. Otherwise get all the education you can.

5) do you think creationism should be taught in schools? alongside evolution or just creationism?
I think both should be taught. I teach my kids both. When you put Creationism up next to Evolution, Evolution doesn’t look so good. Also, it makes it clear how much of science has been corrupted by Evolution. I love science in general and astronomy in particular. Ever since I was a kid, I wanted to sail out on the Enterprise and do exciting things in space. Many kids do.

But then I look at what NASA is doing and how much of their budget is apportioned to which projects. All the big money is going toward figuring out how the universe evolved. None of it is going toward figuring out IF the universe evolved. The assumption there is that is did and they just need to figure out how. So that saddens me. The Large Hadron Collider in Europe – its main function is to re-create the conditions of the Big Bang. But what if there wasn’t one? Even Fetus said he didn’t believe in the Big Bang. He supports the newer theories of rapid inflation. The Big Bang is soooo 1970’s. So why are we spending billions of dollars to re-create something that even our most prominent mainstream scientists no longer believe in?

I think we should explore space mainly just to do it, and secondarily to find ways to improve our lives on Earth. Spending millions and billions on hypothetical paths for Evolution is a waste of money to me.

6) why are you so faithful to your religion when there is no real proof for most if not all of what it states?
I have gone to church before with a burning problem in my heart. It’s weighing heavily on me. And then the pastor makes a sermon that applies specifically to me and my particular problem. It might as well be just him and me in the room. Or actually, me, him, and God whispering in his ear. This happens so often that when it doesn’t happen I feel cheated. Someone else got the special message from God that day.

Plus God has actually spoken to me on a few occasions. No, I can’t prove that to you, but I can tell you about it. You’re going to believe it or not. But that’s no longer my problem. I can preach to people, I can tell them what God has done for me personally, and I can pray for them. I do it for Jesus. I’ve done this several times right here at the PSUC as you well know. You can just scan through these questions and tell that most of them are about religion. But then after that, there’s not much I can do. Eventually the people have to either believe or not.

I’ve read the Bible cover to cover several times. The more I read it, the more sense it makes. God also speaks to me through the written word.

Plus I’m older than most (all?) the other people here so I’ve seen theories change and change, while the Bible stays constant. I remember how things were in the 1970’s and can see the direction we’re moving as a nation and as a world. The events in the Book of Revelation are coming closer and closer. There are some extreme events in there. They are cataclysmic and very graphic, like people gnawing their own tongues just to feel pain. I don’t see all that as a far-away thing. I see that all happening within a few years. It’s creeping nearer, and I want to be completely ready when Jesus returns for me.

7) Do you use a moustache comb?
No. I just keep it well trimmed.

8) Except for Jesus, if you could meet and spend one day with any person (past or present), who would it be?
Assuming I could speak the same language, probably Solomon or Leonardo da Vinci. Einstein was pretty smart, but not as smart as these two. I’d like to leave with something more than, “I just met John Wayne! Oh golly gosh!” I’d want to learn something completely mind-blowing.

9) Got a pic?
Sorry, no.

10) If you could change just one thing that the Government is doing right now, and keep it changed... what would it be?
Fix the taxes. Eliminate the IRS and the Federal Reserve bank. Go to a flat tax of about 5%. Make it so any tax increases have to be for specific projects (like going to Mars or something), and be limited to 2 years. Furthermore, they would require a 4/5 supermajority to pass a tax increase. That way only the very important things are funded and the rest is done away with.

11) Boxers or briefs?
Briefs. They keep everything where it needs to be.

12) Have you always been into religion?
Did you ever question Christianity or whatever religion you are ?
I’ve always been into God, but there was always someone who supposedly knew the Bible and told me outrageous things that I knew were lies. When I challenged them, they always seemed to find a verse that looked like it proved them right. I eventually grew tired of that and decided to read the whole Bible for myself. Up until then I didn’t know anyone who had actually done that. Where I came from, the Bible was a huge fancy book that sat on the coffee table but you couldn’t touch it.

Now I know it well enough that when someone says something stupid I can pick apart his bad doctrine. A few years ago, someone was trying to tell me that the events in the Book of Revelation had already happened with the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD and that Nero was the Antichrist. Lie. So I flipped to Revelation and showed them several verses, like the 200 million man army coming from the East and asked him when that happened. I showed him where all the trees and green grass were burnt up and asked him when that happened. He didn’t have answers for any of it. Now, when someone says something is “in the Bible somewhere”, I don’t accept that as an answer. I demand to know chapter and verse. Show me exactly where that is.

And yeah, I question Christianity all the time. I figure God is always right, and I might sometimes be right, but only when I’m in agreement with God. If I disagree with God, I have to be wrong. I have to see how the nuts and bolts of it work. I have to get in there with a microscope and examine every little thing to the nth degree. Sometimes after church I go talk to the pastor and I can see him thinking, “Oh no, not again!” Because I will ask him some really deep questions about what he just preached. I keep the poor guy on his toes. About a year ago I stumped him pretty badly. I said, “The Tree of Life is in Heaven. If you die and go to Hell, you’re burning forever and can’t die. But how can you live forever if you never ate from the Tree of Life?”

I’ll let you guys figure out the answer to that one. Good luck.

13) What is a Healthy Relationship between a man and a woman in your opinion?
If you mean sexual relationship, then I would say Man and Wife. The wife has to be monogamous. The man can have several wives so long as it’s legal in that country, and he’s not a church pastor. They should only have one wife. Either way, he has to remain faithful to as many wives as he has.

I know a lot of Christians will call that paganistic or whatever, but there were many righteous men in the Bible who had multiple wives. The only specific thing against it is when Paul was describing the qualifications of a pastor. So I really see no reason why this isn’t allowed.

14) What would be your reaction if you discover that there is no God?
Then there would be no point to any of this. Live, die… no difference. Pass knowledge onto the next generation… why? Discover the origin of the universe… so what? Without God, we will all one day die and be forgotten. Nothing will endure. The universe itself will one day cease to have the ability to support life. The universe itself will one day die. Everything becomes meaningless. Everything becomes pointless.

With God, I have the hope of living forever. The whole universe has meaning and purpose. It all makes sense again.

So yeah, if I were to discover there was no God, I would be absolutely miserable. Beyond miserable, most likely. Is there a state where you’re too miserable to commit suicide? Living or dying would make no difference, so committing suicide would not even be an escape. It just wouldn’t matter.

15) Y(pxgamer) finds it weird that despite the fact that you are very religious... you too devote yourself or know a lot in the field of science. How do you balance religion and science? For instance... if a belief in religion contradicts a scientific theory which are you more likely to support?
This can be dangerous, because people like to assume things, or say they are in the Bible when they are really not. People thought the Earth was the center of the universe, because it says do in the Bible. It’s not. And it doesn’t. Once that was proven wrong, people saw it as science being smarter than God and the Bible. But that’s also not true. Science was smarter than the people who misinterpreted the Bible.

There are a lot of things that are just not spelled out in black and white in the Bible. If a child is 5 days old and dies, does he go to Heaven? Probably, and there are a lot of verses that imply that he will, but none of them specifically say that he has a free pass to Heaven. So there is some gray area.

If a theory goes against something I know for a fact in the Bible, then I will automatically deny the theory and stick with the Bible. But if the theory is in the gray area and the Bible view on it is also in the gray area, then I won’t take a side until I know more. God has already chosen not to explain His gray area to me, so I go to science. I put the burden upon science to prove the theory to me. I want to look at the original evidence, and then follow the logic trail that led from the observable evidence to the final theory. An example of this is Einstein’s theories of Relativity. There’s nothing in the Bible about Relativity, so it’s a gray area. Einstein was able to demonstrate Relativity during a solar eclipse, when the apparent position of a star was off by a degree or so, because the light had passed so close to the sun’s gravity well. So until someone else proves otherwise, I will support the theory of Relativity.

16) What are your thoughts on hypocrite Christians?
We are all people, which means we’re flawed. Show me one Christian that at some level isn’t a hypocrite. I’ve never seen one. Even Peter denied Jesus three times before the rooster crowed.

Every Christian starts at the same place – big fat sinner. From there, God starts cleaning up their lives. He starts changing the basic nature of what they are. I never claim to be perfect. I’m not. None of us are perfect. Thankfully, that’s not required of us. We are to trust and obey.

Even then, do I trust God as much as I should? No. Do I obey God as much as I should? No. But it’s all a big cycle.
Trust – Obey – World didn’t end – Faith – Trust – Obey – etc.

God tests our faith all the time. The world tests us all the time. Somewhere along the line, you have to “step out on faith”. That means you have to walk forward even when there appears to be no possible way forward. Think of the Indiana Jones 3 movie. He literally walked off a cliff with nothing to support him. But then there was an invisible bridge. He didn’t die (the world didn’t end) and in the process he gained faith. A great example of this in the Bible is when Moses led the Israelites up to the banks of the Red Sea. Pharaoh had them cornered. At that point, they were pinned in. Strategically, it was a huge blunder. But God told them to do it and they did. Then God parted the Red Sea so they could cross. This increased their faith. Somewhat.

But you may recall they still doubted God after that. There was the incident with the golden calf. There were actually quite a few incidents like this. Everyone who opposed Moses and God would up dead. Of about 2 million Jews who left Egypt, only two actually entered the Promised Land. Those were Caleb and Joshua. The rest of them died in the desert from lack of trusting and obeying.

I used to be very critical and judgmental about hypocrite Christians. Over the years, God has let me know that I ain’t all that. Jesus told the story of the tax collector standing in the back aisle of the temple saying, “Be merciful to me, a sinner,” while the Pharisee looked down his nose at the sinner and thanked God that he wasn’t a sinner like other men. The tax collector was justified, but the Pharisee was not. Over the years, God has promoted me from judgmental Pharisee to the sinner hiding in the back of the temple begging for mercy from a holy God.

I still have a very long way to go. Sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever get where God wants me to be. So I have no room to criticize others for being hypocritical.

17) How old are you?
In my 40’s. I think I’m the oldest one here. I know I’m not the oldest one at the PSU.

18) In your opinion.. do you think you're making this place a 2nd psu?
I sure hope not. I’ve been accused of that a few times, as if I had any reason at all to do so. I have remained very conscious of that possibility and do whatever I can to ensure that it doesn’t happen. I really enjoy the PSU for what it is. I also enjoy the PSUC for what it is. I don’t want this place to be the PSU. I don’t want the PSU to become the PSUC. They are two different forums with two different purposes. If I think someone else is trying to turn the PSUC into the PSU, I’ll try to stop them. I don’t want that any more than you do. Probably less than you do.

I like us to keep a minimal set of rules here. There are many, many rules at the PSU to keep track of. That’s why we have genre mods. I don’t know anything about the PSP, so I don’t go to those boards. Ever. If someone asks a question about Homebrew, is it OK to discuss that at the PSU this week? I don’t know. So I just let someone else handle that.

We tried doing the genre mod thing here, but it’s a small forum, so why do it? Now we only have super mods. That wouldn’t work at the PSU. Some things are like the PSU and some things aren’t. Some things work there but don’t work here. So we don’t want them.

Look at the questions in this interview. Most of them are religion-based. None of could make a thread like this at the PSU. You couldn’t. I couldn’t. And even if I could, I wouldn’t because it’s against the rules. That makes sense there. Here, not so much. We can have mature discussions about religion and not get a flame war as a result. They gave up trying at the PSU and now there’s a rule against it. That rule was there when I joined back in 2004.

We all need a getaway zone. This place is my main one. I can come here and relax, not worry so much about what I say. And if I need to vent about something, I come here and vent. That keeps me from doing it at the PSU. I encourage everyone here to do the same. Make your rant here. If it’s really bad, do it in FG. And you KNOW there’s no place at the PSU like FG where you can just call someone anything you want no matter who it is. In Forum Games, I’ve been called just about everything there is. Oh well. The rules say it’s OK.

Also, I don’t invite any of the PSU mods here. Trust me. They ALL know about the PSUC. I wouldn’t advise any of you inviting them either. If they want to come here, they can. Most of them never do. A few have told me they liked my comments in the validation board. But if any of them actually want to join, I see no reason to turn them away. They just have to live by PSUC rules when they are here. As soon as they step foot in the door, they are no longer PSU mods. They are PSUC users, and will be treated as such.

I see this as “our forum” more so than PSU is. We can make changes here just because something would be fun to do. We try weird things here. We keep the rules minimal. We only add new rules when someone tries to ruin things for everyone. I was toying with the idea of adding the username to the rule they caused. For instance:
23. No posting naked pictures of your mom. (Thanks, pxgamer)

But then if we did this, people would try to commit creative noobery just so we had to make new rules and they could get their names up in lights. So that’s a bad idea.

My experience as a PSU mod has certainly helped when dealing with spamming/flaming/noobery, but there are a lot of differences. The real trick is in figuring out what from the PSU applies here, and what doesn’t. If it’s something common, like you flamed someone outside of FG, they I can just use the same brain cells I would use if I was warning a flamer at the PSU. But those are few. Usually the offense is something that doesn’t match up evenly to the PSU. Then I draw on past experiences running other forums, like Homeworld.

At the PSU I try to be “the approachable mod” and people ask me stuff all the time that they might not ask the other mods. It’s kinda close to the profile I had back in the days of the Old Off-Topic. I try to maintain that same profile here. I want to remain approachable. I rarely take offense at anything people PM me. I like to keep the lines of communication open. I’m not interested in the suckups. I want to hear real stuff from real people. I’ll try my best not to get judgmental about it. So that much I try to keep the same here and at the PSU. I like to be real with other people, and I like them to be real with me.