Coach Roy's Random Thoughts....
Created With Quick Blogcast
Messiah Gallery Choir - If Ye Love Me
Download | Duration: 00:02:15
Who's Fault is it Really?
Unfortunately, Obama and his minions were raised in a culture that always blamed the other guy.
While some in the present culture talks about personal responsibility, the concept of self esteem and “it is always someone else’s fault” trumps personal responsibility because it no longer matters whether you succeed, it’s only required that you “tried.”
Maybe why that is why American's are losing their edge in math and science. Math is either right or wrong, and it doesn't matter how hard you tried, if its not right, it is wrong.
Look at any youth sports team, the successful coaches are the ones who demand personal excellence and responsibility for others as the central theme of their play. The skill players are expected to recognize the contributions of the others on the team, but they also are expected to go 100% all the time.
We now live in a society where appearing to work hard is more important than getting anything actually done. Remember the programs for your computer that would flash a spreadsheet up on the screen with a keystroke, so you could goof off whenever the boss wasn’t around? We’ve developed a society where appearing to work is the goal, and outside of sports, the more you appear to work, the more you are rewarded, regardless of what you actually do.
Some of us are able to work outside the box, we don't have to sit at a desk and bang away at a keyboard. We figure out how to get something done, and do it, and really don't worry about the "work rules," or controlling the process.
On the other hand, watch the typical union controlled assembly line. The jobs are tightly defined, and nothing, even a better idea, will not allow change. This system has moved into government, which is why government is becoming more and more unresponsive to the “normal” people.
The large media organizations, the guys who are setting the agenda, are tightly unionized, with work rules that restrict one craft’s ability to fix things that are wrong when it involves another’s craft. Watch the credit crawl at the end of the nightly news – the reason there are so many “associate producers” is that they are the ones who are NOT unionized, and therefore can actually do things to make the broadcast better.
So it is now more important to talk about changing things, than it is to make things work. We have to now appear to work long hours, not understanding that the strength of the American system has been an improvement in productivity. With the long hours comes the requirement for no evaluations of actual performance because those who don’t perform don’t think critical evaluation is “fair.”
Unfortunately, productivity increases lead to fewer workers needed to do a job – and that leads to “the worse economy in history” because the workers and their union are unwilling to change and that, by extension, is “not fair,” and “not their fault.”
The Bush administration’s biggest fault was to cut taxes on the lower end of the income spectrum, removing 50% of the country from the need to succeed instead of just work. You don’t want to work harder or better because then you might advance and then have to pay taxes, so you sit on the couch and admire the government workers who get paid lots of money to run around and hang out with the rich and famous.
Getting back to the old concept of working for a living would be a “change that I could believe in,” but I won’t hold my breath.
At this point, I don't care who's fault it is, I just don't think the present gang knows or wants to fix it.
Pastor Hill: St. Thomas of Missouri
Download | Duration: 00:25:39
Easter Music: Now the Green Blade Rises
Download | Duration: 00:04:23
Easter 2012: "Make Songs of Joy"
Anna Morey, Kim MOrey and Gifta Faustin - Violins
Kyle Pett - Cello, Edward Lamberton - Mandolin
Download | Duration: 00:01:18
Christianity, Islam and the American Republic
There is an article from the journal Humanities (Vol 2/Number 6) from 2001 about the book Islam and Democracy floating around. The original book was published in 1966. In it writers John L. Esposito and John O. Voll
took an extensive look at the relationship between Islam, the religion and Democracy, the form of government.
Recently, I was asked by an old Navy buddy to comment on the article which is what I did....first a few points:
1 - Islam, like Judaism, is set up to be a Theocracy.
Read the Old Testament – God was the guy in charge, and every time the Jews abandoned their God and strayed, they were defeated by some outside people. Prior to the selection of Saul as the King of Israel, the Jews of Israel were led by tribal chiefs, and religious men and women known as Judges who passed on the word of God. Starting with Abraham, through Moses and all the way to Saul, there was never a “king” over the 12 tribes.
God finally gave in to his people's pleas, and allowed a monarch, who was anointed by one of the prophets, Samuel. The Children of Israel eventually regretted the choice, and clamored for another king, resulting in David, and so it went on until the Romans took over
2 – Christianity long co-existed with the temporal authorities.
Remember that Christ himself told his followers to “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and render unto God the things that are God’s.”
Christians are to be IN the world, but not necessarily OF the world. Christianity lost its way when it became the state religion of Rome and the rest of us are still paying for that issue.
On all this, I'll refer you to the German Theologian, Martin Luther for ideas about the Kingdom of Heaven and Kingdom of Earth. (Hint: He doesn't think you can have "heaven on earth."
3 – The founding fathers, led by Jefferson (and probably Adams too), fought the idea of a state religion for the U.S.
Jefferson was really perturbed by the “church tax” everyone had to pay to support the Church of England in the colonies. If you travel around the rural east coast, you will be amazed at the solid brick and mortar Episcopal (former Church of England) church buildings – all built with that tax money. Jefferson was on record that he didn't think that was the way to build churches.
The lessons of the early colonies also factored into the writing of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights as Jefferson included freedom of religion in the base document. There are later writings from Jefferson that further clarify what he wanted; Everyone could practice what he wanted (Jefferson had a very different idea about Christianity) but religion and a belief in a higher power was not eliminated from the United States, despite what the so called Atheists believe.
And the colonies really didn't start to grow until they removed their rules against other religions.
4 – I sincerely doubt that our kind of Republic with democratically elected officials could stand the test of an Islamic system.
Leaders of Islam are almost always self appointed just like the originator of the belief – imagine if someone, like Jerry Falwell, would have appointed himself the leader of Virginia and chose to rewrite all the laws to match his idea of the Law and Gospel.
The first public execution by stoning for masturbation would bring that to question, but in Islam today, you cannot even portray “the Prophet” without offending someone who can then go out and kill you.
Back in 1966, you could point to Muslims who had run in democratic elections and when elected didn't try to force all the laws of Islam on their countries. There were a lot of pragmatic politicians who ran as practicing Muslims, but who had little intention of imposing full Sharia Law on their populations because they knew it would stifle economic growth. In 2012, I'm not sure that policy is still in effect.
I certainly wouldn't want to live in a Christian Theocracy, or a Muslim one. Anything you might do could be interpreted as not only wrong, but blasphemous and deserving of death including disagreeing on the interpretation of dissent. There are lots of rules in both the Old Testament and the Koran, and I'm pretty sure everyone breaks one or two ever few minutes.
Being held accountable by the civil authorities for those violations would scary stuff. I'm too outspoken on my beliefs to survive.