Having given up on the ridiculously inefficient form of sexual reproduction, Jimbo has decided to turn his sights on asexual reproduction. He has decided that this form of reproduction would ensure his glorious and divine genetic material would have a significantly higher chance of remaining unaltered. He is well aware that the human cellular structure is not particularly well designed for this form of reproduction, but he believes that if he puts his mind to it he can accomplish this. It will take a great deal of time and effort, but any time spent in this endeavour would be well spent.

The first asexually borne clone will probably be the most difficult, as there will be no trainer experienced enough to teach. Every method and skill will have to be self-taught. If successful, Jimbo will be the first case in his knowledge. After the first, he will, hopefully, have a better understanding and be capable of producing more clones quicker and easier. Even if the body proves incapable of producing more than one asexual clone, he will at least have a double for tennis.

September 11th is an important day in history. Its memory must be forever seared into the world's mind. Today is, of course, the day the World Wildlife Fund was founded. WE MUST NEVER FORGET!

Not too long ago, my boss asked me this question about something I was working on, and I honestly did not know how to answer. I, quite literally, stood there staring at her with a blank look on my face while my brain was stuck in a loop. I did not know what to do. On its surface, the answer should be a simple yes or no. The only problem is that any answer would automatically break down the question into something else. If you answer affirmatively, the issues are no longer unforeseen. Sure, you don't know what the issues will be exactly, but you positively confirmed and foresaw that they will occur. The same problem exists with the opposite. The unforeseen issues collapse into foreseen issues. After what felt like a long time, I finally responded with a strained "maybe?"

I don't think I'm cut out for the business world.

A quick overview: I'm currently embarking on an expedition into Christian theodicy by reading 21 Reasons Bad Things Happen to Good People by Liberty University department chair Dave Earley. This series of posts contains my thoughts as I read through. Comments and discussion are welcome and encouraged.
Introduction
Reason 1

Reason 2: To Win an Unseen Victory

The chapter begins by assuming that I am "confronting adversity". Sorry, I am not. I'm actually at a fairly decent point in my life, but I'll move on.

I figured that Job would eventually get dragged into this voyage. This chapter points out that nobody's suffering is quite as bad as good ol' Job's. Job's life was great. He loved God, had a wonderful family, and had wealth and influence. Then, within one day, messengers came one after another explaining how shit has hit the fan and that lots of people and animals under him were brutally killed. Earley clearly has some explaining to do (best read in a Ricky Ricardo voice as "'splainin'").

He explains how God and Satan are locked in a battle for loyalty, which apparently takes the form of bets, or something. In Job 1:8-12, Satan pretty much says that Job only praises God because he is pampered and would just as soon renounce Him if like went to rubbish. In a bizarre move, rather than smack Satan in the face for being a prick, He told Satan to turn Job's life to rubbish and see what happens. Why would God allow this, no less instigate it? The reason God plays along is to "get Satan to shut up." What God has done is made Job into a pawn in a cosmic "you shut up/no, you shut up" argument. What's worse, Job's sons were all killed in collateral, for no reason but to test Job.

Earley goes on to explain (in an eerily cheery tone) how after a mere two chapters, Satan is completely defeated and remains silent. I haven't fully read the Book of Job, but it apparently goes on for forty more chapters. Hopefully more reasons are given for these forty in coming Reasons.

I can suppose that God gave free will to angels like Satan, so a little insolence is understandable. What strikes me as queer is how God seems to be trying harder to get Satan to shut his mouth than to prevent suffering. This seems like a one way street, though. Angels can challenge the sanctity of humans and see the results, but humans can't challenge the sanctity of angels and see the results. I could've sworn humans were God's chosen race. I suppose God is all-loving, just not to us.

The chapter comes to a close by saying how your suffering may be because of a challenge by Satan to God. Lovely, we've all been drafted. I can't help but think that there would be situations where the infallible Almighty would lose; the suffering human would renounce all faith. Would God, like Satan, slink away silently into a corner after a mere two chapters? Would a win or a loss not even matter, since Satan obviously isn't going to stop challenging God any time soon. If God was truly all-loving, to humans, he would do to Satan what children are taught to do with bullies at school: ignore them. There is no reason to get into a fight with someone when it's not going to change anything. While this may be a reason for bad things happening to good people, it certainly does not point to the same all-loving, all-powerful god.

Wow, one of my professors was actually laugh-out-loud (LOL) funny. Here is the joke he told; keep in mind that this was told to a bunch of IT students.

The class LOL'd.

A quick overview: I'm currently embarking on an expedition into Christian theodicy by reading 21 Reasons Bad Things Happen to Good People by Liberty University department chair Dave Earley. This series of posts contains my thoughts as I read through. Comments and discussion are welcome and encouraged.
Introduction

Reason 1: The Reason No One Wants to Hear

This chapter begins with three assumptions the author has about the question "why do bad things happen to good people?"

• The world is full of evil
• God created the world
• Therefore, God is to blame

This seems to leave out some other assumptions, which makes it sound like a strawman. Here are a couple of assumptions I would include in the list:

• God is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good
• God has a hand in day-to-day life

Earley continues with Biblical response to the assumptions that he presented:

God created the world good
That sounds fair enough; it says so right there in Genesis. It does require a significant stretch of the word "good" to mean perfect and free of natural disasters, illness, crime, &c., but I can buy that.

God created people with the ability to choose
Again, fair enough. God wanted the love given to Him to be a choice. The problem I have is that the author assumes that the only choices are good and evil. Why would God give free will for the sake of "true love," but still make evil an option? Couldn't the choices have just as easily been love or not to love? Why make evil an option? Granted, I could assume that He wanted us to choose to both love Him and be good, but why would He want to have that as a choice? Bragging rights? To whom? If that is the case, I'm sure He's feeling quite embarrassed.

People chose evil
This points to the story of Adam and Eve, when they disobeyed God and ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. This story always seemed awkward to me. Sure they disobeyed God, but did they really choose evil, per se? At the time, they did not know the difference between good and evil. Choosing to eat from that particular tree and disobey God was a choice balanced against a tabula rasa of morals. Besides, given an infinite lifespan, they statistically would have eaten from that tree eventually, if only to stave off boredom.

Their choice brought evil into the world
Because Adam and Eve made the choice of evil, they ushered evil and sin into the world. This caused all of humanity to be besmirched by sin. I can't help but think about Adam and Eve's nudity. Isn't that wrong? They didn't realize it until they ate from the good-evil tree, but they were still naked. Why would their choice of disobeying God not have the same weight as choosing not to have any clothes on? Besides, didn't Jesus allow himself to be sacrificed to remove this sin? It shouldn't be an issue anymore.

Their choice has had lasting consequences
After Eve and Adam disobeyed God, mankind was not the only thing cursed. The world became cursed with sin and, by extension, with natural disasters and germs. This simply does not make sense. Why would nature revolt because of what man does? Isn't God in control of nature? He made the world perfect, so it should not be affected by man. Earley quoted the words from a guy named Cliffe Knechtle, who said that nature is revolting against us because we, quote, "told God to shove off." Having read Genesis, I see no such thing. We disobeyed because we didn't know any better. By "we," I mean Adam and Eve.
It goes on to blame humanity for much of the world's suffering, even dragging Hitler into it. It says I should not blame God for Hitler's massacres, which is probably accurate. I should blame God, however, for not doing more to stop it. Besides, how would this sort of thing flow out from humanity's sin? Magic? Since there's no magic, God can be the only cause. Even if it was some ungodly magic, shouldn't an all-loving, all-powerful god be capable of repairing and undoing the damage done to the world? While I suppose this would technically be a reason for bad things happening to good people, it still does not explain why God lets it happen.

Drunker than Skunks
This subheading relates the tale of the author walking in on his kids acting drunk after seeing it in the movie The Adventures of Huck Finn. He made a startling revelation, and here I am quoting, that "we are sinners by nature." In context, he meant "we" in terms of the entirety of humanity. This is even before Eve tasted of the forbidden fruit. We were created to sin. "We are sinners by nature." At this point, even a Faux-Christian like me would need to put up a [citation needed] tag. This sounds awkward for an all-loving god. I'll let this one slide and hope he makes no further mention of us being made to choose sin.

Recently, I picked up the book by Liberty University professor Dave Earley titled 21 Reasons Bad Things Happen to Good People. Christian theodicy has always been a curiosity to me, so when I saw this book at the grocery store for five dollars, I just couldn't resist. I have decided to begin a long running series on this blog wherein I will post my thoughts on each of the 21 reasons presented. This will be my first time reading it through, so these thoughts will all be fresh. Before reading, I decided to take two major leaps of faith, if you will. I decided that, for the time being, I would (1) believe that an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving god exists and (2) that this god is the Christian God. I am now, for this purpose, a member of the new religious order of the Faux-Christans. Let us begin:

Introduction

The book begins with an introductory chapter, which does not count toward the list's twenty-one. Its purpose is to frame the discussion with four simple truths (yay, I love lists!):

1. "God is under no obligation to give us an explanation for suffering"
Well, that's just obvious; otherwise, I'm pretty sure He would've by now. Earley goes over how big and great God is and that we should have faith no matter what. That's fair enough. As a Faux-Christian, I have complete faith in God. As far as I can tell, this is just meant to be a little disclaimer to say that all 21 reasons are mere hypotheses. Maybe even, to use a scientific term, SWAGs.

2. "God has given us plenty of explanation if we will only look for it and accept it"
Earley says that the Bible gives plenty of examples of bad things happening for good reasons, which he will elaborate on throughout the book. That works for me, as it would be a little awkward otherwise.

3. "God can do more than one good thing through the bad things that happen to us"
Here, he describes that one bad event leads to many good events. He didn't seem to mention how several bad events can lead to more bad events or only a few good events, but I suppose he has 21 more chapters to try and cover that.

4. "God knows what it is to suffer, and He knows how to help us in our suffering"
Well, obviously he knows what it is to suffer. He is all-knowing, after all. It would break the definition otherwise. The author did, however, make a clear distinction by saying He, through Jesus, "experienced" suffering. That's fair enough, but by extension, that would mean He never "experienced" a lot of things. He never experienced a roller coaster ride, the thrill of sodomy, the feel of sex, the taste of Breyer's ice cream. I'm sure He's "experiencing" the soothing singing voice of Jim Croce, a fact of which I am VERY much aware. Depending on how fast he was sent to Hell, God probably did not get to experience a live George Carlin routine. I'll grant you, these are all assumptions. The Bible makes only a few mentions of God coming bodily to Earth. He did, for example, get to experience a wrestling match, theoretically. Anyway, he experienced suffering. Lovely.

The was pretty much the introduction. Stay tuned to this blog for the upcoming Reason #1! (hold for applause)