I am sure, adamant.  Does my stubborn certainty assist me in my quest to make you believe me?  Should it?  Hint: I know a ton of stubborn people that are inflexibly convinced of “truths” amazingly inconsistent with one another.

What if I can sound really reasonable… will you believe me then?  Note hint above, substituting “reasonable” for “stubborn.”

So many people tie their concept of truth down to their best understanding of the Bible.  But is that the real solution?  Everyone else has another interpretation… that goes along with each person’s tendencies… and gets us nowhere.

If I can spew Bible verses to support my stance, does that make you believe me?  Should it?  Note hint above, substituting “Biblical.”

If you really believe me and I really know TRUTH, do you?  Not really – not necessarily.  You see, we so often confuse the nature of TRUTH with the nature of our understanding.  We like truths that can be easily summarized in a few words or a concise truism, but truth is not an understanding but a Person, not a doctrine or a rule or a set of facts but the Living Word of God – Jesus Himself – Who is the Exact Representation of the Father.  Which is inconvenient as a definition of TRUTH. It would be so nice if we could memorize the executive summary of God – just His abstract – and then really have the TRUTH.  Instead we have to be dependent on a definition that is so large and complex and living and different that any attempt to summarize Him invariably puts one at odds with Him.  To know TRUTH, we need to know God.  Like in every situation… every minute… even if it seems to us to be the same situation as one we remember God’s perspective on.

Where can truth be found?  In God alone… not even in me… except where I accurately represent Him and the Spirit works through me to facilitate insertion of TRUTH.  What I mean is, if God inhabits man, and man sees God, man becomes like Him and if & when the Spirit of Truth directs said man to speak TRUTH, there is the possibility of TRUTH being received…  but otherwise, we have potluck of opinion without much chance of getting a meaty bite of anything TRUTHful.

So then, living the TRUTH is impossible without a constant divine flow – a veritable intravenous drip of God Himself.  Any attempt at TRUTH without the IV typically pollutes the whole scene.  Sure, some people doubtless get closer than others, but why settle for less than the TRUTH?  And fortunately, Father has sent His Spirit to live within us so that this IV drip is not only a possibility, but His clear purpose, an actual certainty, even a God-given guarantee!

So ask the Father to give you the Spirit, and get ready for a real change in your perception of TRUTH!!  Because it is only in knowing the Father, in every facet of your life, that you can actually know the truth… inconvenient or not.

Daddy loves being with you. He will even appear to change His plans to accommodate you. When you are not paying attention to Him and are messing things up for yourself, His plan B is already coming online and is already taking place, and it is amazingly redemptively perfect and good… read: with Him, connected to Him, interspersed with Him, infused with Him. His goodness is so merciful!

Daddy loves being with you. He will even have you change your plans to accommodate as much of Him as possible, if you will let Him. If you will be led by His Spirit, He will lead you into the very center of His best for you, His perfect Kingdom plan, His amazing power and presence, into the very center of Himself… read: every time He directs you to do what is not your normal, it is so He personally can be featured more intimately, more strongly, and more gloriously in your life. His goodness is so gracious!

Daddy’s goodness is always there… we can resist Him, but He keeps on being good toward us… we can ignore Him, but He keeps on being good toward us… we can avoid some of His goodness via our deception and rebellion, but His goodness will seep under the doors we construct… we can reject Him, but His goodness makes easy ways for us to return to Him… we can equivocate toward Him, but His goodness lures us into more of Him… we can forget to pay attention to Him, but His goodness wakes us up to more of His goodness… we can dabble around in a puddle of His goodness, but His goodness will make sure we get wetter than we intended… or we can decide to explore His goodness, only to discover that it is bigger than we thought… and we can decide to submit to His goodness, and discover that it is infinite in extent, in expression, in dimension, in variety, in substance, in Him…

…and He defines goodness.

Effervescent ebullience by surprise, by design… drifting aloft into the pastel sky, the perpetual sunrising of joy.  Amazed by the lightness of reality in the face of approval.  Electrified by the infusion of purpose in the position of ecstasy.  Can existence be meaningless in the supernova of God’s eternal pleasure?

He touched you.  Somehow in the haze of confusion, you perceived a ray of hope and it was Him… somehow His inconceivable love conceived in you the possibility of something besides blind pain and unknowing destruction… somehow His voice pronounced His word (Himself) and pierced the cacophony of lies… lies of pain-avoiding traps, of bondage-inducing choices and lifestyles, of cycles of destruction extending back generations… somehow He reached from an eternity away with His infinitely reaching heart and touched you.

So a new life began… fledgling faith responding to unimaginable connection from outside the bounds of previous reality.  Shimmers of His reality (whole and wholesome, alive and living, mind-bogglingly other-than) began to become impressed onto you and your reality.  Elements of prior reality faded as He Himself began to become your new reality.  And every new bit of revelation that was met with believing transformed another deadly bit of former worldview into another glorious divine insight into His outrageous goodness and transcendent love.

Everything became relative to Him… it was not worthwhile unless it was Him… it was not good unless it was Him… it was not true unless it was Him.  And transformation began… from a dead you into a living you permeated by His love, saturated by His other-ness, suffused by Him Himself… and you began to look like Him.  It was a process.  It remains incomplete.  But Him-ness is replacing the deadness of you-ness and producing the ultimate aliveness of the oneness of Father-child.

The reaching is therefore being fulfilled… the heart of love has thereby been consummated… or has it?  It has!  But in its consummation, that heart is being reproduced and the reaching-ness of our Daddy reaches further not just for you but through you… even as the divine image of the Answer to all your questions is replicated onto the substrate of your identity, He Himself desires to reproduce His reaching in you, that in the image of the Reacher you may be reaching… because Father is reaching….

Redistribution of wealth posits that only so much wealth is available and should therefore be equally distributed.  But wealth is created by those with drive, determination, and an eye to the true laws of economics (e.g. sowing and reaping, generosity drives profitability, etc.).  Wealth is not a limited thing, but a thing that can and is regularly created.  Every invention that reduces the impediments to get what is needed creates wealth (e.g. efficiency in farming via better process, better varieties, better distribution; efficiency in production of any good through economy of scale or automation; etc.).  Every time multiple lower-cost components are assembled to produce a higher-than-the-sum-of-the-parts priced item, wealth is created.  Every time a seed is planted and a 100-fold crop is harvested, wealth is created.

Furthermore, there are no laws,  of nature or of God, that suggest that wealth should be forcibly redistributed by government.  (Although God’s law indicates that those who understand how to invest will receive a return and that those who generously assist others in need will be generously profited.)  In fact, it is foolishness and cynicism to take away the “seed” from the one who has demonstrated the ability to be productive and put it into the mouth of the one who has demonstrated a propensity to be unproductive — all become less wealthy by the redistribution of wealth because it hampers the production of wealth.

Western culture that was (sic) based on basic principles of ownership, responsibility, and freedom has created a higher standard of living not only for itself but for an entire globe.  Certainly the wealth is not distributed to everyone evenly, but neither should it be!  But the vast majority of the globe has been enriched by the wealth of the Western way.  However, it would be simple to undo this process.  Simply take all the wealth of the West and distribute it equally across the globe to every person.  Most of the wealth would disappear in a matter of a few meals, and there would not be enough capital to fuel the production of wealth.  This is just one large example of the principle that wealth can in fact be created (and generously distributed) but forcible redistribution destroys wealth.

Why then the political bent toward redistribution?  As above, it is cynical and self-serving.  Power from (not to) the masses is the underlying impetus of cynical, wealth-destroying socialism and its white-washed twin in American politics, economic liberalism.

“Many false prophets will arise and will mislead many.”  (Matt 24:11) That was easy! We can surely agree that Jesus predicted false prophets, and Mr. Camping wasn’t the first.  Interestingly, Jesus’ prophecy regarding false prophets is in the context of the lead-up to the day of His own coming.  It is fascinating, then, that Harold Camping’s false prophecy leans toward confirming Jesus’ true prophecy!

But then again, many atheists of our day prophesied the embarrassment of Harold Camping as well… planning parties, creating whimsical mockeries using “left-behind” clothes in photos, making the most of entrepreneurial opportunities created by false prophesy, etc.

So why should we care? Well that depends on your standpoint.  So choose a world-view and read on…

Believers in Jesus

If you believe that Jesus meant what He said, then the remainder of Matthew 24 would be useful to you.  In reading it, you will find that Jesus’ commands are to beware of deception, to not be afraid, (by implication) to maintain carefully your love of God and endurance, to be ready, and to be doing the work of the Master when He returns.  Did you skip over this list?  If you are a believer in Jesus, Harold Camping’s false prophecy is a real indication that perhaps you should make sure you re-read this list and be actively doing what He says!  Let’s not worry so much about when and how and whether we are pre-mid-post-mil-trib-wrath-istic or otherwise, and let’s just do what Jesus said to be doing when we begin to see the signs of His coming!

Atheists

Why should an atheist care?  Well, interestingly, the whole of the secular atheism establishment is strengthening the faith of the faithful atheists, bolstered by the foolishness of those who believed foolishly in that which was not true.

This also is very consistent with what Jesus predicted in Matthew 24: “The love of many will grow cold.”

Perhaps even more incredible is how these events (which Jesus said “MUST happen”) are setting you, my dear atheist, for your own failed prophecies.  But I should explain.

In Revelation 19:19, there is an amazingly crazy statement.  It says that the rulers of the earth all get together with their armies to fight against Jesus and his heavenly army.  At first glance, it would seem preposterous that anybody would be so stupid as to intentionally go out to fight against God, and indeed it is preposterous.  But this strongly suggests to us that there needs to be some very powerful strengthening of the faith of these anti-God-ites who decide to fight against the All-Powerful One.

In the light of this, we see that the whole Harold Camping prophecy, huge monies spent advertising his failed predictions, and even the media craze and popular hype of this predictable failure… all these are truly necessary for a faith-building exercise for those who desire to believe in not-God.  This has truly been spectacularly effective, although I suspect we will need even more faith-building before we can get everybody so convinced that we all head out with our AK-47s, tanks, and nuclear warheads to fight against God.

So expect some additional hype in the months to come… the Mayan Calendar of 2012 thing should help a bunch too.  Mockery helps a ton.  Figure out a good angle so you can make some money on the next one.

And one other thing, start to feel justified in your hatred for believers.  Jesus predicted this as well, so we can be expecting increasing militancy in your circle of friends and fellow not-God believers.

So, I guess if you want to get to my point, it is simply this, that if you want to continue in your faith, you will have ample opportunity to bolster your faith through mockery, leading to hatred.  But in the end, your faith-inspired (check previous blogs that demonstrate this) prophecy of not-God will meet up with unfortunate evidence to the contrary.  So my counsel is to beware, although such counsel is probably pretty hard to hear, right?

Harold Camping Disciples (or Ex-disciples)

Just because Mr. Camping blew it does not mean God did.  Your issue is the same as his: if you know the Book but don’t hear the voice of the Author, you will be deceived.  Shove the shame off.  Kill off the condemnation.  So you were duped… like most everybody else in one way or another!  You proved faithful, but unfortunately you were faithful to foolishness – find God and be faithful to the Father Himself instead of what somebody says Father meant when He said something some time. Press in and find out what Father is saying to you today.  He’s not mad at you, and He did not disappear as May 21^st ticked away.  Just be happy that the deception has been dealt with and move forward toward God – not some religious futility promoted by someone who claims to know the Bible.

The Bible or religion never was going to save you anyway.  That’s God’s job.

Everybody Else

Well, if you are in between or just aren’t sure whether you believe anything or not, then let me say this: don’t get swept up in the mockery.  I know that it is very tempting.  Fooled people are easy to laugh at!  But in the middle of the mockery is the powerful deception that nothing is true… that lie that says that God Himself was wrong because a bunch of people supposedly speaking for Him were very, publicly, outrageously wrong.  And it would be very tempting to gloat a little bit about how you were less wrong because you weren’t even nervous on May 21^st.  Tempting, but dangerous.  A better approach?  Do the God experiment, and ask Him if He would show Himself to you… then listen with an open heart.  Because if Jesus predicted Harold Camping, then we may be at the beginning of the end .

Sci-atheist: Yes.  I knew you to be a reasonable person and wanted to chat about one of your favorite topics: God.

Huios:  Really!? Sure!  Would you like to get to know Him?

Sci-atheist:  Well, no, but I have been thinking, and I am pretty sure that I can refute any argument you choose to prove that God exists…

Huios:  OK.

Sci-atheist:  What?  You give up?  That was easier than I expected!  You agree there is no God?

Huios:  Well, yes and no.  I agree that I cannot prove that God exists, although you really have to do some philosophical cartwheels to explain away things like meaning and minds… and you really have to accept some pretty unscientific improbabilities to believe in things like evolution and the existence of an ordered universe.  But given all that, along with some serious quantum-mechanical hand-waving, I agree that I cannot prove God’s existence to you.

Sci-atheist:  So have you given up being a fool?

Huios:  If I get your meaning, I suspect we differ in our definitions of the term “fool” but actually, I am most definitely still a believer in God.  I just don’t think I can prove Him to you – especially with “scientific” evidence.  You see, the God I know existed before the stuff of this world – the stuff of science.  In fact, He created both the space into which the stuff was to go, and the time of its existence.  He exists… or existed… or will exist… or all of the above, since I don’t really know how to talk without reference to time… but His existence is without reference to time or space since these are merely elements of His creation.  There was a first day and will be a last day.  Along here somewhere, there will no longer be any place for the earth or the sky and it will all just not be anywhere.  I guess they (space, time, stuff) could all be considered “temporary” relative to the eternity dimensions in which He exists.  All of space-time, all of the rules inherent within space-time, and all the stuff inside space-time are elements of His creation.  Sure, He can and does interact within this bubble of His creation, tweaking this, inserting that, or canceling the other thing as He determines, but that is at His discretion.  So no set of natural experiments will require you to believe in God – He is anchored outside of this natural world that we can experiment on!

Sci-atheist:  But you say that He sometimes intervenes in the natural world – and I know you believe in miracles?!?  So why not have Him do a miracle right now for me?

Huios:  Well, first of all, He is God and not me… I don’t generally “have Him do” things.  Usually I just talk to Him and then He tells me what to be doing and how to do it…  when I do what He says, sometimes there are miracles, but He is no genie in a bottle!

Sci-atheist:  But if He really wants us to believe that He exists, why wouldn’t He just prove Himself?

Huios:  That is a fair question, so let’s look at it.  First, let’s note that God desires to give mankind free will within the boundaries of this life within space-time.  He decided to allow mankind an amazing degree of freedom to choose – all sorts of choices, including whether to believe or not to believe in Him!  Second, my Daddy God does not fit naturally (in His fullness) inside His creation… the more one becomes aware of Him, the weaker is ones hold on the bubble of space-time.  In particular, if Daddy were totally exposed to everyone, nobody would have any free will at all – we’d all be believers!  So God’s desire for a man with free-will precludes your desired demonstration of God.

Sci-atheist:  So in a sense, God conveniently refuses to be proved beyond a shadow of a doubt?

Huios: Well, yes, for now.  As I understand it, after time is done (and I understand that this seems like an oxymoron, so let’s just say “outside the bubble of space-time”) there will be a moment (there we go again with time-words) in which all see Him, and then free-will will evaporate like every other thing that used to exist (time, again! J) inside the space-time bubble, and then, every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus…

Sci-atheist: Hold on!  Let’s not go there.  But what you are saying is you can’t prove God’s existence.  So you basically give up!

Huios:  Well, you see why, right?  Since Daddy’s existence is rooted outside the bubble, we can’t force experiments on Him.  Since God wants us to have free will, He enforces your right to think like an atheist… at least for now.  So you see what I mean?  There is no way to prove…

Sci-atheist:  That’s right – you cannot prove such a God, so I guess I win!

Huios:  Wait, a second!  He is not provable, but by the same token, He is not falsifiable.  And incidentally, if you consider yourself a scientist, yours is the burden of proof!  Remember the most basic approach to science?  It is a process of creating a null hypothesis and performing an experiment that falsifies your hypothesis.  Unfortunately for your quest for proof, I think you may have a real difficulty in coming up with any falsifiable hypotheses.

Sci-atheist:  No proof either way… hmmm….  Well if you can’t prove God and can’t disprove Him, He must be pretty irrelevant, right?

Huios:  That does not quite follow.  You see, the God I know is the most central part of my life… and yours too (believe Him or not .  It’s just you don’t know it.  But there will be a day when knowing Him will be the only relevant thing, and you and I will both know it then.

Sci-atheist:  Yeah?  Your fearful day of judgment?  Well, how could a good God…?

Huios:  Stop!  Just how are you defining “good”?  Usually, someone who asks a question like the one you were posing defines a “good” that does not depend on God.  But a God Who is ignored in the definition of “good” is a God who has been defined away by the poser of the question!  Can you say “straw man”?  Define good as what God is, and then try to ask the question without imposing your own inconsistency.

Sci-atheist:  Ouch!!  Well, I guess that this whole discussion still leaves us without much of an answer… what a waste of time!

Huios:  Hold on, though… There is one thing that has been discovered!

Sci-atheist:  Really?  Proven?  What is that?

Huios:  We have discovered that we each believe what we choose.  You choose your perspective and hold to it with the same sort of faith of which you have always been aggravated by seeing in others.  I have faith in God; you have faith that there is no God.

Sci-atheist:  Well, you may have a point, but your faith is so blind!

Huios:  Blind is an apt descriptor for one who intentionally chooses to believe that something cannot exist outside of a certain comfortable bubble.  I have heard your own sneering laughter at those who believed the earth was the center of the universe, but there are many who even more foolishly wish to believe the universe is the center of all existence.  It is the same sort of mistake, taking that which seems central and assuming it is the ultimate center without recognizing that which is less comfortable and less accessible – that which is beyond.  But in this case, the costs of universe-centrism are even more significant than earth-centrism:  missing out on the purpose and person of our Creator and Savior.  But the consequences of choosing to know God are too difficult for many people – they know they would have to bend the knee now (in time) as well as later (after time), and we all like to do whatever we want.  “There is none so blind as the one who refuses to see.”

So there are some who are blind, but my faith is not truly blind.  Look, you act like you believe in me – Huios, a person – a sentient entity beyond my amassed set of molecules and biological processes.  You relate to me like a friend.  Yet you cannot prove that there is anything beyond my atomic carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, electrical impulses, genetic codes… but you believe in me as a person because you relate to me, talk with me, find out about me, KNOW me.  I call you a friend because I do the same with you.  I believe in my Daddy God because I do the same with Him – I KNOW Him.

Sci-atheist:  But I don’t know Him… if He exists at all…

Huios:  Then be an extra-bubble scientist and do an extra-bubble experiment!   Send a message out from this bubble into the realm beyond: ask Daddy God to invade your personal space and somehow set up a person-to-person connection… not so much a proof as a relationship.  Then tell Him you’d like to get to know Him… and that you are willing to get to know Him if He will show you something of Himself….  But only do it if you really want to, because He won’t force the issue… you can always choose to not believe in Him!  Still, I recommend that you do the experiment and find out that He is there.

Sci-atheist:  That hardly seems safe, if it were true…

Huios:  You are correct.  It is not remotely safe in the conventional sense of the word.  But it is hardly safe not to know Him since He IS, provable or not.

Death was on the doorstep.

The great black hole – which was the alter ego (in free will) of the highest destiny of mankind in the most amazing love experiment in eternity – the great black hole of anti-holiness threatened to suck everything into eternal horror, anguish, punishment, and nothingness.

Horrifying, eternal JUSTICE loomed.

Yet LOVE intensely desired. And MERCY would be so very unfulfilled. The great heart of the Father cried out for His sons.

Enter COVENANTAL JUSTICE.

COVENANTAL JUSTICE is an expression of the GOODNESS of God in that His MERCY conspires with His JUSTICE to consummate His LOVE.

You see, God is HOLY. He is so “other-than” everything we know! He is PERFECT. He is PERFECT in all of His ways… His GOODNESS is perfect. His LOVE is perfect. His JUSTICE is perfect. His MERCY is perfect.

So when mankind sinned, it appeared (to an imperfect observer) that one or more elements of Daddy God’s perfection would have to give way to another… that either JUSTICE would win out or MERCY would prevail… that either the GOODNESS of the Father’s heart toward us would be satisfied or His HOLINESS would require judgment… that an irresistible force had come against an immoveable object… one would win and the other lose…

But Daddy said, “Ha!” – because everyone who knows Him knows that He is PERFECT in all of His ways! And Daddy’s perfect GOODNESS and MERCY conspired with His perfect JUSTICE and HOLINESS to create COVENANTAL JUSTICE! And in this way, He consummates both His HOLINESS and His JUSTICE by pouring out His GOODNESS on us! But I preempt myself…

Perhaps you know the mechanism… Daddy sent His Son Jesus to be a sacrifice for sin. Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and did not contain the fallen nature of mankind. And though He was tempted in every way as a man, Jesus did not fall as did Adam, but instead heard and obeyed Daddy perfectly – even to the extent of paying for Daddy’s planned COVENANTAL JUSTICE with His own blood. The basic plan was that Jesus would be the scapegoat for humankind, triggering the JUSTICE of the Father to require a complete divine exchange: Jesus would take upon Himself all the guilt, curse, and punishment of mankind and give in exchange to mankind His divine SONSHIP, HOLINESS, and RELATIONSHIP with the Father.

Please understand, the exchange was not one-way. It is not the truth of the gospel that Jesus saved us from sins only. He saved us from sins and into an amazing Daddy-child relationship with the Father – into SONSHIP. And if sons, then heirs of Daddy God – that is, we get everything that is His.

Let me say it clearly: our Father’s amazing plan put us into a fantastic position:
Daddy’s plan was to make possible for me to enter into an eternal legal agreement such that it would be a violation of Daddy’s JUSTICE to decide to not give me every good thing due to Jesus! Because of Jesus, Daddy’s MERCY and JUSTICE are totally aligned! So we can access that awesome arrangement that Daddy’s MERCY pleads for me, and equally so, His JUSTICE pleads for me, and His GOODNESS delights in giving me everything that fulfills His LOVE for me!

Please note one other thing: COVENANTAL JUSTICE is based on sacrificial blood, not lawfulness. It is not dependent on your worthiness to even a minute degree. COVENANTAL JUSTICE is totally prepaid, and it is imbecility to think you can add to it by any action of your own. The day of unworthiness is over; plead the completed work!

I will say it again:

In the garden, the HOLINESS of God required Him to separate Himself from the sinful, so… lest His heart full of GOODNESS be violated by His HOLY heart of JUSTICE, His GRACE and MERCY conspired with His RIGHTEOUSNESS to create a way for Him to be… to be all of the above to us! Under the covenant of the blood of Jesus, because of His good plan to express the whole of Who He is to us, the JUSTICE of God legally requires Him to (gladly) pour out His PRESENCE, POWER, GLORY, RIGHTEOUSNESS, MERCY, GOODNESS, GRACE, HOLINESS, and JUSTICE into us, consummating His great LOVE for us by giving to us all of who He is. Now that is the good news!

How do we sign on? How do we access this incomprehensibly excellent agreement? It is really simple, so be careful to not miss the simplicity. We believe in the goodness of our Daddy, and ask Him to show us how to operate as His sons. Then we listen to His instructions, we follow them, and we begin to walk with Him in relationship as His sons doing their Daddy’s business. Sounds too easy, doesn’t it? But that is the whole plan. Remember this: The day of unworthiness is over; plead the completed work of Jesus – access COVENANTAL JUSTICE!

Yeah, it is no real surprise: the US educational system needs fixing.  So how do you fix it?

Well, how do you fix anything that is so steeped in socialism, it hardly knows what to do any more except require more money?

That is a simpler question.  You create competition at every level.  You weed out corruption in the government complex that runs the show – and if government is a necessary component, you create a watchdog that is strongly incented to find and reduce favoritism.  You reduce the regulatory overload that bureaucracy naturally creates. You get information out to the market so that the competition can do it’s job most effectively – with an informed consumer.  And then you let the free market system do what it does best – create a better product at lower cost.

So let’s apply those principles, and make it obvious what the US needs to do.

Create competition at every level. That means that every teacher, every school, every district competes against every other one for the students that will keep their school in business.  That means that every student and every parent will need to compete to get into the schools that best promote the student’s objectives.  And that means that every community and every business will have a vested interest in financially investing in their own future – the students going through their schools.

So let’s get to hard decisions.  What should education look like?

First, you pin a check for $10,000 (to pick a random number in the right ballpark) to the shirt of every child in the US on September 1.  That means that the ingenuity of American educators everywhere would be leveraged to create the best opportunities for their potential clients – kids from age 5 to 18.  Schools would be required to publish information on their students’ standardized test scores, acceptance to various colleges, placement into jobs of various incomes, and other relevant information, allowing students and parents to choose among schools that are succeeding and those that are not, weeding out the poorer schools and increasing the profitability of those models that are helping more children.

Next, you let a school make its own enrollment decisions to promote its approach and image, creating a second layer of competition.  A school can cater to students with certain strengths, particular desires, or certain needs.  Schools could focus on vocation, science, business, or liberal arts. Students or parents who are motivated to attend a certain school will compete on the basis of parent volunteerism or student effort or ability.  Schools would not be required to retain students who create disciplinary problems unless the student or a parent is willing to take immediate remedial action.  Businesses could invest in vocational schools, even guaranteeing employment for successful graduates.  Universities could make agreements with the academically most competent students for rapid advancement similar to current 3+2 expedited masters degree programs.

As a side note, urban centers can have numerous specialized schools, but even students in rural areas could attend schools of their choice via Internet “satellite schools” in which (perhaps volunteer, or other low-cost) room monitors and computers connect the students to a variety of schools taught by central educators online (or via video).  Note also that any student in any location could in principle be part of such a distributed educational classroom – suddenly we do not have to move inner-city kids out or suburbanites in to mix things up; let the Internet do the bussing.  This approach can level the playing field and make opportunity proportional to effort or aptitude instead of location or caprice.  Given the $10K check, only the human imagination is the limit to the educational approach, and many would be willing to provide powerful novel approaches to education.

By catering to older students with special scheduling or family needs, special schools providing alternative schedules – say, weekends and/or evenings – could provide a route to increase graduation percentages.

Schools could be privately held or publicly traded corporations.  In either case, the profit motive would be sufficient to both increase the effectiveness and decrease the cost of American education.

What is the role of the government? The government does not do a good job of most domestic services, but it has two excellent roles here, as well as a few other smaller functions.  First, it can assemble and distribute the funding.  (I would like to discuss the way that the government should fund things, but that’s a bigger question than I want to address here.)  Even in this role, government cannot be trusted and it would be to the taxpayers’ benefit to have a watchdog that is financially incented to find and eradicate corruption.  Second, the government should maintain a minimum level of acceptable output.  Given the dismal state of education in our current system, it might seem that the government could not do even this job well, but it is important that there be care against abuse of children or gross negligence regarding their education, and it is a role of justice that the government can fill.  We need to beware, however, lest the government place so many requirements on the education of student that the businesses become unprofitable – government bureaucracy has a real tendency in this direction – so the real requirement is basic justice and an advocate for parents as the parents and students exercise their choice to maintain real educational accountability of the schools.

For the time being, it is important that the decentralization of the school bureaucracy be unhampered; thus, it is essential that educational businesses be empowered to combat dominant centralized unions.  Businesses naturally resist the inefficiency of unions, so unless the government interferes by requiring them or unduly enabling their continued existence, competition will drive them to the fringes unless and until they become necessary.

Finally, an independent informational service should be created to enforce truth in educational advertising and to provide an information infrastructure for legitimate decision-making for the customers (students and their parents), businesses (the schools), and their collaborators (communities, businesses, and institutions of higher education).

Our educational system has become increasingly socialistic – liberal government bureaucracy and unions opposing any real reform.  And because of its socialistic bent, the system’s costs continue to rise while its effectiveness continues to plummet — that is how socialism works!  It is time to return to our American roots –giving our people opportunity to succeed or fail, leveraging market forces to create a better product at lower cost, and saving our country’s future from the dwindling returns of mediocrity.

But is God illogical?

In my experience with God, it is not so much that He is illogical, nor that I am.  It is much more that every time I think I understand something about Him I discover that there are more dimensions to Him than I had previously understood.  He is not internally  inconsistent, but higher-dimensional than my previous experience.

Think about this for a moment… There are no integers which are the average of two adjacent ones, but then there are rationals.  There are no rationals equivalent to the square root of two, but then there are irrationals.  There are no irrationals equal to the square root of negative two… but then there are complex numbers… and then there are doubtless mathematicians who could carry this sequence on ad infinitum.

This is the sort of thing that I have discovered.  Not that God changes or cannot be understood but is infinitely more interesting, real, and alive in an infinity of dimensions than any doctrine or definition….

Aristotelian gravitational theory gave way to Newton’s, and Newton’s to Einstein’s, and doubtless there is something (or perhaps some string) beyond Einstein.  This is similar to knowing God in my experience, except each of these models suggests something few-dimensional in the progression, whereas interactions with God are necessarily far more multifaceted.

In some sense, it appears to me that an interaction with God is somehow sort of quantum mechanical in that an infinite-dimensional wave-function collapses upon measurement, but it is difficult to fully predict its behavior a priori because of the computational complexities inherent in integrations over infinitely many dimensions.

I surmise that He is just a bunch bigger than my head.  Not surprising, I guess, given the ontological relationship.

Just my experience.  Just reality.