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so what is the big deal about 2012?

Thursday, November 25th, 2010

There is a good chance at some point you have heard about the Mayan civilization. There is an even better chance that you have heard about them because of there now famous long count calendar that ends on the winter solstice, or December 21st, 2012. Now somehow, because this has been figured out, this “truth” has been equated to the world ending while others are holding their breath for a new spiritual shift or age of enlightenment.

Truth be told I first heard about the 2012 theory, about 6 years ago now, it somewhat frightened me. Prophesy has always been something that fascinates me. However as I have grown in my faith my fascination has changed from something that was rooted in fear to something that is rooted in strength.

To know that God has everything under control, even when chaos seems to rule the day, is the most encouraging and comforting knowledge anyone can have. I encourage you to watch the series below. The narrator covers some thoughts he has on the 2012 front that I have had myself with some small differences.

(more…)

multiple sclerosis and vaccines – my story

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

Anyone who knows me well knows that back in 2003 I became ill and started down a path that led doctors and medical experts to determine that I had Multiple Sclerosis or MS. I use had for a reason. Since late 2003 when all my symptoms left my body I have been without symptoms for going on 7 years. I am thankful for that but have always wondered in the back of my mind if someday it would come back. After all, multiple sclerosis has that name because it happen multiple times. Then last winter I had a revelation at the onset of the flu season.

It’s not so long ago that anyone has forgot that before last winter we could not tune into the news and not hear about the swine flu. With all that hype a video surfaced on the internet about a previous swine flu scare in 1976. I watched this video as I recommend you should too. My story will pick up on the other side of the video players.

Once I heard of this woman’s account of Guillain-Barré syndrome I made a connection. Her symptoms while more sever than mine we’re incredibly similar.

I remember it was in late February or early March of 2003 I was at my desk at work on a Thursday afternoon when my feet started to feel numb, like they had the circulation slightly cut off. I took of my shoes and rubbed my feet, I got up and walked around but couldn’t shake the sensation. I went to bed that night sure it would be gone in the morning. I woke up the next day and it was worse. It had even spread its way up into my calf’s. By the time I got to work on the Friday the tingling sensation was up into my thighs. I dealt with it for the Friday and over the weekend but by the time Monday rolled around it was becoming clear it was not going to go away. I left work that Monday morning to go to a clinic and by the time I was through the clinic and to the hospital I felt numbness from my chest down. To make a long story short I underwent a number of tests over the weeks and months to come, which included a spinal tap and an MRI, I was eventually told that I likely have MS. At the height of it all I was partially numb from the chest down to such a degree that I could not feel water hitting my body in the shower. I even had very slight loss of mobility in my hands and fingers.

The revelation I had after seeing this video was that the winter of 2002/2003 was the last time I had a seasonal flu shot. Now I am not a doctor and can not give myself a 100% accurate diagnosis I feel pretty confident that I do not have MS given the research that I have done. I feel even more secure in that given that I am in my 7th year of being symptom free. As a side note I am yet to have the flu in the last seven years as well.

While most of my symptoms were MS like in nature I have done some reading on GBS and learned it fits the bill perfectly too. I have spent a good deal of time wondering why that was not even presented to me as an option while I was going through my tests. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that GBS is linked to the bodies response to foreign antigens in the body. Wikipedia states that one study suggests that some cases are triggered by the influenza virus, or by an immune reaction to the influenza virus. Considering that the flu shot is given with live influenza in the vaccine I give that possibility a lot of credit. Did I have an episode of GBS? I have not had the opinion of a medical doctor on that front but to me, it seems highly probable.

Not being a doctor I want to be clear, don’t take my advice as gospel. You need to educate yourself and make your own decisions based on good information (which is hard to come by). Last seasons Swine Flu scare came and went with minor incident. Did some people die? Yes. But the death toll cause by Swine Flu (H1N1) still trailed the typical seasonal flu by a large margin. I pulled the following from WikiAnswers:

3 March 2010 — As of 12 February 2010, According to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), it is estimated* that since the beginning of the pandemic, the US has had approximately 57 million cases of A-H1N1/09 Pandemic Swine Flu and approximately 11,690 resulting deaths. Based upon this, an estimate of the mortality rate in the US from the pandemic is 0.02%.
In comparison, the CDC and World Health Organization (WHO) have estimated that with seasonal flu, “we see over 30 million cases in the United States. We see 200,000 hospitalizations and, on average, 36,000 deaths.” (During the entire fall and winter flu season.) Based upon this, the average mortality rate of seasonal flu in the US would be 0.12%

Based on those numbers the regular flu claimed the lives of over three times as many people as H1N1 but there wasn’t any major news coverage or panic around those figures. I think it is worth mentioning too that many victims of the flu don’t die by the flu alone. It is usually the flu in combination with some other complicating health factors primarily when the flu and some sort of viral infection occur at the same time.

The vaccine subject can be a very touchy one. Some people are for it and think its a great medical achievement. Others think that they aren’t great and we don’t yet fully understand the long term effects that vaccines will take on people. I say get out there and do some research. I for one put a lot of weight on the first hand accounts of people. I think that we need to get the TV and medical establishment out of the way and start hearing the stories of individuals that have had good and bad experiences through vaccines and weigh the positives and negatives before rolling up our sleeves at the recommendations of the government and TV. For me I can’t shake this feeling that the higher ups are just a little to eager to have us lining up for our annual “safety shots”. Again, I want you to think for yourself and start doing your homework. The new flu season is only a couple months away so get on this now before we are in the heat of the moment with the TV screaming doom at us. It’s your life and your body. I myself am unlikely to ever accept another vaccine, but only the circumstances will tell for sure.

a man fell in a hole

Sunday, July 25th, 2010

This video speaks for itself. Enjoy.

understanding the gamble

Saturday, July 24th, 2010

understand whats at stake before you gamble

Have you ever made a really big gamble, a gamble so large that if you lost you’re not sure what you would do in the aftermath of losing? Not too many people make gambles of that nature because they can’t stomach the risk of losing. With that opening statement I am sure a lot of you had pictures in your mind of a casino you have either been to or seen in a movie. However this post is going to explore the gigantic gamble we all make whether we go to a casino or not.

If you have spent any time on this site you know that I am a person of faith in Christianity. Or to be more clear, I believe in God the creator who has redeemed us to be worthy of salvation and an eternity in Heaven through the crucifixion of and faith in His only Son Jesus Christ. Now there are many people in the world that believe the Christian faith is nonsense and an old fable or a recycled pagan religion for uneducated folks. Understand that I hold my faith whole-heartedly, however for this post to be legitimate I have to admit that I could be wrong in the hopes that if you are a non-believer reading this that you can also admit to possibly being wrong in your stance. Now this is something you probably don’t spend a lot of time considering but one of the above mentioned groups is right and the other is wrong. Therein lays the gamble. Let’s examine a chart I have made below.

In this chart the vertical axis represents the two realities that can exist for Christianity. Either it’s true, or it’s baloney. The horizontal axis represents your belief to either of the realities. You can either believe or not believe. Those really are the only realities and beliefs that can be taken in this debate. Now contrary to what you might think all of us are either in the red or black column because “it’s true” and “it’s baloney” are statements based on realities that you have to have a position with.

The debate as to whether Christianity is true or not is centuries old. After long reflection I have come to realize that the debate is empty and pointless. Regardless of how much we argue that debate is going to settle itself eventually either way. The debate we need to be having is with ourselves internally whether it is right or better to be a person of faith or not. Either way, true or not, all of us are gambling either on red or on black. As you can see, it is a gamble with drastically varying outcomes.

It’s True and You Believe - If Christianity is true and you are a person of faith and live your life according to what the Bible teaches when you die you will be rewarded with an eternity in Heaven.
It’s Baloney and You Believe - If Christianity is not true and there is no afterlife you lived your life as best as you could based on the teachings of the Bible but when you die there is nothing and you cease to exist.
It’s True and You Don’t Believe - If Christianity is true and you don’t believe you lived your life how you saw fit but when you die there is an eternity of suffering ahead of you.
It’s Baloney and You Don’t Believe - If Christianity is not true and there is no afterlife you lived your life as you saw fit and when you die there is nothing, you cease to exist.

Do you see what I am getting at here? For any believer, with their “chips” on red, there is no gamble because if Christianity does turn out to be false they will share in the same fate as non believers. However if it’s true the fates of believers and non-believers are very different. Now please understand that this isn’t some scare tactic. I am by no means saying “look at my fancy chart, now repent and believe!” I am making a sincere effort to get you to think about the consequences of something that the world doesn’t want you to think about.

My chips are on red…
Beyond the chart above there is more to the reason as to why I am betting on red. A number of years ago I realized I am not a good person on my own. I don’t think any of us can say that we are. If you read that last sentence and scoffed at it I would like to know if you would be comfortable if there was a speaker in the back of your head loudly broadcasting everything you we’re thinking 24/7? Or how would you feel if people could turn on the news and get a daily run down of everything you did that day, good or bad? I know that’s not something I would not be interested in for myself. My point is that the true reflection of ourselves is who we are in secret, not what we show everyone else.

The Bible makes it clear that we have all sinned and all fall short of God’s expectations. Now if you get anything out of this post I hope it’s this next bit. God is just. He could not be perfect if he wasn’t. Therefore how could anyone be rewarded with an eternity of happiness if they had been bad and rebellious their entire lives? That can’t happen. So in God’s infinite justice, love and grace He made a way. He could spare the entire human race from a fate of suffering if just one person could get their time on Earth right. Here is where Jesus enters the picture. Christ was entirely perfect and was crucified inspite of it. On him was placed all the wrath and suffering we deserved because of our rebellion. That was enough justice for God to be satisfied. That is why faith in Christ is essential to our salvation. If someone saved our life here on earth would you not be grateful? If someone pushed you out of the way of a speeding car and took the hit for you, would you not be eternally grateful to that person?

So here is this free gift of salvation offered to us by God. All we have to do is accept it. Is it not obvious that a gift isn’t ours until we claim it as our own? If you’re a hungry person and someone offers you a meal, that meal isn’t going to do anything for you until you accept it and eat it. So as a hungry person devours a meal should we not all devour the gift of salvation offered to us by God? Have you ever wondered why Jesus is such a vital part of going to Heaven. The answer is simple, he is the way. He pushed you out of the way and got hit by the car on your behalf. Also as the one who took the punishment in our place he has been made judge of who enters and who doesn’t. In Jesus’ words “no one comes to the Father except through me”. So you need Christ and acceptance of what he did in your heart.

A parachute cannot save you unless you reach out and pull the ripcord. The good news about Jesus cannot save you unless you call on His name. Reinhard Bonnke

The last part of the formula is repentance. To put this into perspective have you ever forgiven someone that hasn’t apologized or at least shown remorse for the wrong thing they did to you? Would it not be difficult and almost impossible to forgive a person like that? Again, God is just, but also merciful. Mercy will be shown to those that are sorry and change their ways. Why should anyone that’s not sorry for what they have done be shown any kind of forgiveness, especially when they continue to just do the wrong/hurtful thing again and again?

Now I get it, a lot of professed Christians are the worst people you may know. And some of the worst things you have heard of on the news have been done in the name of religion or by priests and pastors that should know better. The word hypocrite comes to mind. All I want to ask of you is to not allow the mistakes made by others get in your way and to be responsible for yourself, not others. A lot of people ask the question why does God allow “these things” to happen or say I can’t believe in a good God with all “this stuff” going on. Humans have free will which God gave us and allows us to use. Some use it for good, others don’t. It’s really that simple. We are to blame for all the bad stuff, but that’s not a very popular stance to take. I know when I look in the mirror I don’t want to be at all responsible for the state the world is in, but I am, we all are.

The last point I want to make is the fact that we still have the faith of Christianity around after over 2000 years of trying to disprove it. I think if something were a lie that it just may have been exposed as such after all this time. Speaking of over 2000 years do you realize that the year is technically 2010 A.D., after death? Prior to that the years we’re B.C., before Christ. I don’t think people way back then had a meeting and said “Let’s start counting the years all over again based on the death of a man that never existed.” That seems highly improbable to me.

A Call to Action
At the church I go to we often watch these video’s of street interviews. Random people get asked questions about faith, God, Christ or Heaven on the spot. Some of the answers are unbelievable. Most often people are vague and say”I don’t know, I haven’t really thought about it”. If you are one of those people, get thinking! Picture a roulette wheel that is spinning and the ball is whirling around the perimeter. Red or black, where do you put your metaphorical chips? If you’re a gambler you have to put them on red, you can’t lose. The good news here is that even if terrible things have happened in your life and all this time you have had your chips on black, there is still time to move them over to red. Explore faith for yourself. God is longing for you to come home. The wheel doesn’t stop spinning and the ball doesn’t fall into place until your life is done or Christ returns. But don’t take too long, because we don’t know when our time is up. So don’t ignore this message by merely brushing it off as unrelevant to you. Like it or not, you are gambling.

the dollars 4 gold scam

Friday, June 4th, 2010

You may be familiar with a service called Dollars 4 Gold or another service like it. The service they offer is rather simple. They will send you a kit in which you can mail them any unwanted gold jewellery and they will send you a cheque back as payment for the gold you sent them. Below is the commercial that is shown often where I live.

This ad drives me crazy. It starts out by preying on the cancerous consumerist mindset that is ruining our world. The premise of having some old junky jewellery lying around and then paying bills and getting shoes is absolutely terrible. I’ll elaborate as to why further on into the post. Then the rest of the commercial is full of classic over-salesmanship and lame testimonies by paid actors and actresses.

There are all the superficial reasons as to why I dislike the ad, now for the root of the matter. I have a feeling that this is a large scam being perpetrated on the public. Not in the fact that you may not get the “money” value of your gold but by the very fact that we are being enticed get rid of our gold at all.

If there is one thing you come to understand about money it has to be what its real value is. The real value of money is nothing. At the end of the day money is merely paper or a number in a computer. When you hand your gold over for money you are trading it wilfully for paper or digits. While that may all seem fine and well because your paper and digits can get you other things you want, like shoes, I don’t think it is going to be that way forever.

We have just been through a major economic earthquake where we have seen the value of currency get shaken very easily. Gold’s value however continued to climb through all of it. Please understand that gold and precious metal always holds its value. That’s why back in the day money’s value was determined and managed by gold reserves. But that’s a long time ago and things don’t work that way anymore.

My concern is founded by the fact that the people in charge of things are always a couple steps ahead so we need to look at what is happening now to try and make a good guess as to what is going to happen down the line. Let me explain where this line of thinking is coming from.

A number of months ago I watched a documentary on TV called “House of Cards”. The show focused on the very housing market bubble that caused the aforementioned economic earthquake. Before this turmoil started there we’re tons of advertisements on TV offering the services of refinancing mortgages to unlock equity that people had in their homes so they could expand their shoe collections, or whatever other useless consuming they wanted to do. The ads offered ideas like getting pools, cars or shopping sprees. The commercials were basically financial traps broadcast into our living rooms. After these ads ran for the better part of a year and millions of people had put themselves in a precarious financial situation the trap were sprung and many families homes we’re stolen via variable rate mortgages that saw the interest rates skyrocket.

To me that is a very deliberate ploy. Now I will concede that no one was forced to use this service but if you dig a hole and cover it with a blanket and put a toddler on one side and you stand on the other side waving a lollypop it doesn’t take much brain power to figure out what the result is going to be.

So let’s keep moving. My point is that there was a rash of commercials that offered something promising and attractive then shortly afterwards millions of people felt the pain of their decisions. So how does Dollars 4 Gold fit into this? Gold has worth, paper doesn’t. I have been reading that with all the fall out of the housing market governments were forced into more borrowing to get out of the mess. This in turn has created a new bubble, a bailout bubble. It is much bigger and much worse than the housing bubble was. How long is it before that one bursts and creates a bigger problem?

If the dollar went bunk and was no longer accepted anywhere gold and other precious metals could be used to trade for food and other necessities. Wouldn’t you wish then that you had kept your gold instead of getting some paper?

You also need to know a little history here to be wise and well prepared. After the original stock market crash and ensuing great depression in the 1920′s gold was seized from the public forcefully under the law. Before then there was a gold standard amd the US dollar used to say redeemable in gold on it. Afterwards the dollar was labelled as legal tender. Meaning it was recognized as tradable money good for buying things and paying taxes. As a side note there was a time in history where a kingdom used sticks, called tally sticks, with notches cut out of them to denote its value as their legal tender. Any person today would think thats crazy, but isn’t paper just as ridiculous?

People in high places that make the rules know where the value is and they want it for themselves so that we are left in a desperate spot. The whole thing is about leverage. They want your gold so you won’t have anything of value. The larger scope, which will be reserved for another post, is the motivation for a world government with world banks. Mark my words; this will be sold to us after the next crisis as the answer to the problem. A public that is poor and starving will be happy to accept whatever is offered that will get food on the table and a new currency in their pocket. At the end of the day the ploy is about leaving people desperate so they will accept whatever alternative is offered to them.

You need to protect yourself. Keep your gold. It may be the only thing that will get you through an economic disaster that sees the dollar worth its weight in paper. Lets also not forget that the Bible warns us that the love of money is the root of all evil (1 Timothy 6:10). In times like this and in the face of all this information, does that not ring loud and clear as truth?

Below is a preview of the documentary House of Cards. It was all I could find online. If you can find it on DVD or it gets reaired, watch it. Also check out the other posts in the money catagory on my site. Thanks for reading.

seeing isn’t believing

Monday, October 5th, 2009

not everything needs to be seen with the eyes

A while ago I was surfing around on youtube doing some searches and through various related video links I ended up discovering a youtube show called “The Atheist Experience“. I watched a number of videos and was thoroughly frustrated by what I saw and heard. The hosts of the show are quite rude and smug, often interrupting a caller with a mute button to make their point if they feel the are being spoken over, while having no problem talking over the caller who has no mute button. That aside I want to point out an over lying message that I heard over and over again. No proof, where is your proof, you can’t prove that and so on.

So one night I was quite frustrated by what I had heard and was thinking to myself what could I say to an atheist that would deflate that argument. During some quite time in prayer the following came to me;

Just because you can’t see something does not mean it’s not there. Consider this; one hundred years ago you could have tried to explain to someone what an atom is and people would have thought of you as a crazy person. You could have pointed to a table and said “this table is made up of millions of tiny elements held together by electric charges making it solid.” That kind of truth would have been mocked because it could not be seen. The same applies for Christ. We cannot see him physically, but he is there. In the mean time, like the atom could be seen in the form of a table, we can see the form of Christ in his church which is made of millions of people held together by his spirit making it solid. This is a truth that should not be mocked because we have been promised in time that Christ will be revealed and seen with the eye, but until that day “we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18

As an extension of that line of thinking
There was a time when people thought the world was flat. It was common knowledge and just accepted as the way the world was. Then some grumblings started to emerge about the possibility of the world not being flat, but in fact was round. Anyone who entertained that idea as a possibility was mocked as a lunatic. Well here we are today knowing the world if round because it has been proven so. The idea here is that not everything that is true or real has been proven or revealed… yet. So please consider this when dismissing the person of Jesus or disregarding God as an invention of man. One day all will be revealed, which side of the debate would you like to find yourself on when that day does come?

A couple good Bible verses to end with
It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in man. Psalms 118:8

See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ. Colossians 2:8

Let no person shake your faith. Do not let any one pressure you to walk away from your faith if you have it. Let no person stand in your way from exploring it if it’s new to you or calling you to explore it for yourself.

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