Michael Hiteshew

Intelligent Design

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Sistine_Chapel

I believe in the evolution of life, I think there’s lots of fossil evidence for it and none for a single-point-of-time creation of mankind. I also believe in the evolution of the universe for the same reason. 14.5 billion years ago the universe came into existence as a hot plasma,  from which galaxies, stars and planets condensed. How simple and straightforward is that?

It could hardly be more complex. Starting with the universe, no one can explain from where the universe came or into what it is expanding. In other words, we can say “The following things have happened and here’s the evidence”. And that’s fine, I accept the evolutionary description. What’s missing is how a universe of material was born from a point in nowhere. No one  wants to talk about that and will cry “No fair!” if you try to discuss it. It is unanswerable, apparently. How does one discuss what happened or even what existed in a time before time existed? And no one wants to think about the consequences of that violating every principle of what we call science and physics. It’s too uncomfortable to confront.

Biologists will tell you life is easy to create. It seems to have existed on Earth within a few hundred million years of its formation. Provide a suitable habitat that’s warm and stable, wet with water or suitable liquid, add energy and a few raw materials like carbon and hydrogen, and bingo! you get life. We’ve been trying that for 50 years and can’t get that experiment to work. We get complex chemicals forming similar to the ones we see in life forms, but nothing that’s alive.

Something fundamental bothers me about all this. Why? There’s no answer to that question. It’s the question we seem to be asking from the moment we’re born, children ask it endlessly. Why should a universe pop into existence out of nothing? Why should life exist in it? What is the purpose of either? For all of our ability to describe what happened, we cannot answer the why of it. How could something like life come into existence from inanimate matter unless it was designed to do so? Carl Sagan famously quipped, “If you want to make an apple pie, first you must create the universe.” That’s very profound in its way. The simplest things, like a pie, require the inexplicable to have occurred, and on a scale beyond human comprehension.

In the end, it seems, I have no answers, only questions. But I reject the notion that all of this is meaningless. A universe does not exist for no reason. Life does not exist for nothing. It all exists for us to learn, to experience it. It’s where our souls grow up. It’s where our spirit evolves. That’s what I think.

 

Presidential Race Snapshot

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From Real Clear Politics:

Polls

Assuming the above is reasonably accurate, the country has definitely moved Left in its preference for presidents. It’s interesting that Kasich does best as the Republican nominee and Sanders does best as the Democrat nominee. That may be the indoctrination effects of the MSM and the schools showing itself, especially as more young people indoctrinated their entire lives mature to voting age. It’s also possible it may reflect the poor state of the economy and more people looking to government for assistance.

 

Using Your Canon or Nikon DSLR

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CannonT5iPhotography tutorials, understanding your camera and what those dials, buttons and menus actually do, it’s a virtual photography course:

PhotoRec Toby

Years ago, when I bought my first inexpensive film SLR, I bought a book on basic photography which helped me immensely. Just learning the basics on framing a photo, controlling and using depth of field and exposure speeds changed the quality of my photos dramatically. Like anything, getting a few fundamentals correct makes all the difference.

Next, your camera came with image editing software. Learn to use it. Ansel Adams did most of his work in the dark room. What took him hours or days you can do in minutes with software. Simple things like cropping your photos for greater effect, white balancing and enhancing brightness or contrast can take a dull photo and create  something beautiful.

Awesome Storm Footage

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I generally like storms. They’re interesting and  exciting. That said, I’ve been in a few that were downright scary and I’ve been very close to a few lightning strikes. This is impressive to me, along with the sheer beauty of it.

I remember merging off of I-84 West onto I-81 South about ten years ago in a thunderstorm. It was late in the day and as the sun slipped below the level of the storm clouds sunlight fell on a hillside of grass. The rain was still falling and  the entire hillside burst into a display of light as the droplets on the blades of grass glittered and shimmered in the light wind with a billion sparkles of light from every color of the spectrum. I had to keep forcing my eyes back on the road it was such a spectacular display of light.

The Peaceful Majority are Irrelevent

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Video Published on Jul 18, 2014

I just picked up a link to this today and thought it was impressive. A muslim girl showed up at a Heritage Foundation discussion on the Benghazi attack to put on a ‘Poor me! What about us moderate muslims?’ act.  Not to condemn what jihadis had done, not to pledge her support to fight against them, not to say how she is organizing peaceful muslims to combat terrorism in the United States. No, of course not. She owes the West and the United States nothing, least of all defense. She showed up to play the victim card, or was possibly sent there as part of a strategy to use political correctness as a weapon to encourage Western weakness in the face of violent islam. Either way, Brigitte Gabriel was having none of it. She  gave her a piece of her mind and made some excellent points along the way. If more people were this clear headed we’d have a lot fewer problems in the world.