Hunting and War: Why Conservatives are Like Klingons

Hunting. It is the temporary return to human predatory dominance in the wild. Be it by rifle, shotgun, bow, blade, or bare hands, hunting is predatory.

But what if animals were equal with humans? What if, because we have technology, we humans were able to find a way to survive on this planet without ever killing animals? Is that what Sikhs hope that humanity can achieve? Check out this page for an interesting spiritual discussion on killing animals in self defense only.

I mean, when we are our best selves, don't we try to only kill other humans in self defense, or the defense of others? There's not another good reason, is there? If you take a baseball bat to my car, I'm not allowed to shoot you, am I? Only if a person's safety and/or life is involved, right? This is what we all understand?

False Prophets

From a determinist view, false prophets are allowed to exist by God. Do they therefore serve some purpose? Perhaps false prophets exist to push the church off of its doctrinal certainty? Do they not inspire the church to study the scriptures, to develop arguments and debate them, and to ultimately discover new realities that would have otherwise remained hidden beneath a warm blanket of blessed assurance? Yes they do.

I deny the charge of false prophet. But to those who claim otherwise, I respond with an offer of dialogue. Let's study and debate our scripture together. Perhaps we will discover new realities together?

On http://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/semper-reformanda/ it says this:

Music Update: What Am I Doing?

I am going through figuring out a cloud backup solution for my Pro Tools data, thinking I have it figured out now, and I'm watching the files begin the long, arduous process of syncing. This derails my current recording project temporarily as I resolve this important and neglected issue.

I did do some tracking of my guitar solo for the upcoming A-side single that I am releasing with Torchsong Entertainment. There is also a B-side (obviously), and that still needs to have all of the instrument tracking, plus drum editing, plus vocal channel and all that...

Neil DeGrasse Tyson and Neuroscience as the Answer to God

Neil DeGrasse Tyson in the youtube video "The Moon, the Tides and why Neil De Grasse Tyson is Colbert's God" implies that neuroscience is the frontier of science that will answer the deepest questions about humanity, who we are, why we do what we do, etc.

He proposes an experiment where a person is shown a painting while simultaneously having their brain stimulated in the "painting liking" areas. His intuition is that the result of the experiment would be the person liking the painting. He then goes on to state that such a result "will tell us that all emotion is simply what gets stimulated in your brain and what does not. All belief systems that are not evidence based would be triggered by simply what gets triggered in your brain and what does not. And so that is all I think in the future of neuroscience." (6:29)

The Artificial Intelligence Singularity and the Book of Revelation: Why Elon Musk is Wrong

Let me tell you a story.

In the Book of Revelation, the Bible describes a place and time where humans cannot buy or sell without the mark of the beast.

It says that the beast has a name, and the name can be counted with a number. And it says the number is 666.

If this place and time is the future, then it might be now, since the Bible is so old. Some Christians believe we are living in the “end times.”

So what is the beast? And what is the mark of the beast? And why does it tell us to count it with a number?

Top Hat King Royale Guitar Amp, Paul Reed Smith Standard 22 Electric Guitar, ONE TAKE Guitar Solo

I just rediscovered this. It's me using my personal favorite guitar amplifier, a Top Hat King Royale combo, hand built in TX, all tube 35w Vox AC30 Top Boost clone. I have it running through a '90s era Marshall 1960B 4x12 speaker cabinet with stock 75w Celestion speakers. I'm playing a Paul Reed Smith PRS Standard 22 guitar through a BOSS CS-2 Compression Sustainer pedal and a BOSS DD-3 Digital Delay pedal. A Budda Bud-Wah kicks in at the climax(?). I am playing to a wonderfully slow, bluesy, Pink Floyd style backing track through a killer pro PA in a room acoustically designed for small rock concerts... And then I just did a couple of one-take improv solos and recorded them through the webcam on my Macbook using Photo Booth and the built-in mic. SMH.

Have a listen anyway. It's not bad...