Sunday, June 22, 2008

This is what I was talking about on a previous post.

Based on this Logic (article), Bill Richardson should have been my Candidate.

See my previous post on this subject, here.

About the Author

Almost every book I read has a little snippet about the Author. I thought this would be a perfect time to Introduce my self and give you more than what is in my bio. This is also a far easier subject for me to write about when I do not feel up to pulling multiple sources for reference on a more controversial topic. Believe I have a Word file with about a page and a half of topics ranging from The Sacraments to UFOs I intend to get to in time. So here it Goes.

As Mentioned in my bio My name is Richard Lamb. I was born in Ponce, Puerto Rico in May 19th 1972. I have been married for 15 and a half years. I have two beautiful daughters, 9 and 4 respectively. I have a Bachelors in Information Technology, and Masters on Information Systems, with an eye for an MBA and perhaps a Doctorate (Depending on Student Loans Career Advances and My wife's Patience) As can be seen and will yet be seen by my posts, my interests vary greatly. I love Religion (Because I love God), Politics, Science, Sports (Especially NFL, Go Jaguars) etc. I short I am interested in those topics that people seem to want to avoid in polite company to avoid controversy. I firmly believe that people avoid these topics because they are often not well versed in them and can offer little support for their views and because they are really afraid of finding their view to be wrong. But since many of the topics I cover here are consequential, especially Religion and politics, which deal with both our eternal lives as well as our temporal, I think they not only should be discussed, but can in polite company when discussed with a sense of charity and truth seeking.

My Interest in religion and politics comes from a crisis of faith that I lived though when I was younger. I was born into the Catholic faith and grew up in the church, but as with many who are born into a faith my initial faith education was nominal at best. None of my early education prepared me to give a reasoned Response for my beliefs when faced with tough questions. During the process of my growing up in the church my parents were divorced my Father moved to Jacksonville and became more involved in his own faith tradition which was Disciples of Christ (Very much a Southern Evangelical Faith, similar in many ways to the Baptist, with minor but important differences not pertinent to this post) Fast forward to my 11th year of life when we moved to Jacksonville from Puerto Rico. While here we spent more time with our father who would make it a point to take us to his church when we stayed with him. Initially I resented that since I am not a morning person and preferred to go to Mass on Saturday nights with my mother when we stayed with her. In time though I was OK with it. I met friends there and there were even a girl or two that I took a licking to. But something happened while I was growing there that forced me to look deeper into my beliefs. People began asking me questions about such subjects as the papacy, and Mary, questions I had not answers for at the time. This forced me to research Christianity. I knew I was going to remain a Christian since I believed Jesus was my saviour, even then I felt an attraction to Jesus as saviour. My research focused initially on finding the historical church, the church founded by Jesus since I instinctively knew that a church not founded by Jesus himself had no historical standing. In my research I began to both find answers to such questions as the papacy, Mary and other Catholic teachings. Indeed I found the early church was Catholic, both in doctrine and structure, though in a nascent form initially. I also found that like my most Catholics were ill prepared to give responses for their faith and many were catholic because their parents were. To this day I find that. I began reading books that were both historical in nature as well as books that were more apologetic in nature. initially these books were in question and Answer format. Then I discovered Catholic answers on the Radio. I also discovered such heavy wights as Scott Hahn and Jimmy Akin. their knowledge was invaluable to me. I feel it is incumbent on me to teach others what I have learned and show others the beauty of Catholicisms and the Truth contained within.

My Interest in politics stems from my Interest in Religious issues, my first political thoughts stem from the abortion issue. When I initially voted I looked for the candidate that promised to put an end to the murder of unborn Babies. At this same time I recall hearing a voice on the radio espousing things I instinctively understood to be true, both from a Christian perspective, but also from a more down to earth common sense perspective. That voice was Rush Limbaugh. I guess it could be said I am a Rush teen. I would listen to him after school while driving home from school. Then I would listen to him when ever I could after work etc. Then I discovered other voices such as Bary Farber and others who espoused similar views. It should be noted that these voices only gave me a means to better express what I already knew to be true based on my upbringing and my faith. I found the notion of individual responsibility and judging people not skin color to ring true. When I heard the opposing thought process of government dependence, secularism judging people as remember of a race or group I found the reasons lacking and based on emotion not reason.

In short I find Religion and Politics to be so closely related in so many areas that I have become a religious and political animal. I seldom find people willing do discuss these topics with me (My brother does but we agree all the time, when we discuss these topics we reinforce each others views and help each other bolster our rhetoric, with resources and better answers). The few people that engage either agree or quickly shut down when I begin to make sense.

This why I am Glad I discovered this forum. Here I can give free reign to my thoughts rather than letting them fester and just sit in my brain unused (In time I will write a Book and find a way to get it published)