Conspiracy Theory or Fact?

(c) 2014 by Stefan Kunert; Used under license from DepositPhotos.com

When does a conspiracy theory become fact?

We have been conditioned to discount and deride accusations of conspiracy. “Conspiracy theorists” are openly derided and automatically depicted as tinfoil hat-wearing near-lunatics. For many years I, like so many others, tended to adopt this same benign disregard for anything labeled a conspiracy or conspiracy theory.

Recently, my thinking was challenged when I read an author who asserted that throughout history conspiracies are the norm, not the exception. I decided to test the validity of this assertion. To do that I started with defining the word conspiracy. This forced me to first look at the definition of the root word, conspire.

A conspiracy is formed when people conspire. Self-referential definitions are meaningless, by themselves. So, to define what is a conspiracy, we must first determine what it means to conspire.

Per Dictionary.com conspire, a verb, means:

1.     to agree together, especially secretly, to do something wrong, evil, or illegal:

2.     to act or work together toward the same result or goal:

In today’s world the terms “wrong”, and “evil” are considered relativistic value judgements; meaning what is considered wrong by one person may be considered right, by another. This is epitomized in the saying, “one man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.”

This means, we must discard those values-based elements from the definition. They become part of the connotation versus the denotation of the word. We all know that the connotation of a conspiracy is that it has bad intentions. Unfortunately, that connotation is preventing us from accurately evaluating the truth of the notion that conspiracies are widespread and normal.

For similar reasons we can disregard the connotation of “illegal.” What is legal varies too widely from one part of the world to another to provide any help with this exercise.  For instance, is countries where Sharia Law prevails homosexuality is illegal and punishable with death, while in the US it is legally recognized as a form of marriage. Because of this variability we must discard the illegal modifier as another value-based part of the connotation rather than a legitimate part of the definition of conspire or conspiracy.

This leaves us with the simple elements of agreeing together, acting or working together, toward the same goal or result. While “especially secretly” is thrown in, that too is more of a connotation than the actual definition. It isn’t reasonable to assert that a publicly viewable conspiracy is less of a conspiracy than a private one. Public or private, they both meet the same criteria of being two or more people working cooperatively toward a common goal.

Per Dictionary.com a conspiracy, a verb and a noun is defined as follows:

1.     the act of conspiring.

2.     an unlawful, harmful, or evil plan formulated in secret by two or more persons; plot.

3.     a combination of persons for such an unlawful, harmful, or evil purpose:

4.     He joined the conspiracy to overthrow the government.

5.     Law. an agreement by two or more persons to commit a crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.

6.     any concurrence in action; combination in bringing about a given result.

Again, to get at the definition we must strip away the values-based connotations which have been used to modify the definition. When we set aside “unlawful”, “evil”, and “harmful” that also allows us to disregard the adjectives (or adverbs) of “crime, fraud, or other wrongful act.”

All this leads me to the unambiguous definition of conspire (the verb) to be:

·       Two or more people agreeing to do something.

And conspiracy (the noun) becomes:

·       Two or more people cooperating to achieve a common goal

Stripping out relativistic values from the definition, we are left with a definition that can apply as accurately to the Boy Scouts, or the US Senate, as to Al Qaeda.  

Well, perhaps the US Senate doesn’t qualify as a whole because they seldom appear to be working toward the same result or goal. However, the political parties of those Senators certainly qualify as conspiracies. The members of their political parties conspire with each other to do what it takes to elect their chosen minions to public offices and political appointments where those conspirators can work to further the agenda of the political party (the conspiracy).

Interestingly, using this working definition, any business that is more than a sole proprietorship is correctly defined as a conspiracy. Add in the fact that the notes from board meetings of most companies are routinely classified as corporate secrets, we can make a blanket inference that secrecy is the same as “evil, illegal, criminal, fraudulent, etc.

The same could be said of almost any meeting of top government officials (for all countries).

My point?

The next time someone seeks to denigrate a story as a “conspiracy theory” instead of just going along with the potential smear-job consider the fact that the accuser is almost certainly part of a different conspiracy that has its own objective(s) and the conspiracy theorist is gumming things up for the author’s pet conspiracy.

© 2022 Thomas K Sheppard, All rights reserved.

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

The Roots of Liberty

Creation of Adam (C) Sergey Nivens licensed through DepositPhotos.com

Most of my career has been focused on solving problems. First as a computer programmer, then as a systems analyst and later as a project and program manager my job was to solve problems for my clients. Early on I learned that if you can correctly define the problem you are about half way to solving it. However, correctly defining a problem is not as easy at is sounds. Problems are often so distracting, urgent, messy, volatile, or all of the above that it is difficult to separate the symptoms from the actual problem.

To illustrate this concept consider a situation where fires are springing up all around you. What do you do first?  Do you call the Fire Department, start throwing water, or, do you stop the arsonist from starting more fires? Good sense demands the latter. However, when you are distracted by all the smoke, flames, noise, panic, and confusion it is often easier to try to extinguish one fire and then another. Unfortunately, when you treat the symptoms (in this case the fire) your efforts are in vain because the real root of the problem keeps causing more symptoms.

There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.

Henry David Thoreau

Thoreau's statement (above) illustrates the fact that, most of us are more than ready and willing to address symptoms while those who address the root of an issue are much more rare.

As a professional problem solver I was trained in techniques of root cause analysis. I have used those tools and techniques many times to ensure that the time, energy, and money provided to me was used to resolve root causes instead of being wasted treating symptoms. Metaphorically, instead of simply putting out fires I made sure the arsonist was dealt with first, then we could move on to putting out the fires and repairing the damage.

On July 4, 1776 The Declaration of Independence of the United States of America was published. Among the words of the Declaration it stated "... we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights..."

Allow me, please, to unpack this a bit and in my own order and hopefully I can explain the connection between the elements in this phrase, symptoms, and roots.

Unalienable Rights

Unalienable rights are rights ingrained into humanity. When governments seek to deprive people of these inherent, ingrained, and unalienable rights, they cannot rule in peace. They can only deprive people of these rights through the constant, consistent application of force and violence. Efforts to deprive people of these rights inevitably provoke strong resistance from people. Depending on the conditioning of the people this resistance can range from editorials in the press, petitions, peaceful protests in the streets, violent protests, assassinations, insurrections, and armed rebellions.  

If you look at the arc of events leading up to the American Revolution you see that same progression. The American Colonists first resorted to opinion pieces in the papers. From there to petitions sent to the government. When these seemed to be ignored, or worse used as pretext to attack them, they escalated to peaceful protests, then violent protests. Finally, finding their efforts only resulted in greater violence against them they came out in open rebellion against their government.

When their rebellion prevailed and they were able to establish their own government, instead of embracing a monarchy where an elite few made and enforced the laws, they opted to form a constitutional republic. A government "... of the People, by the People, and for the People." Through the power of elections, Americans are given the power of rebellion. Every election we can throw off those leaders who fail to represent our interests over their own, or those of others. This electoral system balances the power of the majority against the rights of the minority, and is based on the foundational principle that either the rights of every individual are important, or none are important. 

Endow

To endow is to equip. An endowment, often associated with large contributions to charitable institutions, is to provide a financial source of income which keeps providing benefits in perpetuity, forever. Their value typically exceeds anything we could give in return for them. Endowments are gifts, not purchases. 

These unalienable rights are a gift that equips us to live our lives in a manner that makes us responsible for our own outcomes, rather than allowing us to be victims of others' actions.

The most fundamental of our unalienable rights is freedom of conscience. The right to embrace and act on our own beliefs. This is only restrained if our actions have the effect of depriving others of their unalienable rights.

The unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, mentioned specifically in the Declaration, all rest upon our freedom of conscience.

By the Creator

Monarchies prevailed across the world at the time of the American Revolution. Under a monarchy (and other forms of dictatorship) all rights flow from the monarch (the King or Queen). If the ruler grants a right, s/he can subsequently revoke that right. History shows monarchs and dictators have rescinded rights and privileges from their people almost as often as they granted them.

In blatant defiance of all forms of dictatorship (monarchies or otherwise) the Declaration of Independence states that the Creator gifted these rights to humanity and no government has the authority to revoke them.  

Here we arrive at the root.

The implications of acknowledging a "Creator" are significant and affect everything that comes after that acknowledgement.

Many today embrace the notion that there is no Creator. They argue that against all the mathematical odds the extremely complex creatures and ecosystems which surround us came into being spontaneously and over eons of time have self-modified to result in the current state.  If one of these advocates of wholly natural evolution were somehow transported to a distant, uninhabited planet and there, amid the sands of a desert came upon a digital camera their reason would conclude that the camera was the product of a creator, an intelligent designer. They would never accept the argument that the cosmos had shaken the sand of that desert so long that the minerals and crystals there had spontaneously formed to make this camera. And yet, they can look at the human optic system, which is much more complicated than that of a camera and assert that it was not created, it evolved.

The root reason why many people today reject the notion of an intelligent Creator is not through lack of evidence. Rather they reject the Creator out of fear. What people fear the most is the unknown.

A mind which can create the cosmos we see is infinitely more capable than us. If we cannot comprehend the cosmos, its origins, its rules, its destination, its purpose, then we certainly cannot comprehend the intelligence which set it all up. Living in the shadow of such an unfathomable and powerful intelligence is naturally very frightening. 

If you acknowledge the existence of a Creator, what choices does that lead to?

A) You can choose to pretend that the Creator doesn't exist. Because you cannot fathom the mind of the Creator you can imagine that you are of no consequence. The Creator takes no notice of you, so you are free to do as you please.

B) You can choose to cower in fear of unwittingly offending such a being and finding yourself on the wrong end of the wrath of a cosmic power. Down this road lies a life of superstition. Like the ancient Greeks, you erect altars to all aspects of the Creator you can imagine. To cover your bases you even set up an altar to "the Unknown God" mentioned by Paul in Acts 17:23.

C) You can seek to find the Creator in order to either align your life with the Creator's purposes or defy that power, seeking to thwart it. This course is quite challenging because there is nothing you can do which will uncover the existence of the Creator. You cannot force the Creator into the light of day under a microscope or a telescope. You can only find the Creator if the Creator chooses to reveal himself to you, and the very concept of revelation really scares most people and is easily faked by someone seeking power.

For now, allow me to set aside the issue of revelation. Instead, let's focus on the implications from our being endowed by our Creator with these inalienable rights.

If the Creator thought it worthwhile to give us these rights, then it stands to reason the Creator will hold us accountable for what we do with these rights. It is logical that it is especially important whether or not we seek to preserve them, or seek to deprive others of them.

It seems clear to me that the Declaration of Independence makes clear that the Creator is the root of our rights and the associated duty to preserve those rights. We may ignore the many witnesses in nature, history, and word which bear witness to the intelligent hand of a Creator but our willful ignorance does not alleviate us one whit from our accountability to honor and defend these unalienable rights.

Divisiveness

Today we are in the midst of what is still a largely civil conflict over these rights. At the root of this conflict is the belief in a Creator. If you acknowledge a Creator then you must deliberately defy that Creator or seek to align with that Creator. It becomes an important, conscious choice with significant consequences.

Those who seek to deprive us of our rights almost unanimously also seek to deny us the rights of conscience, particularly when it comes to religion. If our religion will adapt to not oppose their views then it is marginally acceptable. However, if our religion doesn't admit of compromise on fundamental issues, then we are to be redefined as dangerous extremists and turned into enemies of the state. Once that latter indictment sticks, then the full power of government can be unleashed to exterminate us and eradicate our views.

Our best defense against being destroyed (spiritually and physically) by this escalating conflict is to speak up in defense of our rights. Silence is acceptance. Show your gratitude to the Creator by speaking up in defense of the rights endowed to us. Use your voice. Use your vote. Use your time and money to support people and organizations who are trying to defend our rights.

When you speak up in defense of our rights you will definitely offend some people and incur the anger of others. Speak up and defend rights politely, but firmly. Don't resort to demonization and name calling. If they are offended when you are not being offensive it is their choice, not yours. 

When you remain silent and inactive in the defense of our rights you will offend your Creator and may incur that divine wrath.

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

Give to Get

Truth persists regardless of our beliefs, feelings, complaints, or votes.

Without regard to your beliefs, feelings, or complaints, gravity keeps you from floating off the planet to asphyxiate in space. Gravity is a physical law of the universe. To live a happy and healthy life we have to adjust our lives to the inexorable law of gravity.

There is a force which animates each of us. It turns this lump of clay we call our body into a living organism. When that force departs, our body dies. This essence which animates each of us is undeniably real, though we don’t seem to be able to detect it with our five senses or any of the scientific instruments we have built to extend those senses. Whether you call it a soul, a spirit, or don’t believe it exists, it exists. Its effects on our body are undeniable and our death when it departs is unavoidable.

Just as the universe abounds with laws our bodies must accommodate, such as the law of gravity, there are laws in the universe which our spirit must accommodate. Perhaps the most important of these is known in western religions as the law of the harvest, or in the eastern, karma.

This universal spiritual law is that we get what we give. We reap what we sow. And, just as the harvest does not come immediately after planting the seed, usually the receipt of what we have given is delayed.

Whether you believe it, or not, this law affects your life.

• If you want love in your life, give forgiveness.

• If you want peace in your life, give kindness.

• If you want abundance in your life, be generous.

• If you don’t feel forgiving, kind, or generous, fake it until you make it. Over time you will become what you do.

What you give may not come back into your life immediately. It may take a lifetime. It may come to those you love, who you leave behind when you are dead. The effects it has upon your spirit are immediate.

Try it. You’ll like it.

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

Man Didn't Make God

Recently I was relaxing and enjoying watching a relatively successful and very well-done science fiction series about people and true artificially intelligent robots.  One of the main characters asserted that man created Heaven and Hell, God and the Devil to keep everyone else in line.  Holding over their heads the notion that their disobedience could result in an eternal punishment.

This atheist's article of faith is what Karl Marx alluded to when he said that religion is the opiate of the masses.

While it is true that throughout history many people have cynically used religion as a tool to bolster their power over others, the fundamental notion that man invented God is a theory without a single shred of evidence to support it it actually flies in the face of countless evidences which contradict this prideful and hopeless premise.

The fact that those who reject God reject the evidences and witnesses of God does not obliterate those witnesses, rather it shows the lack of rationality of those who reject those witnesses.

Those who say that no one has returned from death to tell us what is on the other side are liars or ignorant of the facts.  I am not talking here about ghosts and phantasms.  I am speaking of the fact that Jesus of Nazareth was publicly put to death and three days later ate food and conversed with people who had seen him die and laid his body in the grave.

But that is not the only person to pass the portal of death and return.  The New Testament (Matthew 27:52, 53) notes that after the resurrection of Jesus:

 "And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose, and came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many."

Note the word "many" which is repeated.  Many arose from the dead and appeared to many people.  So, aside from those who witnessed the resurrection of Jesus many others witnessed the resurrection of many who they knew to have died.

Further, the appearance of Jesus was not limited to just one instance or a few people.  He appeared many times after his crucifixion and at one point (1 Corinthians 15:6) appeared to more than 500 people in one meeting.

In The Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 11) the resurrected Jesus appears, shortly after his death and resurrection, to people gathered in the Americas.  Upwards of 2,000 people were present.

In more recent times we have several people who have testified that they have had dealings with people who were long dead and appeared as resurrected beings.  These include John the Baptist, Peter, James and John the Apostles of Jesus, Moroni, a prophet among God's people in ancient America, Moses, Elias, Elijah, and others.  At the apex of these appearances we have the resurrected Jesus having appeared more than once since 1820.

No rational person could not consider the testimony of so many first-hand witnesses and dismiss them based solely on the power of their own prejudices. 

Further, those who purport, against the evidence, that the concept of God evolved over time, the records show that God revealed himself to Adam, our first father, and again to Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and others.  When they saw God they understood, because He told them, that He is our parent. They could see Him and discern that He and we are of the same species, so we are created in His image.

God put Man on this Earth and did not leave him ignorant of our relationship to Him or His expectations of us.  It is Man who has attempted to reinvent God to be something more of their liking.  Finally coming to the point of a devolution of thought which purports that we created God in our own image and for wholly our own purposes.  Which is to say, there is no god, only Man.

I will concede that good and evil exist independent of God and Satan.  By God's command and design every human being (Man) is an agent unto ourselves and able to choose and act.  Sometimes we choose to do good, sometimes evil. Sometimes we know what we are doing and other times the good or evil that comes from our choices is unintended.

God and Satan each tempt us.  God tempts us to choose to do good.  Satan tempts us to choose to do evil.  When we do either, it is our choice, not the will of God or Satan forcing us to act one way or another.  So, the evil in the world which so many ascribe to the acts of religionists are not the evil acts of God, nor are they the evil acts of Satan.  They are the evil acts of people who followed inclinations of their own.  Inclinations which we are free to indulge in a world where we live with a significant degree of uncertainty regarding the existence of God and Satan, Heaven, and Hell.

It may seem like the safest course is to try to choose the middle ground between these two extremes.  Many who reject God and Satan and religion in general think they are choosing a middle way.  They end up choosing themselves.  They worship themselves and others like them. They put people as their deities and worship at the temples of human government and human institutions.  

Unfortunately, rejecting God is not a middle ground.  Putting yourself, or another human, in the place of God is not a middle ground.  It is opposing God.  It has the net effect of tempting people to reject God.  In this rejection, the temptations of Satan are heeded.  

Satan doesn't need us to worship him to achieve his ends.  He only needs us to reject God.

Notice, I didn't say Satan wins.  Satan doesn't win in any scenario.  He lost when he opposed God before Adam ever walked this Earth.  He and his followers were cast out and lost their opportunities to grow more like God.  They lost the opportunity to fulfill their genetic potential as children of God.

Because of that loss Satan and his hosts are bitter.  They know that they cannot win.  What they want is for you and I to make the same choices they did and cast aside our divine potential.  

God will win.  Those who follow God will win because of His victory and their faith.  

Satan will lose.  Those who reject God will lose, whether or not they embrace Satan.  Inasmuch as they think they are smarter than God they become like Satan and embrace his destiny.

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God

Objectification 101

Some years ago my youngest daughter got a tattoo.  Expressing my disapproval I told her, "people don't put bumper stickers on Ferraris."  She retorted that the only person in her life who had every objectified her was me, when I compared her to a Ferrari.

She was wrong.  I am reasonably certain that every man and boy who ever wanted to bed her objectified her.  Further, she missed the definition of objectification, and so took offense when none was offered.

Objectification happens when a person is reduced to being considered like an object, without thought for their real self, their intelligence, and their feelings.  When a woman (or a man) is objectified as a sex object they are only considered for how their body can be used to gratify the sexual desires of another person, without regard to the needs, feelings, and intelligence of the person being objectified.

Here is the real lesson in Objectification 101 - you can't objectify an object.  

When I compared my daughter's body to a Ferrari, I was referring to the object that is her body and comparing it to another object. A car body.  I was not saying anything about her intelligence, her needs, or her feelings. I was questioning her judgement in how she was using one of the most important objects in her life.  I was making an analogy that points out the fact that when you have a very expensive and valuable object you don't mark it up with graffiti or stickers.  Our bodies are very expensive and valuable objects, but they are objects after all.

The Apostle Paul said that our bodies are temples for the spirit of God and that if we defile that temple God will destroy us. (1 Corinthians 3:17 & 6:19-20).  So, at least as far back as the first century AD it has been understood that our bodies are objects provided for our use by God, and He will hold us accountable for what we do with them.

The confusion conflating making an analogy about our body and objectification of our self arises because most of us identify ourselves too much with our bodies, rather than looking on our bodies for what they are, a home for our spirit and mind.  While it is true that our spirit, mind, and body are intertwined, our body does not truly represent our self.

A body may, like that of Stephen Hawking, be broken, weak, or twisted.  Or, like Arnold Schwarzenegger's be well formed, agile, and muscular.  But, neither the broken body, nor the well-formed one is a reflection of our mind and spirit.  The body is a temporary home for our mortal probation.

The world does its best to conflate our physical appearance with our self, and our self-worth.  Fashion models are worshipped and esteemed because of their bodies, rather than because of any particular intelligence or goodness they manifest.

When I was a young man Kathy Ireland was a world-famous fashion model.  At the time, her fame and fortune was wholly based on the attractiveness of her body.  Many years later I met Kathy Ireland in person.  When I met her I found that she was someone worthy of admiration.  She is a woman of intelligence, integrity, and ingenuity.  She took the monies she earned from her fashion career and turned them into a business empire which she runs.  She invested her money and her intelligence wisely.  Now that she is far beyond competing with young girls for the lustful attentions of the world, her brilliance, and her goodness are evident in both her deeds and her words.  When I met she expressly warned people about the false doctrine of the "prosperity Gospel" which equates righteousness with financial and physical well-being.

Kathy Ireland and Tom Sheppard

After we resurrect our bodies will be glorified and perfected and then they will reflect our true selves.  Until then, our body is an object, a mobile home, a Ferrari in which we travel through this life.

What is more is it is given to us as a loaner, and the true owner will hold us accountable for what we do with it.  God gives us our body, whether it is bent or straight, sickly or healthy, weak or strong.  He gives us a body out of his wisdom and love according to what he sees we need to help us grow more like Him.  Just as He gives us the circumstances of our life.  

When life is over we will face him again with all the bandages of self-deception ripped away and we will account to Him for what use we made of what He provided us.  

He won't judge us for the objects in our life.  Our physical frailties won't define us.  What we did with what He gave us will define us.  Did we trash it, hide it away, or do our best to use it well and honorably until it was no longer in our grasp?

Most of our world is comprised of objects.  Our bodies are objects.  Our minds, our feelings, our thoughts, our intentions, our imaginations, our will, those are not objects.  Those are the powers inherent in us that we apply to the objects in our life to shape and change the world.   

See Tom's political views on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/TomSheppardPoliticalViews/
Follow Tom on Twitter: @ThomasKSheppard

Tom Sheppard is a business consultant and coach to small business owners and individuals. He is a recognized author with dozens of titles in business and fiction to his credit. One of his endeavors is to help those who want to see their own book in print. He does this through his trademarked Book Whispering Process (TM).

The author is not an official spokesperson for any organization or person mentioned herein.

(c) Copyright 2020 A+ Results LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Your comments are welcome... Please observe some ground rules. No profanity, vulgarity, or personal attacks. Profanity, vulgarity and personal attacks not only betray a lack of vocabulary and imagination, they also are the hallmarks of bigotry, and bigotry is the hallmark of someone who is fundamentally insecure in their views. Facts are always welcome.

If you believe Government is NOT the answer to all our problems, you will want to read
 Godvernment: Government as God