Sorry to keep you waiting, but I had some problems installing this document. I just love CD-RW writers that don't write and readers that don't read. Oh well, here's the first installment of Re-Intro.

WHY AM I HERE AND WHO IN HELL CARES?

A few years ago, I was working out at my favorite workout place, the Aztec Recreation Center at San Diego State University. My wife Gail and I were enjoying some of the stairmaster exercise machines and running machines (used to be called treadmills), and getting a good workout afterward on abdominal crunches. I was also enjoying, while on the stairmaster, the three things I liked most about the ARC, as it is commonly known: watching NBA basketball on one of the TV monitors, admiring the many drop-dead gorgeous ladies who work out there (which includes Gail, which is a very good thing—especially since she’s the only one I will ever even touch, much less sleep with!), and reading the university newspaper, the Daily Aztec.

On this particular day, I was reading one of the student columnists’ weekly article. Most of these would-be practitioners of the art of journalistic bombast would express views which would make an avowed right-wing conservative like me normally aghast, but I like reading their articles for the enrichment of reading other points of view. But this particular young man was expressing some ideas that were disturbing to me, which is usually what happens when someone poses an argument for which I don’t have an immediate response.

This young columnist stated, first, that he did not believe in God, but that he was not an atheist. He also said that he was not an agnostic, a doubter, either. Okay, I thought, he was a guy who just didn’t care, and just decided to disbelieve because he simply didn’t want to be bothered. But then, he pulled the unique surprise. The columnist said that he simply believed in insignificance, that to believe in God, believe affirmatively in no god, or to simply assert that he did not know if God or a god exists is based upon the notion that human beings have significance in themselves, and that the issue of the existence of God or gods gave a framework to that significance. He said that we are not significant, that we were no different than any other species, and that the notion that we were significant was itself arrogant, and that the search for “truth, meaning, God, whatever” was based upon that arrogance. According to this young man, we all should accept that we are insignificant, not get into despair over it, and just fill our place as cogs in the big wheel of life.

I felt truly sorrowful for that young man, because I knew that some kind of pain had made him desire so publicly to be unimportant and pull everyone else into the same boat as he. And I couldn’t simply talk about how utterly without love or hope or relationships he would be with that view of life, he would simply say that the rejection would be solely the problem of everyone else, based upon their misguided notion of significance.

Now I know that the vast majority of us don’t have such a bizarre view of ourselves and our place in this hundreds-of-millions-of-light-years-long universe. We just say we believe, (93-96% of us in the USA), and simply move on. But the young columnist in the story I told you brings up a massively important issue, one that demands attention. “Do I have value? Who decides if I do? Do I count in this universe? Is anyone noticing that I’m around? When I die, will the fact that I lived matter to anyone?” And those are fair questions. It is like the title of this chapter, “Why am I here and who the hell cares?” Because the truth is, most of us in this high-tech, highly-crowded, increasingly impersonal world where family relationships and love relationships and business relationships, etc. are commonly substituted like spare parts to an automobile, live our lives with what Henry David Theoreu called, “lives of quiet desperation.” Another acquaintance of mine, popular speaker Dick Mills, calls it “normal depression.”

If we don’t matter, then let’s get honest and admit it. But if we’re beings with unique significance, where is there the logic to bear it out? And who is the being or beings who decides? It’s fair to decide all that in one swoop, because who decides what value we have, if any, has a lot to say about what kind of beings people, or, for that matter, all living beings really are.

I’m not going to kid you. I believe that the beginning and end of all existence, all reality in the universe, lies solely in one being---the Christian God of the Bible. But I had darn well be prepared to demonstrate not only whether there is meaning in the universe, but whether the nature of the universe fits the value that this God places upon us, and whether the reality of the universe fits the personality of the God displayed to us in the pages of the Bible.

More to come tomorrow.

There's a lot to say, but it's after 5 am. I'll post my first installment later. Bye for now. God bless.

This is the first installment of my work, Re-Intro. I'll discuss it later with you. I hope it will cause provoked discussion of the things I talk about.

We love you all, as Christians say, "No strings attached."

Hi. It's time for me to start posting. As soon as I can get my CD disk, with the documents and articles that I want to start using, I'll start upgrading and publishing. It will be, I promise, a lot of work. But I am determined to use this as a way to finally carry out what I've been preparing myself to start doing for almost 7 years. But I know that, in truth, I need to talk a little bit about what I feel, what really drives me to work as hard as I do.

The real fact is, I truly believe that people are a lot more open-minded than they sometimes will appear to those around them. When someone like me comes along, desiring to challenge them to think "outside the box," what they don't want is someone who insults them, and their intelligence. They don't like to be treated as if their time-honored traditions, their beliefs, their learning and experiences are meaningless, like someone like me just holds their whole life in contempt.

I have no apologies for what I believe. I am convinced, more than I am convinced that I live and breathe, that Jesus IS the one true and living God. I believe that He is the ultimate source of truth, and worthwhile life, both in this world and after death. But I know also that most of those who will come here won't share that certainty, that faith. So, what do I do? Ignoring my friends and others who would visit this webblog is cowardly, trying to coerce or browbeat them into accepting my faith is no way to gain a fair hearing for my cause.

So, there are two main things coming up in Re-Intro: 1) an orderly attempt to convince everyone of the truth of Jesus as God, and master of all things; and 2) an effort to be a friend to everyone, no strings attached. I'll be offering more to you in the next few days. God bless.

Hi. I'm Floyd. I'll be visiting with you for awhile. I'm starting with this webblog, called Re-Intro.com, on Easter Sunday. As you'll see, it's an appropriate day to start this blog, which is dedicated to re-introducing Jesus of Nazereth to people who are not Christian, but who would like very much to take another look at him, or who would like to do it for the first time. This is not a religious blog--not at all. We don't endeavor to defend religious institutions--they are, unfortunately, been a big problem to the world, way too often. However, if you want to come and just be on the attack against the deeply-held personal faith of individuals, this may not be the place for you, either. This is a place for people to talk rationally, calmly, honestly, and openly, about the most influential and most controversial and revolutionary figure that will ever come along.

The bottom line is, as you'll see, this blog is about being spiritual, not religious. I hope that you'll like what you see. I think that you will. See you soon.