The voice of one crying out in the wilderness… H.E.Miller is a rock musician, singer, songwriter, recording artist, philosopher, theologian, social commentator.
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Monday, October 25, 2010
Music video for H.E.Miller’s song 'Miracle' is up on his YouTube channel
Check out the Video for H.E.Miller’s song 'Miracle' from his rock music CD ‘Apocalyptic Dreams’, on his YouTube channel.
Trash Can Magazine wrote:
"Apocalyptic Dreams, a strongly-thematic concept album that tackles religion and the end times in the 21st century, is a statement in itself in today’s post-album music world. For a debut garage rock album to be precisely conceived, so carefully executed, is both shocking and inspiring. " http://bit.ly/9gkG37
-H.E.Miller www.ApocalypticDreams.com
Thursday, October 21, 2010
How to choose a political party, and know if they’re telling the truth: “By their fruits you will know them”
It’s basic human nature to assume that you can trust what someone tells you. But when it comes to politics one needs to be careful to not automatically accept at face value what members of a political party say they stand for. Political parties routinely accuse each other of being dishonest, so how do you know who’s telling the truth? Fortunately there is a way, and it is this: “By their fruits you will know them.” (Matthew 7:16).
That passage is from the Sermon on the Mount, at the point where Jesus warned of false prophets being “wolves in sheep’s clothing”. By comparing a deceptive prophet to a bad fruit tree he gave us a way to know if they are being untruthful, which is “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit.” (Matthew 7:18).
That analogy can also be applied to politics, in which case the politician is the ‘tree’. While it’s debatable in the case of false prophets whether their ‘fruits’ are their works or their prophecies, undoubtedly the fruits of politicians are their policies.
Now in choosing a political party to support, there are two major considerations: 1) is the party being truthful about what they stand for, and 2) does the party have your best interests at heart in terms of promoting policies that support what is important to you.
Only you can determine what’s in your own best interests and what is important to you. For example, do you believe the government should take an active role in helping those of its citizens that are less economically fortunate than others, fight for equal rights, protect the environment, and regulate corporations to prevent economic meltdowns? Or, do you value money and material possessions above all else, believe it should be ‘every man for himself’, and believe that government should be limited mainly to fighting wars and enacting policies that favor those of its citizens that already have the most? These are some of things that people consider to be their own best interests, and the politicians of opposing parties may profess to support.
But the question is, how do you know if a political party is telling the truth about what they really stand for? Well, ‘by their fruits you will know them”.
Consider the following examples regarding one issue, the well being of the middle class:
1) Party A and Party B both say they care about the strength of the middle class. But when Party B tried to enact legislation to extend unemployment benefits during a recent major economic downturn, Party A fought diligently to prevent the legislation from passing and as a result many families went hungry, lost homes, etc., until Party B finally prevailed. Which party really cares about the middle class? By their fruits you will know them.
2) Party A and Party B both say they want a fair system of taxation. Party A enacted 10 years of tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefitted the wealthiest citizens and corporations, while offering a relative pittance to the citizens of the middle class. (Coincidentally, during those same 10 years, the wealthiest citizens got even richer while the average middle class family saw its income stagnate or decline). After those 10 years, when Party B tried to let the tax cuts expire for the wealthiest 5% but leave the tax cuts in place for 90% of its citizens (the middle class) Party A fought diligently to stop it from happening, attempting to keep in place the grossly disproportionate tax breaks for the wealthy (and also claimed falsely that Party B was trying to raise taxes on everyone). Which party cares more about the middle class? Which party favors the wealthy? By their fruits you will know them.
3) Party A believes that outsourcing manufacturing and high-tech jobs, thereby putting millions of their fellow citizens out of work, is a good thing for the economy. When Party B tried to enact legislation to encourage companies to create jobs here at home and end tax breaks for companies that outsource and ship jobs overseas, Party A fought diligently and prevented its passing. Who really cares about the middle class? By their fruits you will know them.
The above examples surround just one of many issues to consider in choosing a political party to support, but the same logical process can be followed for any issue. That is, to listen to the rhetoric of the political parties, and then evaluate not only if their policies truly reflect what they say they stand for, but also if they really have your best interests at heart.
Remember this: “By their fruits you will know them.”
Video One-Sheet for H.E.Miller’s rock music CD ‘Apocalyptic Dreams’ is up on his YouTube channel
Check out the Video One-Sheet for H.E.Miller’s rock music CD ‘Apocalyptic Dreams’, on his YouTube channel:
‘Apocalyptic Dreams’ is a unique blend of high-intensity classic rock/punk that’s been called theological rock.
Bob at CDBaby.com wrote: “Great forward thinking rock; This record screams out hi-energy rock. From the start of the record until the end you are taken on a journey that not only excites the imagination but pleases the very center of your rock and roll being. If you don’t own this record you are doing yourself an injustice!”
-H.E.Miller www.ApocalypticDreams.com
Why the Public should be skeptical about the newly found ‘Earth-like’ planet Gliese 581 G
In September, 2010 the scientific community made the announcement that it had found an Earth-like planet in a far away solar system in the Milky Way galaxy, and implied that the probability of life existing there is extremely high. Immediately the media trumpeted this to the general public as fact, complete with spectacular graphical depictions. There are a few problems with this. First, no one has actually seen this planet, but now there’s a perception in the general public that someone has. Second, the techniques used by scientists to ‘discover’ this planet are so obscure that if the general public were aware of them they might be more skeptical about the whole thing.
But finding an actual explanation of the process scientists used to ‘discover’ this planet and determine that it is ‘earthlike’ is extremely difficult. What I did manage to find is this: “The discovery was made using radial velocity measurements combining 11 years of data from the HIRES instrument of the Keck 1 telescope and the HARPS instrument of ESO’s 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory” (Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581_g).
On further research, I found that the HIRES instrument (High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer) breaks up incoming starlight into its component colors to measure the precise intensity of each of thousands of color channels, and The HARPS instrument (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) uses Doppler Spectroscopy to detect if the light from a star indicates that it is wobbling. The theory is that if a star is wobbling it must be caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet ‘tugging’ on the star. The star, Gliese 581, is around 20 light years from earth (that’s about 117,572,507,463,660 miles).
So, in as plain words as possible, the entire assumption that the ‘earthlike’ planet Gliese 581G exists is based on scientists trusting the accuracy of the radio telescopes and the HARPS/HIRES instruments to provide flawless data on the behavior of the light from a distant star that took 20 years to reach us, in order to ascertain that the star has a virtually imperceptible wobble, and assuming based on this data that it does, to then make the further assumption that the wobble is caused by a planet that cannot be seen. And then based on those assumptions, scientists claim that the distance this new planet is from its star gives it a high probability that it is like Earth in that it has all the right conditions to support life.
To me, those are a lot of (potentially flawed) assumptions and therefore I am skeptical of the claim that this even planet exists.
Now, I am someone who supports scientific discovery, and I’m not saying that I think the scientific community is wrong about the Gliese 581G planet. What I am saying is that the general public should not automatically accept as fact what the scientific community presents to them, without being made aware of the basis from which the scientific community is making these assumptions. And the Media has a responsibility to not just automatically sensationalize what the scientific community tells them, but to research the processes that were used in making these discoveries and effectively communicate that information to the general public.
One more caveat: Another reason why the scientific community and the media need to make more of an effort to disclose the basis for these discoveries is that sometimes the nature of the discoveries themselves can cause a rift between the religious community and scientific community by potentially challenging long-held beliefs about the universe from a religious perspective (for example that we may be unique and therefore special in the universe). I believe that the religious community should be open to considering these discoveries, but it is critical that the scientific community and the media provide all of the details regarding the processes and techniques that the scientific community used as the basis of their assumptions, so that a well educated public can decide for themselves if they believe it is fact.
-H.E.Miller http://www.ApocalypticDreams.com
But finding an actual explanation of the process scientists used to ‘discover’ this planet and determine that it is ‘earthlike’ is extremely difficult. What I did manage to find is this: “The discovery was made using radial velocity measurements combining 11 years of data from the HIRES instrument of the Keck 1 telescope and the HARPS instrument of ESO’s 3.6m telescope at La Silla Observatory” (Ref: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gliese_581_g).
On further research, I found that the HIRES instrument (High Resolution Echelle Spectrometer) breaks up incoming starlight into its component colors to measure the precise intensity of each of thousands of color channels, and The HARPS instrument (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) uses Doppler Spectroscopy to detect if the light from a star indicates that it is wobbling. The theory is that if a star is wobbling it must be caused by the gravitational pull of an orbiting planet ‘tugging’ on the star. The star, Gliese 581, is around 20 light years from earth (that’s about 117,572,507,463,660 miles).
So, in as plain words as possible, the entire assumption that the ‘earthlike’ planet Gliese 581G exists is based on scientists trusting the accuracy of the radio telescopes and the HARPS/HIRES instruments to provide flawless data on the behavior of the light from a distant star that took 20 years to reach us, in order to ascertain that the star has a virtually imperceptible wobble, and assuming based on this data that it does, to then make the further assumption that the wobble is caused by a planet that cannot be seen. And then based on those assumptions, scientists claim that the distance this new planet is from its star gives it a high probability that it is like Earth in that it has all the right conditions to support life.
To me, those are a lot of (potentially flawed) assumptions and therefore I am skeptical of the claim that this even planet exists.
Now, I am someone who supports scientific discovery, and I’m not saying that I think the scientific community is wrong about the Gliese 581G planet. What I am saying is that the general public should not automatically accept as fact what the scientific community presents to them, without being made aware of the basis from which the scientific community is making these assumptions. And the Media has a responsibility to not just automatically sensationalize what the scientific community tells them, but to research the processes that were used in making these discoveries and effectively communicate that information to the general public.
One more caveat: Another reason why the scientific community and the media need to make more of an effort to disclose the basis for these discoveries is that sometimes the nature of the discoveries themselves can cause a rift between the religious community and scientific community by potentially challenging long-held beliefs about the universe from a religious perspective (for example that we may be unique and therefore special in the universe). I believe that the religious community should be open to considering these discoveries, but it is critical that the scientific community and the media provide all of the details regarding the processes and techniques that the scientific community used as the basis of their assumptions, so that a well educated public can decide for themselves if they believe it is fact.
-H.E.Miller http://www.ApocalypticDreams.com
On Apocalyptic TV, RevGen and the Angel of Light
A few things were going on a couple of weeks ago that are prime examples what’s wrong with the world today. First, the History Channel was airing a series of ‘Apocalyptic’ shows, i.e. in-depth analysis of biblical predictions of the end of the world and speculation that this could be happening in our time. I have no idea how many people out there believe it, but apparently the History Channel thinks a lot of people might. I happen to be of the mindset that it is true; or it’s as much of a coincidence as ever that the problems the world is experiencing today really do fit the abstractions described in the book of Revelation (aka ‘The Apocalypse’).
The second thing is that there’s this yearly Christian oriented rock music festival called ‘Revelation Generation’ (or RevGen) that was going on a few weeks ago, and I really should have been there – not as a spectator but as a performer. You see, I’m a rock musician/recording artist with some extremely relevant things to say on that topic, but nobody from that community seems to know or care that I’m here. The problem is that today’s Christian oriented music scene is just as worldly as the non-Christian music scene, with its superstars having all the power of the world behind them… Their music sounds just the same as non-Christian rock only with some spiritual references thrown in; but even so, it doesn’t say what needs to be said if you truly believe that the book of Revelation is speaking of our time. Remember, Satan will come as an Angel of Light (I’ll have more on that in future posts).
-H.E.Miller www.ApocalypticDreams.com
The second thing is that there’s this yearly Christian oriented rock music festival called ‘Revelation Generation’ (or RevGen) that was going on a few weeks ago, and I really should have been there – not as a spectator but as a performer. You see, I’m a rock musician/recording artist with some extremely relevant things to say on that topic, but nobody from that community seems to know or care that I’m here. The problem is that today’s Christian oriented music scene is just as worldly as the non-Christian music scene, with its superstars having all the power of the world behind them… Their music sounds just the same as non-Christian rock only with some spiritual references thrown in; but even so, it doesn’t say what needs to be said if you truly believe that the book of Revelation is speaking of our time. Remember, Satan will come as an Angel of Light (I’ll have more on that in future posts).
-H.E.Miller www.ApocalypticDreams.com
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