Mark's Views, Perhaps — from behind my eyeballs
Generally, by Fall we’re done with gardening here in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. And we certainly don’t plant our vegetables and tomatoes now.
But my boxed quote above isn’t about autumn crops. Read it all
Facts do not flex and will not stretch. Not for your preferences or your convenience. Not for your interpretation, your slant, or your opinion. Not even for your feelings. And certainly not for your agenda.
If you “adjust” facts with any of those, you no longer have facts.
If you want facts to remain facts, you have to stick to the facts.
I get very exercised when people present their interpretations, surmisings, and opinions as facts. So the following really clicked for me:
Facts first, then opinions. With God, facts and opinion are one and the same. There’s no slippage between the two in His marvelous, omniscient mind.
But with us mortals, there’s a whole spectrum ranging from what the Bible tells us is true, to what we think may or may not be the case, to what we know we don’t know. There’s nothing wrong with speculations along the middle of that spectrum. But things get dangerous when folks can no longer discern which category they’re thinking in—when they start treating facts and opinions as if they were interchangeable. If we want people to pay attention to our opinions, we should start by being careful with our facts. If you’re sloppy with your facts, why should anybody trust your opinions?
Sloppy with the facts — that’s just such a great way to put it.
So is this: “treating facts and opinions as if they were interchangeable.”
And I am so blessed at this realization: in the mind of God there is no slippage between facts and opinion. That is so amazing!
When anyone reports to me what happened or what was said, I want him to be faithful to the facts. I want to trust the accuracy of his report. I hate mistrusting others.
For myself, I hereby renew my commitment to truth, accuracy, and faithfulness. I throw my lot with the One who is the way, the truth, and the life. I reject the ways of the deceiver and father of lies whose seduction of Eve went so “well.”
My OregonLive RSS feed showed a dramatic helicopter rescue story. I like helicopters and Depoe Bay, so I clicked.
I looked at the photo and thought, “That rock sure looks like one I’ve climbed various times over the decades. That’s got to be at Fogarty Creek!”
Sure enough: Read it all
Quote background: Serving Without Expecting Reward
If you start feeling like I’m conditioning our friendship on your 100% compliance with my wishes, please let me know.
In fact, let me know if such conditioning reaches even 20%.
I don’t want to be that kind of friend. Read it all
Here are five good reasons to give it away for free today and tomorrow: Read it all
I saw this breaking on Drudge earlier, but he’s still linking back to his home page:
Makers of surveillance systems are offering governments across the world the ability to track the movements of almost anybody who carries a cellphone, whether they are blocks away or on another continent.
The technology works by exploiting an essential fact of all cellular networks: They must keep detailed, up-to-the-minute records on the locations of their customers to deliver calls and other services to them. Surveillance systems are secretly collecting these records to map people’s travels over days, weeks or longer, according to company marketing documents and experts in surveillance technology.
For sale: Systems that can secretly track where cellphone users go around the globe
And just so you know, your cell provider has been able to do this from day one. Read it all