If there's anything we celebrate ...it's our freedom, and we want more of it.

But, speaking of ingenuity, innovation ...and add to it ideology, we are not to invent a whole new way of looking at life.

Sure, we can take a small idea and build upon it ...in some ways, that drive to improve things has made us what we are today. It's called the free market system, and just up until a few years ago we have looked at it as a good thing. But, ideas have to be mostly good to have good society.

We celebrate Independence Day, or the 4th of July as it is more popularly known as ...but we should not be totally independent, especially from God.

Another person who lived in the 1800's was Ambrose Bierce. He fought in many battles during the Civil War ...and some of his heroics included rescuing a wounded comrade while under fire. He was very brave and very intelligent, yet his view on life did not seem inclusive of any eternal benefit to him.  He viewed prayer as: Asking that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf of a single petitioner confessed as unworthy.  And he viewed faith as: Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge about things without parallel.

Looking at prayer, I don't ask that the laws of the universe be annulled ...as the laws are actually not parameters which God must work within, but rather the workings of the universe that God has set up as constants.  We call them laws, but they are actually allowances that create an order to our benefit ...as God constantly cares for us.  I don't expect God to stop the planetary motions or for gravity to no longer function. I like to know the sun will appear every morning, and that we will not suddenly float up into space.  Though sometimes our thoughts do float up there.

And as faith goes, I believe there is way more evidence that God exists than any evidence that anyone can put forth that He doesn't.  And I admit that I don't have much knowledge, but I value wisdom more.  It appears to me that one does better to admit not knowing much ...than to try to make it all up, while all the time ignoring the one source by which we could obtain what we really need.

Those who fail to embrace the truth, seem too often to desperately cling to another 'I' ...inaccuracies.