50,000 Views!

I've passed a milestone with my blog this week; since my first post on October 19, 2007, I've had 50,000 views of my blog! Now, you might notice that counter at the bottom still shows less than 37,000 but I didn't install that counter until quite a while after I started blogging. The number I'm using for the official number of visits comes from Blogger's official stats. So let's pop the proverbial champagne!

Over the last four years, I've had visitors from every continent including Antarctica. I especially like knowing that I've had visitors from China, countries in the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, and many other places where it might be difficult to reach people with a Christian message.

For those who might be curious, here are my top five posts with the most page views of all time:

Koala's on the Ark (5,500+ page views). This is not only the most visited – it's the most visited by far. It's actually the pictures that get found the most often. If you do a Google search on Koalas, it's one of the first pics you'll find. I admit the little bugger is cute. This is also one of the few posts that has 2 pics in it so it doubles my chances of being found in a search (maybe that's a clue). People visit for the pictures but hopefully they stay for the content.

Misquoted Bible Verses (2,400+ page views). If you do a Google search for “misquoted Bible verses,” (not an uncommon search) this blog post currently appears as number 4. The pic gets almost no hits in searches but I think it's funny so I keep it. This post has the distinction of always having been among my top 10 read posts each week since I first posted it. There's also a funny anecdote about it: I once bumped into someone online once who asked, “are you the same RKBentley who wrote the post about misquoted Bible verses?” She had found my post on Google the night before and then we met online. What are the odds? I guess one might say it's a small cyber-world.

Answering the 10 Questions Every Christian Must Answer: Part 3 (2,100+ page views). This post is often found using the phrase “starving children” in a Google image search. It's also commonly found by people searching “10 questions every Christian must answer.” I did an 8 part series in response to the popular, atheist video and the whole series gets a fair amount of traffic. The added hits on the image search kicks this post up to the #3 spot.

The Evolutionist's Empty Demand For Evidence (1,700+ page views). This gets a lot of hits from an image search on “evidence.” Also, when I post on Yahoo! Answers, I use this post as a usual answer.

Revelation 17: Is the Harlot of Babylon the Catholic Church? (1,500+ page views). Apparently a lot of people ask this question. Depending on how the question is worded by the user, my blog will usually appear on the first page of a Google search. The image gets a lot of hits as well.

It's been a long road and there were more than a few times I almost gave up completely. Looking back, though, I'm glad I didn't. Like anything else, it's gets easier with practice. When I first started tracking page visits, I was happy to get about 10-15 per day. Every once in a while, though, I would get a spike of 25, 30, or maybe even 50 or more visits. You would think that would be a good thing but it was the spikes that began to make me unhappy with my blog traffic. If I could get 50 visits in one day, then why can't I get 50 visits every day?

It was when I installed the Statcounter widget on my blog that I really began to see how my visitors found my blog. With this knowledge, it was a simple step to begin doing more of the things that brought visitors. It was little things, really. Instead of using clever (or attempts at clever) titles for my posts, I began using phrases that people might actually search for. A lot of people found my blog during an image search so now I try to include an image with every post. And of course, the more posts I made, the more chances it gave me for people to find me and land somewhere on my blog during their search.

As you can see from the screen shot, I had over 3,700 page views last month alone which averages well over 100 per day. At that rate, it's not going to take 4½ years for the next 50,000 but I expect the rate to continue to rise. I'm closing in on 150 views every day but I'd like to double that by this time next year. Four years from now, I'd like to be celebrating 1,000,000 page views!

It's nice to know my posts are being read, however, I'm not doing this for my own glory. In another forum, I use the tag line, ταῦτα γράφω ἵνα πιστευὴτε – “I write these things so that you might believe.” I want to take the gospel into all the world. I want to win the lost and equip the saints. I want to do my small part in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Thanks to all who visit. Keep visiting. Keep commenting. Feel free to cut and paste any part of my blog. Link me to your friends. Tell your atheist acquaintances about this crazy creationist who has a blog. And above everything else, keep me in your prayers.

God bless!!

RKBentley

The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere

Many people aren't aware that today is the anniversary of the famous ride of Paul Revere. When British troops moved from Boston to seize rebel weapon stores in Concord and to arrest Samuel Adams and John Hancock in Lexington, Revere rode ahead of them to alert the local militia and to warn Adams and Hancock. I was going to publish the Longfellow poem describing the event but it's a little too long. You can read the entire poem here but I've edited it down a little and included most of it below:

Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.

He said to his friend, "If the British march
By land or sea from the town to-night,
Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry arch
Of the North Church tower as a signal light,--
One if by land, and two if by sea;
And I on the opposite shore will be,
Ready to ride and spread the alarm
Through every Middlesex village and farm,
For the country folk to be up and to arm."

Then he said "Good-night!" and with muffled oar
Silently rowed to the Charlestown shore,
Just as the moon rose over the bay,
Where swinging wide at her moorings lay
The Somerset, British man-of-war;
A phantom ship, with each mast and spar
Across the moon like a prison bar,
And a huge black hulk, that was magnified
By its own reflection in the tide.

Meanwhile, his friend through alley and street
Wanders and watches, with eager ears,
Till in the silence around him he hears
The muster of men at the barrack door,
The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,
And the measured tread of the grenadiers,
Marching down to their boats on the shore.

Then he climbed the tower of the Old North Church,
By the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,
To the belfry chamber overhead,
And startled the pigeons from their perch
On the sombre rafters, that round him made
Masses and moving shapes of shade,--
By the trembling ladder, steep and tall,
To the highest window in the wall,
Where he paused to listen and look down
A moment on the roofs of the town
And the moonlight flowing over all.

Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the dead,
In their night encampment on the hill,
Wrapped in silence so deep and still
That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,
The watchful night-wind, as it went
Creeping along from tent to tent,
And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"
A moment only he feels the spell
Of the place and the hour, and the secret dread
Of the lonely belfry and the dead;
For suddenly all his thoughts are bent
On a shadowy something far away,
Where the river widens to meet the bay,--
A line of black that bends and floats
On the rising tide like a bridge of boats.

Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,
Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride
On the opposite shore walked Paul Revere.
Now he patted his horse's side,
Now he gazed at the landscape far and near,
Then, impetuous, stamped the earth,
And turned and tightened his saddle girth;
But mostly he watched with eager search
The belfry tower of the Old North Church,
As it rose above the graves on the hill,
Lonely and spectral and sombre and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height
A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!
He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,
But lingers and gazes, till full on his sight
A second lamp in the belfry burns.

A hurry of hoofs in a village street,
A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,
And beneath, from the pebbles, in passing, a spark
Struck out by a steed flying fearless and fleet;
That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,
The fate of a nation was riding that night;
And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,
Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
He has left the village and mounted the steep,
And beneath him, tranquil and broad and deep,
Is the Mystic, meeting the ocean tides;
And under the alders that skirt its edge,
Now soft on the sand, now loud on the ledge,
Is heard the tramp of his steed as he rides.

It was two by the village clock,
When he came to the bridge in Concord town.
He heard the bleating of the flock,
And the twitter of birds among the trees,
And felt the breath of the morning breeze
Blowing over the meadow brown.
And one was safe and asleep in his bed
Who at the bridge would be first to fall,
Who that day would be lying dead,
Pierced by a British musket ball.

You know the rest. In the books you have read
How the British Regulars fired and fled,---
How the farmers gave them ball for ball,
From behind each fence and farmyard wall,
Chasing the redcoats down the lane,
Then crossing the fields to emerge again
Under the trees at the turn of the road,
And only pausing to fire and load.

So through the night rode Paul Revere;
And so through the night went his cry of alarm
To every Middlesex village and farm,---
A cry of defiance, and not of fear,
A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,
And a word that shall echo for evermore!
For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,
Through all our history, to the last,
In the hour of darkness and peril and need,
The people will waken and listen to hear
The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,
And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

It was the next morning, when the militia engaged the British regulars, that the famous "shot heard round the world" was fired.  Longfellow's poem is not entirely accurate in its details but it is stirring nonetheless. You can read Paul Revere's own description of the event here.

A “Fair” Alternative to the Buffett Rule

With Obama having very little to show for his first term in office, his strategy for reelection seems to be promoting tax “fairness.” The one and only plank in his tax fairness platform is the so-called “Buffett Rule” which is new type of alternative minimum tax that will require people who earn more than $1,000,000 per year to pay the same tax rate as “everyone else.” It's a nice sounding soundbite but it's a strategy that would be hard to execute.

First off, nearly ½ of the people in the US pay NO federal income taxes at all. So why should I take seriously any claim that it's millionaires who aren't paying their fair share? After all, even 10% of $1,000,000 is infinitely more than 100% of nothing. If we're aiming for fairness, it's those people who pay nothing who aren't paying their fair share. The millionaires are paying for many of the benefits that the free-loaders are using. The Occupy Movement should be happy they have it so good. Instead, they whine about needing more. They now want the 1% to pay for their college, their health care, and even their homes. I guess by “fair” they mean someone else should pay their bills.

When the President talks about fairness, he's not talking about the 50% that pay no taxes. He's talking about the rate that millionaires pay compared to the rate that middle class workers pay. According to the President, if someone makes $1,000,000 per year, he should pay at least 30% of his income in taxes. Hmmm. What about people who make $900,000 per year? Is is OK if they only pay, say, 20% when millionaires are paying 30%?

When Mr. Obama released his tax returns for 2011, we saw that he actually paid a lower rate than his secretary (source). White House spokesperson Amy Brundage said of Obama's return, “[this] is exactly why we need to reform our tax code and ask the wealthiest to pay their fair share.” That's odd. The Buffett rule would not have made a difference for the President since his income was less than $1,000,000.

In the US, we use marginal tax rates. Otherwise, a person who makes exactly $1,000,000 in one year would net less after taxes than someone who made $995,000. The way marginal tax rates work is that as people make more and more money, they enter progressively higher tax brackets and pay a larger percentage of taxes only on the amount they earn in the higher brackets. It's a rather cumbersome system but that's the way it works.

Liberals have taken advantage of the tax code to engage in social engineering. This way, they can entice people into buying an electric car, for example, by giving tax subsidies to people who buy them. With so many pages in the tax code, numerous tax credits, tax deductions, and loop holes, people in the higher tax brackets never pay taxes on their entire income.

The purpose of taxes is to raise money for the government but liberals don't give a whit about revenue. Even if passed, the Buffett Rule would only raise about .43% (less than half of one percent) of our current deficit. Democrats are trumpeting the Buffett Rule only out of some absurd sense of “fairness.” It will not address out of control spending. It will not create jobs. It doesn't do anything except punish millionaires and give the President something to run on besides his failed domestic policies. It's class warfare at its worst.

If tax fairness is the objective, then I have an even more “fair” alternative to the Buffett Rule. Let's do away with all tax deductions, tax credits, and tax loop holes, then go to a flat tax of 15%. This way, millionaires and billionaires pay the same as their secretaries; middle class workers will pay less taxes; and all those people who don't pay any taxes will finally end up paying their fair share.

What could be more fair than that?

So This is the “Real” Theory of Abiogenesis, Eh?

I've written before about the 7 Guesses on the Origin of Life. On another occasion, I wrote about scientists excitement of finding amino acids on meteors. I've talked about abiogenesis many times on my blog. The simple fact of the matter is that scientists really have no evidence showing how the supposed first life form began. Every so-called “theory” they have is conjecture. Actually, even conjecture is too generous a word – it's really story telling. They're making up possible scenarios about how life could come from non-life but, thus far, they haven't thought of any that actually work.

In light of their long history of failed guesses about abiogenesis, evolutionists are left with no other alternative than to criticize creationists for bringing it up. The usual claim is that abiogenesis has nothing to do with evolution. Another tactic they sometimes take is to make a straw man out of the creationists views of abiogenesis. This cartoon (I'm not going to dignify it by saying it's a graph) compares the “Creationist idea of abiogenesis” to the “Real theory of abiogenesis.”

Now, I always try my best to keep up with evolution in the news but I must have missed something. Since when do scientists have a “real theory” about abiogenesis? Did they take a vote on this or something?  It sounds more than a little presumptuous to say this is somehow the "real" theory when there are some many competing theories being tossed about by scientists.  It's even more ridiculous when you consider that we haven't yet discovered a successful pathway from non-living chemicals to life.  How can they even claim this is the path the first cells must have taken?

Obviously, they're being a little loose with the word “theory” again (something they usually complain about creationists doing). It's simply just another “guess.” Ah, but this is the “real” guess. It even says so in the title! This is not the ridiculous “idea” held by creationists! And even though there is not one shred of evidence for their guess of abiogenesis, it's still the “scientific” model because... well, because it's not the view held by creationists!

Sometimes it's difficult to take evolutionists seriously. Just where do they get off saying this is the "real" theory of abiogenesis?  They usually make bad arguments but I can see they're at least sincere most of the time. When they make illustrations like this, though, I'm not sure they're even sincere. Oh, let's face it – they're not being sincere. When they invent things like this, they're just plain lying.