I haven’t posted anything recently.  Like I said in my first post, I don’t know where this blog will go (if it goes anywhere at all) and that we’ll have to see what God’s will is.  Now, one could say that because I haven’t been able to post, it is not God’s will for me to be blogging at this time.  But my friend Trey Edwards has frequently told me whenever I talk about a difficult task that the task is a “Hard Thing”, meaning a challenge (most of my readers will know what I’m talking about when I say “Hard Thing”, but for those who do not, go to TheRebelution.com)  So my question for you is this: How can we tell when a difficulty is a challenge, or when it is God telling us that something is not his will?

Should one vote for the man that one agrees with, or the man who’s more likely to win?  It seems like a silly question – just agree with the man you agree with, right?  But nothing is that simple.  Let me explain why this is such an important question in light of this year’s presidential election.

John McCain is the Republican nominee for the presidential race.  The problem is, because he is closer to the political center (as compared to the conservative right or the liberal left), there are many conservatives who don’t agree with his ideas and policies.  But what should a conservative do in this situation?

Well McCain and Obama aren’t the only candidates in the race; a conservative can find someone who’s beliefs are closer to their own.  An example is Bob Barr – the Libertarian nominee.  Also, there’s always a number of independent candidates.  You can even write in Ron Paul’s name if you want to (as I expect several to do).  But it’s unlikely that those people will win. In fact, this would probably just take votes away from McCain, making it more likely for Obama to win.

So back to the original question: should one vote for the man that one agrees with, or the man who’s more likely to win?  One might say that one should stick with one’s principles by voting for someone who’s less well known, but agrees with one’s beliefs.  But like I said before, John McCain would probably lose enough votes for Barack Obama to win the election.  Then on the other side, there’s yet another question. Should one go against one’s beliefs just to defeat a man one strongly disagrees with (maybe even dislikes)?  Is it right to vote for someone who doesn’t believe in all your principles?  Both options have significant disadvantages.  So all we can do is determine which is the lesser of two evils.

Not everyone will agree that this is the right way.  But I believe that conservatives should vote for McCain just to keep Obama out of the Oval Office.  I would love to get a true conservative as President of the United States, but since McCain and Obama are the Republican and Democratic nominees (and therefore are getting more publicity than anyone else), I think this election will be more about keeping someone bad out, rather than getting someone good in.

Hello!  My name is Josh, and I am a homeschooled Christian teenager.  I am ultimately writing for the glory of God. I’m also writing because I like discussing some controversial subjects, and I would love to hear the thoughts of other Christian teens.

I chose this title for my blog because as Christians, everything we do should always be for God’s glory.  As the verse says, we should glorify God when doing even when we’re doing simple, common things such as eating and drinking.  The title is a good reminder of that – it will help me keep that in mind when writing in the future.

I also chose the title because it doesn’t limit me from writing about anything as long as it glorifies God.  I plan on writing about several topics including (but not limited to): Christianity and theology, religion in general, politics, computers and technology, and whatever else comes my way. You’ll notice that I spoke of controversial topics. I really enjoy controversial topics (as long as discussions don’t turn into name-calling). For you non-computer geeks, computers can be a very controversial subject. I hope to be able to write primarily about Christianity.

The origin of the title for this post is rather geeky.  When programming computers, the simplest command is usually to write a line of text. For some unknown reason, programmers usually use the phrase “Hello world!”. So the post title is kind of a computer joke.

But this is also the first time that I have communicated to the world at large. Before, I always talked to individuals. This is the first time I have published anything intended to be read by a large number of people. So when I say “Hello world”, I am literally saying hello to the world.

I’m not sure that I’ll continue blogging – we’ll just have to see if it’s God’s will.

Hello world!

Soli Deo Gloria!