Cities in Orbit and the End is Near

BOOK SUMMARY

In the late twenty-first century, the world had neglected to pay enough attention to climate change and was in bad shape. The temperature of the earth and the oceans was high and rising fast. The ocean levels were rising. Tornadoes, hurricanes, and flooding were increasing. The world population had reached ten billion and was overcrowded. The crime rate in the United States was very high. This resulted in the construction of cities in orbit, which are very large cylinders that rotate about their axes to simulate gravity. Many people have moved up there to escape the earth.

EXCERPTS

Bruce Doyle was a bully who hated Tom. One day in the locker room he kept Tom from getting into his locker by repeatedly slamming it shut when Tom opened it. Tom gave up and just sat down on a bench and waited. Bruce knocked him down off the bench. Tom got really mad. He could feel the adrenaline rushing to his brain. Bruce was looking at his friends and laughing. Tom got up fast and swung his fist at Bruce, hitting him hard in the jaw. Bruce went down and didn’t move.

Mary Harter discovered she was pregnant.  “Mom, I have some bad news.  I am pregnant.” “What?  Holy smoke, you’re only seventeen?  How the hell did that happen?” “It was my fault.  I fell in love with my chemistry partner, Tom Stevens, and seduced him.” “Well, the Republicans in this state have made an abortion practically illegal, so you’ll have to have the kid.  Have you told Tom yet?” “No, I don’t want to.  It might mess up his future.  I’ll have the kid and tell him after he graduates.”

BOOK SUMMARY

Stuart Bryson is a good but not great golfer who suddenly gets telekinesis and uses it to win professional golf tournaments, eventually making a lot of money. He loves to dance and meets a beautiful girl who also loves to dance. They fall in love.

He likes to hike for exercise, and one time, he has to use his telekinetic power to defend himself, injuring his attackers. He eventually reports the incident to the police, but they have reported it before he has and accuse him of attacking them. Since he is unharmed and they are, the sheriff tries to put him in jail. He refuses and runs away. He is now a wanted man.

During the story, it is found that the president of the United States is a fool and does many stupid things. People hope he will lose in the upcoming election. The president eventually loses the election but refuses to admit defeat. He has a large following of White supremacists who try to take over the government, making it into a dictatorship. Stuart and his friends, who have also acquired telekinesis in strange ways, fight them off.

The book is action-packed with incidents causing him to use his telekinetic powers to defend himself and attack the supremacists.

BOOK SUMMARY

Twenty-seven-year-old Steven Thomas works hard as a professor of mathematics and engineering and plays hard at tennis in his spare time, playing professionally but without making much money. Everything in his life seems normal-until strange things begin to happen around him, like lamps that suddenly refuse to work when he is nearby.

Steve, it seems, has developed telekinesis, the power to move things with his mind. Learning to control his new powers, he first uses them simply to win tennis tournaments. As time goes on, he realizes he has the power to do much more-although he is curious about why and how he managed to acquire such power. He meets and falls in love with a beautiful woman but wonders whether the attraction between them is genuine or yet another effect of his new powers. Steve’s life begins to change drastically, and he decides he must use his gift to make the world a better place. Along the road to his destiny, he encounters the CIA, a bank robber with powers similar to his own, and aliens intent on invading the earth.

In this science fiction novel, one man given the gift of telekinesis must learn to use his powers in order to change his world for the better.

BOOK SUMMARY

Students of mathematics are often baffled by their own algebraic mistakes-and with good reason. The common manipulation errors of elementary algebra so closely resemble the actual laws that they can be called nonlaws. Students from algebra one through college algebra and calculus continue to make these deceptive errors.

Elementary Algebra explores the differences between algebraic laws and nonlaws, hoping to aid students in eliminating or significantly reducing the most frequently occurring issues. It offers drills for the student via true-false questions and word problems and also includes sections on the important annuity formula used in banking. With its specific focus on overcoming typical problems in algebraic study, this handbook provides valuable support for students at many levels.

Serving as a supplement for any course that uses algebra, this textbook presents mathematics students with a guide to help master common errors of the subject.

BOOK SUMMARY

I was brought up in a Christian home and sometime around the age of twelve I accepted Christ as my personal savior. However, then I went to college and was challenged by others in my beliefs. At around the age of 20 began to question my faith. I had a roommate who was Catholic and we, with others, discussed religion a lot. We even made appointments with preachers and priests in the surrounding churches to discuss our doubts. We were never satisfied with the answers they provided. At that time I left my religion. In the following I will attempt to explain why.

There are many religions in the world. It seems to me that your religion depends to a great extent on where you were born and brought up. If you were brought up in Egypt or Saudi Arabia you would probably be Muslim, India, a Hindu, Japan a Buddhist. Not only that if you were born and raised at a different time in history such as in the U.S. in 1000 AD or anywhere before Christ was born you would have never heard of Christ. But you would have had a religion. To say that one religion among many is the true one seems to me to be absurd!

In this country we believe in freedom of religion. Why? If one religion is the true one it should be demonstrated and taught as the true religion. Religion is by choice because no one knows what one, if any, is true.

Jesus, who was he? From what I have heard the only evidence of him is in the Bible. It seems to me that if he really existed he was just another rebel that the Romans killed. Jesus was of course sacrificed so that God would not have to punished the rest of the human race who were sinners. The concept of sacrifice is an ancient. But was Jesus really sacrificed? Sacrifice means you give something up for a reason. God never really gave Jesus up since he was risen in three days. He was not really sacrificed at all. How all this turned into a religion is beyond me. By the way I think that most Christians believe the Jesus was the Son of God, like he was God’s only son. In Geneses chapter 6 verses 1-2 says that God had other sons who were interested in the daughters of men and went down and married them. There is no mention of the daughters of God nor the son’s of men. Perhaps the writers of the Bible were male chauvinists! Now if God had sons just how many did he have? Since he has been around for a long time the number must be in the millions. And who were his wives?

People argue that the universe is amazing in its “design” and that it must have a creator. But the concept of God is even more amazing. To think that one super human being created everything makes no sense to me. What was he doing before he started? And if he created everything he also created disease. I read that about two million children below the age of five years die each year of malaria. And that’s just one disease among many. Why does God allow this? And to think that this same God answers your prayers makes no sense.   If he cares so little for these innocent children why would he car for you?

Christians believe that he Bible is the word of God. The Muslims believe it is the Koran. I’m sure other religions have other books. I spent some time in my life trying to understand the Bible. Below is a list of problems I have with the Bible.

1. Did God create man or the animals first? In Genesis 1:20 and 26 the animals came first and in Genesis 2 verses 7 and 19 man came first.

2. Can God add? In both Ezra chapter 2 and Nehemiah chapter 7 is the enumeration of the people who went up out of captivity. In both cases the total is supposed to be 42,360. However, if one bothers to add the figures the total in Ezra is 29,818 and that in Nehemiah is 31,084. If I have made an error in these calculations, I admit fallibility. God, however, has no excuse.

3. Does God repeat himself (or is it herself)? Consider II Chronicles 36:22-23 and compare them to the first 3 verses of the next book Ezra 1:1-3. Notice that they are identical. However, II Chronicles seems to end in the middle of a sentence as the sentence continues in Ezra.

4. The earthquake. The books Matthew, Mark, Luke and John all describe the life of Christ. The reason that there are four instead of one, I am told, is to validate the truth of the events by means of four witnesses instead on one, hence convincing the doubter of its authenticity. This seems reasonable. However, let us consider the earthquake which is described in Matthew 27:51-54 and again in Matthew 28:2. This rather cataclysmic event was not described at all by Mark, Luke or John. Perhaps it never really happened.

5. The inscription. According to all four of the gospels a sign was placed over the head of Christ. However, each book reports a slightly different version. Compare Matthew 27:37, Mark 15:26, Luke 23:38 and John 19:19.

6. The genealogy of Christ. Both Matthew and Luke give the genealogy of Christ. However, they are very different. Compare Matthew 1:1-16 and Luke 3:23-38. In Matthew 1:16 it ends with “and Jacob begat Joseph the husband of Mary of whom was born Jesus”. If God was the father of Jesus why do we need the heritage of Joseph. In Luke there is a completely different line.

I have been told that these and other inconsistencies are in the bible because the bible was not actually written by God but only by men who were inspired by God. That God actually made these errors or inspired men to make them is not relevant. If God is perfect then his works should be perfect also.

Here are a few quotes by famous men about religion:

Albert Einstein said, “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.”

John Adams: “This is my religion, only this, my adoration for the creator of this magnificent universe, and delight, joy, triumph and exultation my own existence. Even though I am only an atom, a molecule in the universe, that is all of my religion. I am no Christian.”

Thomas Jefferson: “I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I find in our superstitions of Christianity one redeeming feature. Christianity has made one half of the world fools and the other half hypocrites.” On Jesus he said “The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus be a supreme being as ‘father’, in the womb of a virgin, will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter.”

Thomas Paine: “I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish church, by the Roman church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish church, by the Protestant church, not by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.” (I think this is what my wife Virginia believes but I’m not sure.)

George Washington was arguably one of the few American Presidents who was not a Christian He professed a strong belief in God, but did not believe that God intervened in the world through supernatural miracles. His informal religion was Deism.

It seems that these people were what we now call Deists, people who believe in God as a creator, the uncaused cause, who started everything but has no future relationship with humans. This may be what Collins is but it is hard to tell.

Finally, I would like to mention that there are other books on religion that have influenced me, some of which are currently being sold in bookstores. Here are a few.