John Ratcliff's Weblog

Trent took time today to respond to my previous post. Somehow, though, I feel like a whole bunch of straw men suddenly entered the fray because it feels like he is debating against things I neither said, nor believe. I will take the time to reply nonetheless. First of all, I think Trent misunderstood the tone of the previous post. It was one of slight exasperation. I find it mildly amusing that such a brilliant individual can work so hard to make something which is so simple seem so complex. It is not. We each exercise and experience free will a thousand times a day. I am doing it right now as I choose which words to use as I type, as well as make choices in where I will make corrections and edits. I am exercising free will. It seems to require some remarkably convoluted logic to take something which is so apparently simple and obvious and try to obfuscate it with a bunch of references to other topics which have nothing to do with the personal experience of free will at all. I feel it

Somehow I can't quite believe I'm still having this debate. "I think, therefore I am." "I experience free-will therefore I have free-will." My friend, Trent Tobler, who I used to work with years ago continues to respond to this idea that human beings don't have free will. Somehow, I can't convince him of the irony of the fact that he is using his free will to debate the fact that he doesn't have it. Yes, my basic rational for 'caring' is based on moral convictions, but my main reasons for believing in free will are called 'common sense' or, more to the point, human experience. I am just now starting to read 'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins. I have only read a few chapters but I can already see that I agree to probably the 99 percentile with everything he says. He uses the same arguments I have used over the years and I honestly believe he is fighting the good fight. Our only differences arise when he states his basi

Last evening Troy Chapter of DeMolay held its installation of officers. It was an incredible event. Once again the Mater Masons of Troy Lodge, our sponsoring body, performed the Installation ceremony and made it a very special evening. We ended up having 75 people in attendance; an incredible turnout! In addition to friends, family, members of the lodge, we also hosted the Wentzville Rainbow Assembly, State Officers, the State and Associate Sweetheart, and members of other DeMolay chapters. Nick was installed as Master Councilor and his family did an incredible job with the decorations, food, and entertainment. Since I just got my new camcorder I was prepared to try it out. It worked great and it was so easy to transfer the DVD to an MPEG file on my computer. I am doing something unusual and I am going to upload the bulk of the DeMolay Installation ceremony onto YouTube. While I'm sure it is likely to be considered somewhat boring to many, I still think it is interesting for someon

I used to really enjoy getting into religious debates but mostly, these days, I have gotten over it. I shut down my religious discussion forum AARM after a few years. The forum still exists, but no one posts there any more. The discussions were supposed to move to a site called TalkBeliefs but it never seemed the same afterwards. Since I became a Freemason I took an oath to be tolerant of the religious beliefs of others and I have tried very hard to follow through with that. My policy is that so long as a religion harms no others, I say people can believe any Tom Fool thing they want. (For the record, inquisitions, ritualized guilt, and sexual abuse I still consider 'harming others', so I haven't entirely given up the good fight.) Every now and then I get a twinge, like yesterday when I was listening to the radio and a comedy spot came on making fun of how illogical the beliefs of a particularly popular religious sect's are. I was amused, smiling ear to ear until, sud

A home video of Lauren Ratcliff , more famously known for her performance in 'Jesus Ranch' , here performs as a dancing poodle. A while back we transferred a bunch of home movies over to our Tivo , next I used the Tivo desktop feature to copy them to my computer. Since I purchased a decent piece of video editing software yesterday (Adobe Premiere Elements), I decided to experiment with editing a section of one of the movies. As I pointed out yesterday, editing videos can be very time consuming, but pulling out snippets from when your children were young is well worth the time. Being able to then upload these video snippets to YouTube and embed them into your website is especially cool. (Lauren Ratcliff in Itsy Bitsy Spider and other performances) Yesterday Alex and I attended the installation of officers for Troy Lodge #34. It was a great ceremony and I was very happy for Tommy Hamlett who was installed as Master for the second time. The last time he was Master was over

While on my trip I took a number of short video clips since my digital camera can also record digital movies. Unfortunately, it doesn't record them particularly well. This morning I went out and purchased a copy of 'Adobe Premiere Elements' to try to edit some of my content together. I suppose it was a good learning exercise since, I think, I learned a few things. As already mentioned, I learned that the videos on my little digital camera suck. I also learned that if I want to keep some video I should actually try to hold my hand steady; I think I'm still suffering from motion sickness reviewing the clips. Finally, I learned that editing videos takes a crap-load of time! After messing with the software for a while I decided to just edit together the few video clips I have from inside Opera Garnier. The goal was to create a lasting memory of the experience and to try to show the breathtaking beauty of the grand hall in a way that can't be captured in a

I have been on vacation for almost two weeks. Tomorrow I go back to work. Dear lord, I hope I still have a job!? Shouldn't we, as Americans, live in fear of losing our job? Isn't that the Capitalist threat? I have an online resume . It serves the same purpose that this blog generally serves, which is to augment my flawed memory. Where was I in 1991? I dunno, check my resume. If you want to know where I have been in the past four years, or let us say, if *I* want to know, I just check my blog. About six months ago I suddenly had this panic attack. Half of my memory is owned by Google Incorporated! And, consider the fact, that I own not a single share of stock in Google!!! My personal Akashic record is stored on servers outside my control! For quite some time I had my weblog set so that it would show every blog post I had ever made; and thus I could easily do a full 'backup'. However, over time, this became so large (mostly due to many photographs) that it would cause com

As I stated in a previous post I purchased a painting from an artist in Piazza Navona while in Rome. Today I was able to take some photographs of it and I am proud to upload them to my site. These are high-res images so go ahead and click on them to get a bigger picture.I tried a couple of filters on the picture but you really need to see it in person to capture the subtlty of this beautiful oil painting. Today I ordered a really nice classical baroque frame to showcase it in.It took hours to go through all of the photographs from the trip and keep just the ones that were relevant. I don't know if any of them are high art. My primary purpose with the photographs is so that I can use them as a way to enhance and retain my memory of the experiences we had. These Churches in Rome are beyond imagination. Every single Church staggers the senses one, after the other. Only Saint Peters stands above them all as numbing you with its grand scale and opulence. Of course photographs can barely

Well, I made it back safely from my trip late last night. It was an extremely long day and by the time we pulled into our driveway we had been traveling for over 24 hours solid. I have spent most of today getting my photographs organized from the trip. I am currently in the progress of uploading them to my site so, while that happens, I thought I would make a post reviewing the media I consumed during the trip. I don't often find the time to read books, with the exception of when I get to travel. I took advantage of this opportunity and read a few books that I can now review. In fact, when I go on vacation it is the books I read and the movies I watch that are just as much a part of the agenda as museums, castles, restaurants, and other physical attractions. The first book I read on the trip was 'Tunnel in the Sky' by Robert A. Heinlein . As I started reading it I became pretty sure I had read it before. In fact I think I read most everything Heinlein wrote back when I was

Here is a video of the string sex-tet we hear playing in Piaza Navona I hope to make a number of blog posts based on my travel experiences so this evening, while winding down in my hotel room in Rome, I will write the first. Later I intend to talk about my experiences using the Garmin Nuvi GPS to navigate the streets of Europe and other topics related to visiting these foreign lands, but tonight I will focus on the issue of using guided tours. For this trip we booked with a tour company. I know, it seems absurd for a self-respecting world traveler to be led around by the nose, not unlike so many head of cattle, while a chirpy tour guide waves an umbrella in front that we dumbly follow behind. Yet, I have come to realize a few simple facts. If you intend to visit a top tourist site, especially at the height of tourist season (and your goal is see 'the important stuff') you better book a tour if you have any hope of seeing it at all. In fact, as this trip winds to an end I