Religion and Oil

Bear with me as I get some thoughts off of my chest.... I have a question, but before I pose it I must preface it with a somewhat of a sermon. As a God fearing Christian I believe, as many if not all God fearing Christians believe, man was created to have dominion over this earth. (Gen. 1: 26, 28) The purpose of the earth's creation was to have man inhabit it. (Is. 45:18) (For those Ladder Day Saints out there, the D&C adds further light on the subject in D&C 59) We are God's greatest creation put on this earth to care for it and to use its resources for our benefit. I believe this. I have faith that God in all his power and glory is able to make good on all of His statements, including those that I have just highlighted.

Now, having said that, I pose my question... What purpose does oil have in nature other than for man to consume it? If oil ceased to exist on this earth, if oil somehow all went away and not a drop of it existed on this earth, would anything be different in nature? Would the environment be completely be thrown out of whack and all hell would break loose? As far as I know, and from what little research I have done on the subject, oil has NO value in nature whatsoever. Oil was put on this earth by God for one reason and one reason only, for man to consume it. That's it. So why are we, the beings for which God created this earth, so reluctant to utilize a resource that has no other purpose than for us to use it?

Now for anyone who doesn't necessarily believe in this theology of Deity and divinity, I still offer you this. The very essence of existence is purpose. To borrow a phrase from Mr. Smith from The Matrix, "Everything has a purpose..." This is true. From the big bang to the smallest known measurable particle, from worlds and universes to the smallest ant or pebble, everything has a purpose. For something to exist, it has to have a purpose. So I revert back to my original question: What purpose does petroleum have?

Now let me give you a hypothetical situation:

Let's say that somehow, over the course of world history, wood became the primary source of energy for the world. Wood to the world is what oil is in reality. Now if this was the case, I can see a devastating impact on the earth if we didn't regulate and use considerable reservation with the consumption of wood in the world. Wood plays so many other vital roles in our world's ecology. Less wood or no wood would do great harm to this earth. The same would be the case with water, oxygen, any kind of plant or animal, almost ANYTHING but OIL. (Again, I come to this conclusion having no answer for my original question of the purpose of oil..)

Now, to bring this all together I submit the following: The United States of America was founded on a foundation of faith in God. Why don't its people exercise that faith and use what God gave them? Why don't we the people believe that God gave us this blessed land to USE and extract the oil that it possesses? The United States has over a TRILLION barrels of oil reserves within its borders. TRILLIONS. Why aren't we using it? Why are we beginning to starve ourselves and our economy when we have a huge answer to our problems right under us? Don't give me the point of view that it's going to ruin our precious environment. We aren't talking about strip mining here. Comparing the advances in oil drilling and exploration over the last few decades to the advances in medicine, the difference would be comparable to a medical procedure that would require the entire abdomen to be opened up twenty years ago, to a nearly noninvasive procedure today. Besides, being a native Utahn and having lived here my entire life (minus two years) I challenge any environmentalist who wants to contest the extraction of oil shale in the state of Utah to tell me how much time they've spent on the lands where this shale lies. It's out in the middle of NOWHERE... The rabbits will adapt, the coyotes will survive, nature will survive... I also challenge those coastal states who say that the drilling of oil miles off their shores will ruin their tourism to show me what an oil rig would look like on their horizon.... Not very imposing and nothing that I can't photoshop out of my pictures. I also challenge anyone who wants to contest drilling in ANWAR to show me what REAL environmental impacts it would actually have.... Next to none.

Now I'm certainly not one who believes in 4 MPG SUV's using petroleum just as fast as it's produced or one who believes in industries and businesses waisting petroleum based products as liberally as they do. I certainly believe that we need to use reservation in our consumption of oil both for the sake of it being a limited resource as well as for the sake of the environment. I would be in heaven if we lived in a world of hybrid vehicles getting 60 miles per gallon with fuel costing $2 a gallon. It would be great for all of us individually as well as collectively, and is entirely possible if we were to tap into the reserves that we have here in the U.S.

God gave us petroleum. Petroleum has a purpose. I firmly believe that. We as a people are not putting our faith in Him when we deny ourselves from using it. Even to the point of injuring ourselves as individuals, families, and as a nation as a whole. Think about why God created this earth and what our purpose is on it. Think about what we are doing to ourselves by NOT using what God gave us.... (Remember the parable of the Talents?) Why AREN'T we using what God gave us? We need to utilize this resource not only to ensure greater economic stability and independence now and in the future, but as an exercise in faith. What is the purpose of petroleum?

BLOWING UP SUMMER....

Ok, Ok.... So it's been two months since I've posted a blog on my site. Sorry. Summers are worth their weight in gold to me and so I spend every spare moment I have doing things that I can only do for three months out of the year. Unfortunately for my blog, it gets pushed down the list of priorities. Anyhow, this summer has been spectacular so far! From partying up at Bear Lake to shooting up things down in Antimony, I'd say so far this summer has been a success! Here is round two of our explosions up at Bear Lake..... My most beautiful friend Jeff did a masterful job of compiling them into this inspiring and spiritual video....

Now, on to other things (blowing up things that is.....) We continued the tradition of blowing up a microwave down in Antimony......

And my brother-in-law introduced me to a wondrous thing called TANNERITE. Now let me preface this with a story. Dan, the brother-in-law, had two half pound portions of this stuff that we put in two half liter water bottles. We have had our experiences with the whistling pete bombs and figured that this stuff would be one of those with a little extra punch. (Never mind that on the bottle it came in it says to be AT LEAST a hundred yards away from the stuff when detonating....) We figured we would test the stuff inside a dryer that we found out at the dump outside of town (its amazing what you can find in small town dumps...) and so we got the dryer, put the bottle inside of it and closed the door. We put an "X" on the outside of the door so as to give us some reference to where the bottle was inside the dryer. We set the dryer on top of an old refrigerator that was sitting on a make shift firing range and faced the front of the dryer towards where we were going to shoot. After looking at our little setup we worried that the explosion would just blow the door off so we found some wire and wrapped it around the outside of the dryer to keep the door shut.

So we drove my father-in-laws truck about eighty yards down the road and set up Dan's AR-15 to shoot at it. After Dan got it sighted in we decided that I would have the honor of taking the first couple of shots. I set myself up, sighted in, held my breath, and pulled the trigger.... All I remember from that point is seeing an explosion through the scope, getting smacked in the side of the face with something, and falling to the ground behind the pickup. As I am gathering myself together I look over to see Dallas, another in law in the family, crouched over holding his hands over his face.... My first thought, and I think I said it out loud, was "HOLY SH*T." and then "WHAT THE HELL DID WE DO?!" I felt blood running down the side of my face and I'm seeing Dallas with a gash across the bridge of his nose and swollen eyelids. (Dan didn't get a single scratch the fag....) We looked around us and see the whole front panel of the dryer lying in the sage brush not twenty feet to the side of us.... The wire that we had so ingeniously put on to hold the door shut had been blown off with the whole front panel and had struck Dallas and I over eighty yards away....

After we gathered ourselves together and addressed our wounds we went to assess the damage. Since we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, we didn't think to take our cameras up to document all of this, but let me assure you, there was NOTHING left of the dryer except for the bottom panel that had been IMPALED into the fridge....

(I went up after this whole fiasco and took a couple of shots of the damage....) Although this fridge has a bunch of holes in it, it WAS rectangular when we put the dryer on top of it..Here's a picture of the front panel that landed next to us.....(If you look real close you can see the ONE shot it took me to blow this thing up. It's below the bottom right corner of where the door would be...)

Turns out this stuff blew the dryer to pieces with a blast diameter of around 150 yards....

THANK HEAVENS WE HAD A SECOND BOTTLE FULL OF THIS STUFF!!!.....(And thank heavens for a matching washer at our small town dump!)

This first video explains what we we're gonna do, this second video explains where we we're gonna shoot it as well as what happened with our first fiasco.....

Here's Dan with the honors...(It took him TWO shots compared to my ONE...)

And finally, here is the aftermath......

So after reading this blog you might think that blowing things up is all I do all summer. I wish that was the case but it's not. I have done plenty of boating and xboxing and BBQing and relaxing with my family to make this summer an already successful one! (BTW, it took me over TWO HOURS to post this blog with all of these videos, so you'd better like it!!!)