Author: Daniel Greenfield At the heart of all the left’s political agendas is wealth redistribution. That is as true of the Global Warming eco-scam as it is of anything else. The left knows that idealism is a puny force compared to the power of profit. It may employ the slogans of idealism, recruiting college students to wave signs, dress up as polar bears and cry Armageddon; but it uses the appeal of cold hard cash to invest as many people as it can into its cause. Wealth redistribution gave the left a firm grip on power in America. No matter how many lies it tells or how many crimes it commits, it knows that when election time comes around those who profit from its wealth redistribution programs will flock to the polls; caring about nothing but their own bottom line. The Global Warming scheme began the same way with tiers of economic interest. The first tier came out of the expert elites; scientists who had grant money waved under their noses and environmentalists who went from waving signs outside corporate offices to working as consultants for those corporations. Publicizing the scam were the journalists and politicians who reinvented themselves as environmental crusaders pumping out books warning that the end of the world was near. Soon an entire expert class was profitably employed predicting doomsday and teaching corporations to Greenwash their products. These were the Green versions of the leftist sociologists who had predicted race wars if economic inequity went on and the radical Black activists like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton who had monetized their instant racism into sensitivity consulting firms and national organizations. The second tier came from the bankers and corporations looking to profit from the crony capitalist sphere known as the Carbon Economy by selling other companies the power to impose costs on their rivals and customers through environmental regulations. An entire fictional economy sprang up with artificial shortages and imaginary products and services sold. Artificial shortages were used to limit carbon emissions requiring the purchase of credits. Environmental regulations made carbon into a currency using the threat of catastrophe and the promise of profit. Once again, Green followed Black. J.P. Morgan had received hundreds of millions in state payments from its food stamp card empire. Herbert and Marion Sandler made billions from subprime mortgages and Google is cashing in on housing project tax credit funds managed by a financial services company heavily invested in by Warren Buffett. The dirty little secret of the welfare state is that most of the money doesn’t go to the minorities on whose behalf it operates; but to the big banks and liberal billionaires who keep the wealth redistribution going, not for the sake of the poor or the planet, but for their own personal profit. While the public was dazzled with daily accounts of melting poles and polar bears fleeing the far north for London and New York as harbingers of the tidal waves of melting ice that would soon sweep across the coastal cities; their pockets were being picked by the gangs of eco-criminals. Substandard products were pawned off on customers by calling them Green. In the kitchen, lower quality paper could be used in paper towels while more dish detergent had to be used to wash the same amount of dishes so long as the environmentalists were paid to certify the inferior products as Green. And if the customers chose not to go along; the combined pressure of Green activists and corporations would eliminate any other option through regulatory mandates. Greenwashing compelled customers to pay more for less while the corporations and environmental consultancies pocketed the profits. Once there was an expert and financial constituency in place to press for further changes; the third tier of large scale wealth redistribution could be unleashed. The dreams of the Green criminals were modest. A worldwide carbon economy in which every human activity would be taxed, where everyone would need a permission slip to sneeze out some carbon in the spring and universal employment for environmental consultants with environmental impact reviews required for every single business down to the tykes with their neighborhood lemonade stand. At stake were trillions of dollars; a dizzying amount that made the biggest financial frauds of the century no more than clumsy pickpockets lifting wallets. To achieve these ends, the constituency had to be broadened with large scale wealth redistribution. Al Gore, James Hansen and a handful of bored college kids were never going to shake loose the insane sums of money that would make Green into the new Black and Environmentalism into the new Racism. Enter the Third World. Climate reparations bring poor countries on board by promising them billions for every island state that gets hit by a typhoon and every African warlord whose territory suffers from drought. If your weather is soggy or your wheat just won’t grow; blame the white man with his terrible industrial machine. It’s the grandest crime of a new century that will outshine the massive welfare state looting before it. Twentieth century wealth redistribution was imposed by fear of race riots. Twenty-first century wealth redistribution however is being driven by threats of planetary annihilation. The obscene trick of climate reparations is the seduction of Third World countries hit by natural disasters with promises of getting back on their feet with loads of cash stolen from the First World. Western taxpayers and consumers buy relief from the apocalypse and the Third Worlders become a wealth redistribution constituency demanding more free money in a system of blackmail and lies. It’s the same scam that destroyed the Black community in America extended across the Third World. The welfare state did more damage to minorities than anything else. Now the Greens would like to repeat the process worldwide; pitting the First World against the Third World and profiting from the massive climate fraud that they have been slowly unrolling. Radical regimes like South Africa, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Bolivia had already climbed aboard the “Bad Weather Reparations” express; but the global walkout from climate negotiations in Poland shows that the greed for climate theft cash has spread throughout the Third World. The same crony capitalist dynamic that induces corporations to attack their rivals by supporting environmental regulations is playing out globally. China pushes for climate reparations by the First World while Western countries demand that China slow down the pace of its industrial production. The hypocrites who congregate at these summits don’t believe the scams that they’re selling, but are exploiting them to handicap each other’s economies while their corrupt expert elites greedily predict absurd visions of doom that their own data no longer supports. Global Warming has become a micro-economy and a macro-cult; a massive financial scam for a world financial system running low on ways to escape its collapse and a pseudo-religion for a secular world. These believer-profiteers are turning environmentalism into the new racism using the dead from every typhoon and weather tragedy as poster children for their terrible eco-scam.
Source: Frontpage Mag - 11.27.2013
Month: November 2013
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The New Racism is Worldwide
Environmentalism Is the New Racism -
SEDGEFIELD COMMUNITY - December 2013
Prayer RequestsSedgefield Community of Ashland, VA
Constitution of the United States, Amendment I:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.[Related Article: Praying for Richmond, VA and the Greater Richmond Area]
The Sedgefield community of Ashland, VA:
Please pray for Mark B., that he would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that he would be delivered from spiritual blindness and self-deception. Please pray that God would heal and bless him and his family.
Please pray for Cheryl R., that she would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that she would be delivered from spiritual self-deception and an antichrist spirit. Please pray for her daughter, Samantha, for conviction of sin, righteousness, and judgment leading to repentance and genuine salvation.
[Related Articles: Is It Really "All Grace"? / The 'Jesus' the World Loves / When Tolerance Is Sin!]Pray with me for my neighbor Wendy McCreary, and her brother Mike-pray that the conviction of the Holy Spirit would descend upon their hearts and penetrate the spiritual darkness...that they would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and the final judgment to come...that they would receive Jesus Christ and be saved; and that Wendy would be delivered from the antichrist spirit which is controlling and manipulating her...
Pray that Wendy would be delivered from her arrogant lifestyle, profanity, and public drunkenness...
Pray that her daughter would be delivered from the rebellion and ungodly worldviews which she has picked up from her mother...
Please pray that Wendy's shouting of profanity and blasphemy would be silenced. Pray that Wendy would be removed from the community to a place more suited to her lifestyle.
[Related Article: The Spirit of This Age]
Please pray for the individuals who are encouraging her lifestyle and behavior:
Please pray for Roger and Kelly: praying that they would be delivered from rebellion, arrogance, and self-deception. Pray that they would be set free from the powers of darkness, and that the Holy Spirit would penetrate their hardened hearts with a godly conviction of sin, righteousness, and the judgment to come. Pray that they would repent of their spiritually lawless lifestyles and surrender their lives to Jesus Christ.
Pray for her friend employed with Glass Doctor. Please pray for his conviction of sin, judgment, and righteousness leading to surrender and salvation in Jesus Christ; praying also for the salvation of his entire family. Pray that they would be delivered from antichrist spirits of pride and rebellion.
Pray for Brandon, that he would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that he would repent and receive Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.
Please pray for Michelle; pray for her repentance and salvation. Pray that there would be a complete surrender to Jesus Christ, and deliverance from false doctrines.
Pray for Trent and Mary....pray that this couple would repent of their sinful nature and believe in Jesus Christ for their forgiveness and salvation.
Please pray for Erick, Shirl....pray for their salvation; that they would be convicted of sin, righteousness, and judgment. Pray that they would be delivered from the spiritual blindness and deception of Satan.
Pray for Greg B. and Kimberly. Please pray for their salvation and deliverance from the worldviews and lifestyle of this morally corrupt world.
Please pray for Tiffany and Tina...
[Related Article: Repentance...the Missing Message]
RELATED ARTICLES:
The Spirit of Antichrist (ONE WAY)
Ten Lies of Feminism (Thoughts.com)
What Is Freedom? (Thoughts.com)
God's Wonderful Plan of Salvation (Thoughts.com)
An Open Letter to Richmond, VA (Thoughts.com)
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Why Does God Allow Evil?
The Problem of EvilHow Can A Good God Allow Evil?
Author: Rick Rood
Source: leaderu.comThe Problem of Evil - Introduction
John Stott has said that "the fact of suffering undoubtedly constitutes the single greatest challenge to the Christian faith." It is unquestionably true that there is no greater obstacle to faith than that of the reality of evil and suffering in the world. Indeed, even for the believing Christian, there is no greater test of faith than this--that the God who loves him permits him to suffer, at times in excruciating ways. And the disillusionment is intensified in our day when unrealistic expectations of health and prosperity are fed by the teachings of a multitude of Christian teachers. Why does a good God allow his creatures, and even his children to suffer?
First, it's important to distinguish between two kinds of evil: moral evil and natural evil. Moral evil results from the actions of free creatures. Murder, rape and theft are examples. Natural evil results from natural processes such as earthquakes and floods. Of course, sometimes the two are intermingled, such as when flooding results in loss of human life due to poor planning or shoddy construction of buildings.
It's also important to identify two aspects of the problem of evil and suffering. First, there is the philosophical or apologetic aspect. This is the problem of evil approached from the standpoint of the skeptic who challenges the possibility or probability that a God exists who would allow such suffering. In meeting this apologetic challenge we must utilize the tools of reason and evidence in "giving a reason for the hope within us." (I Pet. 3:15)
Second is the religious or emotional aspect of the problem of evil. This is the problem of evil approached from the standpoint of the believer whose faith in God is severely tested by trial. How can we love and worship God when He allows us to suffer in these ways? In meeting the religious/emotional challenge we must appeal to the truth revealed by God in Scripture. We will address both aspects of the problem of evil in this essay.
It's also helpful to distinguish between two types of the philosophical or apologetic aspect of the problem of evil. The first is the logical challenge to belief in God. This challenge says it is irrational and hence impossible to believe in the existence of a good and powerful God on the basis of the existence of evil in the world. The logical challenge is usually posed in the form of a statement such as this:
1.) A good God would destroy evil.
2.) An all powerful God could destroy evil.
3.) Evil is not destroyed.
4.) Therefore, there cannot possibly be such a good and powerful God.It is logically impossible to believe that both evil, and a good and powerful God exist in the same reality, for such a God certainly could and would destroy evil.
On the other hand, the evidential challenge contends that while it may be rationally possible to believe such a God exists, it is highly improbable or unlikely that He does. We have evidence of so much evil that is seemingly pointless and of such horrendous intensity. For what valid reason would a good and powerful God allow the amount and kinds of evil which we see around us?
These issues are of an extremely important nature--not only as we seek to defend our belief in God, but also as we live out our Christian lives.
The Logical Problem of EvilWe have noted that there are two aspects of the problem of evil: the philosophical or apologetic, and the religious or emotional aspect. We also noted that within the philosophical aspect there are two types of challenges to faith in God: the logical and the evidential.
David Hume, the eighteenth century philosopher, stated the logical problem of evil when he inquired about God, "Is He willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then He is impotent. Is He able, but not willing? Then He is malevolent. Is He both able and willing? Whence then is evil?" (Craig, 80). When the skeptic challenges belief in God on the basis of the logical problem of evil, he is suggesting that it is irrational or logically impossible to believe in the existence of both a good and all powerful God and in the reality of evil and suffering. Such a God would not possibly allow evil to exist.
The key to the resolution of this apparent conflict is to recognize that when we say God is all powerful, we do not imply that He is capable of doing anything imaginable. True, Scripture states that "with God all things are possible" (Matt.19:26). But Scripture also states that there are some things God cannot do. For instance, God cannot lie (Titus 1:2). Neither can He be tempted to sin, nor can He tempt others to sin (James 1:13). In other words, He cannot do anything that is "out of character" for a righteous God. Neither can He do anything that is out of character for a rational being in a rational world. Certainly even God cannot "undo the past," or create a square triangle, or make what is false true. He cannot do what is irrational or absurd.
And it is on this basis that we conclude that God could not eliminate evil without at the same time rendering it impossible to accomplish other goals which are important to Him. Certainly, for God to create beings in his own image, who are capable of sustaining a personal relationship with Him, they must be beings who are capable of freely loving Him and following his will without coercion. Love or obedience on any other basis would not be love or obedience at all, but mere compliance. But creatures who are free to love God must also be free to hate or ignore Him. Creatures who are free to follow His will must also be free to reject it. And when people act in ways outside the will of God, great evil and suffering is the ultimate result. This line of thinking is known as the "free will defense" concerning the problem of evil.
But what about natural evil--evil resulting from natural processes such as earthquakes, floods and diseases? Here it is important first to recognize that we live in a fallen world, and that we are subject to natural disasters that would not have occurred had man not chosen to rebel against God. Even so, it is difficult to imagine how we could function as free creatures in a world much different than our own--a world in which consistent natural processes allow us to predict with some certainty the consequences of our choices and actions. Take the law of gravity, for instance. This is a natural process without which we could not possibly function as human beings, yet under some circumstances it is also capable of resulting in great harm.
Certainly, God is capable of destroying evil--but not without destroying human freedom, or a world in which free creatures can function. And most agree that this line of reasoning does successfully respond to the challenge of the logical problem of evil.
The Evidential Problem of Evil
While most agree that belief in a good and powerful God is rationally possible, nonetheless many contend that the existence of such a God is improbable due to the nature of the evil which we see in the world about us. They conclude that if such a God existed it is highly unlikely that He would allow the amount and intensity of evil which we see in our world. Evil which frequently seems to be of such a purposeless nature.
This charge is not to be taken lightly, for evidence abounds in our world of evil of such a horrendous nature that it is difficult at times to fathom what possible purpose it could serve. However, difficult as this aspect of the problem of evil is, careful thinking will show that there are reasonable responses to this challenge.
Surely it is difficult for us to understand why God would allow some things to happen. But simply because we find it difficult to imagine what reasons God could have for permitting them, does not mean that no such reasons exist. It is entirely possible that such reasons are not only beyond our present knowledge, but also beyond our present ability to understand. A child does not always understand the reasons that lie behind all that his father allows or does not allow him to do. It would be unrealistic for us to expect to understand all of God's reasons for allowing all that He does. We do not fully understand many things about the world we live in--what lies behind the force of gravity for instance, or the exact function of subatomic particles. Yet we believe in these physical realities.
Beyond this, however, we can suggest possible reasons for God allowing some of the horrendous evils which do exist in our world. Perhaps there are people who would never sense their utter dependence on God apart from experiencing the intense pain that they do in life (Ps. 119:71). Perhaps there are purposes that God intends to accomplish among his angelic or demonic creatures which require his human creatures to experience some of the things that we do (Job 1-2). It may be that the suffering we experience in this life is somehow preparatory to our existence in the life to come (2 Cor. 4:16-18). Even apart from the revelation of Scripture, these are all possible reasons behind God's permission of evil. And at any rate, most people agree that there is much more good in the world than evil--at least enough good to make life well worth the living.
In responding to the challenge to belief in God based on the intensity and seeming purposelessness of much evil in the world, we must also take into account all of the positive evidence that points to his existence: the evidence of design in nature, the historical evidence for the reliability of Scripture and of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In light of the totality of the evidence, it certainly cannot be proven that there are no sufficient reasons for God's allowing the amount of evil that we see in the world...or even that it is improbable that such reasons exist.
The Religious Problem of Evil - Part I
But the existence of evil and suffering in our world poses more than a merely philosophical or apologetic problem. It also poses a very personal religious and emotional problem for the person who is enduring great trial. Although our painful experience may not challenge our belief that God exists, what may be at risk is our confidence in a God we can freely worship and love, and in whose love we can feel secure. Much harm can be done when we attempt to aid a suffering brother or sister by merely dealing with the intellectual aspects of this problem, or when we seek to find solace for ourselves in this way. Far more important than answers about the nature of God, is a revelation of the love of God--even in the midst of trial. And as God's children, it is not nearly as important what we say about God as what we do to manifest his love.
First, it is evident from Scripture that when we suffer it is not unnatural to experience emotional pain, nor is it unspiritual to express it. It is noteworthy for instance that there are nearly as many psalms of lament as there are psalms of praise and thanksgiving, and these two sentiments are mingled together in many places (cf. Ps.13, 88). Indeed, the psalmist encourages us to "pour out our hearts to God" (Ps. 62:8). And when we do, we can be assured that God understands our pain. Jesus Himself keenly felt the painful side of life. When John the Baptist was beheaded it is recorded that "He withdrew to a lonely place" obviously to mourn his loss (Matt. 14:13). And when his friend Lazarus died, it is recorded that Jesus openly wept at his tomb (John 11:35). Even though He was committed to following the Father's will to the cross, He confessed to being filled with anguish of soul in contemplating it (Matt. 26:38). It is not without reason that Jesus was called "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" (Isa. 53:3); and we follow in his steps when we truthfully acknowledge our own pain.
We cross the line, however, from sorrow to sin when we allow our grief to quench our faith in God, or follow the counsel that Job was offered by his wife when she told him to "curse God and die" (Job 2:9b).
Secondly, when we suffer we should draw comfort from reflecting on Scriptures which assure us that God knows and cares about our situation, and promises to be with us to comfort and uphold us. The psalmist tells us that "the Lord is near to the brokenhearted" (Ps. 34:18), and that when we go through the "valley of the shadow of death" it is then that his presence is particularly promised to us (Ps. 23:4). Speaking through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord said, "Can a woman forget her nursing child, and have no compassion on the son of her womb? Even these may forget, but I will not forget you" (Isa. 49:15). He is more mindful of us than is a nursing mother toward her child! It is of the One whom we know as the "God of all comfort and Father of mercies" that Peter speaks when He bids us to cast our anxieties on Him, "for He cares for us" (1 Pet. 5:7). Our cares are his personal concern!
The Religious Problem of Evil - Part II
We noted that when suffering strikes it is neither unnatural to experience emotional pain, nor unspiritual to express it. But we also noted that when suffering strikes, we must be quick to reflect on the character of God and on the promises He gives to those who are enduring great trial. Now we want to focus on one of the great truths of God's Word--that even in severe trial God is working all things together for the good of those who love Him (Rom. 8:28). This is not at all to imply that evil is somehow good. But it does mean that we are to recognize that even in what is evil God is at work to bring about his good purposes in our lives.
Joseph gave evidence of having learned this truth when after years of unexplained suffering due to the betrayal of his brothers, he was able to say to them, "You meant it for evil, but God meant it for good" (Gen. 50:20). Though God did not cause his brothers to betray him, nonetheless He was able to use it in furthering his good intentions.
This is the great hope we have in the midst of suffering, that in a way beyond our comprehension, God is able to turn evil against itself. And it is because of this truth that we can find joy even in the midst of sorrow and pain. The apostle Paul described himself as "sorrowful, yet always rejoicing" (2 Cor. 6:10). And we are counseled to rejoice in trial, not because the affliction itself is a cause for joy (it is not), but because in it God can find an occasion for producing what is good.
What are some of those good purposes suffering promotes? For one, suffering can provide an opportunity for God to display his glory-- to make evident his mercy, faithfulness, power and love in the midst of painful circumstances (John 9:1-3). Suffering can also allow us to give proof of the genuineness of our faith, and even serve to purify our faith (1 Pet. 1:7). As in the case of Job, our faithfulness in trial shows that we serve Him not merely for the benefits He offers, but for the love of God Himself (Job 1:9-11). Severe trial also provides an opportunity for believers to demonstrate their love for one another as members of the body of Christ who "bear one another's burdens" (1 Cor 12:26; Gal. 6:2). Indeed, as D.A. Carson has said, "experiences of suffering... engender compassion and empathy..., and make us better able to help others" (Carson, 122). As we are comforted by God in affliction, so we are better able to comfort others (2 Cor. 1:4). Suffering also plays a key role in developing godly virtues, and in deterring us from sin. Paul recognized that his "thorn in the flesh" served to keep him from boasting, and promoted true humility and dependence on God (2 Cor. 12:7). The psalmist recognized that his affliction had increased his determination to follow God's will (Ps. 119:71). Even Jesus "learned obedience from the things He suffered" (Heb. 5:8). As a man He learned by experience the value of submitting to the will of God, even when it was the most difficult thing in the world to do.
Finally, evil and suffering can awaken in us a greater hunger for heaven, and for that time when God's purposes for these experiences will have been finally fulfilled, when pain and sorrow shall be no more (Rev. 21:4).
© 1996 Probe Ministries
Resources for Further Study:Blocker, Henri. Evil and the Cross. Tr. by David G. Preston. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1994.
Briggs, Lauren. What You Can Say...When You Don't Know What to Say: Reaching Out to Those Who Hurt. Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1985.
Carson, D.A. How Long, O Lord? Reflections on Suffering and Evil. Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1990.
Craig, William Lane. No Easy Answers: Finding Hope in Doubt, Failure, and Unanswered Prayer. Chicago: Moody Press, 1990.
Dobson, James. When God Doesn't Make Sense. Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1993.
Dunn, Ronald. When Heaven is Silent: Live by Faith, Not by Sight. Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 1994.
Feinberg, John S. The Many Faces of Evil: Theological Systems and the Problem of Evil. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1994.
Ferguson, Sinclair B. Deserted by God? Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1993.
Geisler, Norman L. The Roots of Evil. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1978.
Kreeft, Peter. Making Sense Out of Suffering. Ann Arbor, MI: Servant Books, 1986.
Lockyer, Herbert. Dark Threads the Weaver Needs. Grand Rapids: Fleming H. Revell, 1979.
McGrath, Alister E. Suffering & God. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1995.
Plantinga, Alvin C. God, Freedom, and Evil. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1974.
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The Truth About Evolution
The Truth about EvolutionAuthor: Rachel D. Ramer
Source: equip.org
The Truth about Evolution: IntroductionThere is more to discussing evolution than debating the age of the earth or the wing breadth of the archaeopteryx. There is value, for example, in examining how evolutionists make their defense. Looking beyond the argument to the arguer’s techniques can expose fallacious reasoning which keep many from considering the God of Creation. If Christians plan to argue from the Genesis account of creation, they must first support biblical authenticity. Although the Bible can be supported, that may be the long way around. When Scripture is introduced, evolutionists launch into one of their “best” fallacies: false distinction — the banning of “religion” from scientific debate. A shortcut is to point out how evolutionists engage in logical fallacies such as the “straw man,” “bias ad hominem,” “false distinction,” and “non sequitur” fallacies. The first three are used in attempts to invalidate the creationists’ stance; the fourth endeavors to validate macroevolution (the change from one species into another) as legitimate science.
The Truth about Evolution: The Argument You So Eloquently Refuted Was Not Mine!
A strawman fallacy involves the misrepresentation of an opponent’s argument to refute him or her easily. Stephen Jay Gould, in his article, “Evolution as Fact and Theory” in the May 1981 issue of Discover Magazine, attempted to refute creationism by saying, “We have abundant, direct, observational evidence of evolution in action, from both the field and the laboratory.” His point: evolution is an irrefutable fact, and creationists ignore this certainty. Yet, the evidence he cited supported microevolution, involving changes that take place within separate species. Creationists have no contention with the concept of microevolution. In fact, A. E. Wilder-Smith, in his book The Natural Sciences Know Nothing of Evolution (T.W.F.T. Publishers), makes a case for both negative and positive mutations (microevolution) working against macroevolution. Negative mutations weaken the creature, a tendency that does not support survival of the fittest; positive mutations make it a stronger creature, helping to preserve its own class. In the latter case, the variations are the means that allow the species to survive distinct from other species. The fact that many evolutionists use microevolution to refute creationism shows the seriousness of this fallacy. Pointing this out can dispel the misconception that Christians do not accept scientific fact.
The Truth about Evolution: Religious Bias Disqualifies.A bias ad hominem fallacy has to do with disqualifying someone’s argument simply because the arguer has a special bias in the issue. For example, someone with a religious experience or belief is disqualified from having a valid opinion about his or her own religion. It is fitting to check the soundness of a biased person’s argument, but it is wrong to reject the argument solely because of the arguer’s bias. In the 1982 trial of McLean vs. Arkansas, which centered around teaching both theories of origins in public schools, questions were raised concerning the religious beliefs of the creation experts. Objections by the defense (creationists) were consistently overruled. Yet, what the proponents believe is beside the point. Of course, there are those who combat evolution who are not religious, but even that is beside the point. Religious belief is not necessarily based on fact, but neither is it necessarily founded in falsehood. A “religious” view might actually be true. If we don’t allow it to be heard, how can we claim to uphold free inquiry?
The Truth about Evolution…Because Creationism Is Religion.The “false distinction” fallacy relegates creationism to a different category, thereby falsely nullifying it. To evolutionists, religion often disregards science (illustrated in the church-motivated condemnation of Galileo). Science is described as what is observable, repeatable, and falsifiable. With that definition, creationism is not science. Yet, neither is macroevolution. The false distinction is between evolution and creationism as “science versus religion” instead of evidence for evolution versus evidence for creationism. If the argument never gets to that level, again free inquiry is stifled.
The Truth about Evolution- To Believe in the Miracle of Evolution.Suppose evolutionists abandoned the above three problem areas and debated creationists on equal terms. Would their position then prove reliable? Not really, because the fallacy known as non sequitur — Latin for “it does not follow” — becomes an immediate issue. Microevolution leading to macroevolution, discussed earlier, is one example. The celebrated “missing links” as concrete evidence is another. The role of fossils as transitional forms is speculative at best in comparison with documented, trackable microevolution. Yet, evolutionists often use these “proofs” interchangeably as though the reliability of the one naturally follows the credibility of the other. Also problematic is concluding from molecular biology that there is a common ancestry for all organisms. It does not follow that because all life shares a common biochemical basis, that relationship was brought about through evolution. In engineering this type of creative diversity from the same basic building blocks is good design, the result of a designer. Finally, it does not follow that because religion was wrong about Galileo, it is in error about creationism. The same evolutionists who insist that their own past mistakes should not be held against their position (e.g., promoting false “missing links” such as the Piltdown man) are often unwilling to allow their intellectual opponents to have human failings as well. Because the above fallacies are common, many people cannot “hear” the scientific evidence for creation, they cannot accept the Genesis account, they cannot listen unbiased to what they consider a biased view. If we can expose these flaws, we may earn the privilege of leading them beyond God as Creator to God as Savior.
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Are You Using Your Bible?
AN APPEAL TO CHURCHES TO USE BIBLESAuthor: Jim Elliff
Source: Christian Communicators WorldwideI’ll never forget my shock the first time I attended a Bible-less church. My kind of church was a Bible-teaching one and Bibles were standard operating equipment. The last word I heard as I got in the car to drive to church was, “Jimmy, do you have your Bible?” A child might forget his belt or socks, but never his Bible. Just as dutifully, the church children found their mothers after the church meeting to load her up with their Bibles while they ran around the church building with their friends. If a family was not using its Bibles at home, at least you could find them behind the back seat in the Buick, curling up under the sunlight, all ready for next Sunday.
I was a young married man when I first attended a mainline Protestant church devoid of Bibles. I wasn’t in a Communist country where Bibles were confiscated and therefore rare, but in a southern state. The mainline church I attended that day was built upon its founder’s love for the Bible. In rain or shine, that 1700's apostle and his cohorts had carried the Bible to villages and cities all across England and the United States in order to proclaim a message with authority. But, that day, I looked all the way down the long row on the left and didn’t see a Bible. On the right, as far as I could see, the people were sans Bibles. I’m sure the church’s founder would have hung his head in shame.
When the message was given by an otherwise articulate pastor that day, he successfully annihilated the Bible story of the Gadarene demoniac. Demons became distractions rather than evil spirit beings—distractions such as parent meetings, club gatherings, and soccer games—since, to him, the story was all about our fractious lives. But, the listeners didn’t care. They had no orientation to the Bible or concern about correct interpretation. They swallowed what was being said without choking because the church had long ago replaced the Bible with warm religious sounding words, emblems and ceremony rather than reality.
The Sunday School class for adults that day was no different. Since no one had Bibles, the short form of the 10 Commandments was put on the board for everyone to see and discuss. The first discussion from the Bible-less participants was quickly knocked out. “No other gods before Me” with a few verbal contortions, became “people who worship other gods are sincere therefore OK before God.” In fact, a spokesman said, “they are more sincere than we are.”The opinions from the group trumped whatever might be in the Bible, which to them was only another symbol of some kind of benevolent Being out there somewhere.
I don’t place the blame entirely upon the people in the churches however. The Bible left because the seminaries marginalized it. Professors keeping up with their peers in other schools of higher learning trained young pastoral students to think less of it. The mainline seminaries were mostly about doubt, and the power of professors to create it—heady professorial stuff to destroy a student’s naïve beliefs, to be sure. It was necessary to learn to express themselves with some Bible-like tones—everyone knew that— but full adherence to the Bible itself was unpopular, and even dangerous. Too much Bible will lead to a kind of Bible idolatry, they would say.
Gradually, it became easier for pastors to avoid the kind of discussions that would arise with Bible-believing members from the old school. They didn’t mind if such people left the churches actually, though they wouldn’t say it. Looking directly in the Bible to teach the people was a pattern that died because the pastors died. Now, not carrying Bibles, and that kind of Sunday teaching arrangement that does not invite hearers to look in Bibles, are the well-accepted marks of the liberal church. You almost never find it otherwise. It wouldn’t be said aloud perhaps, but the Bible for many churches is a sort of embarrassment and might cause people to forget just what kind of church they were a part of after all.
But . . . there are some exceptions in the membership of many of these churches. There are some people here or there who long to return to the Bible. They remember what church life once was like. They feel that the church has been hijacked while they were sleeping. Or, better yet, they have a hunger for His word that comes from a higher source, the Spirit himself.
Why Should Churches Return to Using the Bible?Whether the Bible is under your arm or on your tablet or phone, it must be used. Here are some reasons to turn back to the use of the Bible in our church meetings:
1. It is axiomatic that the people of God are led by the Word of God. In fact, I think I could go so far as to say that a church is not Christian without demonstrating that it uses God’s word as the revealer of Christ, guide to heaven, rule of life, and explanation for all that is.
2. Failure to use the Bible says that man’s opinions are the final arbiter of truth. How can one think otherwise when the Bible is not looked to - or when it is only used to place a scent of godliness over man-made ideas?
3. The people are dying with their doubts and need to be rescued. Some churches are proficient at raising doubts about truths held by the Bible. But the end result is devastating. This is not to mean that doubts are not to be addressed. But using the Bible faithfully goes a long way to saying, “Doubts are answered here; troubles are resolved.” I mean to say here that liberal churches can turn from being doubt producers to solution-givers through the Bible.
4. Some will find life in Christ through use of the word. I know that we cannot guarantee that everyone who hears the Bible will live. Yet, it is through the message taught faithfully that God promises forgiveness and a future with him. This theme is replete in the Bible. Only truth will lead us there. So, going to the source of all our understanding about Christ and to God’s best revealer of Himself, is the very thing we must do for the salvation of people.
5. A right use of the Bible publicly, will encourage its use privately. All of us know that people ought to read the Bible, but where will they get the encouragement to do so? Likely only through the example of those leaders who focus much attention on it. When a pastor or teacher opens the Bible and talks from it, with the eyes of the people looking at it as the pastor or teacher explains its meaning, is a strong encouragement to read the Bible at home. Indeed, those who do this best publicly will see the most private use of the word among its audience.
6. A people using the Word as teaching takes place, assures that the truth will rule in the church. No pastor or teacher is infallible. And, we know that even the true words of Scripture can be wrongly interpreted. But the open Bibles of the people will go a long way to assuring that what is taught is true. Their evaluation and discussion about the texts, openly and in private, move the church toward truth consistently and positively.
7. Spirituality is dangerous without the use of the God’s word. Man is incorrigibly religious. All kinds of spirituality emerge from man, most of which are condemned by God. How spiritual were the worshippers of false gods in the Bible and how dangerous was the heart-felt worship of Gnostics who emerged in the early church? Worship that is offered to God must be true, fully informed by His word. Using the word to guide worship and life in the church is the way we assure ourselves that our spirituality is accepted by Him.
Could Churches Return?
There is hope. Without turning back to a visible and rigorous commitment to the Bible, churches will continue to lead the way in moral decline, giving credence to all kinds of errant and ungodly ideas. Why are some churches, for instance, on the vanguard for homosexuality when the Bible clearly places homosexuals outside of His people? Homosexuals are to be loved, also a biblical truth, but repentance is necessary for homosexuals to be accepted into the visible body of Christ. Only people without the word of God as its guide can miss this easily discernible message.
I do mean it when I say that there can be a return to the Bible in any professing church. Even if pastors struggle with its claims, emphasizing that people need to hear it and talk about it and hold it in their hands to study it can be a step in the right direction. But leaders must get over their embarrassment concerning the Bible. As with many important reforms, leaders can make a difference. Suppose a leader humbled himself before God on this important issue. What would happen? Who would follow? Could God possibly be unhappy when a leader becomes this humble, seeking to obey God through His revealed word? And can God not help him to become the man of the Bible God calls leaders to be if only he will seek the truth in the right place and the right way?
But leaders are not the only ones who can make a difference. Any member with an intense interest in the Bible can speak out about that desire, can meet with others who are interested for Bible study, and can become an instrument for change. It is hard to speak against such actions in any professing church since we all know that a church is at least supposed to be interested in God’s word. That is at least among the first things to do.
But I have to say, a bit sadly, that members who cannot thrive as Bible believers in one church, even if it is the church they have always attended, must consider finding a more biblical one. If they cannot find any true concern and room for growth in the Bible where they are, a change must come. If you are a member of a horse-riding club, but the leader never takes the horses out of the stable for you to ride, you have to find another association that accomplishes that purpose. There is no possible logic for you to remain in a church that has abandoned the Bible for its own perceptions of truth.
Copyright © 2013 Jim Elliff
Christian Communicators Worldwide, Inc.
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You Can Keep It, If You Like It!
If You Like Your Tyranny, You Can Keep ItAuthor: Daren Jonescu
Source: American Thinker - 11.26.20132013 has been a banner year for damning self-portraits of American progressivism. Just when you thought no one could top Hillary Clinton's agonized "What difference, at this point, does it make?" -- perhaps the most concise account of the leftist strategy of incremental subversion ever recorded -- along comes President Obama's revelatory time bomb, set ticking back in 2009 for detonation on October 1 of this year: "If you like your plan, you can keep it."
With her "What difference" outburst, Clinton told the world what the progressive elite think of their subjects. They think you are stupid, morally shallow, and have the attention span of three year olds -- exactly as progressive schooling and entertainment are designed to make you. Hence they need only wait you out, until the haze of time dulls your capacity for outrage about whether your leaders knowingly took the phone off the hook as your fellow citizens called for help with killers closing in on them. Hence they need only bide their time after passing rights-violating, spirit-diminishing legislation, and weather the storm of criticism until the majority of you get used to the new shackles, and carry on with your little lives. Hence, in all things, they need only embrace the necessity of working through their totalitarian dreams gradually, so as not to allow any particular "transformation" to seem fundamental enough to disturb your equilibrium.
- Trusting God As Freedom FadesObama, not to be outdone, has matched Clinton's bid for Self-exposed Authoritarian of the Year, and raised it several degrees of amplification. "If you like your plan, you can keep it" gives clear expression to one installment in the multigenerational bait-and-switch strategy with which progressivism has undermined modernity.
First of all, to state the obvious, the fact that Obama spoke those words, or words extremely like them, a thousand times during the ObamaCare debate proves they were carefully scripted, and not a throwaway remark. And to state the equally obvious, Obama knew -- or at least his strategists knew -- that he was making a promise he would not keep, for at least three reasons: first, the cancelled policy wave that ObamaCare's implementation has instigated was expected and predictable; second, no politician can guarantee that you will be able to keep something over which politicians have no direct control, such as a private insurance policy; and third, that you should keep your plan was exactly the outcome they were hoping to thwart.
Obama's scripted and oft-repeated assurance, therefore, was more than a garden variety lie. It perfectly encapsulated the progressive method of civilizational betrayal, the deliberate poisoning of the well of representative government by means of what we might call "performative politics."
All politicians subject to election make promises. And all politicians know that keeping every promise they make will be difficult, if not impossible. But when a politician promises a certain outcome, not because he actually wishes he could provide it (realistically or otherwise), nor even because he knows it is what the voters want to hear, but rather because he desires exactly the opposite outcome, then we have entered the corrupt realm of performative politics, the grand theater of fake representative government.
Regarding healthcare, you have all heard America's progressive leadership, from Obama, Reid, and Pelosi on down, state explicitly that what they want is a single-payer healthcare system, i.e., socialized medicine. You also know that the ObamaCare "compromise" was intended, and has been described by various high-ranking Democrats, as a big turn of the ratchet in the direction of a single-payer system. (That is, it is a step "forward" into the dream of comprehensive government control over your physical preservation.) The progressives were, in effect, compromising with themselves: calculating that a complete government takeover of American healthcare would cause unmanageable outrage, they settled for an interim takeover by means of a labyrinth of unfathomable regulations and advisory boards.
Whether they intended this compromise to crumble under its own weight immediately, thereby opening the door right away to the "fix" of even more direct government control, is debateable. What is not debateable, however, is that their ultimate goal, the definitive aim of socialized medicine, is precisely to deny Americans the "the plan they like" -- that is, the healthcare arrangements of their own free choice. Therefore, when Obama and his various mouthpieces promised that Americans could keep those arrangements, they were not merely lying in the ordinary political sense -- making promises they knew they couldn't keep ("No new taxes," "Ten million jobs," etc.) -- but rather defrauding a nation, by pretending they were happy and eager to allow people to do the very thing these planners were dead set on preventing people from doing.
A typical politician is a slick used car salesman. A progressive politician is Iago. The former seeks to gain his advantage within the existing political machinery, while leaving that machinery more or less intact. The latter seeks a fundamental transformation of the existing arrangements, much as Iago seeks a fundamental transformation of Othello's marriage to Desdemona. And the methods used are virtually identical: foster in the victim a trust of his destroyer through pretended loyalty against imaginary rivals, stir doubts about the virtue of the innocent through insinuation and half-truth, and finally promote the victim's self-destruction through traitorous trickery.
"If you like your plan, you can keep it." This is a perfect iteration of the basic lie that has fueled modernity's "progress" down the drain of history -- or History, as progressive thinkers would have it. It is not so much a lie as a mask, the necessary first step, or thesis if you will, in each stage of the dialectical deflowering of a civilization against its better judgment and best instincts. It is the emphatic reassurance that the latest "five year plan" will in no way threaten the freedom, opportunity, and prosperity to which you have become accustomed -- a necessary buffer against reality which buys the progressives time to work their black magic, until the nasty truth arrives, obscured in the fog of time and cushioned by the human capacity for "learning to live with it." You have heard this lie, and witnessed the tyrannical dialectic it sets in motion, your whole life, as have your parents and grandparents. Variations on this theme have become the soundtrack of late modernity's decline. The theme remains the same; only the melodic details are changed to suit the collectivist totalitarian agenda item of the moment.
"If you like your current healthcare arrangements, you can keep them" -- except that our intention is to delegitimize, denigrate, and finally outlaw all private healthcare arrangements.
"If you like your 'negative rights,' you can keep them" -- except that the new positive rights we are gradually introducing into the political lexicon will necessarily override your life, liberty, and property, not to mention trumping all the secondary rights derived from those initial three, such as speech, association, and religion.
"If you like your individual mind, you can keep it" -- except that our compulsory school laws are designed to enforce mediocrity, retard intellectual maturation, define universal, legally binding standards of what constitutes an educated person, and replace your years of youthful enthusiasm for knowledge and skills-acquisition with the life-draining boredom of learning in abstraction from experience, and the soul-sapping conformism of collectivist indoctrination.
- Unlearn the Propaganda!"If you like your private family, you can keep it" -- except that public schools were expressly designed, and the school day and year gradually expanded, to monopolize your child's waking hours and energy, thus reducing the family home to a glorified dormitory, and parents to the state's free meal and entertainment service.
- Zero Tolerance for Non-Compliance"If you like your free market economy, you can keep it" -- except that our regulatory bodies and corporate overseers will determine who gets to participate in this market and on what terms, in order to preserve our conception of the proper flow of goods and services, the proper utilization of labor, and the proper distribution of profits.
"If you like your moral heritage, you can keep it" -- except that that heritage is being aggressively diminished, through legislation and school indoctrination, to a mere background hue in a kaleidoscope of moral relativity in which your old standbys, wisdom, courage, moderation and justice, enjoy somewhat less than equal status with our new progressive code: submission to authority, mindless thuggery, promiscuity and parasitism.
"If you like your private land ownership (historically a fundamental principle of all civilized political arrangements), you can keep it" -- except that we are aggressively pursuing regulations to incentivize, and eventually to coerce, mass migration into urban housing, under the rubric of "sustainability," as promoted globally by our warmed over United Nations.
"If you like your private life, you can keep it" -- except that we seek to collect and store information on every "private" phone call, text message, e-mail, or financial transaction in which you participate, in the name of "security" (don't ask whose security).
In total effect, "If you like your natural freedom, self-determination, and voluntary pursuit of happiness, you can keep them," -- except that we must periodically adjust the rules just a little further, and then just a little further again, in the direction of coercion, totalitarian micromanagement, and social conditions in which your survival, your value, and any contentment you are permitted to enjoy are dependent on your universal parent and guardian, Government.
- The Heartbreaking Account of Andrew Wordes
To the defenders of this progressive view of History -- that is, of the irresistible slide into universal socialist oppression, poverty, intellectual conformism and moral surrender -- I make this promise: "If you like your tyranny, you can keep it. Period." Except that those of us around the world who still feel and think like human beings will continue to resist you, expose you, subvert you, and stab at your progressive monster when and as we can. You may have your theoretical fantasy, "History," on your side, but we have real human history on ours. And -- short term wishful thinking and Pollyanna blinders aside -- history teaches that in the long run, inexorably, somehow, nature, reason, and virtue always survive.
You may try to fight a war of attrition against reason itself. You may even feel as though you are on the brink of ultimate victory, and at the gates of your totalitarian paradise. But history demonstrates that you are not quite where you think you are. You will get yours.
- Is America A Free Republic?
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One True God, One True Way????
THE ONLY TRUE GODAuthor: Dave Hunt
Source: The Berean Call - 01.01.2008As we all know, the “Lord’s prayer” was never prayed by our Lord. It was a pattern for prayer: “After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name...”. (Matt.6:9) To repeat these words over and over (instead of using them as a pattern for prayer from the heart) would be to disobey our Lord and to engage in what He strictly forbade: “vain repetition” (Matt. 6:7).
Certainly this prayer is only for those who know God as their heavenly Father. It is a grievous error common to pseudo-Christianity to assume the universal Fatherhood of God and brotherhood of man. The typical Unity church service, for example, includes this affirmation repeated in unison, “I am a child of God and therefore I do not inherit sickness.” Such “positive confessions” have led multitudes astray. Paul declared that we become “the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus”. (Gal. 3:26)
The fact that this relationship with God as one’s Father does not come by natural birth is clear. To those who boasted of being “Abraham’s children,” Christ countered, “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do”. (John 8:44) The rebellion of Adam and Eve, by which they became the followers of Satan as “the god of this world” (2 Cor. 4:4), made the devil the patriarch of mankind.
That is why Christ told Nicodemus, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God”. (John 3:3) This spiritual birth is an absolute requirement, allowing no exceptions. No one will be in heaven who has not been “born again,” both “of water and of the Spirit”. (John 3:5)
There is a common abuse of this prayer among American athletic teams. A high percentage of teams across America (especially in high school football) pray the “Lord’s Prayer” either before or after games. Attitudes of participants vary from skepticism, to suppressed ridicule, to a shrugging acquiescence to something that might now and then bring “good luck.” This American tradition is an abomination to God.
Phil Jackson, one of the most successful coaches in NBA history, turned from the Pentecostalism in which his co-pastor parents raised him to Zen Buddhism and the occultism of Lakota Indian “spirituality.” Yet he still repeats the “Lord’s prayer” and has for years encouraged his teams to do so without knowing God or Christ. This unbiblical practice has been one of Satan’s major tools of deception.
Confusion reigns over what it means to be “born again.” The teaching is rather common that Christ’s words, “of water,” refer to the protective amniotic water sac that breaks in natural birth, while “of the Spirit” refers to being born of the Spirit of God at the second birth. The latter is true, but the former is false.
Everyone enters via the amniotic fluid into the human race. “Born of water” must mean more than that. It would be redundant to say that in order to be born again one must have already been born once. Furthermore, that doctrine would place an unbiblical restriction upon entrance into heaven! Such a proposition would mean that there would be no salvation for anyone who had not experienced natural birth. Thus no fetus that died by whatever means before coming to full-term delivery could be considered a real person eligible for the second birth and heaven, thus allowing abortion at any stage.
The biblical teaching of the “new birth” (becoming a “born-again” Christian) has caused much controversy. Roman Catholics, Presbyterians, Lutherans, and others believe this occurs at baptism. As previously noted (see TBC 8/04), every Lutheran church follows Luther’s Small Catechism . At baptism (usually as a baby), one receives a certificate stating, “In baptism full salvation has been given unto you; God has become your Father, and you have become His child through this act....”
- Baptism Does Not Save!In fact, the Bible teaches that baptism (like the “Lord’s prayer”) is only for those who have believed the gospel. Baptism testifies to the faith by which one was born again. Otherwise it is meaningless. Infant baptism defies Scripture, denies the gospel, and is a major net by which “the god of this world” gathers multitudes into his kingdom, providing them with false assurance that prevents them from seeing their need to receive Christ as Savior and Lord.
- Praying for Richmond, VA
How could a church defend baptizing an infant that cannot understand or believe? It was necessary to claim some efficacy, as the Catechisms say, “in this act of baptism....” This occult lie of spiritual power innate in and released by baptism, burning a candle or incense, doing rituals, priestly hand motions, voice tones, etc., has been for thousands of years the essence of ritual magic, witchcraft, paganism, etc., which anthropologists now call shamanism.
- Shameful Ironies!This pernicious delusion is also known as sacramentalism—a heresy so vital to Roman Catholicism that it has its own Latin term: ex opere operato (i.e., “in the act itself”). To deny this doctrine concerning any official sacrament is to deny Roman Catholicism, for which the penalty is automatic excommunication (tantamount to being sentenced to hell). Here it is from The Canons and Decrees of the Council of Trent : Seventh Session...third day of March, 1547, Decree Concerning the Sacraments...Canons on the Sacraments in General [still in full force]:
Can. 4. If anyone says that the sacraments of the New Law are not necessary for salvation but...that without them or without the desire of them men obtain from God through faith alone the grace of justification...let him be anathema.
Can. 8. If anyone says that by the sacraments of the New Law grace is not conferred ex opere operato, but that faith alone in the divine promise is sufficient to obtain grace, let him be anathema.
The grievous heresy of sacramentalism continues to seduce in various forms most “Reformed” churches. R.C. Sproul, for example, justifies infant baptism by likening it to circumcision: “The scriptural case for baptizing believers’ infants rests on the parallel between [O.T.] circumcision and N.T. baptism as signs and seals of the covenant of grace....The Old Testament precedent requires it” (Geneva Study Bible, p.38).
The Ethiopian to whom Philip had just preached Christ from Isaiah 53 (Acts:8:29-35) asked, “See, here is water; what doth hinder me to be baptized? And Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou mayest” (Acts 8:36,37). Philip then baptized him—not by sprinkling or pouring water over him but, obviously, by immersion, for “they went down both into the water”. (Acts 8:38) Baptism publicly declares one’s faith, identifying the believer with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. One does not sprinkle dirt on a corpse. One buries it.
If “born of water” does not refer to amniotic fluid or to baptism, what could it mean? The second birth is by the Spirit of God and by water (John 3:5), symbolic of the Word of God, as in “the washing of water by the word” (Eph. 5:26), and “Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you” (John 15:3). When we believe the gospel, we are regenerated and washed clean. “He saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost.” Peter declares: “Being born again...by the word of God...which by the gospel is preached unto you” (1 Peter 1:23-25).
Having been brought into the family of God, we address Him as “Father” in prayer. In His high priestly prayer (the true “Lord’s prayer” that Christ prayed), He declared, “And this is life eternal, that they might know Thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou hast sent” (John 17:3). So the new birth involves knowing the only true God —not being “born again” through baptism, especially of infants.
There are millions of so-called gods and numerous prayers to each of them in the various religions they represent. The Bible condemns every one in unmistakable terms:
"For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the Lord made the heavens....Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name....[F]ear before Him, all the earth....[H]e cometh to judge the earth: He shall judge the world with righteousness, and the people with His truth." (Ps. 96:5-13)
Such language is ridiculed by the “New Atheists” such as Richard Dawkins, who says the atheists must “spread the good news. Evangelism [to convert the world to atheism] is a moral imperative.” Although the Bible clearly distinguishes Christianity from all religions and separates their leaders (Buddha, Muhammad, et al.) from Christ, who is unique, atheists make no such distinction. Consequently, most of their arguments are irrelevant.
- Hell BoundThe Bible denounces all religions as instruments of Satan to keep mankind in darkness, shut off from the light of the gospel by which alone one can be saved, for “the god of this world has blinded the minds of them which believe not” (2 Cor. 4:4).
- Is One Way the Only Way?Atheism is just one of the world’s religions, and Satanic blindness is reflected in its arguments against God and Christianity. A recent secular article about the New Atheists was titled, “The Church of the Non-Believers.” And it is a church—a church to which everyone must belong, if atheists get their way. In their religious fervor to destroy “religious faith” and to convert the entire world to their religion, they are blind to the true faith that motivates biblical Christians.
Dawkins says, “Faith is one of the world’s great evils....[It is] belief that isn’t based on evidence [and] the principal vice of any religion.” Francis Collins, however (in charge of the Human Genome Project involving 2,300 scientists), who turned from unbelief to faith in Christ, says that Dawkins’ definition of faith “certainly does not describe the faith of most serious believers of history nor of most of those of my personal acquaintance.”
Many famous scientists, Nobel Prize winners, and some of the greatest historians and legal experts have turned from atheism to faith in the resurrected Christ—not by mystical or emotional experience but from verifiable evidence. The early pioneers in science, like Kepler, claimed that it was precisely their conviction that there was a creator that inspired their science to ever-greater heights.
- From Atheist to Christian: Kirsten Powers' Story“Religion is not only wrong; it’s evil,” atheists fume, unaware that biblical Christianity is not a religion but a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. Leading atheists harangue against religion, blind to the fact that the Bible is not about religion. In its more than 1,000 pages, the phrase “religious faith” is not found once, the word “religion” appears only five times, and the word “religious” twice. All but two of these seven references are critical of “religion.” Furthermore, in these few times that it mentions religion, the Bible never means what atheists foolishly denounce.
In their war against God, Dawkins and his fellow crusaders dishonestly equate Christian “fundamentalists” with murderous Muslims. In fact, atheists are themselves fundamentalists, seeking to impose their warped interpretation of the fundamentals of science on the world.
- Creation, Evolution, and ScriptureNor can the New Atheists be ignorant of the fact that the fundamentals of Islam (according to the Qur’an, Hadith, the dogmas and example of Muhammad, and 1,300 years of history) teach that Islam must be forced upon the entire world by murdering all who refuse to submit to Allah. Christ taught and lived entirely otherwise. Yet the New Atheists persist in equating Islam and Christianity simply because each is considered to be a “faith.” Such irresponsible accusations permeate their arguments.
- The Peace of IslamYes, some who have called themselves Christians (Roman Catholic popes, Eastern Orthodox leaders, crusaders, numerous televangelists, et al.) have been guilty of all manner of evil. In the process, they have violated the teachings and example of Christ. But Muslim terrorists follow both Islamic teaching and the example of Muhammad and his successors who tortured and slaughtered millions from France to China for 13 centuries. Today’s terrorism is just a hint of what Islam would continue to do if it could.
The fundamentals of true Christianity promote love, freedom of choice, and forgiveness, not hatred and violence. The latter are the trademark of fundamentalist Islam. To equate the fundamentals of Islam with those of Christianity is reprehensible.
Atheists also perversely equate Christianity with the fanaticism and violence of the Crusades and Inquisition. Yet the crusaders were not biblical Christians; they violated everything Christ taught and slaughtered His brethren, the Jews, everywhere they went. It is gross dishonesty to attribute the crusaders’ misconduct to biblical Christianity.
From the days of Christ, multitudes of Christians have never given allegiance to Rome but to the Bible and to Christ alone. They were martyred by the millions by the church of Rome for centuries before the birth of Luther. From the 16th-century Reformation onward, millions of Roman Catholics embraced faith in the Bible and Christ alone and were martyred by the hundreds of thousands by the popes and their armies. To fail to distinguish between martyrs and their murderers is unconscionable.
The New Atheists, led by Dawkins, call themselves “the brights” and look upon theists as dimwits. Nobel laureate Steven Weinberg recently said, “The world needs to wake up from the long nightmare of religion....Anything we scientists can do to weaken the hold of religion should be done, and may in fact be our greatest contribution to civilization.” Richard Dawkins says: “I am utterly fed up with the respect we have been brainwashed into bestowing on religion.” Religion? As we’ve seen, atheists are tilting at windmills.
In their fervor to convert the world to their religion, atheists betray their complete ignorance of biblical Christianity. The Bible is not a religious book and does not promote “religion.”
Many Christians try to be “scientific” by adopting theistic evolution as compatible with Christianity. Their compromise does not impress atheists. Unashamedly, Dawkins declares that “evolution must lead to atheism” and “the atheist movement has...a moral imperative...to aggressively spread the good news....”
Dawkins declares, “Should [theists] be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in?” This is dangerous totalitarian talk that makes one fear for parents and children alike.
James Perloff put it well: “But remember; ‘The princess kissed the frog, and he turned into a handsome prince.’ We call that a fairy tale. Evolution says frogs turn into princes, and we call it science....Is that science? Or is it, like the fraud of Piltdown Man, the forgeries of Haeckel’s embryos, the misrepresentations of Inherit the Wind , and the coercions of the Supreme Court, merely part of a long effort to deny God?”
Atheists who end up in hell cannot blame the God they hate for excluding them from heaven. We need to rescue as many as we can from atheism’s lies. TBC
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Word Games
Masking the Truth with Word GamesAuthor: Victor Davis Hanson
Source: investors.com - 11.22.2013BEWARE THE WORD GAMES DESIGNED TO DISTRACT YOU!
The Obama administration once gave us "man-caused disasters" for acts of terrorism and "workplace violence" for the Fort Hood shootings.
Now it has trumped those past linguistic contortions by changing words to mask the ObamaCare disaster.
The president and his advisors apparently knew long ago that millions of the insured would face cancellations or premium hikes once ObamaCare would be fully implemented.
Yet to get the 906-page bill passed, they had to convince the public of the very opposite scenario. So they repeated ironclad guarantees that no one would lose their coverage or doctors — "period!"
Now the administration explains the deception by going after both the ethics of the insurers and the intelligence of the previously insured. That task required language to be altered.
The newly canceled health plans are suddenly rebranded by the administration as "subpar." Only in autumn 2013 is the supposedly unaware public told that, years ago, "bad apple" insurance companies sold them "substandard" plans.
According to Obama, millions of Americans were once ignorant or uninformed, and thus will soon be pleased about their cancellations: "So the majority of folks will end up being better off. Of course, because the website's not working right, they don't necessarily know it."
More Equal
By that logic, the legions of Obama supporters who desperately sought and won exemptions from ObamaCare are not "better off" now, but those stuck with it will be?
The president was not through reinventing history. If Obama spoke untruths on more than 20 occasions in selling ObamaCare, he also made a post-facto attempt to sneak a qualifier into his serial false promises:
"What we said was you can keep it if it hasn't changed since the law passed."
But there is no record that Obama or his lieutenants ever publicly said such a thing. The president's attempt to airbrush history is similar to the commandments on the barn wall in George Orwell's Animal Farm.
One day the commandment "All Animals are Equal" mysteriously appears rewritten with a new qualifier beside it, as if it had been there all along:
"All animals are equal — but some animals are more equal than others."
The New York Times — which not long ago gave us the new term "white Hispanic" to de-emphasize the minority status of George Zimmerman in the Travyon Martin case — is also guilty of ObamaCare-speak. The Times rebranded Obama's untruths about ObamaCare by simply declaring that Obama "clearly misspoke."
Does the Times think a real estate agent "misspeaks" when he sells a two-bedroom house by falsely assuring that it is a three-bedroom home?
The administration has also downplayed the disaster by claiming that the more than 30 million who lost their coverage represent only "5 percent" of the insured.
Democrats Bought
A national website that has completely failed and for nearly two months denied millions of applicants the chance to sign up for health insurance is dubbed a mere "glitch." Had the website been down for only a day or two, would that foul-up be called a "glitch-let"?
From the very beginning, ObamaCare defied the laws of common sense and basic logic. Providing more coverage for more people cannot result in radical reductions in costs, as promised — unless a shopper normally can buy more and better groceries for cheaper prices.
How logical was expecting indebted young people to voluntarily pay more for insurance they would rarely use in order to pay for others to use it a lot?
Not a single Republican voted for ObamaCare. Some skeptical Democrats had to be bought off with the promise of special deals. Pet businesses, unions and congressional staffers were given exemptions not available to the public from coverage that was supposedly wonderful.
The freebie provisions of keeping kids on parental plans until they turn 26 and ensuring coverage for those with pre-existing conditions were cynically frontloaded before the 2012 election — while the painful details and higher costs were backloaded after the president's expected re-election.
An architect of the bill, Sen. Max Baucus, called it a "train wreck." Before full implementation, the Affordable Care Act became emblematic as the president's "signature" achievement, and thus had to be airbrushed as something successful and popular to cement Obama's legacy.
To square that huge circle, words had to change their meanings to fabricate a reality that did not exist.
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The Destruction of Contradiction
The Destruction of ContradictionAuthor: Daniel Greenfield
Source: the Sultan Knish blog - 11.16.2013People, countries and ideas are destroyed through their inability to resolve their contradictions. The left gained a foothold in America by exploiting the country's contradiction between its insistence on moral superiority and the actual way that the sausage got made. The left did not resolve this contradiction, instead it pretended that it had transcended the contradiction because when it made the sausage and broke the omelets, it was doing it for the greater good.
Under the old system, human misery was caused by the pragmatic problems of reality. Under the new system, it was caused by the idealistic necessities of the greater good.
For example, before ObamaCare someone who couldn't get health insurance was suffering for pragmatic reasons. With the advent of ObamaCare, someone losing their doctors and getting stuck with insurance they couldn't afford was suffering for the idealism of the greater good.
The contradiction between the aspirations of the ideal and the brutal necessities of the real were not resolved. Instead the left made the suffering of individuals and groups irrelevant.
The left expanded its collective representation beyond the individual and even the nation. It enclosed the entire world and immunized itself against any moral challenge. By representing the welfare of the entire human race, any suffering it inflicted short of that could be justified for the sake of a majority.
Eventually the left was also destroyed by its contradictions, the dream died leaving behind gulags and ghettos. Nothing had actually been fixed. And the left insisted that it was the impulse of the ideal that was noble, regardless of how badly it was managed. As it had all along, it chose to die on the ideal, rather than live with the real.
The ideal is the most vulnerable to contradiction. The left exploited the ideal only to be destroyed by it. Unlike the religions that it imitated, it could offer no spiritual transcendence. Its transcendence was in the realm of the real. It promised to make the real into the ideal, exploiting the core contradiction of human nature and destroying itself through that contradiction when the real remained unideal.
The contradiction between the real and the ideal cannot be resolved through a fanatical insistence on the ideal. That ways lies the death of individuals and of ideologies. The severity of a contradiction can be ameliorated by lessening the exigencies of the contradicting factors. But it cannot be resolved by pushing to one end or the other. It requires an external balancing factor.
An example of this is the balance between the masculine and the feminine. Both have internal contradictions that can only be balanced out with the other. A society that is wholly one or the other is on a path to destruction. Not only is a masculine or feminine society hostile to those of the other gender, but it provides the dominant gender with no means of balancing out its contradictions.
Muslim societies eschew the feminine. The Salafi crusades are very literally a war on women with young men hunting down unveiled women and religious variants, such as Sufism, that have more spiritual influences, to destroy them or remove them from the public square. Their religion aspires to the utter literacy of law without spirituality, a warrior religion whose only faith is in the supremacy of killing and which seeks out and destroys any spirituality and any female influences.
And yet the Jihadis inevitably become effeminate as they strive to recreate the missing element through homosexuality and pedophilia. The dancing boys of Afghanistan are an example of what the absolute exclusion of women leads to. Having forcefully excluded all female influences, they begin forcing female gender roles on each other. The culmination of this banishment is the infamous 72 virgins who can only be accessed through a martyrdom that resolves the contradiction between the real and the ideal through the traditional method of fanatics-- suicide.
The Jihad doesn't attempt to address the contradictions of Islam; instead it attempts to prevail over them through sheer force. And yet the very Jihad is innately corrupting, financed by drug dealing, sex trafficking and other sordid crimes that destroy the fabric of a society. Iran and Afghanistan, the two Sunni and Shiite linchpins of Islamic societies, are swimming in a sea of drugs and drug addicts.
Islam, like the left, pursues the ideal at gunpoint and destroys its followers and the ideal in the process leaving behind obscenity and abomination. By the time it's all over, what is, is worse than what was. Not only is the ideal unmet, but the real has been defiled beyond all imagination.
The West is trending toward feminine societies which are also incapable of addressing their internal contradictions without the balance of the masculine. Masculine societies compel through force, feminine societies compel through conformity. The West attempts to persuade and reassure the Muslim world that it can be part of a global club, while the Muslim world attempts to kill the West, while denying that it's doing any such thing. The outcome is a classic abusive relationship in which the woman attempts to civilize the man and the man attempts to savage the woman.
In a society dominated by a single gender, the dominant gender attempts to change the world around it, while the other gender learns to change itself. The process has achieved some success in the West, with boys learning to be less masculine and girls being told that they have to change the world. But on a global scale, the dynamic means that the West is learning to change itself into a culture more accepting of Muslim dominance.
The West needs to believe that it is in the right in order to fight. The Muslim world needs to fight to believe that it is in the right.
Every time the West fights, it believes that it is undoing its "rightness". The only way for it to be certain that it is right is to masochistically accept attack and defeat. Its suffering after a terrorist attack is a self-inflicted pain that reminds it that it has the right to defend itself. Only by feeling its own pain and seeing its own dead children, does it remember that it has a right to live. And this memory has to be revived again and again. The bloody reality of the real pushing aside the dreams of the ideal.
Rightness in the Muslim world comes from a test of strength. Its faith is on the fight and or flight response. Those who fight have faith in Allah. Those who take to flight do not, unless they make up stories about staying and fighting, as Jihadis often do. Constantly rushing into fights is an act of faith. It is the most meaningful act of faith in Islam. Everyone wins in Islam. The survivors are favored by Allah. The dead are even more favored.
Golda Meir saying that peace would come when the Arabs loved their children more than they hated the Jews was correct... and in the way of Western thinkers completely missed the point. If the Arabs loved their children more than they hated the Jews, they wouldn't be Muslims and they wouldn't have nearly as many children or as much territory. Why would they want peace, when war serves them much better?
The West has set aside too many masculine qualities in pursuit of peace and has become incapable of defending itself. It masochistically abases itself for the infinite guilts of its histories, scourging the vision of its ideals with the history of the real. Its contradictions express themselves in constant moral panics against which it is incapable of acting. It has become neurotic and paranoid, uncertain of itself and rushing frantically from one imaginary crisis to another, in its grandiosity it takes upon itself all the crimes of the earth... including the destruction of the planet through Global Warming.
The contradictions that bedevil the West cannot be mediated without balancing out its feminine qualities with masculine qualities, without bringing in the real to stand side by side with the ideal. The triumph of the left has come about through the inability to resolve this contradiction between the ideal and the real. The West too eagerly embraced the ideal and is now weighed under a burden of guilt. It has become a masochistic fanatic obsessed with atoning for its own sins.
Resolving these contradictions however would require more. They demand a purpose that can provide transcendence.
The false purposes of the left displaced that sense of national progress that is so vital for harmonizing the ideal and the real. American Exceptionalism mediates the conflict between the ideal and the real only so long as it is an exceptionalism that is superior in human advancement in the qualities of the real, such as the conquest of the frontier and the building of great works, rather than the qualities of the ideal.
An America that is exceptional in compassion or tolerance is doomed to submit the real to the ideal and to perish rather than strike a blown in its own defense.
Contradictions come closest to resolution when they balance each other out. That is true of individuals and of nations. Marriage can harmonize the internal contradictions of male and female. National unity can likewise harmonize the contradictions of a people of different qualities because it is through other people that individuals transcend and resolve their contradictions.
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I Hope They Lose....
Sources are confirming that the unions are failing in their attempts to get employees to strike on Black Friday. In light of this information I felt it appropriate to post an older article discussing the reality of big box store employment. Watch the video clip at the end of the article which has recently been uploaded at Youtube, wherein Hitler loses his cool upon learning that the unions are having trouble getting Walmart employees to sign up for the strikes which are planned for this year's Black Friday.
Why We’ll Be Better Off if the Walmart Protests FailAuthor: Richard Vedder
Source: The Daily Beast - 10.05.2013Employees of the big box store are planning a national day of protest for higher wages. Economist Richard Vedder on why we’ll all be in trouble if they get their way.
The American economy has shown anemic, sputtering growth for several years—largely because businesses, investors, and consumers have been angry and fearful of public policies constraining their ability to operate efficiently and profitably.
That, in part, why I’m hoping that the Walmart workers’ national protest movement will be a monumental failure.
A group of unhappy workers at the nation’s largest private employer, joined by labor unions under a coalition called “Making Change at Walmart,” is leading a protest for higher wages and settlement of other grievances. And this when things seem to be brightening a bit; look at the rapidly rising auto sales, for example. Yet, at a time when the proportion of Americans working full-time is at a low for the 21st century, some workers are saying “We will not work unless you raise our wages dramatically—by one third or so.”
The most basic principle in economics is the law of demand: when something becomes more expensive, people buy less of it. This is true for America’s employers. Higher wages mean fewer jobs. The history of movements in unemployment since 1900 can be explained very well by changes in inflation-adjusted wages as they relate to the productivity of workers, as Lowell Gallaway and I demonstrated at great length in Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth-Century America; other researchers, such as UCLA’s Lee Ohanian and University of Pennsylvania’s Harold Cole, have reached the same conclusion using different data and methodologies.
The retail trade industry is a low-wage industry, and probably always will be. The skill requirements for most jobs are very modest, and profit margins are extremely small. Take Walmart. Last year the company made about $17 billion on sales of $469 billion. Profits were about 3.6 cents on each dollar of goods sold. Labor costs are much larger than profits, so a large increase in those costs, such as by establishing a minimum Walmart wage of $12 an hour and insisting the company hire workers for enough hours to ensure medical benefits under Obamacare, would raise labor costs at least $10 billion a year and probably much more, reducing profits by well over half if not accompanied by price increases or other actions to try to reduce the damage to profitability.You might say, so what? Won’t the nearly two million workers who work for Walmart be better off, spend more and have better lives while only a few mostly rich stockholders will lose? That sounds good, but is simply not true. I would predict one or more of the following scenarios would happen. First, if the protest action somehow were successful (which I think is unlikely) and things went exactly as the organizers of the action wanted, the price of Walmart stock would fall dramatically, perhaps 50 percent, wiping out about $120 billion in stockholder wealth. About one third of that wealth is held by institutions like pension funds and mutual funds, so directly or indirectly millions of Americans would take a meaningful hit—perhaps having to receive slightly smaller pensions or have to work longer to recoup losses because of the lower value of their Walmart stock holdings.
Alternatively, Walmart might try raising prices 3 or 4 percent to cover their higher costs. That would lead to a decline in living standards for tens of millions shopping regularly at the world’s largest retailer. They would have less money to spend on other things. Higher wages for a million or two Walmart workers would mean far more millions would have less income—their paychecks would buy less at their favorite store.
A third scenario is that, with prices rising at Walmart under the second scenario, consumers would start shopping elsewhere, maybe Target if it were not impacted by the Walmart action, or maybe at relatively low cost Internet providers like Amazon. Walmart, facing falling sales, would lay off workers, and put far more on part-time work to avoid providing expensive medical benefits or pay Obamacare-dictated fines. Consumers would be less satisfied than before, having to go to a store that they previously had found less desirable. The price of Walmart stock would no doubt be impacted noticeably, with some of the effects noted above.
Roughly 90 percent of American private-sector workers prefer the freedom associated with a non-union environment, and I very much doubt that Walmart workers in a fair secret ballot election would vote to demand a union, since unionization is relatively rare in retail trade and related businesses like fast-food restaurants (the same analysis, roughly, applies if we were talking about McDonald’s instead of Walmart). Union dues tend to be high relative to wages. The Obama administration, perhaps wanting to renew the class warfare it was waging before the Syria affair distracted it, might try to use its muscle to pressure Walmart into compliance, but I doubt that would work—the stakes are too high for Walmart and the administration’s powers are too limited.
Rather than striking against iconic businesses like Walmart or McDonald’s, we should be celebrating their existence. Walmart has done more to reduce poverty than most government welfare programs. It has put a seven-digit number of Americans to work over the decades. It has made goods available at lower costs to millions of relatively low-income consumers. It has greater increased their consumer choices relative to the pre-Walmart age. Similarly, McDonald’s has provided literally hundreds of millions of consumers around the world with tasty, relatively low-cost food quickly and efficiently. It’s no wonder that sometimes economists use the Big Mac to compare prices and living standards around the world, given its worldwide appeal. And millions of Americans learned about the world of work and the discipline of doing a job and serving the public by working as teenaged employees at McDonald’s and many other restaurants and discount stores.
Just as the American economy is seeing a little light at the end of the tunnel, we don’t need militant workers or a sympathetic government to do things that will add more tunnel.
Watch the Youtube video HERE: http://youtu.be/WgvpJHGnodc
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