Tuesday, November 30, 2010
Monday, November 29, 2010
Wednesday, November 24, 2010
Monday, November 22, 2010
Friday, November 19, 2010
U.S. News & World Report Ceases Regular Print Publication
Thursday, November 18, 2010
Wednesday, November 17, 2010
Interesting how a number of the same Prince George's County elites that drone on constantly about the injustices of slavery centuries ago & invoke that tragedy as an excuse for the handouts going to their own constitutents, even though the recipients of such public largess have never been slaves, are themselves linked to a scandal involving human smuggling.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
In a Washington Post column, Ted Koppel puts his vaunted sense of nonpartisanship on display for the public to fawn all over. Are you going to tell us that the documentary he produced lauding the wonders of Red China was evenhanded and not onesided? But then, since the former Nightline host laments the proliferation of broadcast opinion beyond the establishmentarian party line, perhaps an authoritarian regime is exactly where he belongs.
Monday, November 15, 2010
Students Sue For The Right To Love Boobs
Thursday, November 11, 2010
Army Panders To Sikh Religious Pecularities
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
If Michael Kinsley is going to look down his nose at Marco Rubio for insisting that America is the greatest country in history, perhaps in the spirit of international balance, perhaps Kinsley and his family be sent to take the place vacated by Rubio’s family. Am sure Kinsley’s Parkinsons will get the treatment it needs under the wonders of Castro’s wonderful healthcare program.
Obama to visit Indonesia's largest mosque. Is it his habit to visit the prominent religious landmarks in country's with a predominate Christian heritage as well? If you will recall, if there happens to be Christian symbols at venues where he is appearing, he demands that such iconography be removed. Such objects no doubt have similar effect upon him as they would a vampire.
Monday, November 08, 2010
Just How Far Do Hispanosupremacist Sympathizers Intend To Take Their Biblical Analogies?
In a Sojourner's blog post titled "Abraham, Joseph and Today's Patriarchs", David Vasquez of Luther College likens the plight of illegal aliens to the epic of the Biblical patriarchs.
Let's examine the analogy for a moment.
Unlike the illegals of today, at no time did the Hebrew progentiors Abraham up through Joseph demand that those in the lands where they sought refuge cater to their preferences or change the fundamental tenets of these respective cultures in which these figures sought refuge.
Secondly, if one is going to compare the majoritarian English culture to that of the Pharaohs, it must be remembered that in the end Egyptian authorities prevented the Hebrews from leaving the empire. No one is preventing illegals from returning to their respective homelands.
Furthermore, just how far are liberals going to take the Biblical comparison? For if the migrants of today are to be fawned over as the equivalent of the Hebrew forefathers, perhaps we should consider what it was that this people did when they reached the Promised Land. In many incidents, the Israelites executed the inhabitants of the cities they came to occupy.
Though that may shock our contemporary sensibilities, since the Israelites were told directly by God to do this, it is not really our place to pass judgment on this historical reality. However, it is theologically sound to assume that God does not at this time or dispensation deal as directly or as explicitly as to what one nation should inflict upon another.
But if one is going to place upon one’s own shoulders or those one admires a divine mantle, shouldn’t one more clearly elaborate the parameters of this emulation, especially when veiled allusions to bloodshed are made that can be deciphered by those schooled in what to look for.
Deceptive leftists will assure the unwitting that I am out of my mind for insinuating that those on the side of illegal aliens in general and Hispanosupremacists in particularly are quietly biding their time until the day when they will launch a violent uprising against the United States. To paraphrase Gauis Baltar in the finale of Battlestar Galactica, just because I am crazy doesn’t mean I’m not right.
Already, radical groups such as MEChA and La Raza have threatened to kill when the day arrives any Whites found within the borders of the “reconquesta” they will name “Atzlan”. Essentially, the kinds of groups fawned over on the nation’s college campuses and often quoted as respectable spokesmen of an ethnic perspective in the organs of the mainstream press don’t really differ to any appreciable degree from the deadbeats of the Ku Klux Klan.
If these uninvited arrivals don’t want to think of themselves primarily as Americans in terms of nationality and view themselves as Israelites and the remainder of us as Canaanites, what makes their elitist backers think they will escape the pending carnage. After all, in the eyes of the interlopers, don't all gringos pretty much look alike?
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, November 04, 2010
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
The Census Bureau claims that the nation's homeownership rate is at its lowest in over a decade. However, we should not be duped into thinking this means people are on the streets and fall for the sob story how a whole new round of government handouts are required that will only end up deepening the financial mess America is already in.
Monday, November 01, 2010
Towns Regulating Trick-Or-Treat Need To Go To Ghenna
It is claimed that the regulation is justified on the grounds of the fear felt in part by single mothers confronted by trick-or-treaters nearly six feet tall. However, isn’t that the fault rather of whatever reason or moral shortcoming as to why the mother is single in the first place?
For starters, since most adolescents don’t have official ID’s prior to obtaining a driving license, on what grounds can a child be compelled to reveal their ages to law enforcement and (more importantly) how can age even be legitimately proven? After all, it seems foreigners can’t be compelled to reveal their identities, so why ought actual Americans be forced to?
The hyperpious will snap that any law that restricts what they consider to be a heathen practice is a good thing. However, if that is the case, what is to prevent statutes from being promulgated that will arbitrarily forbid activities that ought to be of an ethically neutral nature in the eyes of the state such as at what age one can be given a Bible or which teens are permitted to date?
Those not wanting to deal with Halloweeners beyond a certain age or size are perfectly free to ignore the knock at the door and to have prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law those that get destructive over not having been rendered the coveted confections.
The passage of yet another layer of regulation to which once free citizens are required to bend the knee a bit more is not always the answer. Those failing to realize this rank among the most frightening boogeymen of all.
by Frederick Meekins
Friday, October 29, 2010
Thursday, October 28, 2010
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Doesn't the person admonishing someone they shouldn't bother getting married because the Lord is on the verge of return actually have the more questionable theology than the person momentarily upset by the rebuke realizing that they might not have the opportunity to get married? Then why hasn't that person been the subject of repeated giggles and ridicule over the course of a sermon series? A bit incredulous for the chronologically advanced who've pretty much already gotten what they wanted from life to chewout the young for being less than enthusiastic about the End.
Lessons In Apologetics #5: Deism
The first worldview examined will be Deism. As with Christianity, Deism believes that God created the universe and set it up to operate in accord with a system of natural laws both physical and moral that are discoverable by mankind. What sets Deism apart from Christianity is the extent to which each believes God intervenes in the affairs of both nature and man.
Often, Deism is described as the watchmaker view of God. Those holding to this view believe that, while God created the world and set it into motion, the natural laws He established were so comprehensive that God no longer intervenes in or on His creation’s behalf. This assumption puts it at odds with orthodox Biblical theology on a number of points.
As a system, it could be said that Deism served as a transitional set of beliefs between two great epochs of Western intellectual history. Following the upheaval of religious conflicts such as the Thirty Years War, in a sense Deism was a recoil to the horrors of dogma that had been exorcised of the doctrines of compassion and moderation.
Deism also softened the shock to those wanting to turn their backs on a Biblically-based understanding of life but not yet ready to embrace the rampant secularism characterizing the more recent contemporary era. Deism was also the end product of the scholastic undertakings of the Renaissance and the Age of Exploration whereby European thinkers had to come to grips with the realization that a world, a goodly portion of it consisting of cultures as at least as complex as their's, existed beyond the borders of Christendom.
The Father of English Deism was Herbert of Cherbury. In his book “On Truth“, Herbert established the following principles as common to all men: that there is one supreme God, that he ought to be worshipped, that virtue and piety are the chief parts of worship, that we ought to be sorry for our sins, and that a divine goodness dispenses rewards and punishments both in this life and the hereafter (153).
At a quick glance, the list does not appear all that controversial and there is not much there the orthodox Christian would disagree with. However, it is what is not on the list that Deists following after Herbert of Cherbury expanded upon that brought this worldview's anti-Christian underpinnings to full fruition for all the world to see.
One thinker that most have at least a cursory knowledge of connected to Deism was John Locke. According to Geisler, Locke in “The Reasonableness Of Christianity” endorsed the Deist unitarian view of God and denied the deity of Christ.
Among early Deists, the average Christian would really have to be on their toes to detect the subtle attacks against the faith. Often then the attacks were carefully aimed at other religious systems rather than directly on the Bible itself. However, as society became more accepting as to the amount of dissent that could be openly expressed, a number of Deists more bluntly stated their antagonisms with varying degrees of success.
For example, Matthew Tindal in “Christianity As Old As Creation” argued that, since God is perfect by definition, the revelation of God in the created order is so complete that the idea of the Bible is superfluous and is actually inferior as Tindal considered the Bible to be full of errors anyway (160). And by the time of the founding of the United States of America and the early years of the Republic, Thomas Jefferson edited a version of the Bible exorcising the Scriptures of their miraculous content. Our third president ended the Gospel with “there laid they Jesus, and rolled a great stone in front of the sepulcher and departed”, thus causing this version of the good news not to be all that good as Jesus had not risen according to this act of censorship (165).
Source: Geisler, Norman. "Christian Apologetics". Baker Academic, 1988.
by Frederick Meekins
"Trust The German Soldier"
Monday, October 25, 2010
Will Foreigners Be Granted The Right To Vote?
All that marriage is an indication of is that a person is married. Contrary to a number of churches, ministries, and political candidates, it is not a barometer of spiritual maturity or standard of eligibility for ecclesiastical or political office. The statistics on broken and unhappy marriages alone are evidence of this truth.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Residents Rally Against Mandatory Smart Meters
Utility Smart Meters To Deprive You Of Life, Liberty & The Pursuit Of Happiness
Wednesday, October 20, 2010
Biden Threatens To Murder Uncooperative Republicans
Leftists Kooks Infilitrate Liberty University
A biology professor there is insisting that modern society has developed an unfounded prejudice against bare feet.
As part of his proof, he cites photographs of early 20th century school children with unshod feet.
What he fails to realize or point out is that those children were likely that way because their parents couldn't afford shoes rather than as a result of conscientious fashion choice.
This case reminds me of some nutcase pastor from the Baltimore area, who despite his many trips abroad and such, berated his congregation for having more than one pair of shoes because the Africans he had encountered didn't have more than one pair.
Of course, it was never mentioned if we shouldn't travel abroad because the average African doesn't tend to travel abroad.
Before this foolishness meets its conclusion, as in the case of those that disfigure themselves with religious tattoos or those that made a big production of being discalced in the times of medieval Catholicism, those that go about without benefit of shoes will be applauded as spiritually better than the rest of us and those refusing to participate in podiatric nudity as average Americans will be accused yet another drain on environmental resources.
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
Historian Distorts Past In Pursuit Of Anti-Christian Animus
In the 4/19/10 edition of USA Today, religious antiquarian Phillip Jenkins, by comparing extremist Islam with assorted atrocities committed in the name of Christianity over the centuries, details from an historical perspective how any religion can be co-opted in the name of violence. Though his warning is in part a timeless one that needs to be considered in all ages, Professor Jenkins' case overlooks a number of important points.
First, it must be remembered that, though horrible, the lynching and dismemberment of Hypatia and the abuses perpetrated by Cyril highlighted by Professor Jenkins occurred centuries ago. The violence committed by Islamic extremists is going on today.
That does not diminish the evils inflicted so long ago or repudiate the lessons that can be learned from such ancient accounts. However, the danger arises when this sense of scholastic detachment is then applied to the issue of contemporary terrorism.
Secondly, it must be remembered that such violence perpetrated solely for expansive religious purposes in the name of the Lord by human hands is not endorsed by Christ during the dispensation of grace. In Acts 17, Paul debated and dialogued with the Athenian philosophers on Mars Hill; he didn’t crack open their heads.
For Christians, Jesus during the time of His first advent and Paul are to serve as examples in regards to faith, practice, and missiological strategy. It could be argued that Muhammad serves a similar function in the life of the Muslim.
It would be factually incorrect to say that all Muslims are prone to fanatic violence. However, those using violence for socioreligious ends are more faithful in emulating the example set by Muhammad and the text he promoted than supposed Christians committing violence are in living up to New Testament standards.
Professor Jenkins would no doubt argue that those emphasizing violent manifestations of Islam while neglecting violent expressions of Christianity are doing a disservice to history. He has committed this very offense by insinuating that violent atrocities are a phenomena exclusive to unhinged religions and not something plaguing other social institutions.
Jenkins writes, "Out-of-control clergy, religious demagogues with their consecrated militias, religious parties usurping the functions of the state --- these were the common currency of the Christian world just a few decades after the Roman Empire made Christianity its official religion. He continues a paragraph or two later, "...given a sufficiently weak state mechanism, any religion can be used to justify savagery and extremism."
Are you going to tell me that an historian of Phillip Jenkins' repute is not aware of the countless deaths that result not so much from a "sufficiently weak state mechanism" but from a state made too strong at the expense of other cultural spheres? For example, Jenkins writes, "Between 450 and 650 AD, during what I call the 'Jesus Wars', inter-Christian conflicts and purges killed hundreds of thousands, and all but wrecked the Roman Empire."
Such conflict is tragic. However, it could be argued that the Roman Empire was, to use a highly technical historical metaphor, heading down the toilet well before then and for a number of additional reasons.
Frankly, the Roman Empire wrecked itself. Christians didn't instigate the debaucheries for which the waning years of the Empire have become infamous such as gladiatorial combat, rampant orgies, and even incest among the ruling elite.
History is as much a reflection of the values of those writing it as it is about the past era being written about. As such, Professor Jenkins needs to be asked why he thinks the violence perpetrated by warring bishops is somehow worse or the victims any more dead than the Christians slaughtered by Roman authorities for little more than quietly adhering to their own convictions.
It would seem that the most important lesson to take away from the great tragedies of history is that innocent human lives are lost when institutions of authority assume power to extents and over matters they were never intended. The regimes more blatantly hostile of Christianity such as Nazism and Communism were actually the regimes that turned the slaughter of the innocent and dissidents into an exact science.
It has been said that those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Concentrating power in the hands of government at the expense of other social institutions in the name of preventing tyranny is one of the surest ways of bringing about that particularly undesirable state of political affairs.
by Frederick Meekins