Saturday, February 11, 2012
Has news of the invention of the fishing pole and net yet reached Hillybilly Handfishers? The next hit cable show will probably consist of those that hunt alligators by sticking their limbs into the mouths of the massive reptiles. Producers could probably find someone from either the deepest South or the New York metropolitan area stupid enough to do it.
The Golden Corral chocolate fountain looks like a health hazard waiting to happen. I can imagine the roaches and the rats each night taking a leisurely dip after the establishment closes. If diners can dip a piece of fruit into a chocolate fountain, just think what else they are sticking in their. I doubt they are given a crash course in proper food handling techniques before being allowed to plunge on in.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Those Denying Resurrection Keep Religious Language To Spread Deception
However, if Crossan is being heralded as what in show business and prize fights circles is called the main event, those in attendance will have very little to ultimately be glad about. Given the name of the symposium, the event frankly borders on false advertising.
Anyone that has subscribed to the History Channel or A&E before both networks went nearly all alien autopsy and rummage sales has no doubt seen Crossan. He is a talking head that use to get dragged out around Christmas and Easter time for those specials that posture as giving viewers the latest dirt on the events of the Bible being bantered about in the halls of respectable academia.
However, seldom do these programs confirm the accuracy of the Biblical accounts. Rather, the intended purpose is often to heap as much skepticism upon these narratives as possible.
Crossan’s ticket to never picking up a bar tab (or in this case midwinter accommodations in sunny Florida) is that Jesus didn’t rise from the dead. Instead, Crossan believes Christ’s body was instead most likely eaten by dogs.
But rather than surrendering to a life as a squeegee man if religion is such a colossal waste of time, Crossan has taken up the mission of destroying other people’s faith as well. It’s just that Crossan continues to hold onto Christian terminology to accomplish this task. And it’s quite the incentive to keep at it that mildly entertaining eccentric skeptics are invited on midwinter Florida speaking tours and squeegee men are not.
Over the centuries, most have been drawn to Christianity as a result of its hope and promise of a blissful afterlife at the conclusion of this so very brief existence of terrestrial mortality. Crossan’s vision of Christianity’s allure is markedly different.
On the surface, what Crossan and the Gladdening Light Foundation are calling for sounds quite a bit like Communism, but of a milksop variety lacking the backbone to do so without reference to God and along with the hopes that the religious buzzwords will draw in the easily duped.
The ad copy reads, “...Crossan’s vision of God’s longing for a just and loving community representative of all (‘loving thy neighbor as thyself’ from Leviticus and the Gospel of Mark).” The paragraph concludes that, along with Crossan, a number of whom couldn’t otherwise get real jobs such as a “community choreographer” will speak about “their own creative aspirations struggling for transformation beyond societies that marginalize the disenfranchised.”
This may need to be translated for those that don’t speak stoned hippy. What this really means is that your rights and property as an individual mean very little or even nothing.
It is only the group that counts since that is the only thing that lives on. In a materialistic universe without a Resurrection, we pass out of existence at death (or at best make a guest appearance as a garbled electronic voice phenomena on one of those cable TV spiritism shows that took the place of the kind programming Crossan used to be featured on when A&E and the Discovery Channel attempted to appeal to the educated).
"Struggling for transformation" is the new euphemism for the old revolutionary phrase "by any means necessary". For now, the saps at the Gladdening Light Symposium are so naive that they think you will be so dazzled by COMMUNITY choreography (must be something like a Glee cast dance number) and Cherokee story telling that you will gladly hand everything you have over to what the ideological forbearers of these sorts of activities use to call the vanguard of the proletariat.
Of course, they will skim some extra off the top for themselves. I'm sure John Dominic Crossan didn't come cheap and at least had his first class airfare provided while no doubt working into his lectures why the rest of us ought to flagellate ourselves over the developed world's carbon footprint.
This still doesn't answer the most important question. What will prevent the likes of those worked up into such a froth of imminent expectancy from turning violent when they discover you aren't quite as moved as they thought you would be by fancy footwork and the cute little parables many American Indians seem to have a knack for?
One should not try to deny that there will not be any bashing of Western civilization in general and America in particular at the symposium. This will be an automatic given.
This can be discerned from the phrase "societies that marginalize the disenfranchised". But is a symposium where "Pilgrims concerned with the plight of the world's people will gather for an entire weekend of vigorous discussion, enlightened teaching, and thoughtful reflection" where the attendees don't actually travel to assist the disenfranchised but rather to the state whose very name epitomizes delightful winter comfort and luxury really going to accomplish all that much?
About the closest any of the attendees will come to a Third Worlder is the picture of the African refugees placed in the left hand corner of the advertisement announcing the symposium. What this vigorous discussion, enlightened teaching, and thoughtful reflection will likely consist of is a bunch of moderately wealthy former hippies and their young adult children dreaming up additional ways to shame you out of your own money or how to swindle it away from you at the end of the taxman's gun if you aren't gullible enough to go along with the obsequious self-loathing.
I Corinthians 15:19 says in regards to the Resurrection, "If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." I Peter 1:16 assures, "For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty." Any doubting this central teaching of the Christian message while continuing to employ the imagery and rhetoric of the faith is not out to instill hope but rather the most enslaving form of tyranny.
by Frederick Meekins
Thursday, February 09, 2012
Obama Undermines No Child Left Behind
How about in those areas where Scripture doesn't say much or could be interpreted validly in a number of certain ways without damaging the essential message that we are more careful in promulgating heavy-handed proclamations? In so doing, one might find fewer decent people leaving particular congregations.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Monday, February 06, 2012
Interesting philosophical contrast. Gingrich would expand our technological horizons through the development of a lunar colony. Democrats want to limit our choice of lightbulbs, restrict where America can search for additional energy resources, and likely even eliminate the private automobile if given the opportunity.
Friday, February 03, 2012
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Wednesday, February 01, 2012
First Lady Embarrasses Nation On Late Night TV
Leno's diet must not be too bad. He seems quite active, lively, and relatively young looking for his age.
What an outright hypocrit. Frau Obama confesses about her birthday cake while lecturing Leno on junkfood.
Is it any First Lady's business how an American gets their fiber, as Frau Obama interrogated of Jay Leno?
It is more offensive for Frau Obama to inquire of Leno's fiber intake than Sam Donaldson asking if there was blood in Reagan's stool.
Would Martha Washington have been on national TV with a skirt so short that her ass was just about sticking out?
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Who is the greater fearmonger? Is it the person warning of pending cataclysm and by so doing allowing those hearing the warning to potentially escape the tragedy or prepare for the upheaval? Or is it the person that repeatedly emphasizes the glories of predestination and the erroneous assumptions about free choice? Because if there is no choice there is nothing that can be done about it anyway.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Stream Of Consciousness Observations Regarding The 2012 State Of The Union
Obama remarked his grandparents' generation triumphed over fascism. Yet fascism is the very economic system that he advocates. Perhaps not yet in terms of wide scale deprivation of human rights but rather in the technical sense of the means of production remaining privately owned but strictly controlled by the government.
If we are all to play by the same set of rules, then why has it taken months for the National Park Service to do anything about the Occupy beatniks laying siege to a number of parks in Washington, DC?
Why should it be portrayed as a greater tragedy when a "single mother" loses her job rather than a man with a wife that stays at home? Seems both domestic arrangements are in similar positions without income.
In calling for a single source for the unemployed to seek information on training opportunities, doesn't that involve the federal government assuming more control over education?
Obama insists it should be illegal for students to drop out of school before they are 18. Why should this be a matter of federal interference and what will the punishment be for those leaving prior to that age?
If no country is better than any other according to multiculturalist dogma, then why should foreign students be allowed to remain here after graduation?
If women are to earn equal pay for equal work, then make them lug the same weight around the stockroom or warehouse without having to seek masculine assistance to do so.
If lightweight vests are being developed by federal researchers that can stop any bullet, will such protective garments be made available to civilians as well or do we have an obligation to be shot by law enforcement?
Interesting how it was mentioned derisively about a company that at one time ONLY produced yachts.
If it should be impermissible for insurance companies to charge more for women’s health coverage, then why should men have to pay more for motor vehicle policies?
Obama claimed politics is not about clinging to rigid ideologies. So why is it conservatives that must always surrender their basic ideals and ideas?
Obama claimed that government ought to only do what people are unable to do for themselves. Thing of it is, given his Frau's desire to manipulate and meddle in your dietary intake, the First Couple doesn't think you are really capable of doing anything for yourself.
Obama wants to grant tax credits to businesses hiring veterans. Why should the military status of a business's employees be any business of the federal government?
The best way to insure opportunities for veterans, as well as all other Americans, is for the federal government to know the least amount possible regarding the nation's workforce.
If it doesn't matter in the military what color or gender you are, as Obama insists, why are certain standards lowered for females seeking advancement and White males held back because of the color of their skin rather than the content of their character. If color has no bearing in the military, why are we often reminded that Colin Powell was the first Black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as if that is suppose to immunize him against all criticism and scrutiny?
Would Bob Gates have been kept on as Secretary of Defense had he been a solid conservative Republican rather than an ardent establishmentarian compromiser?
Obama admonished the American people to look at what the nation could accomplish if the people were organized along military lines. However, the purpose of the military is to defend democracy, not practice it. In a civilian state, the average person is allowed to question the decrees and decisions of leaders at all levels: elected, appointed, and bureaucratic. Such bottom up scrutiny is not allowed in the military and is punished severely.
This analyst tabulated approximately 80 rounds of applause in the 2012 State of the Union Address.
by Frederick Meekins
Friday, January 27, 2012
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
Christmas Irritants Pervasive
If you think it is only secularists making an overall nuisance of themselves, you are in for a bigger disappointment than finding a lump of coal in your stocking Christmas morning.
For better or worse, the Internet is widespread enough that most are aware that there is nothing in the Bible compelling believers to participate in the celebration of the birth of Christ even though His miraculous arrival is documented in the pages of Scripture and that many of the trappings such as decorations and related customs now imbedded with meanings symbolizing the spiritually profound account have (to invoke a word of sectarian irony) less than kosher origins.
However, for the most part, Christians on either side of the divide have established a kind of amicable truce where for the most part about the worst that they do to their counterparts is to look down their noses at one another and snicker how peculiar or inconsistent the ones on the side of the debate opposite their own happen to be.
That has changed in one Michigan town. There, an anonymous equivalent of Dana Carvey’s Church Lady character from Saturday Night Live sent a letter to those daring to adorn their abodes with Christmas lights.
Usually, those going to such lengths as to put the criticism of such decorations into writing make a point of accusing either the decorations or the individual putting them up of being too religious. This time, the victims of such in your face busybodyism have been accused of not being religious enough.
The note insists that the homeowners ought to reevaluate their beliefs. This is because decorative lights, mistletoe, and yule logs can be traced back to pagan origins.
While nothing should be done about the doofus posting the letter since the First Amendment is pretty much a get out of jail free card for unbridled stupidity, it makes you wonder just how much authority over what goes on in homes or on our property should be granted to those insistent upon a hardline implementation of America’s Puritan heritage.
Most years, it seems many of the Christmas time outrages such as the one detailed above occur on the local level such as a school child having their constitutional religious liberties trampled upon in the attempt to forge Christmas-free school zones or as result of the directors of homeowners associations overly eager to enforce Soviet-style architectural conformity. However, it now seems the partisans of the White Witch of Narnia are attempting to assert themselves at the center stage of U.S. national government.
Irrespective of the overall decline in respect for the body brought about by the often unconscionable behavior on the part of the institution, Congress is often looked upon as the greatest deliberative body in the world in that its members are suppose to be able to speak their consciences freely to their fellow members, their particular constituencies, and the nation as a whole.
However, it now seems that an authority within the legislative branch may be attempting to curtail expression that, to most Americans not having jumped off the cliff into one variety of fanaticism or the other, would be about one of the least partisan things one could say as such sentiments are usually enunciated freely irrespective of the party affiliation of those to whom the greeting was intended. One of the perks extended to members of Congress is the so-called franking privilege where taxpayers pick up the tab for the postal correspondence between legislators and their respective constituencies.
In exchange for this benefit, the outgoing communications are required to adhere to certain criteria regarding content. For example, these items aren’t suppose to be of a campaign nature.
It seems now though that, at least in regards to the House of Representatives, wishing someone a Merry Christmas via these official dispatches has been deemed the equivalent of saying, “Vote for me because the other guy kicks puppies.” Proponents of the prohibition insist epistolary interference is necessary as today one never knows who might be offended by the platitude.
I’ll tell you what ought to offend people. It’s that these clowns don’t only get to send any mail at someone else’s expense but that they’ll get to enjoy lavish retirements while the last words from your dieing lips will likely be “Hello. Welcome to Walmart” because Social Security will be nothing but a memory.
This snide disrespect towards the religion and customs of the vast majority of the American people on the part of parts of the Legislative Branch extends beyond the House mailroom. It has even come to infiltrate the symbols this branch of government has adopted to commemorate this particular holiday. In so doing, it has attempted to manipulate the meaning of the occasion in the minds of the American people.
On the Capitol grounds, each year a stately tree is erected. As with countless other trees the world over, this one is adorned with a variety of ornaments.
By tradition, the ornaments are donated by the residents of the state from where that year’s particular tree originated. The 2011 tree came from California. So hence the theme “California Shines”.
CNSNews correspondent Terrence Jeffery observed that, while the decoration is a Christmas tree, other than a reference to Psalm 19 symbolizing that the Word of God is more precious than gold, not a single ornament on the visible part of the tree references Christmas as the celebration of Christ’s birth. There is also an ornament declaring how much the creator of that particular bulb loves President Obama, the figure many concluded worthy of adoration as a new Christ figure for no other reason than that he emerged from his mother's womb of racially mixed pigmentation but who came up disappointingly short perhaps even more so than many other aspiring pseudo-messiahs.
When informed of this incongruity, officials from the U.S. Forest Service and the Architect of the Capitol both sheepishly feigned an unawareness as to the nature of the tree's adornment and insisted that there is no stipulated prohibition regarding decoration content. However, that does not mean that hullabaloo surrounding the tree will remain objective and neutral.
To get students particularly to contribute ornaments to the tree effort, a special curriculum was developed. Yet if you assumed the lesson plan was about how these trees came to be replete with Christian metaphor and symbolism, you are sadly mistaken.
Instead, the Christmas tree has become merely an additional prop in the unending effort to indoctrinate students with environmentalism. According to Jefferies, the website sponsoring the decoration contest intones, "We ask that all ornaments for the Capitol Christmas Tree be made of natural or recycled materials...There is No Away with your students when they create an ornament for the Tree. Ask students where they think that trash goes when they throw it away. Work with them until they understand that trash eventually ends up in a landfill. Show students the image of a landfill."
Can't the students of today simply be allowed to do something for fun without being politically browbeaten? Why ought they be made to feel guilty for simply living and enjoying their lives when greater examples of waste occur at the levels fostering environmentalism not so much as a way to steward finite resources but rather as a way to control those of us deemed to be the lesser breeds of man.
If we are to lead lives of constant ecological vigilance as epitomized by the constant admonitions to buy locally grown produce, carpool to work, and these guidelines insinuating the environment will collapse if ornaments aren't crafted from recycled material, isn't one of the most profound examples of unnecessary excess the annual felling of a tree and the shipping of it to Washington, DC for no other reason than to titillate Congress’s sense of Yuletide vanity?
Between 1964 and 1968, the tree decorated was one planted permanently on the Capitol grounds. So in this era where environmental concerns are suppose to triumph over other concerns such as convenience and enjoyment, shouldn’t our so-called leaders set the example by planting a permanent tree rather than harvesting one at the close of each year?
The U.S. government is divided into three branches: the executive, the legislative, and the judicial. Each of these have played their own role as a social irritant in the disputes regarding Christmas.
The courts have eroded the Judeo-Christian foundations of the legal system through rulings such as those removing Nativities and Menorahs from public land and decisions curtailing religious expression in the public school system.
In this exposition, it has already been examined the role played by the legislature in fomenting Christmas discord. Readers should not expect the executive branch to go unscathed.
Regarding the other examples examined thus far, each has been about those attempting to undermine the celebration of Christmas. However, it seems the Executive Branch may have gone overboard in commemorating Christmas 2011.
During his ascent to power as well as throughout the duration of his reign, Barack Obama has consistently called for shared sacrifice on the part of all Americans in the hopes of getting the nation through challenging economic times. One would think such a plea for austerity would result in the White House erecting only one or two trees not all that different than those enjoyed by Americans in most of our homes. And the cost for such a decoration ought to come out of the Obamas’ personal pockets given that they are multimillionaires several times over and it is doubtful they have been burdened with picking up the tab for their own Washington utility bills while we let them bunk in the servants’ quarters.
However, White House decorators didn't exactly take the spirit of the Charlie Brown Christmas special to heart with that program's classic message that even the scrawniest tree possesses its own form of inner beauty. Not only were thirty-plus Christmas trees jammed under the White House roof but also a gingerbread house weighing nearly 500 pounds. I am sure it wasn't wasted and was distributed for consumption once it was no longer needed for ornamental purposes.
When this incongruity of calling upon the rest of us to give a little more up for the good of the COMMUNITY while she herself wallows and frolics amongst extravagant opulence was pointed out, Michelle Obama feigned what a burden it really was dwelling in the light of such splendor. The First Lady assured the trees are really there to uplift the spirits of the struggling in America, especially the unemployed and the families of U.S. military personnel.
But try showing up unannounced (even if you belong to one of these two unassailable classes invoked to nullify and evade nearly every form of known criticism) insisting you are there to see YOUR trees and see how far you get. The only holiday greenery you'd get to see after that would be the mold on the bread in the prison cafeteria.
The First Family spent the lion's share of their Christmas vacation in Hawaii. So few Americans get to see the White House (as well as numerous other sites around Washington, DC) thanks in part to the security procedures put into place as a result of the Jihadist Third Worlders Obama so admires in the darkest depths of his heart.
There is really little reason for the White House to be decorated at all other than for a sprig or two of evergreen in the windows or on the pillars for the tourists to take pictures of from the sidewalk. But I doubt the common American is even allowed to do that anymore given that glorified rentacops so inebriated on their trivial amount of power that they don't enforce properly enacted laws but rather ones pulled from their doughnut-fed backsides.
Even though fewer and fewer Christians or conservatives want to admit to the existence of the culture wars anymore either out of the weariness that inevitably results from nearly constant struggle or for fear of losing any status they might have gained as a result of silent compromise, these disputes for the most part have become a permanent feature of American society. And until the triumphant return of the King so humbly born in that simple manger, these disputes surrounding the day celebrating His birth will no doubt ring out as among that conflict’s most contentious.
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
Scientists have discovered that, through the application of certain hormones, they can activate dormant genes in an ant's genome to create monstrosities of enhanced ability. Wonder how long until they attempt to do the same thing to human embryos in the attempt to create the supersoldiers of the future.
Interesting some that would denounce Glenn Beck as a danger because the broadcaster urges the stockpiling of provisions during a time of upheaval have little problem positively extolling ministries that hint at a desire to curtail the constitutional liberties of those that differ over matters of soteriology, Christology, and ecclesiology.
Saturday, January 21, 2012
Given their mindset, it's a wonder that supporters of the bag tax allow those of us below them on the social ladder to select our own foods or even eat. Think that such a claim is outlandish? It is only a matter of time. It's just that those that can't get their minds around the concept "just don't like change" to quote one bag tax proponent.
Insisting that the residents of Montgomery County, Maryland shouldn't complain about a five cent bag tax because a twenty cent one is being proposed in Virginia is almost akin to saying Black folks shouldn't complain about being forced to the back of the bus in the American south because Jews were forced into boxcars in Germany.
Friday, January 20, 2012
The cover of the Jan 2012 issue of The Freeman insists that "Tough On Immigration Is Tough On Economic Growth". Would the analysts writing the article feel that way if foreign academics would do their particular jobs for less or moved nearly half of a village into a house next door to these particular eggheads.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
The Old Retcon Bait & Switch
What we have here is a derivative of the old bait and switch tactic.
Both Michelle Bachmann and Rick Santorum are both deeply motivated by their respective Christian faiths.
However, in numerous Facebook status updates posted by proponents of this perspective, it is constantly reiterated that neither of these candidates is good enough.
Those advocating such a position are not being fully open about their true position.
According to this form of Christian Reconstructionism, if a candidate disagrees on so much as a single issue not even directly related to issues of soteriology or Christology, you are not only forbidden from electing them to elected office but are also to toss them into outer darkness as one would any other unbeliever.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
The lamentation that America is so far gone that the only hope is for foreign missionaries to rescue us undermines the professed Calvinism of the individual making the plea. If things are already predetermined with man unable to exert any influence one way or the other, missionary work is the equivalent of flatulence in a wind tunnel. Furthermore, if one is going to sneer down one's nose in condemnation of their fellow Americans and claim that only foreigners (who are often more debauched than Americans) are the only ones that can drag us out of our cultural mire, aren't you as condemned as the rest of us for simply talking and not really doing?
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Monday, January 16, 2012
Pastor Greg Locke tweets that if you attend an all White church, that doesn’t proclaim an all nation’s Gospel. But a White church should alter its liturgy or order of service to allow Blacks to jump all over the pews instead of reverently sit in them.
Rats Granted More Rights In DC Than Unborn Children
These creatures are not a pod of whales, a herd of elephants, or a troop of gorillas.
Given that they will even eat their young and produce another liter a few months or weeks later, I doubt they form deep meaningful bonds with their offspring.
The same fanatics that don't want rats harmed by human hands are the same ones that decimate feral cat colonies that would otherwise keep these pests in check.
It's not like rats are on the verge of going extinct in the nation's Capitol (and given the nature of the city it's doubtful that they ever will).
According to one DC health official from Pakistan, the rat problem at Occupy movement shantytowns exceed those in Third World refuge camps.
Some will snap that the law applies only to pest control officials.
But for how long?
Often as in regards to other expansive laws, eventually this dictatorial regulation will be expanded to homeowners trying to handle these vermin themselves.
And speaking of plagues and such, it wouldn't surprise me if such laws were being enacted as a way to allow some kind of new strain of the plague to develop with the hopes of systematically eliminating vast swaths of the human population.
by Frederick Meekins
Sunday, January 15, 2012
Some are quite worked up as to whom took out an Iranian nuclear scientist. Would you rather we strategically eliminate those plotting our destruction or prefer that your loved ones and everything you have ever known be incinerated at 10,000 degrees. Or perhaps an electromagnetic pulse set off in the atmosphere wiping out the vast majority of our electronics. We would be reduced to such such a medieval state that you would wish you had been incinerated at 10,000.
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Why Shouldn't The Amish Have To Obey The Law Like Everybody Else?
One of the group's members insisted that he would rather rely on God for protection than the disputed safety apparatus.
If the Amishman really wants to trust God, there ought to be no reason why he needs to be out on the road at night.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Constitution does not compel you to vote for members of theologically aberrant sects. Nor does it forbid you from voting for members of theologically aberrThe ant sects. Nor does the document proscribe taking away the property or liberties of theologically aberrant sects as certain Reconstructionists hint at but don't really come out and admit directly but who often threaten you if you point out the implications of their ideology.
Monday, January 09, 2012
Haley Barbour Soft On Crime
Saturday, January 07, 2012
Christmas Billboards Point In The Culture War's Direction
Before now, the most culturally embarrassing thing to come out of the wastelands of the Garden State was likely Snooki and her Jersey Shore compatriots. However, it now seems even their debauched escapades have been surpassed in terms of deliberately thumbing one’s nose at God.
For decades, one municipality there has draped across a main street a banner reading that horrible bit of wordplay “Keep Christ In Christmas”. As has become customary, leftist subversives have stepped forward insisting that the banner be taken down to placate one or two discombobulated by the message.
Those holding to this position contend that the feelings of a handful must be upheld at all costs for the sake of social cohesion. So if it cannot be urged to keep Christ in Christmas, are these diversitymongers going to be consistent and call for the decoupling of “Black” from “History Month”? That commemoration is even more divisive and controversial, but most Whites are too afraid to speak up as to what they really think of it.
In what could be categorized as a battle of the banners, to express their disdain regarding public displays of belief, a gaggle of atheists have hoisted an ensign emblazoned with the following: “At this season of the winter solstice, there are no gods, no devils, no angels, no heaven or hell. There is only the natural world. Religion is but a myth and a superstition that hardens hearts and enslaves minds.”
Perhaps the greatest gift such deluded infidels could be given this Christmas season would be for someone to point out that their countersign is itself fraught with a number of faith-based assumptions as ultimately improvable as anything held by the most ardent adherents of traditional religious belief.
For example, can the atheist really irrefutably prove that only the natural world exists? If one wanted to get really snotty about it, couldn’t one make the argument that, since man’s knowledge is finite, God is floating a mere two inches out of range of the most powerful telescopes ever designed?
The banner hoisted by the unbelievers attempts to strike an eminently scientific pose. However, its conclusion has nothing whatsoever to do with experimental objectivity.
Furthermore, aren't we often chided in response to the most ludicrous postulations to keep an open mind? So why is the existence of God an invalid assumption?
The banner concludes, “Religion...hardens hearts and enslaves minds.” But if nothing exists beyond physicality and materiality, on what grounds are hard hearts and enslaved minds such a negative thing?
With power and brute force being the only true values since they promote survival and existential optimization of those that wield them, why are hard hearts and enslaved minds less than optimal states of being? You see, in a materialistic context, one cannot even use the word “bad”.
During Christmas each year, St. Matthew's-In-The-City Church in Aukland, New Zealand sponsors a billboard that the congregation considers provocative. This year, the church went with a billboard depicting the Virgin Mary holding a home pregnancy test with an expression of shock and dismay upon her face.
This work does attempt to take the viewer beyond the quaint romanticism of the Christmas story as popularly presented to better appreciate how the lives of those involved were profoundly impacted and altered. Yet this depiction is still wrong on a number of levels.
There is one thing the observant notices right out of the gate. That is just how long would you live if you drew the portrait of the founder of a particular world religion with a proclivity for loud explosions holding a home pregnancy test?
Secondly, depicting Mary with a look of befuddlement on her face ignores the facts and implications of the Biblical account. A surprised look would indicate a couple of things.
A pregnancy test suggests that the angel did not make the announcement to Mary as chronicled in Luke Chapter 1. According to the artistic depiction in question, she would not have suspected she was with child until whatever it is that prompts a woman to suspect she might be and seeks confirmation through the highlighted pharmaceutical apparatus.
If the angel did appear as detailed, the taking of a home pregnancy test would indicate that Mary did not believe the angel. And though there were no doubt times that her heart grew heavy as did that of her child in the Garden of Gethsemane, there is no indication from Holy Writ that she ever doubted the veracity of the message sent to her and the move of God upon her. In Luke 1:38, Mary says, "I am the Lord's servant. May it be to me as you have said (NIV)."
Many dismiss billboards as nothing but blights upon the landscape. But if one takes a closer look, one discovers how a number of these oversized signs can highlight the ideas clamoring for prominence in public perception and a remind Christians why they must always be ready to give an answer in response to the confusion and despair that has gripped mankind in various forms throughout history.
by Frederick Meekins
