Monday, October 27, 2014
Saturday, October 25, 2014
Religious Busybodies Condemn Gravesite Ornamentation
The minister rhetorically asked what was the point of doing so since the person's essence is not there anyway.
It is correct that there in the ground are only the physical remains.
However, Christianity is not Gnosticism.
Unlike that errant belief, Christianity places considerable value upon the body.
What lies there is a tangible connection to the departed loved one.
One must indeed be careful about imbuing these remains with a transferable spiritual energy that they do not possess.
Placing flowers at a grave or visiting the location occasionally extends a degree of respect to the person's memory and, in the mind of the Christian, honors the hope and truth that one day one of the saints dead in Christ will resurrect from that very spot.
Furthermore, for those that practice the custom of placing flowers on the grave, the act is often a way for the individual to cope with what may be overwhelming grief.
But perhaps ministers in Pastor Cooley's circles don't want people to find coping mechanisms.
More than likely, they'd rather people go ahead and descend into mental illness so as not to mess up the sermon rotation for those homilies condemning the depression that sets in for many following the Christmas holiday.
By Frederick Meekins
Shouldn't Christians Be More Outraged At Scripture Twisting Than Trick Or Treating?
In the exegesis that followed, the minister expounded that it was nearly a sin to do anything at night other than sleep as if to do so were some kind of mark of evil.
But what if you are a nocturnal type that is more alert at night?
Or what if, no matter what you do, you tend not to sleep the whole night through?
But is the text really so much about the condemnation of any activity at night other than slumber?
Earlier in the passage, the text emphasizes that the Day of the Lord is at hand.
The verses that follow remind the believer that we do not belong to darkness.
There is not much argument that significant carousing takes place while many of the more industrious and diligent are at home resting up for work the next day.
However, from the passage, one could just as legitimately conclude that both sleep and drunkenness are more metaphors for a lack of discernment and awareness.
The drunken could be viewed as those so overwhelmed by the despair of the world that the turn to overwhelming distraction.
The asleep are those that just don't give a tinker's you know what.
From such a comparison, a case could be made that the drunken might be better off because at least they are troubled by some kind of nagging sense that something is not right in the world.
If a pastor is going to position themselves as being so spiritual as to take a hardline position against Halloween, shouldn't they at least be as cautious as to consider the verse of scripture immediately prior to the one they intend to bash over the heads of those that do not agree with their interpretation of certain secondary matters?
I Thessalonians 5:6 counsels, “Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be sober.”
This portion of the epistle under consideration is similar in motif to Christ's parable of the virgins in Matthew 25 that let their lamps go out waiting for the groom to arrive at the marriage feast.
If the passage is to be utilized to condemn Halloween on the grounds that it prompts people to participate in nocturnal activities other than slumber, shouldn't the next sermon in the series aim its condemnation at the mattress or pillow industry for abetting recuperative unconsciousness?
For in the passage, sleep is not portrayed all that positively either.
By Frederick Meekins
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Assistance Applicants Crying Poor Mouth Live High On The Hog
Yet this individual can afford a $30,000 SUV and a $10,000 loan that went primarily to provide his wench with a wedding or engagement ring.
The couple, despite apparently considering nutritional assistance, can apparently afford an Iphone 6 when there was nothing wrong with the cellphone that they already have.
Out of curiosity, I researched the WIC requirements for the state in which the couple resides.
Two of the criteria are interesting.
One allows for a new mom with a child up to six months of age.
Another criteria allows for mothers breastfeeding infants up to a year old.
One might make a case to extend this program to the mom while she is pregnant or is breastfeeding.
However, as soon as the whelp shoots from the birth canal of a mother that does not intend to breastfeed, there is no need to continue this nutritional assistance to her.
For the baby is not directly dependent upon her for nourishment as in the other examples that might justify the entitlement program.
Why not go ahead and provide the father with food for his own consumption as well?
He is, after all, the one that is traditionally still actually going to work while the mom is loafing about on maternity leave.
By Frederick Meekins
Wednesday, October 22, 2014
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
Monday, October 20, 2014
Sunday, October 19, 2014
Pastor Baffled Why Christians Reluctant To Embrace Death At The Hands Of ISIS Or Ebola
It was then remarked you can either die at the hands of ISIS or from Ebola, so you might as well have a positive attitude about it.
Do those making such statements in a religious frenzy actually stop to consider how it is to perish as a result of such necrotic modalities?
Regarding the concern Christians often express regarding death.
Why are we at fault regarding the survival instinct God has imbued into nearly every form of life?
Furthermore, if Scripture says that those that hate God love death, wouldn't it therefore follow that as the most correct religion that Christians would be the most averse to this disputed metabolic state?
By Frederick Meekins
Friday, October 17, 2014
Could The President's UN Remarks Undermine Religious Liberty
The President went on to clarify, “There should be no tolerance of so-called clerics who call upon people to harm innocents.”
The President suggested that this could be accomplished in part by composing a “new compact...to eradicate the corruption of young minds by violent ideology” and by “contesting the space that terrorists occupy --- including the Internet and social media.”
Such proposed policies sounds like a prudent course of action to take against those out to destroy the American way of life.
But in deciphering the double talk that spews from the mouths of political elites like phlegm during flu season, the discerning grow concerned as to whether or not such rhetorical pronouncements will only be used against the jhadist menace.
Given the President's fundamental ideological orientation as a socialistic secularist, what safeguards are to be put in place that these strategies won't be used against Americans of a conservative Evangelical or Roman Catholic persuasion?
For example, when the average American hears Obama insist that no child anywhere should be taught to hate other people, images of toddlers and preschoolers being indoctrinated by a giant plushy mouse as to the glories of not only killing Christians and Jews but of their own suicide martyrdoms.
However, in the eyes of the crowd that Obama runs with, propagating hate can consist of little more than publicly reading those passages of Scripture critical of homosexuality or peacefully insisting that professing belief in Christ is the only path to eternal salvation.
In fact, columnist Mark Steyn was dragged before a Canadian human rights tribunal for remarks not too much more rhetorically forceful than those made by Obama on the floor of the United Nations by simply exposing what jihadists had themselves articulated.
Obama suggested that different faiths should come together to speak out against this violent worldview.
It depends upon what the President means by that.
Fine and dandy if he means a respect for human decency being enunciated individually from behind each pulpit in a wide variety of houses of worship.
However, if the President is suggesting that widely diverging faiths are obligated to open their pulpits to one another free of doctrinal criticism as to where these guests measure up and fall theologically short, the government will have taken a step one too many to the point where its agencies will likely become the next great threat to our own liberties and well being once the identifiable terrorist menace has been identified and appropriately dispatched.
By Frederick Meekins
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Naive Lutheran Would Welcome Homiletical Interrogation
He ruminated that it might be the only time that these magistrates might be exposed to a nonlegalistic version of Christianity.
But is it really the proper function of civil authorities to deploy its policing powers to penalize doctrinal expression that has not veered beyond the boundaries of verbalization into the territory of physical or financial abuse?
Self-Loathing Jew Jon Stewart Calls For The Elmination Of The Caucasoid Hegemony
Wednesday, October 15, 2014
British Magazine Denigrates White Males
Among the articles is one titled “The Whitest Men: We Talk To Four Unexceptional Party Leaders”.
Since this is a British magazine, of course leaders in that European nation that climb a conventional career ladder aren't going to be as exciting as the Nigerians there that select a solider at random to decapitate in the middle of the street to make a political point.
If this same periodical had published a similar edition with a caricature of the hook-nosed Jew from Nazi propaganda or something similar emphasizing the fiendishly exaggerated features of the typical Islamist, wouldn't these editors have violated some kind of hate speech regulations?
Broadcaster Michael Savage was banned from entering the United Kingdom altogether for simply highlighting the threats posed by assorted manifestations of multiculturalism to borders, language, and culture.
By Frederick Meekins
Pastor's Advice Could Result In Prolonged Abuse
But in the world in which we live, shouldn't that instruction be conditioned to apply only to minor everyday slights?
For example, should a wife say, “My husband only backhands me once in a while, but he certainly buys me pretty things.”
Should the husband say, “I might have caught her in the backyard next door squirming around in the neighbor's lap, but I should just be satisfied because she's the only woman that would consider marrying me.”
And what about church?
Should it be said, “Well, pastor might skim off the collection plate when he thinks no one is looking and, sure, he cops a feel of the teen girls occasionally, but boy can he preach a sermon condemning nearly every last aspect of the contemporary world and how we ought to avoid contact with any church that doesn't embrace our doctrinal peculiarities in their unaltered totality.”
by Frederick Meekins
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Reflections Upon Ebola
In other words, it is her own expletive fault.
So does the government's medical establishment enunciate the same flippant dismissiveness regarding those that contract sexually transmitted diseases?
Eventually, Friedan did apologize for his remarks.
But if a public health functionary would still need to be punished for verbalizing such sentiments in reference to certain celebrated lifestyles, then why not in this particular instance where a dedicated individual was attempting to assist the suffering and afflicted rather than satisfying some carnal desire?
It was pointed out on Hannity that 900,000 Africans could perish in the Ebola epidemic.
This will undoubtedly rank among the great disasters of the 21st century.
The bubonic plague was one of the events demarcating the close of the Middle Ages and the commencement of the Modern Era?
Likewise, are we witnessing the close of this epoch even apart from any eschatological considerations. How much of the present order will be left standing this time next year?
by Frederick Meekins
Monday, October 13, 2014
An 81 year old British deviant has undergone genital mutilation in the attempt to coerce and dupe the linguistically weak to refer to him as a woman. Mind you, under the same British healthcare system, bureaucrats would probably deny prostate surgery to a man of the same age afflicted with cancer of that particular organ.
Must Life Come To A Screeching Halt For The Good Of The Cause?
Filling in for Chris Plante on WMAL, Austin Hill said that in reference to the jihadist threat that he hopes America can peel itself away from ESPN and The Voice.
So does that mean Americans must dedicate themselves around the clock to politics?
If so, how is this totalization on the right where all resources must be directed by the elites of he cause all that preferable to the revolutionary austerity called for by leftists ideologues.
Decades ago, even soldiers on the frontlines got a Bob Hope USO show with broads in highheels and skimpy (for the time) swimsuits.
By Frederick Meekins
What Should Be Learned From The American Indian
Firstly, these indigenous people are no more native to these lands than the Whitey interloper or technically they would not be part of the same human species.
There is no better way to remember and honor the sacrifices of this people group than by barring travelers from other regions with diseases to which there is little immunity that can wipe out entire cultures and civilizations.
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Friday, October 10, 2014
Snobs Demean The Economics Of Cosplay
But so are some that have to be in church every time the door swings open even if they aren't on the payroll.
To a number, it is merely a creative outlet.
I guess opponents would rather a number of these artists instead descend into mental illness so they can be reamed for that from the pulpit as well.
The article opens by pointing out the number of Japanese young adults that have turned to this form of recreation who hold low-paying contract jobs.
Shouldn't the emphasis be on low paying jobs?
It seems these individuals are working.
And so long as they are not on public assistance as they pursue this hobby, is this really anyone's business?
Unlike the analyst posting this article, not everyone can land a prestigious gig at the American Enterprise Institute.
As was emphasized on the Syfy Channel series Heroes Of Cosplay, often participants pursue this hobby as a way to network into the highly competitive fields of theatrical costume design and even the video game industry.
So in that sense, how is what they do any different than someone that dedicates an inordinate amount of time in pursuit of Olympic gold?
Can Thought Police Evict Citizens For Espousing Criminal Ideas?
In a state that wallows in its embrace of diversity, who is to say what ideas belong there? More importantly, how would this be policed?
The statement goes to a level much more profound than electoral politics.
In all likelihood, Larry Hogan will continue to reside in the jurisdiction (and thus his ideas) even if he loses the election.
What if a similar advertisement was broadcast promulgating nearly the same perspective insisting the proponents of gay marriage, amnesty for illegals, and radical Islam were not welcome in the state of Maryland either?
Thursday, October 09, 2014
Obama Not Owed Ultimate Loyalty
Panetta did not take an oath to the President.
A president is only owed loyalty if a president is loyal to his own oath of office.
It has been insisted that Panetta should have kept his concerns to himself until Obama left office.
Would the same ones applaud Rommel for having ignored what his Christian conscience was telling him about Hitler's moral failings and evils?
Wednesday, October 08, 2014
Religious Leftists Agitate Politically
According to the 10/15/2014 issue of the Christian Century, a coalition of religious leftists is launching a campaign to encourage voter registration in low income and immigrant communities.
In other words, populations likely to elect candidates more likely to promise the largest handout payments.
This mobilization effort plans to organize under the banner of Let My People Vote.
Mind you, these are likely the very same agitators insisting that the pro-life, pro-family, and pro-American policy preferences of Religious Right organizations such as Moral Majority and the Christian Coalition cheapen the cause of the Gospel.
Broadcaster Hints Ebola Plague Could Be Retribution For Violating Mosaic Dietary Guidelines
In his analysis, he pointed out that the virus can be spread through the fruit bat, which a number of Africans consume as part of their native cuisine.
Crismier interjected that such a practice is not Biblical.
If the apologist is insisting that Old Testament dietary regulations are binding upon New Testament non-Jewish believers, he is not correct.
In Matthew 15:11, Christ Himself counsels that an individual is not defiled by what goes into one's mouth but rather by what comes out of the elocutionary orifice.
This New Testament alteration of the Old Testament law seems to be sustained by a number of other passages.
In I Timothy 4:4, the Apostle Paul asserts that ALL foods (not just the list of Mosaic kosher foods) can be enjoyed with thanksgiving.
To clarify that God was the God of both the Jews and the Gentiles, in Acts 10 Peter was instructed to eat from a selection of foods that up until that point that he had been conditioned to avoid as unclean.
God would not have compelled Peter to do something that was still a violation of God's law.
It's not like Peter was told to marry a man or to offer worship up towards a false god.
It is a correct observation that very few Americans would want to eat a bat.
However, is Chuck Crismier going to insist that he has never eaten or since repented of partaking of crab, shrimp, or lobster which are also forbidden under Old Testament dietary guidelines since these creatures are essentially underwater coach roaches?
Likewise, if Chuck Crismier believes this strongly about strict adherence to the Mosaic law in its entirety, does he intend to broadcast an episode of his Viewpoint news and cultural analysis program condemning the Duck Dynasty clan for the consumption of yet another food clearly forbidden in the pages of Old Testament revelation?
And what about the fast food industry such as Burger King and McDonald's?
A common complaint among certain factions of the more doctrinally enthusiastic is that contemporary Evangelicals are insufficiently Hebraic in their approach to the interpretation and application of Scripture.
So if Africans are to be condemned for consuming bats which might be one of the very few food items available to such impoverished populations, does one have to be consistent and declare an all out crusade against the All American cheeseburger?
By Frederick Meekins