Obama wants to defame September 11th by highlighting the occasion as a day of service and downplaying the attack upon America. So if one questions compulsory voluntarism, one will be anathematized as a contingency operation instigator. We’re not suppose to use the word “terrorist” anymore.
Sean Hannity said he wouldn’t go down the road of criticizing Ted Kennedy so soon after the Senator’s death. I recall reading of Ted Kennedy driving off one of the roads he went down.
It has been reported that the healthcare reform legislation being considered will order the IRS to hand your tax records over to health commissioners. It was observed that apparently it’s OK to collect information in the name of universal healthcare but not to prevent terrorism. If it’s wrong to ascertain the legal status of immigrants as to whether or not they should be here, then on what grounds do government agencies have to be passing this information back and forth regarding actual citizens? There are already concerns about disparities of treatment among various groups and classes. Just think how much worse it will be when your chart reads, “Middle class. Do not resuscitate.”
The Healthcare reform bill also plans to spend over a billion dollars for jungle gyms, bike trails, and farmers markets. Guess the Chinese want fit slaves for when they take over after the United States defaults on the loans from the Maoists.
In embracing the Lockerbie bomber, Qaddaffi proves he is still human scum. Makes you wish for the good old days of the Bush Doctrine where, if you sided with America’s enemies, you were considered one of America’s enemies.
A public service announcement on Fox News was broadcast in Spanish. This is more about conditioning actual Americans into accepting bilingualism since any Spanish-speakers watching an American cable news channel already likely comprehends or knows a considerable amount of English.
Geraldo Rivera has published a book titled “The Great Progression: How Hispanics Will Lead America to a New Era of Prosperity”. Thought we weren’t suppose to consider matters of race or ethnicity. Can you imagine the outrage if Pat Buchanan or David Duke published a book on how Whites are indispensable to the country’s welfare. Quite telling how Geraldo publicically sides with his Hispanic heritage over his Jewish background.
An article in the leftwing propaganda rag "Sojourners Magazine" titled "Sex Without Shame" fails to mention that the only shameless sex is to be found in marriage between a man and a woman. The closest the article gets is a tepid "In our churches we need to help younger people...say 'yes' to some shared bodily interactions. As we need to help each other not only just say no, but understand why 'no' or 'not yet' is an appropriate life-giving response to some other options we encounter along our sexual journeys." That's so romantic and sensual that it makes Allan Greenspan sound like Conway Twitty.
A series of meetings were held to discuss "perseverance of the native Hawaiian people, challenges facing the Native Hawaiian community, and ways in which the White House might work with the community to find common solutions to our common challenges." I wonder if similar concerns will be taken into consideration to ensure the continuation of Euro-American people or will steps continue to be taken in the form of Obama's healthcare proposals to finally eliminate White folks once and for all.
Ted Kennedy sought an alliance between the KGB and the Democratic Party. Many will denounce this pointing out of the shortcomings of the dead. However, at least Ted Kennedy got to die from a natural causes at a respectable age. That was more of an opportunity than given to the victims of this murderous regime that Ted sought to buddy-buddy around with. I guess father like son as apparently Ted saw the Soviets in much the same way as his own father saw the Nazis.
One wonders what Rep. Joe Wilson was threatened with in order to get him to denounce his own denouncing of Obama by issuing an apology to Rahm Emanuel.
He shouldn't back down at all. The President is no god.
If it is improper to shout out during an address before Congress that the President lies, then why is all the incessant fawning applause proper?
I ask all of those now in a tizzy, will your manners keep you warm when your freedom has been taken away and you find yourself either in financial ruin at best or in a reeducation camp at worst?
If Obama can threaten to call out those critical of his healthcare plan, why can't we do the same to him?
Contrary to his most diehard fanatics, Obama is no God and it is suppose to be the Constitution and not the President that reigns supreme in the land of liberty.
Viewers wanting to see "Knowing" staring Nicholas Cage might expect a film not all that different from his "National Treasure" series or even perhaps "The Da Vinci Code" as from advertisements the story appears to center around an aged parchment with a series of numbers scribbled across it that seemingly predicts a series of disasters. However, by the film's conclusion, the apocalyptic symbolism alluded to is much more complex and potentially confusing than one might initially suspect.
After a series of catastrophes Cage’s astrophysicist character witnesses as a result of deciphering the cryptic document, one begins to get the impression that the transcendent presence guiding events is more of a tangible one rather than a force in the background. Hints of this are introduced when mysterious figures reminiscent of less than normal looking versions of Men In Black begin to stalk Cage’s son as well as the granddaughter of the character who wrote down the prophetic string of numbers in a flashback set fifty years in the past.
In most films one usually gets a distinct impression as to the forces overseeing mankind’s eschatological destiny. Usually they are traditionally supernatural or more in the vein of what moviegoers would consider extraterrestrial or interplanetary. Seldom do I remember a film where the distinctions were blurred or melded to such a degree as in "Knowing".
For example, viewers were first given a hint of this as Cage and one of the adolescents come across an illustration depicting Ezekiel's wheel within a wheel. The overt supernatural overtones continued to increase with interactions with the Men In Black, especially when a blinding lights emanates from one of their mouths when confronted by Cage and as Cage's partially deaf son picks up a message over his hearing aide from the "whispering people".
By the time of the movie's climactic act, Ezekiel's wheel within a wheel has descended to the rendezvous point where it has arrived to whisk the children under Cage’s care to safety away from the earth endangered by a gigantic solar flare. Not even at this point did screenwriters clarify where they came down theologically. For example, as Cage proceeded to board the craft, he was informed that only the chosen could enter.
Did this mean only those professing belief in God (about the best you can hope for from Hollywood as a positive ascent to the need for a relationship with Christ would be out of the question) since earlier in the film Cage's character hinted at lacking faith in a conscious divine power. Or more likely, were these tots suppose to be Indigo Children, a new classification of adolescent hypothesized to be the next step in human evolution as a way to explain a myriad of phenomena from such as why these children have IQ's higher than their parents to bratty teen behavior.
The distinction between garden variety extraterrestrial and angel is further blurred when these entities drop their humanoid facades to reveal themselves to be energy beings reminiscent of the Taelons from the early seasons of “Gene Roddenberry’s Earth: Final Conflict”. The obfuscation continues until the end of the film.
As the craft carrying the two children away from the earth lifts into space, the viewer realizes that these two youngsters were not the only two saved as they join a convoy of similar vehicles. Once more, while the average viewer might be sitting there dumbfounded as to what is being depicted, the viewer peripherally in the know will wonder if they have just seen a space age interpretation of the Rapture where it is believed that the saved will be whisked away by God to safety before destruction comes upon the world or rather, as non-dispensationalists have hypothesized, or how the masses will be duped into a pseudo-rapture orchestrated by so-called “flying saucers”.
Even after all of this, "Knowing" at its end dumps even deeper metaphysical symbolism upon the viewer to wade through. For after the earth is destroyed with the elements burning up with a fervent heat as foretold in II Peter 3:12, we see the children running through a field towards a very distinct looking tree that could very well be the Tree of Life. But as with other moments in this film, we are not given any definitive answer as to whether the children are in Heaven or merely on another planet.
Those that go into “Knowing” expecting a supernatural thriller will not be disappointed. However, what they may not know about is the symbolic dialogue regarding some of the most profound spiritual issues facing the world today.
A series of meetings were held to discuss "perseverance of the native Hawaiian people, challenges facing the Native Hawaiian community, and ways in which the White House might work with the community to find common solutions to our common challenges."
I wonder if similar concerns will be taken to ensure the continuation of Euro-American people or will steps continue to be taken in the form of Obama's healthcare proposals to finally eliminate White folks once and for all.
Don't endorse the content. The link is provided to educate the reader as to the perspectives in the world today. It does, however, show how the contemporary UFO contact movement is linked to older forms of spirtualism.
I am reminded of the scene in "Torchwood: Children Of Earth" where the military went in guns blazing to round up students and snatch them from their parents in the name of vaccinations. They were actually being handed over to be used as extraterrestrial narcotics.
Try as the atheist might to manipulate objective data to fit their hypothesis with some evolutionists going so far as to invoke the law in order to suppress perspectives conflicting with their origins account, the assumptions of atheism fail to square with the facts of nature and with the revelation of nature's God. At one time earlier in the modern era, it was quite common for the atheist to portray himself as the true friend and ally of science. However, as impartial observational science has probed deeper onto the macroscopic realm of cosmic space as well as the microscopic world of the subatomic particle, this relationship once prided by the atheist turned out not to be as solid as originally thought.
The scientific establishment and the philosophical elites once derided the so-called "theistic proofs" for the existence of God as the outdated wisdom of a less-enlightened era. It turns out, however, that these time-honored arguments may be as relevant as the latest academic journals.
The cosmological argument, perhaps the best known, states that all finite realities and structures have a cause. Therefore, ultimately there must be an uncaused cause complete in itself in order to get the proverbial billiard ball rolling; this the theist declared to be God.
Naturalistic cosmologists steeped in atheism such as Carl Sagan once tried to dance around the issue by saying that the cosmos is all there was, is, or ever will be. But it seems that the laws of physics don't exactly have a record of contributing to their local PBS station.
The Laws of Thermodynamics declare that, left to themselves, systems degrade to the maximum level of entropy; or in laymen's terms, things wear out. Employing this principle, one is forced to conclude that, if the universe is an infinitely-old closed system those like Sagan claim it to be, then the universe would have already wound down in eons past. Therefore, the universe must have had a beginning. And since something finite cannot come from nothing, the hypothesis of a divine creator provides the most plausible alternative.
It has been noted that the theistic proofs do not necessarily reveal the God of Judeo-Christian adoration but at best point the seeker in His direction. Likewise, the findings of science point the individual in the direction of a yet more definitive source of knowledge standing in opposition to the claims of atheism.
Scripture strikes the decisive blow against those daring to spit cognitively in the face of God. Psalms 19:1 says, "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork."
Until the scientist can replicate life on his own from nothing whatsoever, that verse settles the issue of whether the universe sings the praises of an omnipotent Creator or testifies to the cruel fact of an arbitrary universe devoid of plan or purpose. Some will no doubt continue to insist upon their own path of stubbornness despite what the very molecules they are breathing might be telling them.
Of those failing to be persuaded by the evidence, Psalms 14:1 says, “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God.” Webster’s defines fool as “a person devoid of reason or intelligence.” Either the educated person assents to the reality of God or his so-called “education” is not worth the value of the parchment the big-shot degree is printed upon.
If the skeptic still refuses to abandon atheism in light of the objective evidence, one is left with no alternative but to drag out the rotten fruits produced by this faulty system in terms of ruined lived and fallen nations. For instead of establishing a set of moral values resting upon a foundation apart from divine revelation as originally postulated by the adherents of early atheistic modernism, one ends up with an ethical system based upon the absolutist relativism of postmodernism where almost anything goes except daring to set forth some kind of behavioral standard binding upon all.
According to Chuck Colson in Against The Night: Living In The New Dark Ages, in the arena where relativism reigns supreme in opposition to the law of God, there is no legitimate ground in which one can exclude the arguments and proposals of Nazis, serial killers, and pedophiles (47). From today's headlines, the nation is coming to realize in the most brutal of ways that these ideas do not confine themselves to academic journals or newspaper opinion pages. And in the case of school shootings such as Columbine High, this radical antipathy towards God can in fact turn deadly.
If the lawlessness of atheism can wreak havoc upon individual lives, just imagine its affects magnified across entire societies. The major dictatorships of the twentieth century testify to this blood-soaked historical truth. Founded upon assorted atheistic ideologies, these totalitarian regimes promised secular heavens on earth but instead dragged their nations down to the very borders of hell.
Unfettered by eternal external standards, those holding the reins of power in such societies had nothing to hamper the implementation of their most extreme policy whims, not even the value of innocent human lives. For example, Mao Zedong of the People's Republic of China slaughtered five million of his own countrymen in pursuit of his Cultural Revolution and related kinds of Communist nonsense.
While the United States has not yet eliminated that many (at least among those fortunate enough to escape the womb alive), the Orwellian day is here when good will be called evil and evil called good. Former Secretary of Education Bill Bennett aptly noted on an appearance on "Meet The Press" that, had the Columbine killers greeted one another with "Hail the King of Kings" rather than their trademark "Heil Hitler", school officials would have intervened since an affirmation of theism --- especially of a Christian variety --- is the one thing an atheistic educational system cannot tolerate. School officials did not intervene and the rest is history, with organized unbelief claiming yet a few more in its unrelenting war upon God and humanity.
As public rhetoricians are fond of pointing out, mankind stands at a crossroads. The choice, however, goes to a level deeper than the choice between Democrats and Republicans that Americans must make on election day.
The decision to be made transcends the limited purposes of institutionalized politics to embrace fundamental issues of worldview and belief. The nature of this conflict can be discovered in a comparison and contrast between atheism and Christianity.
From the fundamental postulate regarding the nonexistence of God, atheism attempts to formulate a comprehensive framework upon which to hang its understanding of mankind and the universe. Without God to account for the cosmos in which they find themselves, atheists argue that the complexity of nature arose through a process of gradual evolution governed by the rules of chance.
This process of evolution, to the atheist, serves as the dynamic against which man strives to find and determine his role upon the earth. As such, everything is thus in a state of flux and nothing is fixed as man struggles to figure things out against the backdrop of a cold and purposeless void.
Not even fundamental issues such as individual rights, personal ethics, or social institutions can afford to remain fixed and stagnant. And if innocent human lives are ruined or destroyed, that may seem regrettable at this moment along the long evolutionary chain, but mankind will ultimately get things worked out and the piles of corpses littering history’s ditches will not seem so nauseous upon further enlightenment.
Of these ideas, Proverbs 14:12 says, “There is a way which seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death.” Any history book objective enough to attest to the horrors of the twentieth century testifies to this startling truth.
Standing in contrast to the lonely pointlessness of atheism is Judeo-Christian theism recognizing God as the fundamental proposition of the universe. Like atheism, the Judeo-Christian tradition builds its system around its conceptual foundation as well. But since its basis is drastically different from that of atheism, the conclusions drawn by Christianity are considerably different.
Christianity holds that, since the universe was created from nothing through the Word of God, all creation is dependent upon Him at all times. Colossians 1:17 says, “...by him all things consist.”
Since man is God’s creation, it is therefore God’s right to determine the standards by which man shall conduct his own affairs. And since God loves His creation, it follows that His standards are for the benefit of His children. These standards are communicated to mankind in a number of ways.
One such way is through individual conscience. Romans 2:14 says, “For when Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature things contained in the law, these having not the law, are a law unto themselves.” While God has written the Law across the heart of man, man has suppressed this truth through sin.
God has overcome this development by making Himself known in the person of His Son Jesus Christ and through the direct propositional revelation of His Word and the Holy Bible of which II Timothy 3:16 says, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” It is within this framework of Law and Grace that the balance between the individual and society is found as this system and the objective standards established by it protect the individual since it recognizes the worth and fallen character of each. That is why Psalms 33:12 says, “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.”
Atheism remains one of the most serious intellectual challenges faced by the contemporary Christian. Despite its obvious scientific and sociological shortcomings, the powerful adherents of this system positioned in influential sectors of society such as government and academia have enshrined this worldview as the official dogma of civilization nearly as stifling as anything allegedly imposed by the medieval Catholic Church.
Yet despite considerable efforts to enforce this system as an orthodoxy that goes so far as to jail students daring to pray around a flagpole, like its sister system in the former Soviet Union, Western atheism is a decaying ideology. It is amid this decay often resulting in social and individual ruin that the Christian is able to proclaim the superiority of the theistic alternative and the God of its adoration.
An article in the leftwing propaganda rag "Sojourners Magazine" titled "Sex Without Shame" fails to mention that the only shameless sex is to be found in marriage between a man and a woman.
The closest the article gets is a tepid "In our churches we need to help younger people...say 'yes' to some shared bodily interactions. As we need to help each other not only just say no, but understand why 'no' or 'not yet' is an appopriate life-giving response to some other options we encounter along our sexual journeys".
Will be interesting to hear additional research on this. At this time, I neither confirm or deny its allegations put merely post to inform readers as to what is perculating out there.
For the unfamiliar, Wallis is one of the subversives manipulating Evangelicalism into embracing a COMMUNITY emphasis which is little more than sugar-coated socialism.
If guns are legal in Arizona, why is this even a story?
If liberals are going to tell us that we cannot criticize the most barbaric practices of the jungle savage because we are not a part of that culture, who are the metropolitican East coast elites to criticize Western frontier values which seem to work a whole lot better than the Big City pro-government mentality?
A study finds that shorter students are "no less popular" than taller ones.
Frankly, from my own experience --- even in a Christian school --- the shorter ones were actually the snottiest brats in the class and were the actual bullies rather than the stouter pupils.
But since chubbier students don't fit in with the plans of New World Order types such as environmentalists, I guess we got what we deserved.
Is Obama going to condemn his allies convetioning in Vegas as he did America's corporate titans. Your not going to tell me Clinton in Sin City is as trustworthy as Billy Graham at a booze factory.
Will the royal family be subject to the same policy or will they require to continue their high meat diet so they can continue their whoremongering debuacheries?
If the Middle Ages are to stand in history books as the Age of Faith, it could be equally asserted that the nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first centuries will no doubt be remembered as the Era of Unbelief. Whereas unbelievers in the Middle Ages were careful in how they expressed their theological doubts for fear of befalling persecution, theists (be they Protestant, Catholic, or Orthodox Jew) have today learned selectivity in how they go about expressing challenges to the prevailing lack of belief impacting fundamental cultural institutions such as government, academia, and the scientific establishment. And like the Catholic Church of the Middle Ages, the atheistic establishment of today seeks to foster a worldview influencing all aspects of society and binds all individuals whether they wish to be or not. Such an assertion will become more obvious in the following analysis which identifies significant atheistic thinkers, clarifies why some chose to adhere to this particular belief system, and critiques this worldview and contrasts it with Christian monotheism.
As an intellectual tradition, atheism has captured the minds of some of history’s most formidable thinkers. Creation science apologist Ken Ham of Answers In Genesis has astutely pointed out that social issues and public policies rest upon a foundation of thought and belief. Keeping with this analogy, atheism proceeds from a theoretical base up through a practical program designed to influence various spheres of culture such as politics and education with prominent luminaries within the movement solidifying this mental edifice along the way.
As stated elsewhere within these introductory comments, atheism did not suddenly appear on the doorstep of the twentieth and twenty-first century fully formed demanding things like the removal of school prayer and the enshrinement of evolution as biological dogma. Rather like a weed strangling the other plants around it, today's culture of unbelief sprang from the soil in which it was planted. While atheism can trace its pedigree back throughout much of human history, a number of modern thinkers have ensured this system a place of prominence within the cultural consciousness.
One pivotal intellect laying a foundation for atheism was Ludwig Feuerbach. In "The Essence Of Christianity", Feuerbach set out to undermine the claims of the supernatural by providing religious belief with a naturalistic basis postulating that the idea of God is merely a mental projection of the goodness and nobility residing within man's own bosom (McGrath, 95). Once mankind realizes that there is no transcendent deity to rely on, Feuerbach argued, his sense of alienation could be overcome by reembracing the notions of perfectibility once reserved for God as an integral component of human nature (Lawhead, 399).
Attempting to solidify these claims regarding man's position atop a materialistic universe through a veneer of science was Charles Darwin. According to "The Cambridge Dictionary Of Philosophy", Darwin was among the first to popularize theories of materialistic gradualism or evolution with a naturalistic mechanism, namely the process of natural selection where adaptations are accumulated in surviving organisms and passed on to succeeding generations (177-179). According to Darwin in "The Origin Of Species", it is through the accumulation of these adaptations in response to varying environmental conditions that biologists find the diverse plethora of organisms that inhabit the earth today. Alister McGrath points out in "Intellectuals Don’t Need God & Other Modern Myths" that "The Origin Of Species" and its ensuing theory of evolution was not accepted as much for its scientific insight than for its justification of passionately believed ideological assumptions such as the free trade policies of the English Whig Party, various strands of socialism, and assorted theories regarding the perceived hierarchy of human races and ethnic groups (161).
Standing upon thinkers such as Feuerbach and Darwin who provided atheism with theoretical and allegedly scientific justifications were other formidable intellects pursuing the implications of a social order divorced from the influence of God. One such figure drawing upon the fonts of atheism for such a purpose was Karl Marx.
Marx served as a kind of intellectual middleman between the theoretically-inclined such as Feuerbach and Darwin and the later activists such as Lenin and Mao who would adapt Marx's own writings for the actual political arena. Borrowing from the materialism of Feuerbach, Marx believed that religion and the notion of God were devised by bourgeois elites in order to subjugate the proletarian masses. Borrowing from Darwin's theory of growth through conflict, Marx believed these religious notions would have to be swept away along side with most forms of private property in order to make a way for the pending socialist utopia. Marx's call for action and summary for analysis were sounded in "The Communist Manifesto"; his beliefs received further exposition through the massive "Das Kapital", much of which was compiled by Friedrich Engels after the death of his comrade.
Another prominent twentieth century thinker dedicated to the cause of atheism was Bertrand Russell. Though best remembered in academia as a foremost philosopher of mathematics, it could be argued that Russell's most widespread contribution remains as an influential proponent of applied atheism.
The core of Russell's objections to Christianity can be found in his "Why I Am Not A Christian", which seeks to justify his religious stance as well as highlight the ramifications of such beliefs as epitomized by Russell's sexual ethics sanctioning arrangements such as trial marriages and recreational promiscuity. Russell's views regarding family life were further elaborated upon in "Marriage & Morals", a publication whose radicalism contributed to costing Russell a professorship at the City College Of New York.
Russell's primary intellectual motivation was a burning contempt for God and His divine order for man. This conclusion can be drawn from Russell's social views, which were an eclectic mixture of totalitarian and anarchistic impulses.
On the one hand, Russell supported the establishment of a world government so intrusive it would decree who would be permitted to have children. Yet Russell participated in acts of outright civil disobedience in connection with the anti-nuclear movement, thinking that the modern state had grown too powerful and destructive for mankind's own good.
In most Christian investigations into atheism, it is common to highlight the affinity between contemporary sociopolitical leftism and religious atheism. However, the increasing popularity of intellectual iconoclast Ayn Rand proves that atheism can also serve as a temptation for those more prone to classify themselves as conservatives and libertarians as well.
Calling her philosophy Objectivism, Ayn Rand argued for the primacy of reason and the individual over all other human faculties and institutions, prompting some to characterize Star Trek's Mr. Spock as the embodiment of her worldview. However, in her quest to emancipate humanity from the dangers of totalitarianism, Rand went too far in elevating reason at the expense of faith and by characterizing the living God of the universe as just another dogma bent on enslaving the minds of men not all that unlike Marxist Communism.
Ayn Rand's thoughts find expression in a number of novels and polemical discourses. "Atlas Shrugged" is remembered as Ayn's signature work extolling the virtues of nonconformity and radical individualism in the guise of a novel about an architect bending to no standard but his own. In the novel "We The Living", Rand warns of the dangers posed by collectivism to the well-being of the individual. Rand's nonfiction works include "Philosophy: Who Needs It", "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal", and "The Virtue Of Selfishness".
Of Ayn Rand, it says in "Christianity For The Tough Minded", "her attempt to formulate a philosophy of creative selfishness will make no great impact (227)." Yet her impact cannot be denied be denied as her portrait adorns the walls of the Cato Institute and key national leaders such as former chairman of the Federal Reserve Board Alan Greenspan and Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas count themselves among her admirers.
Looking at the matter from a certain perspective, the beauty and appeal of atheism can be found in its ability to adapt to the needs of those building systems of thought and seeking to justify individual behavioral practices. Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky realized that, if there is no God, anything is possible.
The diminished guilt available through atheism may serve as a greater incentive to those flocking under its banner than any of the answers the system might provide to the universal questions asked by thinking individuals. D. James Kenendy points out in "Character & Destiny: A Nation In Search Of Its Soul" that Bertrand Russell may have been an atheist as much to ease his conscience regarding his numerous affairs and seductions as out of a desire for alleged rational consistency (173). The idea of God posits the notion that the right to order the moral structure of reality resides in a power beyond the level of the finite individual's control.
And control is the one thing the individual atheist is loathe to relinquish. Though one can't fault her, Ayn Rand was fifty-eight years old before stepping aboard an airplane for fear of giving up control over her own destiny to the pilots and mechanics she claimed possessed a faulty "modern psycho-epistemology" (Branden, "The Passion Of Ayn Rand, 318).
Anarchist Segei Nechayev wrote in "Catechism Of A Revolutionist", "The revolutionist knows only one science, the science of destruction which does not stop at lying, robbery, betrayal and torture of friends, murder of his own family." How much easier it is to topple the tower of morality once its foundation of concrete theism has been removed.
A classic truism teaches that if wishes were horses beggars would ride, and another piece of cherished wisdom reveals wishing for something does not make it so. These same principles apply to the longing for a deity-free universe as expressed by the thinkers profiled throughout this exposition. For even though atheists have gone to considerable lengths to implement their systems, Communists going so far as to slaughter millions of innocent individuals, atheism fails to standup to closer scrutiny on a number of grounds.
If liberals are going to counter that Benjamin Cardoza is not the first "Latin American" justice of the Supreme Court because the Portugese do not count, I hope they will boldly stand up and deny Brazilians coming here Affirmative Action benefits and set asides since they do not qualify then for Hispanic exemptions and set-asides.
As much as he rides this issue, it causes me to wonder if there is some kind of profound unhappiness in the Albert Mohler household.
Has been my experience that the ones that nag single people the most about getting married themselves come from the worst of marriages.
It is like for some reason they have to hound you into their own state of misery.
Interesting how the argument is made to heep condemnation upon the docile and behaved not likely to leave the church rather than those that can't keep their pants on parenting the tidal wave of bastard births sweeping across the landcape.
How about a little more of minding one's own business, Dr. Mohler?
The Mohlerites and Dobsonians lift up as some kind of ideal the past where people married in their early 20's.
Perhaps they would also care to address how many unhappy marriages where formed where the partners would have been better off had they remained single simply because the parties no longer wanted to be snickered at as a fagot or a lesbian even though they were neither of these perversities.
Though it no doubt pains some of the uberpuritanical who crave to control every last detail of those around them, the Bible is remarkably silent as to by what age one MUST be married.
The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors have authorized the expansion of the Saudi Islamic Academy.
Shysters on the school's payroll claim the matter was about land use and not curriculum.
Critics of the school claim the institution advocates violence against Jews and Christians, so much so that one valedictorian has been convicted of part of a conspiracy to assasinate George W. Bush.
Though one may believe whatever one wants under the First Amendment, I wonder if the fanatic multiculturalists assenting to this vote would have easily glossed over what this school teaches if the school was run by White folks from the Ku Klux Klan.
Since both the Klan and this school are both alleged to teach violence against Jews, I don't really see all that much difference between then.
More importantly, since it is not a matter of "philosophy", I wonder if the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors will be as eager to grant requests made on the part of church groups, or does Christianity just happen to be the wrong religon.
Barack Obama has taken on the role of chief booze peddler. Hoping to smooth over the controversy that has erupted over the arrest of Henry Louis Gates, the President has invited the professor and the arresting office to the White House for a beer. Given the professor's temper, is it really a good idea to get him all liquored up?
Henry Louis Gates is hardly the harmless professor the media is making him out to be. Frankly, Gates is to the Ivy League what Jeremiah Wright is to ecclesiastical circles.
At Harvard, Gates is the director of the W.E.B Du Bois Institute for African & African American Research, named after a known Communist. According to a WorldNetDaily profile of this academic subversive, Gates has lured other leftist rabble rousers to campus such as Cornel West and advocates Afrosupremacist positions such as Affirmative Action, reparations, and liberation theology. If one is known for the company one keeps, Americans should be very concerned about what they have let into the White House.
Michael Jackson wanted to be cloned by a UFO cult. According to Jackson's chauffer, the King of Pop became obsessed with creating a duplicate of himself after attending with Uri Geller a conference hosted by Clonaid. Clonaid is the research arm of the Raelians, a sect that believes human beings are the result of extraterrestrial genetic experimentation.
Life is apparently no circus for Ringling Brothers elephants. PETA operatives have obtained footage of handlers allegedly beating their pachyderms as a matter of course rather than when simply out of line.
Hopefully, some as intrepid videographer will capture footage of the mistreatment of animals known to go on at the hands of this animal welfare front group. It has been conjectured that PETA would rather see animals dead than in human hands.
Freedom of thought and descent have been dealt another blow during these days of the Obama regime. According to Joseph Farah of WorldNetDaily, search engines such as Google are quietly dropping or downplaying links to articles questioning the validity of Obama’s birth certificate.
Some will respond that, as private enterprises, search engines should be able to establish criteria as to what information they will present as legitimate. However, should such a perspective continue to expand, what makes these tactics any more moral than those employed in Communist China were access to certain viewpoints is blocked in the name of the good of the social order?
More importantly, how long will it be until not only access to websites questioning the government disappear but people as well? Certainly an awful lot of trouble to go to if our exalted Caliph has nothing to hide.
Many no doubt think that I have gone too far by insinuating that things may get to the point where those criticizing the government in general and Obama in particular might meet with, shall we say, expedited ends. However, the foundation is now being set to neutralize in an efficiently permanent manner one segment of the population no doubt seen as being an impediment to the kind of policies Obama represents.
Tucked away within the chapters of the Obama Healthcare Bill is a provision for “end of life counseling” referred to as “Advance Care Planning Consultation”. This clause requires the elderly to meet every five years with medical authorities to determine whether or not the individual’s life is worthy of continuation.
Supporters will insist that such an assessment is simply to clarify the patient’s preferences regarding these complicated matters. However, in light of statements made by Obama and a number of his closest advisors, one must ask will medical professionals simply implement the wishes of the patient or rather pressure the patient into complying with the prerogatives of social engineers.
For example, White House Healthcare Policy Advisor Ezekial Emanuel is said to believe that public resources would be better directed towards arts spending than extending the lives of the elderly. Likewise, Obama has suggested the elderly might be just as well off simply given pain medication rather than treatments that might actually improve their conditions.
At the heart of each position is a philosophy known as utilitarianism, which determines an individual’s worth based upon what they contribute or give back to the COMMUNITY. For example, illegal aliens are valuable and deserving of healthcare for their labor as near slaves. Sodomites are valuable to the state because of their deep pockets and for eroding traditional morality and religion.
Conversely, under such a system, it is in the state’s interest to quickly shuttle the elderly out of this life. This is for the following reasons.
For starters, since they are infirm, the elderly are unable to tangibly contribute to society’s perceived economic needs. However, more importantly, the radical statist feels an overwhelming need to eliminate the elderly since, for the most part, as a bloc they represent the greatest opposition to the totalitarian agenda.
Even though I am still a relatively young man, I remember several years back receiving a comment over something I had written where the commenter remarked that they were glad people like me were eventually dying out. Before it is all over with, don’t be surprised if the healthcare you end up receiving is proportionally linked to your support of an Obamaist agenda.
It is one thing to have fun at a wedding, but shouldn't one be a bit solemn when taking vows before God and man in a house of worship?
Since this exhibits the couple's degree of seriousness about getting married, I bet the marriage doesn't last more than two years.
No doubt there will be readers who say how dare I comment on people's private affairs; however, I must point out they are the ones that have put this ribaldary online for the world to gawk at.
So much for the diversity of opinion our exalted Caliph claims to support.
I wonder if a "certificate of live birth" would be enough for the paperwork the average American needs to acquire the magical documents we are assured will somehow stop terrorism.
So long as the bills are payed, the kids fed, and forty hours worked, what's so bad about some "escapism".
Isn't that especially true if the Christian has cautiously gone out of their way to ensure that their sensibilities and convictions will not be undermined through extraneous sex or violence?
In many ways, the so-called "real world" can be highly overrated.
These radio personalities should be reminded that not everyone has the same degree of career fulfillment that they have and that it is largely those of us stuck in tedious jobs that make financing air time possible.
If one wants to nitpick, maybe we should chastise those feigning sophistication by poopooing the Christian liteary ghetto for not making it in the realm of secular broadcasting.
In one of the climactic scenes of the conclusion of "Battlestar Galactica", Gaius Baltar remarks that an unseen hand had been guiding events all along up until that point. Just as the characters were propelled by something from beyond themselves, the producers behind this show may have been driven by ideas originating from sources other than their own fertile imaginations.
Even in the original "Battlestar Galactica" from the 1970's, one of the underlying premises of the saga was that "Life here began out there with forefathers of the Egyptians, the Toltecs, and the Mayans. There are some who say there may yet be brothers of man who fight somewhere to survive among the heavens." In the series finale of the contemporary retelling of the sci-fi classic, viewers got to see a bit of how this vision might have played out.
Though most can watch these compelling dramas unaware of the underlying worldviews of the authors and not be impacted by them to any appreciable degree, there is indeed a philosophy being presented that if nothing else impacts the authors' approach to the material at hand.
In the original with the narration provided by Patrick Macnee who went on to play a devil-like figure in that versions mildly Mormonesque mythos, one assumes that, when mankind arrived here on earth, there was no other intelligent life.
However, in the recently concluded version, we realize that it is prehistoric Earth (not even the actual Earth in the reimagining and if you add a third you'll have to have a crossover show with the Thundercats) that the Galactica fleet has arrived at.
To the casual viewer, either version does not seem all that different. It may comes as a surprise, therefore, that each depiction presents a slightly different viewpoint as to how civilization originated here on Earth.
In the original "Battlestar Galactica" with Earth being the home of the lost 13th tribe of man, it could be said that human life here is the result of an anthropocentric panspermia, meaning we came from elsewhere and are not native to this planet. This has a number of implications, especially for those embracing the perspective of Deep Ecology.
Going beyond a traditional environmentalist standpoint, Deep Ecology holds that mankind is an invasive species infesting the planet. As such, ripping it out through any means necessary including mass death is perfectly acceptable. Prince Phillip, whose primary accomplishment has been marrying someone else who never had to work a day n her life, basically wishes he could be reincarnated as a killer virus to wipe your family out because his own was a total drain on world resources.
The view taken by the new Galactica is much more complex and seems to ape (or at least hominid) so many other science fiction narratives these days that if one was a conspiracy theorist one might easily conclude that some kind of interplanetary catechism was trying to be conveyed to the masses. Once the Galactica fleet arrives, one sees a crouching survey team consisting of the shows primary characters such as Admiral Adama and Dr. Baltar.
These two proceed to banter back and forth about the odds of human life originating at two distinct places in the universe with Baltar remarking how the humans of the twelve colonies were genetically compatible with those there on this planet that would come to be known as Earth. It was also noted how these humanoids had not yet developed language and how the new arrivals could bestow this rudiment of civilization upon their less-developed counterparts.
Thus, in this version of "Battlestar Galactica", the scenario presented is closer to that of the "Chariots Of The Gods" hypothesis. According to that theory, culture and technology were not developed over time by earth's native inhabitants but rather something bestowed upon us by an advanced civilization "from beyond the heavens".
Even more interesting, in the final scene of the series, the bottom of the screen flashes "150,000 years in the future". We then see the "angelic" versions of Six and Baltar reading a National Geographic article over the shoulder of producer Brian Moore about "Mitochondrial Eve", the earliest known ancestor from whom all human beings can trace our ancestry. Discussing the article between themselves, Baltar and Six reveal that the human race walking this earth today is actually a hybrid one the result of interbreeding between humans and genetically engineered Cylon synthoids.
Just think, 20 odd years from now, if America is still around there will likely be a President shaking hands and brown-nosing Bin Laden.
Sound outrageous, just look at the picture above.
For those with little historical perspective, the man above was at one time the Bin Ladin of that era (the one on the left. the one to the right is working on his legacy of infamy).
Some will no doubt object to this use of language, but if this is the mindset of Afrosupremacists seizing power and demanding handouts, it is my patriotic duty to make sure the world knows the ugly truth. After all, a mere "you people" from the lips of Ross Perot lost him the 1992 presidential race.
Unless this bag has some super-secret James Bond-style tricks it can do, I don't want to hear one more word from this hag about public service, sacrifice, and giving back to the COMMUNITY.
Had this student been wearing a shirt extolling Afro or Hispanosupremacism she would not have been physically accosted but rather likely applauded and given an award.
With the passing of Jerry Falwell and D. James Kennedy along with the dissolution of the Center for Reclaiming America and the Center for Christian Statesmanship, the issue has arisen once again as to whether or not conservative Evangelicals should participate in political activity. Since things have not gotten any better and if anything continued their downward spiral since the advent of the contemporary conservative Evangelical movement popularly referred to as the "Religious Right", it has been suggested by some that politically interested Christians should be herded back into their pews to once again await the Apocalypse.
Interestingly, one of the foremost voices now opposed to conservative Evangelical political involvement is none other than columnist Cal Thomas, who at one time served as a Falwell underling as vice president of Moral Majority and spoke at Dr. Kennedy's Reclaiming America for Christ conference. Thomas, in a column analyzing the passing of his former colleague titled "The Legacy of Jerry Falwell", concludes of the Religious Right, "The movement also had its downside, because it tended to detract from a Christian's primary responsibility of telling people the 'good news' that redemption comes only through Jesus Christ."
While there is a degree of truth to that as during the early to mid 90's at times it seemed Falwell's ministry did place too much emphasis hawking videotapes exposing the criminality of Bill Clinton and replaying week after week snippets of homosexual excesses to the point where one had to send children out of the room or have to explain why mommy and daddy's faces were turning red, some of this is more the fault of how the Evangelical subculture is structured sociologically than the result of Christian political participation per say.
All throughout Sunday school and the Christian day school environment, those spending most of their lives in this branch of the Christian faith are conditioned with the assumption that those holding professional ministry positions such as pastors and missionaries are some how a cut above the remainder of the congregation even though the traditional Protestant position held to the priesthood of all believers and that all moral work was as equally holy. As such, it is no wonder most believers are paralyzed unless there is a so-called "man of the cloth" there on the scene to direct their every movement. Thus, it was only natural that clergy such as Falwell and Kennedy would have to play prominent roles in these movements.
Ironically, at earlier stages in his career, Thomas was one of the most eloquent voices urging Christian youth to consider callings in fields other than professional ministry such as government, politics, and the media. He even one time quipped he did not recall any Christian being called to serve Christ part time.
However, now that he's had his career, Thomas concludes that "...a Christian's primary responsibility is telling people the 'good news' that redemption comes only through Jesus Christ." If that's the case, is Thomas going to repose himself from commenting on sociopolitical matters in favor of more monastic or missional undertakings or is it part of a more natural inclination of not wanting to share notoriety.
For in another column Thomas lamented the rise of consumer choice as exemplified by the growth of talk radio and the blogosphere and instead enunciated a preference that the masses all sup of the same information from the swill placed before them by traditional journalists as the nation's media gatekeepers.
When Thomas chastises Christians for participating in politics and the media since this detracts from time that should be spent directly sharing the Gospel, is he also going to level this charge against Christian physicians if they take the time to perform surgery rather than only praying for the patient's recovery? Likewise, what about the farmer that toils away all day in their fields as this is also time that could be spent in more religious pursuits.
I Corinthians 12:28 says to some God gave to be preachers, some evangelists, others government. Not everyone is cut out for the same purpose in life. As such, their level of interest and the way they contribute to the advancement of the Kingdom of God will varying by kind and degree.
Thomas writes, "But Christians must first understand that the issues they most care about --- abortion, same-sex marriage, and cultural rot --- are not caused by bad politics, but are matters of the heart and soul." While Thomas is correct that these problems won't ultimately be solved until people have a total renewing of the mind found through Christ's shed blood, it does not follow nothing else should be done to ameliorate the social impacts of these manifestations of man’s sin nature.
All it takes for evil to win is for good men to do nothing. In certain communities across the United States, whether or not I steal your car at a stoplight, plug your head with a bullet, and rape your mother as you lay their bleeding to death there on the pavement are as debated as the propriety of abortion and sodomite nuptials are in others. Does that mean in such jurisdictions those of good conscience should not insist that laws against these infractions should not be enforced since, well, the unrepentant apparently have few qualms or taboos against such alternative lifestyle choices?
The tendency of the human species is to take things to extremes. Luther remarked that man is like a drunkard banging his head into one wall and then the next. Granted, many believers have come to expect too much from politics as David Frum has remarked that the debate is no longer about reducing the size of government but rather about divvying up the fiscal spoils.
Many Christians probably did become dupes of the Republican Party at one point. Frankly, though, where else were they going to go?
At least the GOP would consider individualism construed through the prism of a Christian worldview. The Democratic Party has pretty much given itself over to debauchery and collectivism. If one tries really really hard one can count the number of worthwhile Democrats such as Zel Miller on one hand.
Though some Christians are loathe to admit it as they have been conditioned by overly pacifistic interpretation of passages such as turn the other cheek, sometimes Christian involvement is not about bringing the reprobates to a saving knowledge of Christ as fundamental and essential as that mission is. Rather it is about keeping these ravenous jackals away from you and what is rightfully yours.
Some might respond “But didn’t Jesus say to give them your cloak?” My friends, these blatant communalists want more than the shirt off your back. For they will stop at nothing until they not only have the souls of you and your children, but also the very house that you live in and the automobile that you drive if we adhere to the recommendations of the radical pietists if we as believers refrain from political matters such as property rights and environmental policy.
And if some preacher gets up there and blabbers on about how these are just material things we should give up willy nilly, see if he ever forgets to pass the collection plate or how antsy he gets when the IRS considers tweeking something in its code not even remotely related to the survival of religious liberty in this country such as exemptions on pastoral housing allowances. If the rest of us get hosed by revenuers, why not the clergy as well? Maybe then they won’t be so quick to bend their knee before the state’s Baphomet.
While some such as Cal Thomas seem to counsel disinvolvement from sociopolitical activism out of a sincere desire to retain doctrinal purity and separation, others embodying what in Fundamentalist circles is known as Neo-Evangelicalism do so for other reasons. Seeking to get along with other theologies for the sake of getting along, this perspective is endeavoring to take hypertolerance and unity to a whole new level even if it means downplaying or overlooking some of Scripture's most obvious mandates.
Ironically, though the word “mandate” means something else, one of the issues the Christian in the pews is being urged to keep quiet about is none other than “man dates”. For in the March/April 2007 issue of The Plain Truth Magazine, in the article “I Kissed Religion Goodbye”, Greg Albrecht lists as one of his complaints is that many churches expect members to “Vote and politically agitate in absolute, lockstep with pro-life and anti-homosexual views exactly the way your church promotes and endorses them”.
Unlike the war against terror over which sincere Christians can have differing interpretations as to how to best approach the issue, there is not much wiggle room there as to abortion and homosexuality. There is not really anyway around “Thou shalt not murder” and injunctions against carnal relations with members of the same sex unless Albrecht wants to come out and say that the unborn really aren’t human beings and that God did not create marriage to be between a man and a woman.
To many, these issues probably do seem to attract an inordinate amount of attention from conservative Evangelicals. But whose fault is that?
Would most believers even give buggery all that much thought if the gay rights movement was simply about what one did in the privacy of one's home. Seems to me, activist gays are the ones trying to get up in everyone's business as they attempt to penetrate the media, education, and now even ecclesiastical institutions.
Though opposition to such perversities should not become the sole focus of any balanced ministry as Christ died for these individuals also and one wants to avoid becoming unhinged like the Fred Phelps cult, if the churches of America are not going to stand up for the traditional family and marriage as being between a man and woman as the only legitimate form of marriage out of fear of whom they might offend, then they might as well empty the baptismal font and close up shop. For if they do deny the true nature of these fundamental human relationships, it won't be long until the true nature of the God that instituted them will be denied as well.
In the opening of his article, Albrecht laments the "mudslinging and negative rhetoric that ridiculed 'Democrats' and lavished unadulterated praise on all things Republican." Of this, the discerning Christian must ask was this an outright political endorsement of a particular candidate or party (as today I have a hard time imaging there are that many pastors with that much of a spine left willing to jeopardize their tax exempt status as a friend relayed to me how he was pressured to drop the word "liberal" from an article written for the newsletter of what is suppose to be an Independent Baptist Church).
If believers and churches can no longer mention in a nonpartisan context where the Christian faith lines up with the conservative Republican agenda nor condemn those things traditionally thought of as being more liberal Democrat in nature, how much longer until we are counseled by those whose fortunes and notoriety are derived from holding lucrative positions of ecclesiastical leadership to downplay more fundamental aspects of the Christian faith. Already, operatives of Rev. Moon have convinced a number of churches to remove crosses. Those caving so easily will no doubt next downplay the need to be saved from our sins and eventually the need for Jesus as Lord and Savior all together.
However, don't think Albrecht is calling for the complete expunging of politics from the socio-ecclesiastical enterprise all together. For the influence he would see taken out of the hands of conservatives, he gladly places in the hands of more liberal causes.
In a bullet point list of what he perceives as the errors of more conservative or traditional congregations, Albrecht writes in a flippant attempt at humor, "Don't worry about the environment, the poor, or global warming --- those liberal, do-gooder churches have programs for those kinds of things."
What Albrecht is criticizing here are believers who do not necessarily think spending more money and who do not think more government intervention into our lives is going to solve certain problems, that things are as bad as elites would have us believe, or think that people do not necessarily bear some responsibility for their own problems.
As to the poor, it has been my experience that often the most conservative or Fundamentalist of churches of the "old school" variety probably spend larger percentages of their overall incomes on missions and outreach to the individual poor in their immediate vicinity than more leftist evangelical and mainline churches that probably spend a greater percentage on making sure everyone else sees what they are supposedly doing for the poor.
As to the environment and global warming, frankly the jury is still out on this issue as to the following reasons. (1) Does global warming actually exist? (2) If it does, what is its exact cause? So by edicts handed down from on high without these questions being answered, does this mean the average person should forfeit much of their physical mobility just because of some whim of someone further up the bureaucratic hierarchy?
Of course, such restrictions do not apply to the self-appointed such as Greg Albrecht since such figures are so much more important than the rest of us as we Neanderthals would be lost without such guidance.
As to both the environment and poverty, it is questionable that mass scale approaches are the best approach for solving these issues. Often the aide sent to Africans ends up hindering their plight.
Likewise, the best way to save the environment is not by necessarily cordoning it off necessarily into untouchable preserves and by regulating the life out of property to the point where one cannot do anything with it as most sane people tend to care for something best when they are the ones that own it and have the largest say in how it is used.
While no Christian in his right mind advocates dirty water, to a growing number of Evangelicals this concern for the environment goes beyond keeping trash off the shoulder of the highway. Though I cannot speak to Greg Albrecht's views on the afterlife, from one of the snippy remarks made in his sarcastic bullet points one could come away with the impression that he is trodding dangerously close to embracing some of the assumptions of the Emergent Church crowd that the Kingdom of God is not so much a promise of a new heaven and a new earth but the continuation of this one in its current state. Frankly, if this world is all we've got, Christianity is a big waste of time and those snookered into it deserve a refund.
The hyperpious might begin to hyperventilate at such a bold proclamation; however, it is essentially a Biblical sentiment. I Corinthians 15:19 says, “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”
One can deduce that Albrecht and those of like mind in the Emergent, Purpose Driven, and Church Growth movements don't place all that much importance upon the afterlife. For while certain eras of Church History such as the Middle Ages often placed too much emphasis on what comes next, these contemporary theologies don't emphasize it nearly enough.
In his tongue-in-cheek bullet points, Albrecht writes, "You need to believe in the hottest hell with billions being tortured. And you need to believe in the Rapture, the time when members of your church (at least those who are in good standing) escape hell on earth. Some call this time 'The Tribulation' --- a time when so many who richly deserve it will 'get their's'."
Sincere souls can disagree about the sequence of some of these foretold events. However, what they cannot do is deny that one day there will be some kind of ultimate accounting.
Though it has changed considerably, as a leader in the Worldwide Church Of God, frankly, Albrecht ought to be the last one to criticize an interest in eschatology as his sect or denomination was at one time infamous for their obsession with the topic. But like a former glutton that has lost all kinds of weight now telling everyone else that they eat too much, Albrect condemns as a fanatic anyone daring to suggest that there is an eerily increasing similarity between certain portions of Scripture such as Daniel, Thessalonians, and Revelation and certain political and technological developments.
Often those that run in Emergent Church circles foment the assumption that the image of a God of justice and wrath is somehow at odds with the image of God as a God of love. It is because He is a God of love and mercy that He must also be a God of justice and wrath.
The prospect of no eternal punishment for those outside the parameters by which God allows men to be saved (namely believing that one's own good is insufficient to accomplish this and only belief in the Lord Jesus Christ is going to get one to the Pearly Gates) in fact actually tarnishes those gates and makes the streets of Heaven all the more dim. For if God ends up letting anyone in irrespective of whether or not they are sorry for what they did even though God was willing to go to the extent of sacrificing His only begotten Son in order to make a spot for them with Him in eternity, that would make for a very weak God.
Though we as human beings have an innate tendency to avoid pain at all costs even if it means denying its existence, that does not eliminate it if we are unwilling to take the necessary steps. For example, if someone diagnosed with a horrible disease simply decides to say the disease of an uneducated and overactive imagination, that is not going to prevent it from ravaging the patient's body.
Then why do Modernist, Postmodernist, and Emergent theologians waltzing along the ledges of apostasy keep thinking that wishing away Hell's flames is going to make them any cooler? It has been estimated that Jesus spoke more about Hell than He did heaven; therefore, if we are to say that on this matter He is just plain wrong, then why are we to turn around and assume He's anymore correct about Heaven, His coming kingdom, or even the forgiveness of sins?
As to whether or not some Christians are vindictive about Hell has no bearing as to its existence. To say that it does is akin to saying the police department should be abolished entirely and criminals allowed to pillage through the streets simply because a few officers have abused the powers that have been vested in them.
It is only because the most orthodox of Christians believe that Hell as an actual place of torment exists that it seems to play such a prominent role in conservative theologies of varying stripes. While as fallen human beings it is easy from time to time for our anger to get the best of us and to wish someone to that dreaded realm that has ticked us off, those on the right side of the theological continuum do not emphasize the reality of Hell out of some perverse desire to see the unrepentant tossed into the Abyss but rather so that the greatest number might be able to avoid this destination of unimaginable torment.
Thus in recap, among Evangelicals such as Albrecht wanting to look cool in the eyes of the world, Heaven is downplayed in favor of a utopian kingdom. Relatedly, Hell is downplayed for fear of casting bad PR on a loving God and because it makes the unbelieving uncomfortable. Kind of makes you wonder the point of giving one's life to Christ if some saintly grandmother that loved the Lord her entire life is going to endure the same fate as Adolf Hitler or Joseph Stalin since it is highly doubtful these genocidal reprobates pleaded for mercy on the Blood of Christ before leaving this world.
Over the past few decades, at times Evangelicals have taken political activism to extents that can understandably cause concern among the discerning. However, to disengage to the extent some now suggest would also prove equally disastrous.
In this audio link, Albert Mohler's sidekick Russell Moore examines the propriety of Christians celebrating the Fourth of July.
While it is always good to keep government in its proper place in one's heart and mind, I wonder if he is also going to have the backbone to also proclaim that the COMMUNITY is not an independent source of authority or to stand against the spineless pandering to Hispanics that is going on in many of the nation's churches.
In some congregations, this separatism is applauded to such an extent that Hispanics are permitted to establish semi-independent subcongregations and encouraged to retain their old identities while the Americans in the primary congregation are condemned for thinking the United States is a cut above other countries or for not flinging the gates wide-open to unrestricted immigration that doesn't take into account whether or not those swarming here want to be a part of this nation, merely to suck off our resources as welfare parasites, or to engage in activities of a far more subversive nature.
In his comments, Moore criticizes "The American Patriot's Study Bible". While such an edition of God's Word might be going a step too far, where was Moore on the issue of the "Kwanzaa Study Bible" and the edition of the Bible bound in the colors of the Pan-African flag that I exposed in my column Radical Interpretation.?
In his comments, Russell makes a number of observations worthy of comment. Foremost of these is how many of the complaints against patriotic services are leveled by the young who do not want to sing tunes such as "Mine Eyes Have Seen The Glory", commonly referred to as "The Battle Hymn Of The Republic".
Most of these twits would rather sing those banalities where the same line of content so miniscule that it barely rises to the level of doctrine over and over at least a dozen times.
More importantly, I must posit that opposition to this particular song is not raised in honor of the Confederate cause or even because it over glorifies the United States.
Rather, if one digs deep enough, most that despise this song no doubt do so because it mentions the coming of the Lord, a teaching most of those bashing traditional Christianity --- be they of the Emergent Church or more mainline denominations --- either downplay or abandon all together.
As a mere pop music entertainer, it is doubtful that Jamie Foxx comprehends anything as nearly complex as the Ottoman millett system.
However, a contemporary version of it is exactly what he is endorsing when he said of Michael Jackson "We want to celebate this black man. He belongs to us and we shared him with everyone else."
In the millett system, the person was subject to distinct laws and customs specific to the confessional community to which one belonged rather than the laws of the empire solely.
So in essense, one is not an Amerian first and foremost or even one's own individual but rather you belong primarily to the racial group or more specifically the hucksters that have set themselves up as its leaders.
Just a quick look at the kinds of people behind this Emergent Churh, communitarian nonsense.
I don't believe the North African dictatorship is mentioned in the above article, but it is mentioned in this link.
If these false prophets wanted to make a break with the past, why wouldn't they disband the group all together and not even have the name of David Moses Berg on affiliated with their ministry.
Is akin to trying to rehabilitate the People's Temple and claim Jim Jones was a good guy deep down despite going off the deep end.
In this story about the debate of whether chimpanznees or orangutans are humanity's closest relative it concludes with a very revealing statement: "In other words, if the DNA evidence that many biologists use as evidence turned out not to accurately reveal evolutionary relationships, the work of many molecular biologists would be suspect. If this was true, we would lose entire departments at major universities, Disotell said.'I would have nothing to do. I would go become a carpenter'."
To those that are now going to go into vapors over what Boehner said, the word he used is all you are going to have left to eat and keep you warm if Obama's "Climate Change" bill is enacted.
Too bad the media did not go into 24 hour coverage over this usurpation of American living standards rather than Michael Jackson's passing, which though sad, won't really impact your own life by the time winter heating bills arrive in the mail.
Wonder if educators would have rallied to the cause of free speech if students had instead decided to include a panel depicting a cross or the words "Jesus Saves".
A state-sponsored pregnancy prevention program at the University of North Carolina is paying girls $1.00 a day not to get pregnant.
Since it takes two to make a baby, shouldn't young men be getting this WELFARE also?
If it was reversed, wouldn't NOW nags be crying discrimination?
Some will argue there really isn't anyway to prove boys are complying with the program.
But the same is true with girls up until the time they either have the baby or one notices the bulge in the belly.
So, when this happens, will program administrators subtract back to around the time when the contract was broken and demand any compensation from that point forward be returned to the program's coffers?
How about, instead of handing out money, scaring both boys and girls into keeping their pants on and legs together by emphasizing what will happen to them should they catch an incurable disease or the hardship that will result from having a baby before they get married?
Contrary to the headshrinkers, fear can be a good motivator.
