Obamacare declared unconstitutional – Excerpts From Judge Vinson Obamacare Ruling | RedState.
This isn’t over, of course, but it is an encouraging sign. I wonder how long it will take to get to the Supreme Court? I wonder why Congress didn’t anticipate this? It isn’t like they weren’t warned.
False teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie is boo-hooing because listener complaints resulted in some progressive “Christian” ads being pulled.
Living the Questions is a respected resource of video curriculum for progressive Christian communities around the world. The Portland radio spots advertised a new series called “Saving Jesus” with the seemingly balanced introduction:
“Ever feel like Jesus has been kidnapped and taken hostage by the Christian Right? Or maybe even worse, simply cast aside as irrelevant by those on the secular left?”
via Why Are Portland Radio Stations Banning Progressive Christian Advertising?.
If you can watch the video at his link (the FDA has approved it as a substitute for Syrup of Ipecac) you’ll find fakes like Brian McLaren, John Dominic Crossan, Marcus Borg and others making up a god then pretending to worship it.
See the comments section where Chuck says that if you don’t vote for oxymoronic “same-sex marriage” — which, of course, is nowhere to be found in the Bible — then you have kidnapped Jesus and held him hostage. What a self-parody.
It is almost comical watching people dismiss the virgin birth because that somehow takes Mary’s power away. That’s the kind of thinking you get when they worship radical feminism instead of seeking the real God on his terms.
In fact, that’s the core problem with all these false teachers and seriously confused people: They refuse to seek God on his terms and instead they make up their own god. They are either members of the “Jesus Seminar” or ideological siblings who think they get to literally vote on which verses of the Bible belong there. But just because they find a few verses they agree with doesn’t make them Christians any more than finding a few verses they like in the Quran makes them Muslims.
I respect the religious freedom of these fake Christians to make and publish all the ads they like, and I respect the freedom of the radio stations to pull them if their customers are offended by such nonsense.
I just wish that Chuck Currie et al weren’t so dishonest and would just make up a new name for their religion. They are the ones who “stole” the name of Jesus. The real Christians accept the Jesus of the Bible whether we like all the verses or not.
Jesus doesn’t need to be saved, we do. Jesus doesn’t need to be saved, He does save. And these fakes will never tell you that.
Ensuring women have all the necessary information before having abortions is a perfectly logical requirement. The pro-choice movement goes into hysterics over things like this, of course, just like they oppose common sense rules like parental notification (your child can’t take an Advil at school without your permission and a multi-step process, but the school can take them to have your child undergo a risky medical procedure that kills your grandchild?!).
Why don’t pro-choicers trust women to make good decisions with the information available? Do they think they are too fragile to know the truth? The real reason for their opposition is that they know that when women see ultrasounds they are much less likely to have abortions.
Also note that this is a case where a politician accomplishes something for the pro-life movement. I know some politicians of both parties use issues like this in a cynical way just to raise funds. They prefer that it not be fully settled. But legislation like this will save lives.
Some critics have said the bill isn’t an emergency, but I say that if lives are at stake then it is an emergency.
Others say it may traumatize the woman. But the pro-aborts typically insist that abortion is never traumatizing. These women may see ultrasounds of other babies in the future. Couldn’t that traumatize them as well? And if it is just a “blob of tissue” being removed, how would that be traumatic?
UPDATE: I wanted to add these important thoughts from commenter Roxanne. They further highlight the benefits of this law. If people really care about “safe” abortions then they would require ultrasounds.
As Abby Johnson mentioned in a side note in “Unplanned’, ultrasounds are the safer way to do abortions – but clinics don’t like the extra cost and time (which cuts down on the number of abortions that can be done in a given day).
If a baby really were like a tumour, you would demand an ultrasound, right? You would want to know exactly what it is that’s in there and the risks of taking it out. If women really were capable of making their own decisions, you wouldn’t use this foolish version of “informed consent,” in which the onus is on the patient to find out everything that she needs to know, while the doctor gives her tests and information only under legal duress; you would make the information available to her, trusting her to understand it and use it.
P.S. If nothing else, go to the link to see the latest caption in the Wintery Knight’s “Unborn baby scheming about ______” series. I always laugh at whatever he comes up with for the Mr. Burns look-alike unborn human being.
Via Republican Governor Rick Perry demands sonograms before abortions « Wintery Knight.
Texas governor Rick Perry is throwing his weight behind legislation to require doctors to show women a sonogram of their unborn child before having an abortion, declaring the issue a legislative “emergency.”
As an emergency item on the legislative agenda, the state congress will have the option of voting on the measure within the first 30 days of the current legislative session.
In addition to the sonogram, the bill would also require doctors to give mothers a detailed description of their child and his state of development, including the presence of limbs and internal organs. Mothers will also listen to their children’s heartbeat, and must be given information about abortion alternatives no less than 24 hours before the abortion occurs.
Perry’s decision to fast track the legislation was announced at a speech before the Texas Rally for Life, held on Saturday in Austin, the state capital.
“Nearly 40 years have passed since the tragedy of Roe vs. Wade was decided by the United States Supreme Court, and since then, fifty million, fifty million children have lost their chances,” Perry told the crowd.
“That is a catastrophic number. That’s twice the population of this entire state. It’s pretty hard to imagine people of good conscience sitting idly by through this, and in Texas we haven’t. We have actively worked against that Roe vs. Wade decision. We have taken great strides in protecting the unborn.”
I. THE MOST EFFECTIVE SINGLE SENTENCE:
Extensive and repeated polling agrees that the single most effective message is:
“Gays and Lesbians have a right to live as they choose,
they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.”This allows people to express support for tolerance while opposing gay marriage. Some modify it to “People have a right to live as they choose, they don’t have the right to redefine marriage for all of us.
Some sample Q&A. Learn these easy answers and stop being silent on this key issue.
1. Are you a bigot? “Why do you want to take away people’s rights?”
“Isn’t it wrong to write discrimination into the constitution?”A: “Do you really believe people like me who believe mothers and fathers both matter to kids are like bigots and racists? I think that’s pretty offensive, don’t you? Particularly to the 60 percent of African-Americans who oppose same-sex marriage. Marriage as the union of husband and wife isn’t new; it’s not taking away anyone’s rights. It’s common sense.”
2. Isn’t the ban on gay marriage like bans on interracial marriage?
A: “Bans on interracial marriage were about keeping two races apart so that one race could oppress the other. Marriage is about bringing two sexes together, so that children get the love of their own mom and a dad, and women don’t get stuck with the enormous disadvantages of parenting alone.” “Having a parent of two different races is just not the same as being deprived of your mother—or your father.”
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Sharks Are Not Misunderstood Dolphins, and Islam Is Not a Religion of Peace – Kevin DuJan from Hillbuzz is writing for the American Spectator now.
No matter how many times the delusional fools in the American media try to convince you otherwise, sharks are not misunderstood dolphins, and Islam is not a religion of peace.
I think that even the media knows this, on some level, because I’ve noticed that few journalists ever cover Islamic terror attacks the way they’d report on other murder sprees and tragedies committed by non-Muslims.
In the case of the latter, great effort is made to explain precisely why someone like Jared Lee Loughner picked up a gun, killed six, and injured a dozen more in his assassination attempt on Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords. His parents, friends, teachers, distant relatives, acquaintances, and kindergarten teacher, and a kid who sat next to him for an hour and a half on the ride to summer camp fifteen years ago, are all scrutinized for clues into his behavior, then blamed for being bad influences on him. The media stokes an abusive outrage against these people — the parents in particular — for not catching the warning signs that could have prevented these murders. Simultaneously, the media and the left join together in politicizing the tragedy, invoking Rahm Emanuel’s corollary to the Alinsky Rules for Radicals that no good crisis should go to waste. This means that in addition to the people a murderer like Loughner actually knew, the entire conservative movement in this country must also be held responsible for this single man’s actions, including peopleLoughner never met, spoke to, or even knew much about, like Governor Sarah Palin.
When a Muslim commits an act of mass-murdering terrorism, in contrast, the left does not camp out in front of the shooter/assassin/bomber’s home and scrutinize every person he ever in his life came in contact with and blame them all for his actions. Instead, the media personalities report on acts of terrorism the way they do shark attacks.
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Obamacare wavier count: 729 organizations, including many unions, plus 4 whole states (that, coincidentally, the President needs to win re-election). If the unicorn-rich bill was so swell, why all the waivers? And is the media aggressively researching the connections to the politically connected companies and why they are getting waivers?
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Joseph Smith, false prophet – Glenn has a great series on the many failed prophecies (62 at last count) of Joseph Smith, founder of Mormonism. Failed prophecies = failed prophet, i.e, don’t follow him.
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Pro-gay groups upset that supermarket “censors” US magazine with Elton John, his gay lover and their surrogate child – only they still sold the magazine, they just covered the picture to protect children.
I saw that at the grocery store last night. How disgusting. Deliberately bringing a child into a motherless, perverse relationship. Such narcissism and selfishness on behalf of Elton and those who are so thin-skinned that they have to force their views on little children.
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From the Your President Thinks You Are Stupid category: He has raised discretionary spending 84% and is “committing” to cutting it by less than 1%, and you are to believe that he’s a cost-cutter. Check.
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Miracle of life video – highlights some crucial scientific facts about the unborn, namely that they are human beings from conception.
See Governor Christie is actively courting Illinois businesses to move to New Jersey (and he is not the only Governor to take advantage of Pat Quinn’s chronic stupidity) – Ah, the free market at work! That pesky law of unintended consequences will get you every time. Make your state difficult to do business with and people and companies will leave.
This works on the national level as well. If you raise taxes and raise barriers to effective commerce, capital funds will go elsewhere and take their jobs with them. And that lowers tax bases that further erode employment, and the spiral continues.
These are basic economic principles that a 7th grade Junior Achievement student can grasp yet these highly paid politicians cannot. Like horrible chess players, they can’t think one simple move ahead. And more and more people will suffer for their ignorance.
And the mainstream media will look the other way. Again. And Congress will keep giving them hundreds of millions of your tax dollars. See After all, sex traffickers need Planned Parenthood, too – Jill Stanek.
This time PP is trying to get ahead of the embarrassment, but they are fumbling because they don’t know the content of the videos. Apparently they don’t just aggressively and systematically hide statutory rape, they are willing to hide underage sex workers (slaves would be a more accurate term). Why do people expect decent, law-abiding behavior from those who kill innocent human beings for a living?
P.S. I agree with Planned Parenthood’s view: “An abortion kills the life of a baby after it has begun” At least that was their view in this 1964 advertisement. Did they learn anything about science in the few years after that when they changed their minds? Of course not. Science couldn’t be more clear: A new human being is created at conception.
(Got the picture from Glenn)
The disingenuous / lazy media and politicians are at it again with Social Security “trust fund” myth:
WASHINGTON – Sick and getting sicker, Social Security will run at a deficit this year and keep on running in the red until its trust funds are drained by about 2037, congressional budget experts said Wednesday in bleaker-than-previous estimates.
The massive retirement program has been suffering from the effects of the struggling economy for several years. It first went into deficit last year but had been projected to post surpluses for a few more years before permanently slipping into the red in 2016
This year alone, Social Security will pay out $45 billion more in retirement, disability and survivors’ benefits than it collects in payroll taxes, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said. That figure nearly triples — to $130 billion — when the new one-year cut in payroll taxes is included.
via Social Security fund now seen to be empty by 2037 – Yahoo! News.
But there is no trust fund. No. Trust. Fund. As I’ve noted before, anyone claiming there is such a thing is ignorant and/or trying to deceive you.
The government does not have the capability to set aside funds in a bank account like we do. When the Social Security funds come in they are spent on Social Security, or, as they have done for decades, on other spending projects they didn’t want to raise taxes to fund. Decades of dishonesty and financial mismanagement by both parties are becoming more visible.
If Social Security taxes stopped today there wouldn’t be a penny saved to meet the commitments the government made. It is the world’s largest Ponzi scheme.
If some of these Social Security funds went to private investments that you could control then that would limit how much the politicians could abuse. But they don’t want to lose control, so they play on your fears that something bad will happen.
Yes, the market could crash and you could lose your investments. It is a risky world. But think about this: Whether your private account crashed or not it isn’t like the government is saving our taxes today to pay out tomorrow. Either way the payouts they will make 10 years from now will come from taxes paid 10 years from now.
Simply put, we can’t lose by having at least part of current contributions devoted to private accounts. The politicians will lose because they’ll have to find a way to fund current spending, or not spend the money at all.
Don’t let fear-mongering by politicians fool you. The system has been broken for a long time. Democrats didn’t want you to be informed and Republicans didn’t try hard enough to inform you. But it isn’t that complicated.
Image by gnuckx via Flickr
You will often find skeptics and theological Liberals trying to dismiss your views because they are driven by or merely align with your religious views. They invoke the oft-misunderstood “separation of church and state” notion (for the 237th time, that phrase is not in the Constitution). But the 1st Amendment protects religious speech, it doesn’t restrict it.
Aside from that, here are some quick and easy replies when people try to dismiss your pro-life, pro-real marriage, etc. views. You are simply pointing out that the issue isn’t religious views, it is them being unwilling to argue the issues on their merits. They are trying to dismiss your views without having to respond to them.
1. “Do I have to vote opposite of my religious views or be silent about them? Christianity teaches me not to kill atheists and steal their stuff. So am I “forcing my religious beliefs on you” if I support laws against theft and murder?”
This argument shows how they are just dismissing your views because they disagree with them. They have no issue with your religious views in principle, just the ones they disagree with – which means religion isn’t the issue.
2. “Do you protest the religious speech of theological Liberals? I can point you to countless false teachers and religious types who insist that God is pro-abortion, pro-gay theology, pro-open borders, pro-wealth redistribution, etc. Can you show me where you are just as active in dismissing their religious views as you are mine?”
This points out their hypocrisy in claiming to oppose religious views when they really just oppose religious views they disagree with. Again, it shows that religion isn’t the issue. I’ve yet to find one person crying “separation” against theological Liberals.
3. “My arguments (for pro-life, pro-real marriage, etc. positions) didn’t even mention religion. But if you want to bring Jesus into this I’ll be glad to.”
I can and do argue for many of these issues without using “religion.” I save the biblical arguments for those claiming to be Christian, or I am at least very careful in keeping the arguments separate. For example, to advance the pro-life view I just need the irrefutable scientific fact that the unborn are unique, living human beings from conception and some simple philosophy (we shouldn’t destroy innocent human beings for 99% of the reasons given for abortion).
When opponents will reflexively use the anti-religion card I have fun pointing out that I haven’t used religious arguments. But hey, if they want to talk religion that would be great! This argument shows them that they are mired in stereotype-land and are just trying to dismiss opposing views without doing the hard work of responding based on facts and logic.
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Have fun with these! Use them gently.
See The American Spectator : Religiously Demanding Obamacare Abortion Funding. Supporting legal abortion is bad, but requiring pro-lifers to pay for it is even worse. Yet that’s what many religious types are doing in the name of compassion. Apparently they are anti-choice when it comes to whether people must pay for the abortions of others.
One way to spot false teachers (A) is to see what religious leaders blaspheme God by claiming He is pro-abortion.
Mostly Mainline Protestant groups founded RCRC (originally less euphemistically called the Religious Coalition for Abortion Rights) in 1973 in the immediate wake of Roe v. Wade to ensure widespread religious backing for the U.S. Supreme Court’s overthrow of state restrictions on abortion. For years RCRC was based in the United Methodist Building on Capitol Hill, which is the headquarters for most Mainline Protestant lobbies. The primary author of Roe v. Wade was Justice Harry Blackmun, himself an active United Methodist. RCRC in its early years got funding form the Playboy Foundation and later from philanthropies like the Ford Foundation. In recent years RCRC has been headed by a black Baptist pastor and has emphasized outreach to historic black denominations. But revealingly, no historic black denominations belong to RCRC, whose membership primarily includes nearly all white denominations like the United Methodist Church, the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ, and the Presbyterian Church (USA).
We should do the following as often as possible:
1. Remind those theological Liberals that the policies they support result in a 3-to-1 ratio of black abortions to white. And they have the nerve to play the race card against us?
2. Do not let them get away with euphemisms like “reproductive choice,” especially in their names. It is a scientific fact that the unborn are human beings, so abortions are done for the sole purpose of killing human beings that have already reproduced. So reproductive “choice” or “rights” would only apply to birth control. Whether they mislabel themselves out of ignorance or duplicity, we should never miss a chance to call them on it.
(A) False teachers include people like Jim “the Gospel is all about wealth redistribution“ Wallis and race-baiting Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie
Just count how many times they use the term “reproductive” along with “choice” or ” freedom.” I counted nine in this pro-abortion piece alone: President Obama Notes Roe Vs Wade Anniversary; Faithful Advocates Must Double Efforts To Protect Choice. It also used the word “choice” nine times, while conveniently failing to mention what was being chosen: The deliberate destruction of an innocent human being.
Of course, anti-science pro-abortionists use word games like “reproductive choice” or “reproductive freedom” as cheap emotional tricks. The issue with abortion is not reproduction. It is a scientific fact that a human being has already been reproduced.
“I am committed to protecting this constitutional right,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “I also remain committed to policies, initiatives, and programs that help prevent unintended pregnancies, support pregnant women and mothers, encourage healthy relationships, and promote adoption.”
That’s odd, because pro-aborts like Obama and the author never seem to support crisis pregnancy centers. These organizations help women and families in need, but pro-aborts view them as the enemy.
Mr. Obama, the father of two young daughters, called on Americans to “recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”
What a bizarre statement. I didn’t realize that sons had the opportunity to destroy their children.
Mr. Obama said the 1973 Supreme Court ruling “affirms a fundamental principle: that government should not intrude on private family matters.”
That is the question-begging that is foundational to nearly all pro-abortion arguments: It assumes that the unborn aren’t human beings. If you choose infanticide that isn’t a private family matter, is it?
RCRC today launched an interfaith social justice campaign - Insure Women, Ensure our Future – for full coverage of abortion services in the insurance exchanges. We act as people of faith whose strong family values are rooted in our diverse traditions and who believe that women’s lives are sacred, as are all lives, and must be protected.
That’s odd, because the RCRC (the nauseatingly named Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice, whose moniker guarantees 24x7x365 blasphemy) doesn’t oppose gender selection abortions, virtually all of which destroy females for the sole reason that they are female.
Guided by compassion and our commitment to a more just world, we hold that women deserve safe medical care throughout their lives, including abortion services if and when necessary, both for their own health and for the well-being of their families.
The unborn are family members, and abortion is bad for their health.
Like many churches and religious groups, the General Synod of the United Church of Christ has offered support for reproductive choice
This is useful to spot apostate churches and teachers. They support the murder of the unborn and cloak it in lies like “reproductive choice.”
God has given us life, and life is sacred and good.
And it is a scientific fact that the unborn are living human beings. It is a biblical fact that God said not to shed innocent blood.
God has also given us the responsibility to make decisions which reflect a reverence for life in circumstances when conflicting realities are present. Jesus affirmed women as full partners in the faith, capable of making decisions that affect their lives.
Blasphemy. Jesus never gave women – or men — full partnership in sinful behavior. Wanting to destroy life because your birth control didn’t work, or you didn’t take it, or you changed your mind, or whatever, is wrong. Don’t compound it by claiming Jesus supports your sin.
There are many justice issues related to reproductive health, including access to pre- and postnatal care for all women, equal access to the full range of legal reproductive health services including abortion, the right of women to determine when, if and how many children she should have . . .
Can the women decide how many to have once they are outside the womb? Of course not. So the only question is, “What is the unborn?” Since they are human beings we should protect them.
We should undertake our advocacy on this issue with prayer and humility.
No, you should oppose the destruction of innocent human beings.
As President Obama said today, we must “recommit ourselves more broadly to ensuring that our daughters have the same rights, the same freedoms, and the same opportunities as our sons to fulfill their dreams.”
Run, don’t walk, from any “reverend” or church spouting such blasphemy and anti-science nonsense. If these people really cared about women they wouldn’t stand for the lack of regulation that resulted in the “house of horrors” (which accurately describes any abortion clinic). They also would rail against Planned Parenthood’s serial hiding of statutory rape.
Never let pro-legalized abortionists get away with the “reproductive choice / reproductive freedom” lie. Just ask, “But aren’t abortions designed to kill the human being that has already been reproduced?” If they accept the correction, then they were just guilty of sloppy thinking. If they repeat it, they are deliberate liars.
“Ask Them What They Mean By ‘Choice’” Blog Day
The idea is simple. Any time any of us reads pro-aborts spouting their obscure “choice” rhetoric on a blog, website, Facebook, or Twitter, we call them out on it. We ask them to explain what the “choice” is.
Is it to eat carrots rather than broccoli? To wear red instead of blue? No, of course “choice” is code for killing babies. What’s their problem with the A-word?
Yes, this is a shameless scheme to suck oxygen out of the pro-aborts’ social media universe, to deny them any time whatsoever to support abortion without defending it.
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But note that they aren’t obliged to do so. When the pro-aborts reflexively spout the “pro-lifers don’t help” canard, ask if they could speak out against infanticide even if they weren’t willing to adopt the children.
Also, if they are truly pro-choice and not pro-abortion, they would have the same obligation to help after birth.
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Read the first chapter of Unplanned for free
Unplanned is a heart-stopping personal drama of life-and-death encounters, a courtroom battle, and spiritual transformation that speaks hope and compassion into the political controversy that surrounds this complex issue. Telling Abby’s story from both sides of the abortion clinic property line, this book is a must-read…
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Regulators Ignored Killer Abortion Doc: Grand Jury – the pro-legalized abortionists hope this story goes away soon. They try to feign outrage but they bitterly fight for the right to destroy the children just before birth. How can they be so shocked that someone will finish the job when the abortion fails to deliver a dead baby?
What should be highlighted, but isn’t, is the faux outrage from the pro-choicers about this “doctor.” Of course we know what he did was beyond reprehensible. But their view is that his real crime was not doing the abortions right the first time. Had he killed the babies literally minutes earlier everything would have been fine with them.
It is just another name for infanticide:
When Ruth Bader Ginsburg writes that partial-birth abortion (performed by delivering the baby in the breech position, stabbing it in the head with scissors with the neck lodged in the cervix, suctioning its brains out, and then delivering the corpse that had been alive moments earlier) is a constitutional right, she sanctions the murder of babies who have already been born – because those babies are no more human, no more special, than the ones who are fair targets. As Abby Johnson wrote in her new book, “Unplanned”, while assisting in an abortion,
“But this time, the image was complete I could see the entire, perfect profile of a baby. It looks just like Grace at 12 weeks, I thought, surprised, remembering my very first peek at my daughter, three years before, snuggled securely inside my womb. The image before me now looked the same, only clearer, sharper.”
Respecting human life is not an optional part of a civilised society, which is why the “pro-choice” language is so fallacious.
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Ironic title of the year from the Huffington Post (yeah, it is early in the year, but this one may still be tops come 12/31): Remember Roe v. Wade — and Stop the Violence (it was a pro-abortion piece, of course). Uh, yes . . . the violence . . .
The comments there were a litany of bad pro-abortion bumper sticker reasoning.
These are simple, essential ways to protect women’s health. Thank you! It’s baffling to me that a simple medical procedure produces so much violence and controversy.
This procedure kills an innocent human being. That is a scientific fact.
It’s hard to believe that we still have to fight for our right to reproductive freedom.
That is an argument against someone saying you shouldn’t have the right to use birth control. In the case of abortion, one has already reproduced a human being. So this has nothing to do with reproductive freedom.
Link arms shout out loud, stay away from my medical decisions! This is mine, my family and my doctors business.
As with nearly all pro-abortion arguments, this ignores the unborn human being who gets destroyed.
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Amanda Marcotte: Hey, let’s blame another mass murder on conservatives – You have to be super-duper-pro-abortion to try and pin the Philly doctor murders on pro-lifers.
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How much evidence do we need to know that a “No strings attached” sex culture will lead to pain, misery and death?
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If you authentically seek God on his terms, you will find him. If you “seek” a god of your own making, you will not find him.
That may sound obvious, but think about how so many people in our culture think that all religions lead to God. Lots of false teachers in churches will tell you such things.
Consider if you went to a company for a job and demanded that they hire you on your terms. Hey, go ahead and ask for a million dollar salary and unlimited vacation. Ridiculous, eh? But only a tiny fraction as ridiculous as thinking you are going to tell God how things get done.
What makes anyone think they get to dictate the terms of the universe and eternal life to the one true God? Pride. Satan (“Did God really say . . .?”).
God sets the terms, not us. In fact, his first commandments make that explicit.
Be bold in prayer, but know that God still sets the terms. Seek him earnestly, but on his terms.
Where do you find his terms? In the Bible. They are actually quite generous. All you have to do is repent and believe. No good deeds required – though in response to his mercy and grace and by the power of the Holy Spirit you’ll be inspired to do good deeds. Better yet, not only are all your sins forgiven but God will credit Jesus’ perfect righteousness to your account.
If you “seek” a god of your own making, you will not find the one true God. If you’ve been doing that, stop kidding yourself. Eternity is a mighty long time.
If you authentically seek God on his terms, you will find him.
Acts 17:26–27 (ESV) And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, in the hope that they might feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us,
What happens when the government pays people to have babies out-of-wedlock? – This is going to come as a big shock, but you get more of them. Please read the Wintery Knight’s account and commentary about a man in England who is soon to have fathered 15 children out-of-wedlock with many women, and the taxpayers will be paying for all of them. How tragic that these children will grow up without a father. Yet the “loving” government welfare policies are the root cause.
The cycle is vicious and interwoven: Higher taxes make it harder for people to raise families themselves, incentives to stay unmarried drive up illegitimacy, a lack of fathers in the home to screen suitors and offer discipline and protection exacerbate the problem, and on and on.
People need to use some discernment and abandon these counterproductive policies. How much more evidence do they need?
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Then here’s more from Roxanne in The Cost of Single Parenthood, Continued
I’ve blogged many times on the social and psychological costs of illegitimacy – the six-fold chance of living in poverty, the nine-fold increase in the chance of being molested by a mother’s boyfriend or a stepfather than by one’s own father, the reduced chance of graduating from high school, going to college, and having a good life.
Jazz Shaw posted an article by Angela Lash about similar problems in the polygamous Mormon community. Physically, psychologically, and economically, polygamy is a disaster for women and children. The economics are straightforward: men who have multiple wives and children with all of their wives cannot afford to care for them all. Those “families” most resemble single-parent families . . .
. . .
In case no one noticed, our bodies are not designed for this situation. The sixth-grade “birds and bees” discussion should have made it clear that there’s something about the union of exactly one man and exactly one woman that produces human life, and that union provides the best basis for raising children. Deviating from that causes problems for children, problems for society, problems for women, and problems for every person involved except for men. It’s almost like traditional Western values and Judeo-Christian norms provide the best protection for the weakest in our society, rather than being oppressive – in direct contradistinction to what feminists, progressives, and leftists would say.
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What’s the Message of the Bible in One Sentence? – 25 scholars and pastors weighed in. I didn’t give it much extra thought, but I did think of a note I put in all my hand written notes to prison ministry participants:
God adopts, completely forgives and eternally blesses everyone who repents and trusts in Jesus.
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New peer-reviewed article argues for irreducible complexity in birds
Let’s take a step back and ask what counts as evidence for evolution for people who actually care about evidence.
Here’s what counts as evidence:
- A smooth sequence of fossils showing the gradual emergence of different body body features across a wide spectrum of body plans.Not just horses and whales, not just micro-evolution. Major changes in body structure, which properly dated fossils, from a wide range of body plans.
- A lab experiment that derives a new organ type or body plan from an unmodified organism, like the Lenski experiments tried to do on a smaller scale.
- A computer simulation that shows a string of mutations that occur on one organism that would give it a new feature or organ within a reasonable amount of time (less than 4 billion years). The mutations must be probable, and the organism must have improved functionality at each stage of its development. And a calculation would have to be done to show that each beneficial mutation would spread to the rest of the population and survive in the next generation, which is a separate question.
Do we have that evidence in the case of bird evolution (feathers and lungs)? Of course not.
Do we have that evidence in the case of evolution as a whole? Of course not.
People who embrace evolution embrace it on the basis of non-rational, non-evidence factors.
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Marxist Democrat Cringes As Russian Immigrants Compare Communism to…Democrats! – The State Senator tries to rationalize it away, but you can’t deny the Russian’s awareness of the links.
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Glenn on drafting women – excellent analysis on the inevitable problems. Do you want your daughters to get drafted? Because that is the logical conclusion of this.
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Evil Health Insurance Corporations Love ObamaCare – Seems like one of the main reasons people wanted health care reform was to get back out those evil insurers – you know, the same ones who contributed to both parties and helped craft the bill. What a shocker that they like it. If you ran a business wouldn’t you like it if the government forced people to buy your products and services?
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“Eggsploitation” nominated for Best Documentary in California Film Festival
I’ve written before about the physical harm of egg harvesting to women, not to mentionconcerns over exploitation of women as human hens. Even liberal feminists are apprehensive. So the film’s growing publicity and affirmation is welcome news.
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15 Reasons the Abortion Industry is Losing Its Support – Hat tip: Robert from Facebook
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Funny and effective video about pastors who twist scripture then twist it some more when called on it. You might have to click again to watch it on YouTube (sometimes the embedding doesn’t work). Hat tip: Touch ya Neighbor Ministries
If you’ve ever wanted to start a blog, go to Learn WordPress.com. You can be up and running fairly quickly.
Some false teachers and skeptics claim that some books like the Gospel of Thomas were “lost” from the Bible (1). This is still an important issue. An agnostic employee of mine saw one of those “lost books” shows on TV and was captivated by it. He asked me a lot of questions and seemed convinced by the DaVinci Code-type reasoning that Constantine and/or those misogynistic church fathers deliberately left out books they disagreed with.
But whether you think that the Bible is divinely inspired or not, it is bad reasoning to claim that any books of the Bible have been lost. Greg Koukl has a great summary of this in No “lost” book:
Regardless of how you view the Scripture – as supernatural or as natural – there is no sense in which there could be lost books of the Bible. If the Bible is supernatural – if God is responsible for its writing, it’s transmission and its survival – then God, being God, doesn’t fail. He doesn’t make mistakes, He doesn’t forget things and He’s not constrained by man’s limitations. God can’t lose his lessons.
However, if the Bible is not supernatural, as many will contend, especially those who claim to have found lost books – one faces a different problem. By what standard do we claim that these are bona fide lost books of the canon of the early church? If, from a human perspective, the Bible is that collection of writings reflecting the beliefs of early Christianity, then any writings discarded by the church fathers were not books of their Bible by very definition.
The good news is that my employee has an open mind and saw the wisdom in this reasoning. He’s still exploring, but I’m encouraged.
Whether one believes that the Bible is divinely inspired or not, there is no rational basis to claim there are any lost books. God doesn’t lose things, and if it was a purely man-made creation then by definition they put in what they wanted.
Anyone claiming the name of Christ who believes that books were lost is, at best, “saved and (very) confused,” and most likely a false teacher.
(1) See this example where false teacher Chuck Currie claims that the Gospel of John does not belong in the Bible but that the Gospel of Thomas does (So long, John 3:16 and more!). Of course, that tips his hand as to not believing in any real God at all, because Chuck’s “god” isn’t powerful enough to preserve his teachings.
You’d think that such a transparent wolf in sheep’s clothing would be booted out of any church, yet Chuck is a spokesperson for the UCC.
The Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry has an excellent collection of articles on the supposed lost books. You can read the Gospel of Thomas there, for example. Note that the Bible critics and false teachers rarely quote passages like this one:
114 Simon Peter said to them: Let Mary go forth from among us, for women are not worthy of the life. Jesus said: Behold, I shall lead her, that I may make her male, in order that she also may become a living spirit like you males. For every woman who makes herself male shall enter into the kingdom of heaven.
They just use the existence of these books to cast doubt on the real Bible. Just your basic Satan-inspired actions.
Let’s recap:
1. Liberal / apolitical mental case kills and wounds many people in effort to assassinate Rep. Giffords. His preoccupation with Giffords predates Sarah Palin’s rise to national attention.
2. Before the bodies are cold, the mainstream media and various “religious” leaders blame Sarah Palin and the TEA Party for their rhetoric and “target” map, even though the general rhetoric (target maps, etc.) and specific claims against Giffords are much worse from the Left.
3. The false claims of the Left lead to a substantial increase in real death threats against Palin. This is obviously the fault of the ghouls who attacked tried to score cheap political points off of the deaths. Using their reasoning, who else could be at fault? Their hate speech is inspiring threats on Palin’s life.
Don’t hold your breath waiting for apologies.
Another irony is that the Zeitgeist movie apparently had a big impact on the killer. It is an anti-Christian viral Internet sensation with the atheist crowd. It has been thoroughly debunked but its followers aren’t interested in facts that destroy, among other things, the myth that Christianity is a copycat religion. Noted atheist PZ Myers immediately blamed AM Radio, TEA partiers, etc. when it turns out that his group’s favorite movie was the culprit.
Side note: Myers is such a self-parody. If his atheistic nothingness-to-molecules-to-Angelina Jolie worldview was true, then his beloved Darwinism would be the cause for our theism and political views and the cause for the killer’s actions (where else could they come from?), and he would have no philosophical grounding for anything resembling universal morality. But note how he can’t go three sentences without making a strong moral claim.
