Roundup

The Mess of the Message: Denying Christ On The Printed Page – I’ve written before about serious problems with The Message, but this post added a host of new and serious issues.  Also note how it removes a reference to homosexuality and inserts a “green” passage.  Friendly reminder: It isn’t a Bible.  In many places it is the opposite of the Bible.

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People have lost their minds.  Remember that these are educators coming up with these things.

Boy Suspended Just for SAYING the Word Gun

Campus bans guns, tells people to nod at attackers

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The Affordable Care Act — and by affordable, we mean more expensive — They were caught lying.  Again.  Although we didn’t have to wait until now to know it.

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COULD A CHRISTIAN BAKER WHO REFUSED TO MAKE WEDDING CAKE FOR A GAY COUPLE REALLY GO TO JAIL? — Why don’t they try this with Muslim bakers?

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This is bizarre “tolerance” of Liberals:

1. It is bad to judge. [What they claim Conservatives do and what they themselves do non-stop.]
2. It is good to judge others for judging. [What Liberals do.]
3. It is very bad to judge others for their hypocrisy of judging others for judging.  [What Liberals don't like for us to point out.]

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While Denying Tea Party, IRS Grants Tax-Exempt Status to Radical Leftists and Terrorists

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Ergun Caner Cover-Up — This is such a sad case.  The guy was caught lying over and over and too many Christian leaders, churches and schools looked the other way or helped him cover his tracks.  The documentation is very thorough, even though he is working hard to cover it up.  If the guy had repented it would be different, but he shows no remorse.

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Profiles in Countermoonbattery: Ondray Harris – here’s a great guy who quit when he was told not to hire any conservatives or whites.  We need more courage like that.  Oh, and he’s black.

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The Contempt of PZ Myers — He really, really opposes schools that teach critical thinking.

None of the above keeps PZ from frothing at the mouth that: “There is no controversy!” Evolution happened…get over it. Really, PZ, “no controversy”? Guess PZ’s been too busy ranting and raving about ID and “Creationism” to keep up with what is actually happening in his own field of biology. Let’s see, can anyone name one aspect of evolution and its supposed mechanisms that isn’t hotly debated and controversial even among evolutionary biologists? Pick one – common descent, natural selection, gene transfer, phylogentics, gene duplication, genetic drift, mutation, etc etc – not one single supposed driving engine of evolution is uncontroversial within evolutionary biology itself. It continually amazes me that every single aspect of Darwinian evolution is hotly debated and controversial, yet the Darwinian faithful, like PZ pound their fists on their desks yelling “evolution is a fact, Fact, FACT!” What is telling, is how rabidly PZ and others of his ilk want to keep students in public schools from ever knowing about or even hearing about such controversies.

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Master Sergeant Punished for Serving Chick-fil-A at Party

DOMA is the law of the land, but the rogue Obama Regime refuses to enforce it.

A year later, the Master Sergeant is still bogged down in a legal battle. The lesson is passed down from Obama through the military as clearly as it is through the IRS: do not say, do, or even think anything that a liberal might not like, or you will suffer consequences.

A few more examples:

One service member received a severe reprimand for expressing his faith’s religious position about homosexuality in a personal religious blog.

A chaplain was relieved of his command over a military chapel because he could not allow same-sex weddings to take place in the chapel.

And a chaplain who asked senior military officers whether religious liberty would be protected in the wake of the repeal of the law against open homosexual behavior in the military was told to “get in line” or resign.

The world has seen other governments that forcibly repressed Christianity. But not even the Soviet Union attempted to impose reverence for sexual perversion. It wasn’t sufficiently morally depraved.

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Roundup

Two good iPhone apps recommended by my 83 yr. old father — Appygraph (send cards via text, with your pictures pasted in) and Heart Rate (you put your finger on the camera lens and it takes your pulse).  Apparently he’s the go-to guy for high tech.  And my 78 yr. old mom had him text a picture of something to her in a store.  Glad to see they are up on the latest things!

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‘Revealing Heaven:’ Episcopal Pastor Details Hundreds of Near-Death Experiences, Backs Rob Bell – I know the author and have done prison ministry with him. I’m very disappointed at the direction he has taken. Rob Bell?! Ugh. I can’t see how he missed the obvious, namely that these things are demonic. Who would want to reassure people that everything is swell and they are definitely going to Heaven and don’t need to repent and believe?

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The Post Resurrection Behavior of Jesus Eliminates the Possibility of an Imposter – a good refutation of a false theory about the resurrection.

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The Atlanta Public School cheating scandal was immense in its breadth and duration, not to mention its recklessness.  This shouldn’t be a surprise, though.  Unionized bureaucrats and teachers rarely have the interests of the children at heart.  It is one more reason the “No Child Left Behind” and all other Federal initiatives are doomed to cause more problems than they solve.  Education funding and incentives should be as local as possible.  Federal initiatives are a waste that just lead to more corruption like this.

Fulton County prosecutors announced that a grand jury had indicted the Atlanta Public Schools’ ex-superintendent and nearly three dozen other former administrators, teachers, principals and other educators of charges arising from a standardized test cheating scandal that rocked the system.

Former Superintendent Beverly Hall faces charges including conspiracy, making false statements and theft because prosecutors said some of the bonuses she received were tied to falsified scores. Hall retired just days before the findings of a state probe were released in mid-2011. A nationally known educator who was named Superintendent of the Year in 2009, Hall has long denied knowing about the cheating or ordering it.

During a news conference Friday, Howard highlighted the case of Juwanna and another student, saying they demonstrated “the plight of many children” in the Atlanta school system.

Their stories were among many that investigators heard in hundreds of interviews with school administrators, staff, parents and students during a 21-month-long investigation.

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Hmm. Turns out Karl Marx was just as smelly and personally useless as his modern-day acolytes!  The NY Times is honest about what Marx is like but doesn’t seem to get the current correlation:

The Karl Marx depicted in Jonathan Sperber’s absorbing, meticulously researched biography will be unnervingly familiar to anyone who has had even the most fleeting acquaintance with radical politics. Here is a man never more passionate than when attacking his own side, saddled with perennial money problems and still reliant on his parents for cash, constantly plotting new, world-changing ventures yet having trouble with both deadlines and personal hygiene, living in rooms that some might call bohemian, others plain “slummy,” and who can be maddeningly inconsistent when not lapsing into elaborate flights of theory and unintelligible abstraction.

Still, it comes as a shock to realize that the ultimate leftist, the father of Communism itself, fits a recognizable pattern.

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Global warming: Still a hoax.  And the notion that it was man-caused was a bigger hoax.

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Socialized Medicine: Money for Fake Boobs as Patients Starve – The title says it all, but it left out the part about gender-reassignment surgery (i.e., self-mutilation) being covered as well:

Why are capitalist countries wealthy and socialist countries poor? Because the free market allocates resources more wisely than bureaucrats. This is how healthcare resources are allocated under Britain’s regime of socialized medicine:

Britain’s National Health Service, the NHS, recently spent £4,800 — about $7,200 — on enormous breast implants for an aspiring model while nearly 1,200 patients starved to death in hospitals over the past four years. Critics say the deaths were caused by neglect due to understaffing.

The NHS provided Josie Cunningham with 36DD implants in January after she told her doctor that being flat-chested was causing emotional distress.

It gets worse:

In addition to the breast implants, the NHS has also spent £25,000 — about $37,000 — on a sex-change operation for a 19-year-old male diagnosed with “gender identity disorder.”

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Wow, check out the anti-gay hate speech from all of these . . . Democrats?!?!  Not shocking at all, really.  And not hate speech, of course.  They just said whatever would optimize their votes, just like most Republicans do.  But their words at the were true, even if they didn’t believe them.  They have no substantive reasons for their change other than public opinion.

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Child’s complaints of sexual abuse by gay couple were ignored by social workers – political correctness yields many victims.

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University Compares Pro-Life Students to White Supremacists – But of course!  Abortions kill blacks at a rate 3 times that of whites, and the taxpayer-funded abortion portion of the Democrats’ platform will increase that, so of course the pro-choicers are like white supremacists or worse.  Oh, wait, what’s that? They said the pro-lifers were like the supremacists?!?!  Wow.

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Abortion kills unwanted innocent but human beings.  It is a scientific fact and basic common sense that a new human being is created at fertilization.  So if someone calls you anti-abortion, don’t get defensive.  Embrace it!  Would you apologize for being anti-slavery?

On boycotts . . .

I love the free market and our ability to choose where to shop.  If we get bad service or don’t like the worldview of the seller, we don’t have to give them any money.  Or we can steer our spending to companies with great service and similar beliefs.

I’m not aggressively into boycotts, but when companies are in your face with their dogma and I can conveniently go somewhere else, I will.  But I have to concede that even though the pro-”same-sex marriage” people are hopelessly on the wrong side of the issue, part of their point here is valid:

It should be no surprise that many companies would succumb to political correctness for profit, just as many people will say the opposite of the truth to be more popular. I used to work for HP and they gave into to the “gaystapo” lobby and their boycott threats along with the pressures of some LGBT people in the company.

But you really will need to live in a cave if you think you can survive by only shopping where people completely agree with your worldview.  Feel free to go where you like, but most of the time you’ll just be going where someone hates your worldview and you just don’t know it (yet).

Obviously, their “wrong side of history” bit is wrong, especially considering that 99% of people with that view are also pro-abortion.

I just choose to remind people that if you are going to use an equal sign, then the things on each side need to actually be equal. In this case, they are not. The notion of “marriage equality” it is false because it implies that any union of two people is equal to real marriage. Or that the number of people in the marriage isn’t important.

But there are two very important things that same-sex unions can’t do.

1. By nature and design, 100% of children are produced by one man and one woman. That doesn’t mean marriages have to produce children, just that they are only produced by one male and one female, and that the government is interested in those relationships because of that possibility.

2. Only male/female relationships can provide a mother and father to a child — the intuitive ideal supported by countless studies.

Those are the reasons the government has traditionally been involved in marriages.  No one is preventing gays from associating with each other (the government won’t even shut down bath houses!).

The Sola Sisters make some good points as well in To Starbucks or Not to Starbucks, That Is The Question.

And yet, at the risk of inflaming many of my Christian friends who often exercise their American right to choose to boycott a company that makes this or that anti-Christian statement, here is just some food for thought:

Should we as Christians expect lost people to act in any other way than lost people generally do?

That is to say, should we expect lost people to not have animosity toward Christians? Can we look at history, perhaps, to help us get our bearings on this? The fact is that the world in which the very first Christians found themselves was a world that was incredibly hostile to biblical Christianity, and filled with wickedness and depravity, including rampant homosexuality. And yet, I feel certain that the Christians of that time interacted in the business world. And I do not see Scriptures exhorting Christians to not buy from this or that leather craftsman or olive purveyor, based on that person’s presumably anti-Christian views.

And also, lest we forget, the Bible makes it clear that the world will have animosity toward both us and God’s Word:

“For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing….” (1 Corinthians 1:18a)

“You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” (Matthew 10:22)

Uh, thanks but no thanks

In an obvious sp*m email to random bloggers, a man named Joseph invited me to link to a list of the top 100 “marriage equality” blogs on his gay dating site.  Here is my response.  It also goes out to the people on Facebook with the red equal sign pictures and anyone else who abuses words like equality.  Remember, the warnings in Romans 1 aren’t just for those who commit the sins listed there, but for those that give approval to those who practice them.

And remember to point out that even if their lobby wasn’t wrong on both “marriage equality” and adoption by homosexuals, they can’t put forth both arguments.  If gender is absolutely paramount for sexual relationships, how can it be completely irrelevant for parenting?

And here’s a list of things to mention to people who insist that “same-sex marriage” won’t hurt you.

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Joseph,

I’ll be glad to link to your site if you’ll make my blog (www.4simpsons.wordpress.com) one of your top 100 blogs. But I don’t think you’ll want to do that, because I respectfully disagree with your premise.

I know many gays and lesbians and am friendly and kind to them all. I would never condone harm to LGBTQ people. I am against bullying of all kinds. And if you have issues such as hospital visitation or estate planning I would support separate solutions for those (i.e., you should be able to have anyone you like visit you in the hospital, and estate taxes are ghoulish — the government should never profit from your death).

Having said all that, “same-sex marriage” is an oxymoron (“the same-sex union of a man and a woman”).

That isn’t unkind or hateful to say, it is the truth. Words mean things. The notion of “marriage equality” it is false because it implies that any union of two people is equal to real marriage. Or that the number of people in the marriage isn’t important.

But there are two very important things that same-sex unions can’t do.

1. By nature and design, 100% of children are produced by one man and one woman.

2. Only male/female relationships can provide a mother and father to a child — the intuitive ideal supported by countless studies.

Those are the reasons the government has traditionally been involved in marriages.

I realize the underlying desire of LGBTQ to feel affirmed and to silence any criticism of their lifestyles, but that is not a mature reaction.

Again, you are welcome to your relationships. You can get “married” in all sorts of false-teaching, anti-biblical “churches.” You can set up house together. I will never bother to get in the way of your lives.

But there is simply no reason for the government to get involved in your relationships. And government recognition of same-sex unions inevitably — and by design — leads to a loss of free speech and religious freedom and results in young children being taught things that are wrong.

You probably noted that the response above was free of religious views, which was by design. We don’t need religious arguments to explain why the government need not sanction same-sex unions. But out of kindness I should point out that there is a God who clearly and thoroughly revealed himself in the Bible. He is sovereign over all. He designed marriage and the ideal is one man and one woman, for life. Yes, heterosexuals break those rules too, but that doesn’t mean we should abandon all the rules. Everyone has rebelled against God and his created order but they can be forgiven if they repent and trust in Jesus. I highly encourage you to consider that. You don’t want to spend an eternity in Hell regretting that you spent this life in active rebellion against your creator. There is a better way.

This is what “following your heart” gets you

Via GOP senator reverses gay-marriage stance after son comes out.

A prominent conservative senator said Thursday that he now supports gay marriage.

Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, told reporters from the Columbus Dispatch and other Ohio newspapers that his change of heart on the hot-button issue came two years after his son, Will, told him and his wife that he is gay.

Well isn’t that special?  I can see how the pro-gay people would see people like Portman as unprincipled opportunists.

And it isn’t just the gay issue.  I see this a lot, including people who claim the name of Christ and not only don’t warn against pre-marital sex but actually let them sleep together under their roof!  I think they are afraid that if these were “really” sins (and of course they are) that it would reflect badly on them.  Or they feel guilty because, whether accurate or not, they think they were part of the reason their kids are sinning.  So they put themselves in the place of God and decide what isn’t a sin.  It’s just that easy!  What could go wrong when we try to usurp God’s authority?

“It allowed me to think of this issue from a new perspective, and that’s of a Dad who loves his son a lot and wants him to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister would have—to have a relationship like Jane and I have had for over 26 years,” Portman said.

No, if his son has gay relationships they can never be like the one he and his wife have, because they can never produce children and can never provide a mother and a father to a child.  Words mean things.

He also implies that if the government doesn’t promote his son’s relationships that they are preventing him from having those relationships.  That is false.

In an interview with CNN, Portman said his son, then a freshman at Yale University, told him “that he was gay, and that it was not a choice, and that it’s just part of who he is, and that he’d been that way for as long as he could remember.”

I’ve been a sinner as long as I can remember, too, but I don’t use that as an excuse to celebrate my sins.

. . . He also told CNN that he sought guidance from former Vice President Dick Cheney, whose daughter Mary is openly gay.

Portman said Cheney’s advice to him was simple: “Follow your heart.”

That is terrible, worldly advice.  As Jeremiah 17:9 notes, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?”  Think about that carefully.  Deceitful above all things.  That’s pretty deceitful.  Desperately sick.  That’s pretty sick.  Who can understand it?  No one.  So don’t follow it.

If you really love people, you’ll put their long-term best interests first.  You won’t lie to them to prop up your popularity.

Facebook memes

A friend linked to a “Liberal and proud of it” Facebook page and I read some of their, uh, arguments.  I should note that many Conservative memes are pointless.  I think it is always worth asking if the joke would work on the other side if you just changed the names.  If so, I don’t click “like” or share it.  Just saying, “Obama is stupid,” or attacking his wife’s appearance is about as productive as the Left’s obsession with Sarah Palin.  We have endless facts about his record and beliefs to point to. Why dilute the message with pettiness?

But when the Liberal pages try to make a logical point it is typically loaded with fallacies.  A few samples I saw plus the comments I left:

It is only charity when you donate your money and time. Forcing others to “give” at the point of a gun doesn’t qualify. Jesus didn’t tell anyone to ask Caesar to take from neighbor A to give to neighbor B. Coveting is still a sin.   Even if his definition of giving matched the dictionary he would still be wrong on two counts. First, he pretends that we aren’t already “giving” vast amounts to the poor. Worse yet, he assumes that more of this “giving” will actually help the country.

This assumes that oxymoronic “same-sex marriage” is a civil right, but you haven’t proved that. You have about as much right to that as you do a square circle.

It also assumes that gays and lesbians can’t be “married” today in fake churches and live together as they like. They can do that all-day, every day and we won’t complain. There is simply no need for the government to get involved in their relationships, because by nature and design they do produce the next generation.

Like nearly all pro-abortion arguments, that ignores the body of the innocent human being destroyed in the abortion.The scientific fact (
http://tinyurl.com/yfje8lq
) is that a new human being is created at fertilization.

Anyone who supports taxpayer-funded abortions is pro-abortion.  They think that pro-lifers don’t have a choice as to whether they should have to fund abortions, and they think that one of our society’s problems is that we aren’t killing enough unwanted human beings.  The Democratic platform is officially pro-abortion.

If it isn’t a political issue, why do the Democrats want to force pro-lifers to pay for abortions?

Yep, we oppose gender-selection abortions — nearly all of which destroy unwanted females — and the Left fights for them. Tell me again who hates women?

Oh, and abortions kill blacks at a rate three times that of whites. And who are the racists who want to increase that rate with taxpayer-funded abortions?

Other commenter: Please quote your source for taxpayer-funded abortion. Fox News? Bzzzz. They definitely don’t happen at Planned Parenthood. Please come back when you can argue without using strawman arguments or false equivilencies.

Hi — would the 2012 Democratic Platform be an acceptable source for you? “Protecting A Woman’s Right to Choose. The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay.”  http://assets.dstatic.org/dnc-platform/2012-National-Platform.pdf

Thanks for making the day of this conservative. I hope you reconsider your views once you realize you were just shouting from Stereotype-Land (I don’t watch Fox News — not that there is anything wrong with that).

The Democratic platform called for taxpayer-funded abortions. That would increase the rate of black abortions beyond the current rate, which is three times that of whites.

Democratic policies keep blacks dead or dependent. Coincidence?

Roundup

Pastor Timothy on the sins of class warfare — Yep.  There is a biblical word for that: Coveting.  It also seems ungrateful, given that the top 1% pay for 37% of Federal Income Taxes.

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From the “Socialized medicine may kill you, but at least it’s free — unless you pay taxes, and then it just kills you” category – Socialized Medicine Euthanizes 130,000 Old People per Year in UK – It is sad to see Facebook statuses from Liberals noting the joys of “free” healthcare while ignoring the bigger picture about the inevitable deadly decisions made by unelected bureaucrats.

But it gets worse: Even the examples of the “free” healthcare ignore that it is unsustainable.  It is hard to conceive of a group more ignorant of history.  This “free” healthcare is very new in historical terms and will vanish as their Greece-like economies continue to self-destruct.  They are slowly killing the goose that laid the golden egg.

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Courtesy of Haemet, note how inflation-adjusted costs of public education have tripled while scores have flattened or declined.  But if you just give them even more money, they’ll improve . . . right?!  Much of that waste has been to line the pockets of public employee unions. —–

All about Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee — It is hard to imagine a bigger embarrassment to everyone she represents and it is sad that someone like her is continually re-elected.  I worked in a Fortune 50 company for 17 years and saw a few egomaniacs, but I say without hyperbole that they were innocent little doves compared to her.

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Jesus is the only way to salvation.  Do not be unequally yoked with non-believers and false religions.

1 Corinthians 10:20 — “I imply that what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons and not to God. I do not want you to be participants with demons.”

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Canada’s Registry of Homophobic Acts deserves ridicule, but it is simultaneously chilling.  This is part of the endgame for the LGBTQ lobby.  Too many wimpy and/or fake churches and secular free speech advocates have ignored the signs and let this happen.

I don’t know if this is out of Monty Python or 1984:

“In what they are touting as a “world first,” a Quebec homosexual activist group has launched a “registry of homophobic acts” with support and funding from the Quebec Government’s Justice Department. …

Included in the definition of actions classified as “homophobic” and deemed worthy of reporting to the registry are: “any negative word or act toward a homosexual or homosexuality in general: physical abuse, verbal abuse, intimidation, harassment, offensive graffiti, abuse, injurious mockery, inappropriate media coverage and discrimination.””

A press release from the group says that anyone who has experienced or witnessed an act of homophobia “must” report it to the registry of homophobic acts. . . .

Funding and support for the venture comes from the Quebec Justice Ministry’s department of “The Fight Against Homophobia.” The Justice Ministry was tasked with fighting homophobia in 2008 and last year pledged $7 million to ‘anti-homophobia’ activities.”

The term homophobia refers to the politically incorrect refusal to sufficiently revere unholy acts of sexual depravity that spread lethal diseases and that have been regarded as shameful, disgusting, and loathsome throughout the world from the beginning of human history. Canadian readers who do not report that last sentence to the authorities at once are in violation of the wishes of their rulers.

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America vs. the sugar lobby — a great example of how crony capitalism is bad capitalism.  If you don’t limit the power of government then you get corporations and unions paying off politicians to send huge sums of money their way.

For years, the federal government has kept the price of sugar high by capping domestic production, imposing a de facto government price floor, and mandating that USDA buy excess sugar to sell to ethanol producers at a loss. The U.S. government also places exorbitant restrictions on sugar imports. The cumulative effect of all these special protections is an artificial increase in the price of sugar for Americans relative to other countries.

As a result, American consumers pay more for products containing sugar, and U.S. manufacturers of sugar consuming products are at a competitive disadvantage. Not surprisingly, many of these manufacturers have closed their doors or moved their factories to Canada and Mexico where sugar costs less than half the price. The Department of Commerce agrees, finding that for every one job protected by the sugar program, three others are lost in sugar using manufacturing industries.

Great pro-life display

Warning: Graphic images.  As always, remember that forgiveness and healing are possible for those who have participated in the abortion process.

This was on display at the college that my youngest daughter attends.  I hope that it changed some hearts and minds.  Some people object to graphic images, but I think they are appropriate on a college campus.  Other groups wouldn’t hesitate to use them to advance any other cause.

They addressed key themes such as “gendercide,” Down Syndrome children, authentic feminism vs. “you must have the right to kill your own children to prove you are equal with a man” feminism, what if homosexuality really was genetic?, and more.

Good for them to take devote their time and money to advance the cause of life!

Bonus: See a secular case against legalized abortion.

Roundup

The historical reliability of the Gospels.  We have good reasons to believe.

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Common traits of kids who don’t leave the church — some excellent points about youth groups, but I must add that the Bible doesn’t mention youth groups.  They have great value if done right, but churches should emphasize the responsibility of parents to teach their kids.  Alas, too many parents are biblical ignorant and doing nothing about it.

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The tragic superficiality of the gay lifestyle – I was surprised yet glad that this actually made it in the NY Times.  Hopefully some people will reconsider their views.

A fascinating and surprising story published in the New York Times, laying bare what many homosexual activists will never admit publicly. It reports the real life tragedy of a typical homosexual man who sees and lives life based on the superficiality of homosexuality. How you look, what you wear and your “positive” attitude about yourself as a homosexual was the false recipe he sold to countless other gay men, but somehow knew that it wasn’t the truth.

On Jan 1st, Bob Bergeron, a quintessentially positive gay man, committed suicide.  He left his friends, past sex partners and acquaintances wondering why. But they are blind to the real issue. The obsession with youth, beauty and sex is a killer. In a suicide note, he summed up the homosexual lifestyle in a single damning sentence:

“It’s a lie based on bad information.”, he wrote.

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Polar bears are thriving – wait, that can’t be right.  The global warming / climate change folks who are aggressively fighting for an unprecedented global financial and power grab showed a picture of a polar bear on a small piece of ice.

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NHS bans woman from surgery because her carbon footprint is too big – Socialized health care sounds appealing, provided you don’t know history and can’t think through the logical consequences of it.

This is the problem with socialized medicine. You pay your money up front and then later on the government decides how much treatment you get. They have no reason to be nice to you – you already paid them. They don’t get paid more or less based on the quality of care they give you. You can’t get a refund on taxes paid. And where else can you go? It’s a single payer system.

I saw this on a poster: Socialized medicine may kill you, but at least it is free.  Unless you pay taxes, then it just kills you.

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78-Year-Old White Guy Assaulted in Honor of Trayvon Martin – How much more blood will be on the hands of the MSM, Jesse, Al and the rest of the racism industry?

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US State Dept to force gay agenda on foreign nations – Most citizens have no idea how aggressively the administration is exporting the gay agenda.

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Obama supports women at Augusta National as party courts women’s vote – So the Panderer-in-Chief tries to get some easy publicity on this, then stumbles when asked the obvious question of whether his strong principles would have even the slightest impact on his behavior.

When later asked if Obama would play at a men-only club, Carney said the president had not specifically addressed that scenario during their conversation on the subject.

Chalk this up to the most powerful man in the world weighing in on an issue with the equivalent passion of clicking the “Like” button on Facebook.  In other words, meaningless hypocrisy.

Bonus question: How many women does Obama golf with?

The president himself, however, has a well-documented history of excluding women, especially on the golf course.

Obama played 23 rounds of golf between January and October of 2009 before inviting a single woman to his foursome, the New York Times reported. This was emblematic of broader concerns over the president’s preference for the company and advice of men:

“The technical foul over the all-male game has become a nagging concern for a White House that has battled an impression dating to the presidential campaign that Mr. Obama’s closest advisers form a boys’ club and that he is too frequently in the company of only men — not just when playing sports, but also when making big decisions.”

“Women are Obama’s base, and they don’t seem to have enough people who look like the base inside of their own inner circle,” former Clinton press secretary Dee Dee Myers told the Times.

In a 2011 article titled “The White House Boys’ Club: President Obama Has a Woman Problem,” TIME magazine’s Amy Sullivan detailed the president’s fondness for male-dominated enviroments.

Yeah, there’s a real war on women going on, just not from conservatives.

It isn’t just about love and hate, but about truth and lies and right and wrong

The Left reflexively plays the hate card when dealing with LGBTQ issues.  Sadly, too many  Bible-believing people fall prey to the trick and it silences them.  But it isn’t just about love and hate, but about truth and lies and right and wrong.

Consider these four possibilities:

1. You believe homosexual behavior is a sin and you share what you think is the truth, as appropriate.
2. You believe homosexual behavior is a sin and you do not share what you think is the truth, as appropriate.
3. You believe homosexual behavior is a not a sin and you share what you think is the truth, as appropriate.
4. You believe homosexual behavior is not a sin and you do not share what you think is the truth, as appropriate.

Before you can talk of love and hate, you’d need to understand right and wrong — or at least the perception of it by those in question.

Options 1 and 3 would be be acting in love (defined in the sense of having people’s long-term best interests at heart and not in the worldly sense of pampering people). Options 2 and 4 would be acting out of hate, or at least selfishness or indifference.

So it if you think homosexual behavior is a sin and don’t speak the truth, then you are acting hatefully — even if you were wrong in assessing the Bible (which you wouldn’t be).

The Bible couldn’t be more clear.  Even non-Christians and two out of the three types of pro-gay theologians can see these truths:

• 100% of the verses addressing homosexual behavior denounce it as sin in the clearest and strongest possible terms.
• 100% of the verses referring to God’s ideal for marriage involve one man and one woman.
• 100% of the verses referencing parenting involve moms and dads with unique roles (or at least a set of male and female parents guiding the children).
• 0% of 31,173 Bible verses refer to homosexual behavior in a positive or even benign way or even hint at the acceptability of homosexual unions.

So even in some bizarre hypothetical where the Bible actually supported homosexual behavior and Leviticus, Romans, all the verses on parenting and marriage, etc. stated the opposite of what they do, it wouldn’t be hateful to describe LGBTQ behavior as sinful. It would only be hate if someone “knew” the Bible said homosexual behavior was acceptable and taught otherwise.

In the same way, it is loving to remove false teachers from the church when they are advancing falsehoods with pro-gay theology.  It is a virtue to protect people.

And it would be un-loving to reject people just because they struggle with a sin that isn’t a temptation for you.  If people recognize that homosexual behavior is a sin and aren’t teaching the opposite, they should be welcomed in church. You should be willing to pray for them and be friends with them.

The hate card assumes motives and judges the hearts of others.  In some cases it is probably accurate to define people as haters, such as with Democrat Fred Phelps and his “church.”  But it is a cheap trick to use it against everyone you disagree with — and especially right after all your other arguments have been exposed as faulty.

The real haters are those that know what the Bible really says yet value their own popularity over the physical, emotional and spiritual health of others. They would rather be politically correct than tell you the truth. That’s love of self, not love of others.

The truth sounds like hate to those that hate the truth.

Also see Responding to Pro-Gay Theology.

Roundup

Adam Carolla’s R-rated — but right-on — rant – This comes with a language warning, but it is interesting to hear his perspective on the OWS crowd.  They are the Sticker Generation, who grew up with an outrageous sense of entitlement because they were always told how wonderful they were, whether those assessments matched reality or not.

They aren’t succeeding in life so they covet and want to destroy those who have succeeded.

—

Wow, this was stupid 50 years ago and hasn’t gotten any smarter: KENTUCKY CHURCH BANS INTERRACIAL COUPLES FROM BECOMING MEMBERS & LEADING WORSHIP. As Glenn points out, there is only one race in the Bible, the fallen human race.  Skin color is morally neutral.

—

An extreme Green guy found that living out his worldview was tough and irrational, such as when he spent 5 hours traveling to do what would have taken 40 minutes in a car.

There are those who question the point of this exercise to begin with. “Why make your life harder when it won’t make a difference anyway?” they ask, adding a virtual eye roll that would make even the most jaded 14-year-old proud. “Policy is the only solution to the world’s climate crisis, not individual action.” To them I say: Well, yeah.

He admits how awful it is but welcomes the government forcing everyone to do it that way.  Sadly, he doesn’t see the unintended consequences that will come with the government control, not to mention that the bureaucrats themselves won’t be obligated to follow the rules they make.

—

Sadly, Ohioans are finding out that they were misled by the unions on Issue 2. Being persuaded by multi-million dollar ad campaigns and fear-mongering won’t help when these cities have to balance their budgets.  Paying extravagant union wages and benefits will mean the loss of jobs and services — the very things the unions said would happen if they lost!

—

Newsweek admits the obvious: America is in the grip of sex addiction – They even concede that not all homosexual participants were not “born that way.”

Shockingly, the Newsweek article does acknowledge a reality that is normally unthinkable for the liberal mind: that homosexual behavior might be related to a sex addiction. A sex therapist tells Newsweek, “We see a lot of heterosexual men who are addicted to sex and, because culturally and biologically women aren’t as readily available to have sex at all times of the day, these men will turn to gay men for gratification.”

I imagine the LGBTQ community is up in arms over that.

Although Newsweek admits that the “digital revolution” has much to do with the situation through the provision of easily-accessible hard-core pornography, it fails to state another obvious point: that the culture of the United States and other western countries is saturated with a “softer” porn that is potentially just as deadly.

Americans are bombarded, day in and day out, with insidious messages about human sexuality. Movies, music, television shows, video games and advertising glorify a superficial, hedonistic, promiscuous, and selfish concept of sexuality. Quite often, these themes are accompanied by overt acts of violence and rape.

Newsweek however, doesn’t seem to notice a connection between the false concept of human sexuality pushed by the entertainment business and advertisers and the nation’s increasingly destructive obsession with carnal pleasure.  Instead it takes a more “moderate” approach, parroting the American Psychiatric Association’s insane notion that sexual perversion is only a problem if it violates your personal standards of normalcy.

Lots of bad things happen when people make up their own standards.  It reminds me of the theme of the book of Judges: “Everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”

—

How many World AIDS Day presentations talked about how incredibly risky gay sex is?  If you really love people you’ll at least warn them that their odds of contracting syphilis or HIV are over forty times higher than average.

—

The Westar Wolves broke my irony meter

The Westar Institute is home of the Jesus Seminar, the group of fake Christians who literally voted on which things Jesus “really” said in the New Testament and which He did not. Not surprisingly, the “Jesus” they ended up with looked remarkably like contemporary liberal culture — in other words, just like them.  They deny his divinity, his miracles, his resurrection and more in making him out to be an early Occupy Wall Street-type rebel.  In other words, no one holding their views should claim to be Christian.  They may have degrees but they speak nonsense, such as what Jesus Seminar member Marcus Borg said here.

Now here’s some news from their new employee Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie: The Bible Seminar Set To Increase Biblical Literacy – Just In Time.

It is hard to imagine a more ironic title.  These “Christians” can’t go three sentences without creating a god in their own image but they think they are going to increase biblical literacy?  Sure.  Just like their spokesman did a whole sermon explaining why Jesus isn’t the only way to salvation because he insisted that John 14:6 didn’t belong in the Bible but that the Gospel of Thomas did (yeah, what did the early church know, anyway?!).  And he didn’t even realize there were 100+ additional verses to rationalize away to make his point!  He insisted that the Gospel of John was written after 130 A.D., even though atheist textual critics like Bart Ehrman and others place it at 90-95 A.D.  (I think it was written before 70 A.D., but that is another topic.)

The Westar Institute – home of the Jesus Seminar and Polebridge Press – will be launching a new initiative called the Bible Seminar this month to promote Biblical literacy and the timing couldn’t be better.

I agree that biblical illiteracy is rampant.  But looking to the Westar Wolves for assistance is like asking Jerry Sandusky to fight pedophilia.  I mean, he appears to know a lot about it, but there is a difference between a cause and a cure.

You have to feel bad for White House Press Secretary Jay Carney who made the unfortunate mistake recently of attributing the phrase “the Lord helps those who help themselves” to the Bible.  It’s a common mistake.  In fact, pollster George Barna has found that 75% of Americans believe this phrase, most likely from Benjamin Franklin, comes from Scripture.

Again, let’s remember that Chuck distorts every verse he touches.  How can someone get a seminary degree and not know that the New Testament claims countless times that Jesus is the only way to salvation and that Jesus is divine?  That isn’t what makes those true, of course, but they are obviously positions every authentic Christian should hold.

Carney’s mistake isn’t very worrisome.  What is truly concerning are how many Americans, for example, would claim that Jesus is opposed to gay marriage.  Jesus never uttered a word about homosexuality as far as we know – for or against – but people will claim that he did.

Predictable.  Of course Chuck hasn’t read where Jesus reiterated who God made marriage for: One man and one woman (Mark 10).  And yes, that statement was in response to the issue of divorce, but it still indicates God’s plan for marriage.  You can’t get away from it.

And Chuck offers no evidence and uses the “what Jesus didn’t say” argument from silence, which fails on many levels: Arguing from silence is a logical fallacy, Jesus inspired all scripture, He supported the Old Testament law to the last letter, the “red letters” weren’t silent on this topic in the sense that they reiterated what marriage is, He emphasized many other important issues that these liberal theologians completely ignore (Hell, his divinity, his exclusivity, etc.), He was equally “silent” on issues that these folks treat as having the utmost importance (capital punishment, war, welfare, universal health care, etc.), His failure to mention bestiality, child abuse and other obvious sins wouldn’t justify them, and homosexual behavior simply wasn’t a hot topic for 1st century Jews.  Other than that, it is a great argument.

More importantly, note how this false teacher tips his hand by saying Jesus never addressed homosexuality.  Remember, the clear claim of scripture and an essential of the Christian faith is that Jesus is part of the Trinity.  Jesus is God, the Bible is the word of God, therefore the Bible is the word of Jesus.  The original writings turned out exactly the way He wanted them to.  Therefore, all the verses about human sexuality turned out exactly the way Jesus wanted:

• 100% of the verses addressing homosexual behavior denounce it as sin in the clearest and strongest possible terms.
• 100% of the verses referring to God’s ideal for marriage involve one man and one woman.
• 100% of the verses referencing parenting involve moms and dads with unique roles (or at least a set of male and female parents guiding the children).
• 0% of 31,173 Bible verses refer to homosexual behavior in a positive or even benign way or even hint at the acceptability of homosexual unions.

Also, Chuck is implying that Romans and other writings addressing homosexuality aren’t the word of God.  That’s a peculiar thing for a Christian to say.

There are three types of pro-gay theologians, and Chuck and the Jesus Seminar are in the most explicitly anti-Christian group, the one that believes that the Bible is either not the Word of God, or that most parts of it aren’t.

Our level of Biblical literacy is low in the United States.

Twenty five years ago, The Westar Institute started the Jesus Seminar to bring Biblical scholars out of classrooms and into the public square to discuss the life and ministry of Jesus in new ways.  The project largely focused then on the historical Jesus and sought to set Jesus within his own historical context and to explore the meaning of his life and death free from dogmatic constraints that had for centuries limited our understanding of who Jesus was.  For many Christians the work of the Jesus Seminar was liberating – for the Religious Right is was blasphemous.

Not just the religious right thinks it is blasphemous.  Chuck & Co. are so comfortable in their little Western Liberal religious cocoon that they don’t know what real Christians have believed for 2,000 years and around the world.  I know lots of Christians outside the U.S., and I assure you that Chuck and Westar do not speak for them.

Dr. Stephen Patterson, director of The Westar Institute and George H. Atkinson Professor of Religious and Ethical Studies at Willamette University in Salem, Ore., notes that the mission of Westar is to “facilitate collaborative, critical scholarship and bring it before the public for the common good.  Lately, however, we have not been heard.  Our evangelical friends are well-organized and well-funded and consequently can raise their voice above all others.  Our new project, The Bible Seminar, is our attempt to re-ignite the fires of the Jesus Seminar and raise once again the voice of critical scholarship in a conversation that has veered far to the right.”

I can’t wait to see their content!

Groups like Focus on the Family and the Family Research Council and figures like Albert Mohler use Scripture to justify all kinds of conservative causes:  oppression of women, opposition to environmental protections, support for U.S. military intervention in places like Iraq, opposition to marriage equality, etc.  But are these Biblical positions? Plenty of scholars who study the Bible would say no and argue that these are political position cloaked in religious language.

Eek!  Bible-believing Christians!  Wait . . . what do they mean by “oppression of women?”  Oh, if you are opposed to crushing and dismembering innocent but unwanted human beings in the womb then you want to oppress women . . . even though gender selection abortions are used almost exclusively to kill females for the sole reason that they are female.

“Marriage equality” = tired sound bite.  ”Same-sex marriage” is not, and never will be, equal to real marriage as outlined in the Bible.

The Bible Seminar will help equip those scholars to better engage in public debate and enter into discussion and dialogue with clergy and lay Christians (and non-believers as well) to liberate the Bible from those who would misuse it for their own partisan political purposes.

Yeah, because people would never misuse the Bible to rationalize the government taking by force from neighbor A to “give” to neighbor B and calling it “Christianity,” and they would never use it to justify abortion and teaching 5 yr. olds how “normal” LGBTQ behavior is.

Like the Jesus Seminar before it, the Bible Seminar won’t answer all the questions.  What this project will do, however, is allow the questions to be asked and in the process solicit diverse voices that often aren’t even invited to the table to be part of the discussion.  We can expect the work to be controversial but always exciting.

I used to feel sorry for people taken in by fakes like Chuck Currie and the Jesus Seminar.  Now I tend to think that they get what they deserve: a false god to worship.

Westar is a poster child for Leopard Theology, where they claim that the Bible is only inspired in spots and that they are inspired to spot the spots, as well as Advanced Leopard Theology, where God is also changing spots and adding/removing spots, and, oddly enough, He is only telling Western theological liberals and progressives.

Jesus warned us many times of false teachers, and He was right.  My guess is that those passages were the first ones jettisoned by the Westar Wolves.

Please note how their “biblical literacy” campaign immediately self-destructs with respect to their anti-Christ mission. Their main point in the past has been dismissing the verses they don’t like as not being of Jesus, or dismissing whole books of the Bible as not belonging.  But they can’t deny what is actually in the Bible.

For example, Chuck can try and deny that Jesus spoke the words of John 14:6, but he can’t deny that it is in the book.  So if they want to debate what the Bible really says — whether they think Jesus said it or not — they are going to lose badly.  They used to cheat by pulling out verses that opposed their made up religion, but if they are going to point to what is in the whole book then they can’t play that game any longer.  

This will be fun.  

On bullying: Why are products of Darwinian evolution surprised that products of Darwinian evolution behave like products of Darwinian evolution?

Sorry for the less-than-pithy title, but I spelled it out to emphasize the multiple inconsistencies of the Leftist/Darwinian crowd that poses as part of the anti-bullying movement.

First, I want to be clear that I oppose all bullying.*  For example, I know many gay/lesbian people, and I would defend them if they were bullied just as I would defend other sinners who were getting bullied.  I’m just predisposed to protect the weak and defenseless, such as the unborn.

OK, back to whaling on the Leftist Darwinists: For starters, they don’t mind bullying as long as they are the bullies.  See the Expelled! movie, for example.  They are so “confident” in their views that they delight in using their power to silence opposing views, end careers, etc.  Academic bullying is still bullying.  The root of bullying is cowardice and fear, and they display it regularly.

And if they really believed what they claim they’d concede that there is no grounding to criticize bullying.  Oh, we all know it is wrong, but in a molecules-to-man worldview you can write volumes trying to rationalize objective morality (and they do try!) but you always end up losing.  It turns out to be “truth is relative” morality that they have no logical grounds to expect others to follow unless forced to.

And of course, if there is no God and we are purely the result of the Darwinian mechanism, then it is to “blame” for bullying.  How could you hold the bullies accountable? They were born that way.

Finally, wouldn’t bullying be a positive in the Darwinian worldview?  You know, survival of the fittest, the strong preying on the weak and all that.  Why do they get squeamish and give up a core principle of their cherished worldview?

—–

* My official, one-size-fits-all anti-bullying policy, offered here for the public domain and available for use by all school districts, free of charge:

If you physically or verbally harass other students on or off school grounds, including the Internet, you will have swift and serious consequences. It doesn’t matter if you are bullying because they are gay/straight/fat/thin/smart/dumb/pretty/ugly/etc., or if it is just because you are a mean jerk.

Training over. You don’t need LGBTQ sex clubs in schools to prevent bullying.  That is just a Trojan Horse.

Heterosexual questionnaire, aka Best. Homework assignment. Ever.

My daughter took a college sociology class (Motto: “Let’s use your parent’s money to turn you into a Liberal!”). Fortunately, just like her older sister, she has amazing critical thinking skills and a biblical worldview and saw through the nearly nonstop nonsense.

One of the homework assignments was to ask someone the survey questions below. It is obviously a twist on the questions people have asked gays – some of which are fair and relevant and others of which are silly. I’m sure the lesson we’re supposed to learn is that there is absolutely nothing wrong with LGBTQ behavior and we are all twisted homophobes (bi-phobes, transgender-phobes, etc.) for merely questioning the practices.

She picked me to answer the questionnaire. Yea! She had a 100% average going into the assignment, so she felt pretty comfortable that even if there was retribution she could weather it grade-wise. And she could always just claim that she interviewed one of those awful bigoted-hateful-homophobic-right-wing-fundie-nutjob-uneducated-conservative-zealots (because after all, if you call your ideological opponents names like that you must be right!).

Side notes: This oh-so-tolerant teacher didn’t bat an eye when one student (Official nickname: Drunk Guy) loudly noted during class that, “Conservatives are assholes.”

The teacher gave one assignment after another where she made a grand assumption without evidence then proceeded to ask why white males were at fault. One example: The lesson asking, “How does male dominance help to explain homophobia (or heterosexism).” I am not making this up.

The textbook used feminine pronouns exclusively, with the exception of when the subject was clearly a bad person, in which case male pronouns were used.

Let’s just say I’m very grateful for the Rate My Professors website. I think this is an outstanding tool for people to fairly evaluate their professors and warn others of those who are ideological bullies. What is scary is that this teacher was actually exercising restraint.

Here’s the survey and my replies. I just love helping the academic process move along. I’m sure the professor enjoyed them and changed her positions. Feel free to offer your own answers!

1. What do you think caused your heterosexuality?

By nature and design I was born to be attracted to the opposite sex.

2. When and how did you decide that you were a heterosexual?

I don’t recall. There are many things I did instinctively as a child. Some were good, some were not. One of the keys to successful living is learning which instincts are wrong and dealing with them.

3. Is it possible that your heterosexuality is just a phase that you may grow out of?

No, but given that it is natural and biblical I have no reason to consider changing it.

4. Is it possible that your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?

No, because I don’t fear the same sex. I have countless friendships and acquaintances with men and they don’t involve fear, let alone neurotic fear.

5. If you have never slept with a person of the same sex, is it possible that all you need is a good gay lover?

There are many unhealthy things I have never done. I don’t need to try them to see if I might like them. And even if I did like them it doesn’t mean they would be good for me.

Having said that, I wouldn’t propose to LGBTQ people to have sex out of wedlock as a solution to anything.

6. Do your parents know that you are straight? Do your friends and roommates know?

Yes.

7. Why do you insist on flaunting your heterosexuality? Can’t you just be who you are and keep it quiet?

That is a “have you stopped beating your wife” type of fallacious question. I don’t flaunt my heterosexuality. I don’t march in heterosexual pride parades. I don’t fly heterosexual pride flags or put bumper stickers on my car.

I also don’t try to stop LGBTQ people from associating with whomever they like.

8. Why do heterosexuals place so much emphasis on sex?

Many people put too much emphasis on sex. But I am not defined just by my heterosexuality. If I were to describe myself, I wouldn’t even use it as an adjective.

9. Why do heterosexuals feel so compelled to introduce others into their lifestyle?

I can’t speak for everyone, but I am very familiar with the physical, emotional and spiritual destructiveness of the homosexual lifestyle.

10. A disproportionate majority of child molesters are heterosexual. Do you consider it safe to expose children to heterosexual teachers?

I would like to see the statistics supporting your premise. My understanding of the sexual preferences of the Catholic pedophile priests is the opposite of that. LGBTQ people comprise roughly 2% of the population, so even if they molested children at the same rate as the rest of the population then 98% of molestations would be committed by heterosexuals. My understanding is that a disproportionate amount of abusers are gays.

11. Just what do men and women do in bed together? How can they truly know how to please each other, being so anatomically different?

It is not a well-kept secret that men and women were designed for sexual relations with the opposite sex.

12. With all the societal support marriage receives, the divorce rate is spiraling. Why are there so few stable relationships between heterosexuals?

The sexual revolution, which includes the LGBTQ agenda, is a big part of it. Human selfishness, the no-fault divorce laws, the explosion of pornography, and so much more contribute to it. Bible-believing, church-attending people (i.e., not just those checking the “Christian” box on surveys) have much lower divorce rates than average.

Having said that, the rate of partners for gays is exponentially higher than that for heterosexuals.

13. Statistics show that lesbians have the lowest incidence of sexually transmitted disease. Is it really safe for a woman to maintain a heterosexual lifestyle and run the risk of disease and pregnancy?

Statistics also show that it is nearly impossible to get an STD if two virgins marry and are committed to each other for life.

Statistics also show that gays are over 40 times more likely to get syphilis or HIV than heterosexuals. I assume there will be a follow up question asking if it is really safe to maintain a homosexual lifestyle and run the risk of disease or to have sex out of wedlock and run the risk of a child outside of marriage.

Is it really safe for people to ever consider having sex outside of a one man / one woman marriage?

14. How can you expect to become a whole person if you limit yourself to compulsive, exclusive heterosexuality?

I’m not sure what you mean by “compulsive,” but I can be a whole person as a heterosexual because that is who I am by nature, and it is in complete agreement with the word of God. My wholeness is not dependent on me experimenting with every sexual possibility known to man. In fact, I am much more whole by not doing those things.

15. Considering the menace of overpopulation, how could the human race survive if everyone were heterosexual?

Overpopulation concerns are in error. The earth could support many more people. Also, the question is fallacious because 98% of the population is heterosexual (i.e., the 2% difference is negligible).

Having said that, the population replenishment argument against LGBTQ people is pretty meaningless.

16. Could you trust a heterosexual therapist to be objective? Don’t you feel that s/he might be inclined to influence you in the direction of his/her own leanings?

All other things being equal, I would trust them more than someone who ignores the physical, spiritual and emotional dangers of the LGBTQ lifestyle. If you really care about people you won’t deliberately hide the truth from them. If a therapist doesn’t understand the basic nature and design of human beings and teaches things contrary to the word of God, then I wouldn’t trust them on this topic.

17. There seems to be very few happy heterosexuals. Techniques have been developed that might enable you to change if you really want to. Have you considered trying aversion therapy?

Do you have any data to support that? I know many happy heterosexuals. And the ones who are unhappy may be so because they have violated God’s design for sex. My understanding is that suicide rates for gays are higher even in ultra gay-friendly cities and countries.

18. Would you want your child to be heterosexual, knowing the problems they would face?

That question seems incomplete. Perhaps you could note the problems that heterosexuals have that LGBTQ people don’t have? I would want my kids to live in accordance with natural law and the word of God. That is always the best plan. If people get high school degrees and don’t have sex out of wedlock, the odds of them being poor are very, very low. If they do the opposite then the odds of them being poor are very high. That’s just one example.

I do realize that people with the courage to speak the truth about sexual matters may be vilified as “haters” and such, but I would want my kids to do what is right rather than what is just popular. I am all for civility and I treat the many gays and lesbians I know with kindness. I have taught my children to do the same. But political correctness is merely saying what you know to be false in order to maintain your popularity.

False teacher fallacy-fest on oxymoronic "same-sex marriage"

It is hard to believe that false teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie could cram this many fallacies into one little post, yet here we are.  In one of his seemingly never-ending perversions of scripture, he insists that Jesus’ command to love your neighbor as yourself requires state-sanctioned endorsement of un-biblical sexual preferences.

Faith leaders from across are showing their support for freedom to marry, in large part because of the simple message that we all should strive to treat others as we would wish to be treated.

1. “Faith leaders” is code for false teachers — those who teach the opposite of the Bible and are so homophobic that they have a greater fear of being unpopular with the gay lobby than they do with the God they claim to worship.  Chuck uses this word game reflexively, where he implies that just because more than one “religious” person is for something that they are a majority or have biblical support for their position.

2. People already have “freedom to marry” anyone they like — of the opposite sex — because that’s what marriage was and is.  Opposite sex couples, by nature and design, produce the next generation, and only they can provide a mother and a father to a child.

And even those freedoms have some restrictions, such as age and the “one per customer” requirement (though Chuck’s position implicitly supports polygamy).

3. The golden rule obviously has limitations.  If I wanted others to be able to use heroin just because I want to use heroin that wouldn’t be a reasoned use of the term.

4. It ignores the consequences of providing civil rights for sexual preferences: The harm done to small children who will now be taught how “normal” homosexual, bisexual, transgender and whatever-comes-next behavior is, business owners forced to abandon their religious principles, adoption agencies closing, etc.

“As a minister in the United Church of Christ, I preach about God’s extravagant welcome… that God excludes no one and welcomes all.

Yes, that is what his “church” teaches.  As usual, he twists words.  Real Christianity really is open to all — all those who repent and trust in Jesus, that is.  But it is exclusive in that you must come to God on his terms.  Chuck’s false church gets it backwards, teaching that everyone gets in whether they want to or not, or that all religions are equally valid paths to God.

As parents, Liz and I want our daughters to honor the golden rule – that timeless truth that we should treat others as we wish to be treated – and for us that includes making sure gay and lesbian couples have the right to marry and raise a family just as we have.  We dream of a day when all are equal before the law.”

5. Chuck’s wife is an atheist, by the way.  Apparently evangelism isn’t his strong suit.  Chuck takes his 6 yr. old daughters to gay pride parades.  You’d think that at least his wife would have the sense to prevent that.

6. Gays and lesbians, by nature and design, cannot create a family.

7. Chuck falsely states that gays and lesbians can’t marry, as if the law says they can’t go to any number of apostate churches, like his, and get married.  But he isn’t asking for that, he is asking for government recognition of these unions.  His church’s #1 appeal seems to be seeking Federal recognition of the fraction of a fraction of these folks who want this government recognition (i.e., the few who want to get married out of the 2-3% who are gay/lesbian).

8. Chuck ignores bisexuals. Why is he so bigoted and hateful?

9. As noted before, they are equal under the law.  They can marry someone of the opposite sex.

10. Hey, I wonder if Chuck & Co. will take their “golden rule” sermons to the Middle East?  If they think the U.S. culture is so unloving, they’ll really have some harsh words for Muslims.

—–

Don’t be fooled by sound bites, folks.  The truth sounds like hate to those that hate the truth.  If you really love people, including LGBTQ folks and those impacted by these laws, then you’ll have all of their long term best interests at heart.  You won’t put your comfort and popularity above the truth.

Don’t be a coward on this issue.  Don’t let false teachers steal and distort the “golden rule” or anything else from the Bible.  Stand up for the truth and for what God really says.

Three of a kind: Jack Black, Newsweek and theologically liberal Christians

The pro-”same-sex marriage” crowd is pretty angry about Proposition 8 passing in California.  They are doing everything possible to sway public opinion.  They may win, but the question is whether authentic Christians will hold fast to the truth. 

It is sad yet amusing to see such theoretically different sets of people in agreement about the “flaws” of the Bible:

• Jack Black and other Hollywood stars create a video mocking Christians and the Bible.  (Side note: If you can watch the whole video, notice how the sodomy simulations all had woman in back instead of men.  That was obviously scripted for a reason.  Did they think using a guy would be too graphic?  It seemed kinda homophobic to me.)
• Newsweek - “Opponents of gay marriage often cite Scripture. But what the Bible teaches about love argues for the other side.”  It was deeply biased logical fallacy-fest of pure advocacy that didn’t even pretend to offer a counterpoint. Among other things, it trots out the false comparison to black Civil Rights.  But of course, skin color is morally neutral and sexual behavior is not.  It also used the “Jesus didn’t say anything about homosexuality” line, which only has about seven serious logical errors. 
• Theologically liberal / pro-gay theology Christians  — they’ve been doing this the longest, but it is most irritating with them because they claim the name of Christ.  At least Jack Black doesn’t pretend to be a Christian.

In short, we’ve got Bible lessons from non-believers.  So what will we do? 

Here’s my advice: Don’t get angry, get educated.  Or get angry and educated.  Are these people irritating and blasphemous?  Yep.  But we should use these current events to point people to the truth.  Just do like they did in the Book of Acts: Share the truth with those who are interested. 

For starters, respond to the shrimp / shellfish argument.  It is full of holes but is appealing to many because so few bother to study the passages. I address five serious problems with it in Flaws of the Shellfish Argument.  Here’s the short version: There were different Hebrew words translated as abomination. They were used differently in the individual verses and were used very differently in broader contexts. The associated sins had radically different consequences and had 100% different treatments in the New Testament.  So the Jack Black / theologically liberal types are simply wrong.

From the Jack Black video:

The “Christian” characters: “Doesn’t the Bible say these people are an abomination?”

Jack Black as Jesus: “It says the exact same thing about this shrimp cocktail . . . The Bible says a lot of things . . .”

The “Christian” characters: “We ignore those verses.”

Non-Christian characters: ” . . . you pick and choose.”

The irony is that we accept all the verses as the word of God.  The ones who “pick and choose” are the Dalmatian Theologians who think the Bible is inspired in spots and that they are inspired to spot the spots, or that God is changing spots or adding spots (and, oddly enough, only telling them).  They quote what they like then dismiss what they don’t by saying thinks like, “the Bible doesn’t say which books belong in the Bible, so we just don’t know what parts belong.”

The literalists are the ones like Jack Black & Co. who don’t read in context. 

A summary of what the Bible really says about this topic:

• 100% of the verses addressing homosexual behavior denounce it as sin in the clearest and strongest possible terms.
• 100% of the verses referencing God’s ideal for marriage involve one man and one woman.
• 100% of the verses referencing parenting involve moms and dads with unique roles (or at least a set of male and female parents guiding the children).
• 0% of 31,173 Bible verses refer to homosexual behavior in a positive or even benign way or even hint at the acceptability of homosexual unions.

Again, don’t get angry, get educated.  Or get angry and educated.  These people are throwing all sorts of nonsense like this at the real church.  How will we respond?  With “dignified” surrenders, where we just opt out of the conversations?  Or with the truth?

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Here’s a thorough analysis by James White.

Also see: Problems with pro-gay theology and Responding to pro-gay theology 

Al Mohler had a good response to the Newsweek article.