In the early chapters of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, we are introduced to the winsome character Stiva Oblonsky. With a smile and self-possessed mannerisms, he draws the attention and affections of many. He comes across as likeable, amiable and nothing out of the ordinary – as one of us. Yet, the first thing we read is that Stiva has thrown his household into chaos.
We immediately learn that he has been unfaithful to his wife, Dolly. He’s had an affair with their children’s former governess. We go on to learn that Stiva is remorseful of the exposure of the affair but has not one iota of remorse about what he has done: “He repented only that he had not done a better job of concealing this fact from his wife.”
When confronted by a note exposing his adultery, Stiva worried more about his response than about the hurt he caused his wife. The narrator gives us insight into that moment:
“Instead of taking offense, disavowing it, justifying himself, begging forgiveness, even feigning indifference – anything would have been better than what he did do! – his face, quite involuntarily (“the reflexes of the brain,” thought Stepan Arkadyevich, who was fond of physiology), suddenly, and quite involuntarily, broke into his usual good-nature, and thus foolish, smile.”
Stiva passes the blame for the mess he’s in: “That foolish smile of mine is to blame for everything”. It is his smile that first endeared him to Dolly. And now, as a response that appears to mock remorse, the smile allows Dolly to begin to see what lies behind Stiva’s beguiling demeanor.
Stiva’s evil is not the blatant action-taking evil. History has a record of such people. Rather, it is the absence of good. Stiva forgets, neglects, and fails to act. We get a sense of this in Part III, chap. 7:
“No matter how hard Stepan Arkadyevich (Stiva) tried to be a concerned father and husband, he never could remember that he had a wife and children.”
Remembering is unresolved grief. It’s not for a committed hedonist such as Stiva. He would never embrace suffering. And remembering brings guilt and guilt is suffering, so he is willing to tolerate a sense of sin to get on with life. Life’s unpleasantries are a bother. His forgetfulness is achieved with a smile and social acceptance. Stiva “was the familiar friend of everyone with whom he took a glass of champagne, and he took a glass of champagne with everyone”.
Behind Stiva’s good-natured smile is what Tolstoy described as “the liberalism of the blood”. Stiva fostered an easy-going liberal mindset:
“Stepan Arkadyevitch took and read a liberal newspaper, not a radical one, but one advocating the viewpoint maintained by the majority. And even though neither science, nor art or politics held any particular interest for him, he firmly maintained the same views on all these subjects that were maintained by the majority and by his paper, and he changed them only when the majority changed them, or, better put, he did not change them at all; they imperceptibly changed within him . . .
“And so liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s, and he liked his newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain.”
Reading further, we find Tolstoy contrasting the ordinariness of self-giving love, as expressed by Dolly, with the ordinariness of Stiva’s self-satisfying evil, expressed without ill-will or bitterness. Making waves would disrupt his complacency and the slight fog diffused in his brain.
For many years I’ve enjoyed reading Russian literature. Russian history has veered toward extremes – totalitarianism and atheism produced by the intelligentsia aka politically connected radical socialist atheists. Russian literature offers a window into the life and times of Russia, its people, and the thinking that led to so much suffering.
Realism abounds in the works of Solzhenitsyn, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. Ultimate questions and meaning of life issues are openly dealt with. No AI. No BLM, CRT, LGBTQ, pandering, no Wokey-dokey or playing with pronouns. Just serious adult things.
With Anna Karenina Tolstoy portrays prosaic good and evil, self-deception, and the nature of love – the seemingly fate-occurring dramatic love of romance vs. the committed non-trumpeting prosaic love that does good, i.e., cares for the family. With more than a dozen major characters and around 800 pages, the novel fleshes out the first line: “All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Once you read Anna, I think you’ll find that Tolstoy’s characters, including the absence-of-good Stiva, are not unique. You may find yourself in their stories and perhaps the impetus for change.
*****
Consider that Stiva is the first transhumanist. Look at his utter acquiescence to whatever is printed and accepted by the majority. And look at his attitude– cooly dispassionate and compliant. He’s a non-entity with a pasted-on smile.
*****
I coined the term “pornservatives” to describe the type of person who on paper or in person looks like a good old-fashioned red-state conservative, but in practice is living a morally dubious lifestyle antithetical to anything that resembles “conservatism” or “trad” values.
“So [the effect of the COVID vaccine] is negative, and that continues. The magnitude of that negativity increases over time. What does that mean, folks? It literally means that the people who received that vaccine were more likely to contract COVID-19 after seven months than the people who did not. That is a fact, has the CDC or FDA ever said a word about that? No.”
Tell me, where is the wisdom of financially befitting – with tax-payer dollars – NGOs like Catholic Charities who are doing the bidding of godless globalists under the pretense of Christian charity? Such groups aid and abet illegal border crossings which undoubtedly involve the trafficking of children, of criminals and of fentanyl? Such involvement serves to dilute and weaken the U.S. with an America hating Progressive/Globalist agenda.
Tell me, where is the wisdom when you employ out-of-control spending and money printing that leads to expected out-of-control consequences such as inflation and devaluation of the dollar?
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has been embraced by progressives, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who see MMT as the means for increased government spending that could help finance initiatives such as the Green New Deal policy on climate change and, of course, buy votes.
MMT says that a government can basically blow as much money as it wants to boost its economy as long as that government borrows in its own currency because it can always just print more money. This allows the government plenty of room for free spending without forcing it to raise taxes. It also means it would be impossible for that government to default on its debts.
“The central idea of MMT is that governments with a fiat currency system under their control can and should print (or create with a few keystrokes in today’s digital age) as much money as they need to spend because they cannot go broke or be insolvent unless a political decision to do so is taken.” – Modern Monetary Theory (MMT): Definition, History, and Principles (investopedia.com)
“According to MMT, the only limit that the government has when it comes to spending is the availability of real resources, like workers, construction supplies, etc. When government spending is too great with respect to the resources available, inflation can surge if decision-makers are not careful. (Emphasis mine)
And so it is the political decision of Democrats and Globalists to leave the southern border wide open for the infusion into the economy of low-cost workers to help finance MMT spending for such progressive legislation as universal healthcare and other public programs for which governments claim to not have enough money to fund:
During the past 25 years, low interest rates and highly expansionary monetary policy with little apparent inflation have created the illusion that a government can simply print money to fund exorbitant deficit spending with no repercussions. This core tenet of so-called “modern monetary theory” ignores the fact that deficit spending is constrained in the long run by a government’s ability to satisfy creditors. (Emphasis mine)
"There were all these lies about the Emergency Authorization. They needed the Emergency Authorization to get the Vaccines down everybody's throats."pic.twitter.com/Rh8p57k72Z
Too many doctors and nurses to count in recent months have told me about the alarming rise in sudden cancers in young people since the introduction of the experimental COVID vaccines.
Reporter goes scorched earth on outgoing Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot:
"You revoked my media credential. That should never happen in a free country… You can pack your suitcase and get the hell out of my city!"pic.twitter.com/pYaA4ChGud
We need your help to protect parental rights in Indiana! HB1407 is the bill we emailed you about a few weeks ago that protects parents’ rights to direct the care and upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of their minor children. The bill passed through the House at the end of February, but with concerns held by a few judges. The bill’s author, Rep. Dale DeVon, advocated hard for the bill on the House floor and thankfully, the bill passed through to the Senate.
Sadly, several groups are trying to kill this important piece of legislation, despite Rep. DeVon’s assurances that the judges who have reservations would be able to testify in the Senate committee, as well as his vow to work with them on amendments that would resolve their concerns.
HB1407 is a parental rights bill that protects parents’ rights to direct the care and upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of their minor children. The bill passed through the House at the end of February, but with concerns held by a few judges. The question is whether the Senate will hear and pass the bill despite the judges’ concerns.
Where are other pastors like Pastor Derek Reimer? Are they hiding behind Romans 13?
BREAKING: Pastor Derek Reimer has been arrested again, this time for breaching his bail conditions following his previous arrest for protesting an all-ages drag event.
In caving to corporate and elite pressure to “fix” Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Gov. Mike Pence and the rest of the state’s laughingstock Republican leadership have ironically bungled into amending it in a way that now makes Indiana the most hostile state in the country to the conscience rights the original law was designed to protect.
The strength of green feeling here, both for and against, is a bellwether for the struggle to come in other countries and farming economies. But BBB [the Farmer Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging] should not be dismissed as ‘anti-green’; rather farmers are more of a lime green versus the dark green of the eco activists, both of whom claim they want to protect the land.
January 2020. Chicago. J.P. is at work when word of a Beast– afierce and untamable infectious agent created by science gods in Red China – is unleashed upon the world.
The Beast crosses the globe. Disorder dysfunction and dread ensues. The non-stop reporting on sightings of the Beast causes widespread alarm. Deep rotting fear begins to possess people. They become infected with it. J.P., on the other hand, won’t let fear run his life.
Holding on to the long-standing wisdom of his tribe, he understands that fear is a paralyzing sickness that crawls into the soul of anyone who engages it. He was not raised to live with fear. “I’ll strike it from my heart, he said. “I’ll not bring it home. I’ll run my life with the understanding I’ve been given.”
March 2020. The satrap of Illinois tells residents that priests of The Science have spoken: “All tribes and all villages must perform certain rituals for two weeks to ward off the Beast.”
Residents are told that they must wear masks, social distance, shut down their small business and church, and lock themselves down in their homes. They are not to be in close company with anyone, not even the elderly or dying. Then and only then, citizens are told, will panic be flattened and the Beast quashed.
But after two weeks the Beast is still roaming the land.
So, the priests of The Science begin using incantations to bring about obedience to The Science: “We’re all in this together” ‘Follow The Science” “We must flatten the Curve”.
When not cajoling for submission, The Science magistrates threaten with business license forfeitures, fines and, jail time. False tests are used to quarantine many in isolation camps. Vivid and horrifying tales, not of the Beast but of the fierce and untamable priests of The Science, set the stage for their next ritual.
“You want to slay the Beast and be accepted by the priests of The Science? Then you must drink the blood of babies sacrificed to Molech!” “Then and only then,” citizens are told, “will The Science be satisfied and the Beast put down”. “Then, and only then, will you be allowed to get back to normal.” “Then and only then, will you get their stuff back.” And so came the saying “The Science gives and The Science takes away. Blessed be The Science.”
The media acolytes of The Science said “You must follow what the priests of The Science tell you. Follow us for their words of wisdom.” And many did. Many walked around sheepishly wearing masks. And many drank the cup of salvation promoted by the acolytes who were paid to promote it. But J.P. would not drink the beastly potion. So, his head was to be put on the chopping block.
J.P. was told that he would lose his job if he did not drink the cup of salvation. J.P. resisted. He said that his god wouldn’t allow him to drink it. It was unwise to do so, he said. Such a drink would hollow you out, he said. And finally, hoping to eclipse the glaring scorn the priests of The Science focused on him, he said that he worshipped an almighty god, one who spoke into the darkness and created the light. He would serve that god.
Now, none of what the priests had ordered, deemed the height of wisdom by media oracles, seemed wise to J.P. And none of what the priests signaled they were doing –pursuing the Beast – was true. They were actually chasing after J.P. to take him down.
The fierce and untamable priests of The Science, you see, were not happy with those who wouldn’t worship The Science. The priests mocked and stigmatized those unwilling to submit to their rituals. They painted them as outliers, social outcasts and, weirdos. As such, they were used for media target practice. J.P. outran the media arrows and kept running.
Before it all and through it all, J.P. stayed the course of his imago dei tribe. He continued to order his life with a health regimen of vitamins, good food, and exercise outdoors. He didn’t wear a mask. Doing so was unwise.
J.P. told himself “If I get the virus, my body will deal with it. If I get the virus, then I’ll have immunity just like every other time. And, more importantly, I will not have served a foreign god”.
He continued to function by working from home. He refused to be tested and to wear a mask and to sit isolated from everyone as the workplace required. He stayed the course. That was wisdom of practice.
Looking back, J.P. questioned who created more chaos and suffering– the Beast or the predatory priests of The Science? The Beast attacked had his tribe. Some suffered and a few died. Wisdom remains with the remnant.
On the other hand, it was the madness of the fierce and untamable priests of The Science that had created the Beast. It was these priests who sanctioned threats, and the capture and sacrifice of people everywhere. It was these priests who demanded subjugation to the unholy cup of salvation the wizards of The Science had created.
And, just like the gods of ancient tales, the priests of The Science sought destruction for the purpose of reconstruction. They attempted to reduce the population because of their discontent with humans. They loved data and their own thoughts more than humans.
Tactics of fear and chaos theory were employed to see how people would react to the creation of a new world order under The Science. With all this, the priests of The Science revealed themselves to be the Beast.
The Beast continues to grow larger. It feeds on lies, vows of submission and money. It will arrive on our shores again.
And J.P., guided by wisdom, will again be led down straight paths where his steps will not be hampered. He will run again and not stumble. He will hold on to wisdom and not let it go. He will guard it well for it is his life.
*****
“Happy people have no history . . . of mNRA vaccination.” A 2023 proverb.
.@RobertKennedyJr Explains Why Fauci Had Such a Problem With Early Treatment
"Tony Fauci's problem is this: there's a little known federal law that says, 'You cannot give an emergency use authorization to a vaccine if there is any medication approved for any purpose that is… https://t.co/pkGCKjSqqEpic.twitter.com/qffF1BIWDU
🚨 Breaking: Former CDC Director testifies that he was excluded and kept out of the loop by Fauci and the rest of the establishment because he had a different opinion about Covid origins, which he believes came from a lab.pic.twitter.com/LDkL2NskbL
Z codes for underimmunization status (Z28 series) were introduced in 2016 by the World Health Organization. One code used for religious exemptions was labeled “patient decision for reasons of belief or group pressure.” . . .
The CDC also specified that “underimmunization status” can be documented in a medical record by a clinician other than their provider. Most ICD codes can only be documented by the provider “legally accountable for establishing the patient’s diagnosis.”[ix]
Make no mistake, this is about tracking the unvaccinated. “Track” is the exact word used by those discussing this addition to the ICD-10 on the September 2021 National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) call.
HR79, the WHO Withdrawal Act, has been introduced in Congress but has not yet been scheduled for a hearing by the Foreign Affairs Committee, despite ongoing negotiations and proposed adoption of the new treaty in May 2024.
Just before 9 AM every seat is taken except for one at the counter. Gilberto turns from the grill when I sit down. “You beat the rush.” I nod with a smile.
Saturday morning. I’m sitting at the counter of a local diner. Across from me is a grill heaped up in the back with a pile of steaming potatoes. Two Hispanics work the orders on the front of the grill. Eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes, pancakes, plating. Eggs, sausage, bacon, potatoes, pancakes, plating.
I order my usual. Before Elena hands him the food order, Gilberto has already started the eggs sausage and potatoes.
Today the diner’s owner Gilberto is one of the guys working the grill. His son David manages the tables and the Hispanic waitstaff of four. Gilberto is training his son to take over the restaurant. I know this, as Gilberto and I have talked when he’s had a moment’s break from the grill.
Gilberto works six days a week keeping the 7 AM to 2 PM diner going. He purchased the grill a few years ago from the previous owner and has since put in countless hours to make his enterprise work. And now he wants to have another day off. So, he’s training the cook working beside him as he had trained his son before him.
Just now I catch his tired eyes looking off somewhere. At a daydream perhaps. Perhaps he’s thinking of life outside the restaurant. Or, of something else he has to do before he goes home.
Three families arrive. Gilberto turns back to the grill. People need to be fed and tables turned. Employees need to be trained and paid. Work needs to be done. Gilberto thrives on that.
*****
“[Work] is about a search, too, for daily meaning as well as daily bread, for recognition as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short, for a sort of life rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dying.”
Right before our eyes, America is losing that ability to sustain the complex systems that are the markers of modern civilization. Even more appalling, this transformation is a choice.
Mike Rowe explains why more workers are ‘quietly quitting’.
I’d rather watch Dirty Jobs than play video games, watch movies and waste my time on social media. I’ve done dirty jobs. And I’ve done alright. There is something rewarding and holistic about getting your hands dirty doing things that need to get done and working with people who do the same. Some people wouldn’t understand.
Some think manual labor is beneath them – they’d get their hands dirty, and besides, they were meant for greater things. Some think a degree ups their pay grade and attitude. It is elites like these who run our country and sneer in the direction of the dirty-hands worker while basing all their reckless spending on the full faith and credit of such hard-working Americans.
Did school teach you what you do for a living? It didn’t for me.
“… schooling isn’t paying off the dividends the school counselors promised. Do yourself a favor and start asking people if school taught them what they do for a living. Many will attest they learned most of what they know and do outside the classroom. Our instructors desperately want us to believe that learning happens in school, but for most the current industrial (or is it now post-industrial?) model of “schooling” is the impediment to exploration and true learning. Yet we pursue the lie, . . .
Examine today’s heroes and ponder if their schooling taught them how to rebel, invent, podcast, lead, write, speak, or any other of their myriad accomplishments, as they attempt to thwart the globalist’s plot of world destruction. The elites need children in school, where they are trained to obey.”
My recommendation is to discuss this with your doctor or seek a specialist in holistic or naturopathic medicine who is experienced with the safety profile of nattokinase in a range of applications. -Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH
Pfizer and the regulators had data by June 2021 showing a serious safety signal for miscarriage. They not only ignored it but suppressed access to the documents. -Dr. Ah Kahn Syed
Equity” is a Neo-Marxist euphemism for resource redistribution to favored racial and ethnic groups. Equity isn’t equality; its meaning and use are deliberately inverted to mislead the gullible and ignorant public.
Now comes Nandita Bajaj advocating to “save the planet” with fewer life forms. Imagine living a childless life because some climate clown said it would save Mother Earth.
In the end, alarmism about population decline is a distraction from the real crisis demanding attention: the human enterprise in overshoot, overwhelming the natural systems that enable life on Earth. Norms need to shift so that having fewer or no children is understood as a legitimate, positive choice and lower fertility is recognized as a path to a positive future.
Support SB 480 – Prohibits a physician or other practitioner from knowingly providing gender transition procedures to an individual who is less than 18 years of age (minor) that are intended to alter the gender of the minor or delay puberty.
SB4 (egregious spending and bureaucracy): “We are disappointed to report that SB4, the expansion of public health bill, passed out of the Senate today 41-7. The bill will now move over to the House for consideration, where we have been working with representatives to prepare amendments to improve the bill or ultimately, defeat it.”
Prohibits the Indiana public retirement system from investing in certain restricted entities or restricted investment products, including particular investments publicly confirmed to be controlled by the People’s Republic of China or the Chinese Communist Party.
There are Democrat initiated bills that are titled one thing and do the exact opposite of their label when enacted. For example, the Inflation Reduction Act that won’t reduce inflation and inflates government instead and the unaffordablegovernment-growingAffordable Care Act.
There is no end to the fraud or deception perpetrated by shifty pols who shift conspicuous things to hide something else– the name shell game. And just as countless, there is no shortage of labels and vitriol applied to those who do not want to play the name shell game. Those of us questioning the ‘games’ played by those in government are now deemed as being “the biggest threat to American democracy today” – another label that, here, shifts conspicuous meaning so as to hide something else what’s going on underneath. The label barrage continues.
In Biden regime terms, we are “extremists” – [We] embrace anger, thrive on chaos and live not in the light of truth, but in the shadow of lies, per Biden’s “Soul of the Nation” harangue.
If we don’t vote for Democrat massas, we are “not black”.
In politicized DOJ terms, we, as groups of parents, are characterized as “extremist hate organizations” for showing up at school board meetings, our protests categorized as the “equivalent to a form of domestic terrorism and hate crimes.” In other words, we are “domestic terrorists” for accepting what has always been accepted up until Democrats with stolen power said only certain things are acceptable.
In terms of the CDC, big pharma, the media, and the untested gene-altering mNRA vaccine, we are the “strongly hesitant”, “hesitant” or “hesitant” and unsure” for not embracing “the science” and becoming lab rats in a hugely suspect and, as it turns out, a hugely profitable medical experiment.
In terms of the COVIDian politicians, we are “public health” and as such we are to be managed via social experiments that include lock downs, useless masks, life-wrecking mandates, and vaccine passports.
In terms of those who spend and spend and spend, we are “taxpayers” who are obligated by law to pay “our fair share” (despite over half the nation not paying taxes). But you won’t hear this label used for us: full faith and credit – a phrase used to describe one entity’s unconditional guarantee or commitment to back the interest and principal of another entity’s debt.
Those of us who pay taxes are the surety behind the U.S. debt that pledges to fulfill its payment obligations in a timely manner. And yet the ruling class treats us like dirt, e.g., sending $100 BN of hard-earned taxpayer money to protect Ukraine’s border and leaving the southern border wide open to all kinds of opportunists (they are NOT refugees).
The ruling class, with its name shell games, continues to syphon money from us through taxation. And they also tax us with the high inflation they’ve created with their new shell game the Green New Deal. Wealth redistribution is the name of the game.
The labeling salvos continue in the media, in colleges and universities, and in social media. We are everywhere labeled “homophobic”, “transphobic”, “xenophobic”, “racist”, “white supremist”, “science denier” and on and on. The intelligentsia (not the intelligent, idealogues) will use labels to defend their projects from critical examination, e.g., one is “racist” if one disagrees with the myopic 1619 Project or the racism invoking CRT.
It’s easy to see what’s behind the pernicious labeling. There is projection, condescension, fear, insecurity, and bullying (they’ll denounce it in the school yard and dispense it in the classroom and media). Labeling is used for leverage as in a form of self-righteousness fostered by the social justice religion that gives purpose to an otherwise pointless life. A rush to judgement, ubiquitous today with the help of anonymity, is often followed with labeling.
*****
Who are “we”?
We are ordinary “salt of the earth” people. We are simple folk. We do what we have to do and do it every day. We work. Many of us do hands-on Dirty Jobs (and so we are looked down upon by the intelligentsia ruling class).
We avoid drama and delight in simple things, like a meal with family and friends.
We do what is needed and do so without fanfare, without tweets and Instagram posts, without calling attention to ourselves.
We don’t involve ourselves in self-deception and denying the truth for a crust of bread.
We speak truth in love to our neighbor.
We pray for our neighbors and not talk about them behind their backs. We don’t scold them with labels.
We relish the good and beautiful and moments of Gold in Sand:
Gold in sand: That is what true happiness is like. It occurs at ordinary moments and does not call attention to itself, much as Dolly does not call attention to herself. And yet it is moments like these that make a life meaningful.
In novel terms, we are not the narcissistic romanticist Anna Karenina. We are Dolly Oblonsky. whose everyday goodness, ceaseless efforts for her children, and fundamental decency attract no attention, but are the most meaningful of qualities, exemplifying religious virtue and “living for the soul”.
We are the Full Faith and Credit and “Soul of the Nation”. It goes without labels.
Joe Biden and his cabinet should be governing in Portland, where being diverse and different is so important and where progress towards utopia has already started:
*****
Jen’s Proposed Tax Plan for America:
No one ever pays more than 10% of their income during their lifetime. Those honorably discharged, no more than 5% tax over their lifetime.
No corporation pays more than 10% tax on their profit during its existence.
No more IRS. 10% comes out of each paycheck direct to the federal and state treasuries. What is spent is delineated in yearly statements to the dollar sent to taxpayers. (Reverse accountability)
No more welfare programs. Communities and churches care for the poor.
No more federal education. No more Dept. of Education. Each community decides the school and teachers.
No more pork barrel projects.
Social security tax ends in 10 years. Balance due recipients is paid from monies allocated for Ukraine, climate change and pet projects.
No real estate taxes.
No sales taxes
10% total tax is divided as follows:
7% to state
3% to federal government. Of the 3% 1% goes to pay down U.S. debt.
Klaus Schwab, the creepy front man for the World Economic Forum, opened the annualconfab of the global cabal in Davos, Switzerland with a call to “master the future.”
“We couldn’t meet at a more challenging time. We are confronted with so many crises simultaneously. What does it mean to master the future?”
“I think, to have a platform where all stakeholders of global society are engaged. Governments, businesses, civil society, the young generation—and I could go on. I think is the first step to meet all the challenges.”
Regarding the “polycrisis,” the WEF assembled an extensive matrix of threats facing the world. The top five short-term risks were the “cost-of-living crisis, natural disasters and extreme weather, geo-economic confrontation, failure to mitigate climate change, and erosion of social cohesion and societal polarization. . . “the top four most severe risks over the next 10 years are all environmental.”
Note: except for Natural disasters and extreme weather (force majeure) the “unprecedented multiple crises” or “Polycrisis” mentioned above have all been manufactured by stakeholders to produce a certain outcome.
The extensive matrix of threats facing the world are media hyped. Fear mongering using disaster scenarios and the urgency to act – without a second thought – is found in media narratives. If it doesn’t bleed a crisis narrative, it doesn’t lead.
Natural disaster and calamity are given to us to remind mankind of its powerlessness, and to turn us aside from our arrogance. But that doesn’t deter the proud.
Here in America, inflation and the cost-of living crisis is a crisis the Biden regime created with its socialist green new deal along with the ruinous overspending by Congress (see the recent $1.7 trillion Omnibus Bill). Geo-economic confrontation (wars and rumors of wars?) occurs because greedy and pompous leaders see themselves as masters of the future. The climate change catastrophe is a manufactured crisis as was the COVID pandemic. Erosion of social cohesion and societal polarization –Marxists erode social cohesion; the WEF supports race relations antagonism and the fragmentation of society.
The WEF future peddlers and predators view all of the world as one that can be controlled – reset – and mastered. They plan to do all this by 2030.
“Under the theme of ‘Cooperation in a Fragmented World’, we’ll look at how we can tackle the numerous and interlinked challenges the world is facing and find solutions through public-private cooperation.” –Davos 2023 Day 1: What to expect | World Economic Forum (weforum.org).
So, many of the same people who created the havoc and hell on earth with the COVID planned-demic and talked “Build Back Better” will be the same people “cooperating” in a public-private way to “fix’ things for the future.
Here, in three short videos, is International independent journalist Noor Bin Ladin reporting from Davos about the WEF’s “mastering the future” agenda:
“If no one power can enforce order, our world will suffer from a global order deficit.”
-Klaus Schwab
Davos 2023: Major institutions, corporations, billionaires and governments, along with the media, are actively consolidating forces to produce a “one power” world. To wit, the FBI has been “cooperating” with big tech to purge dissenting Americans the DOJ has labeled “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists” from public discourse. The following should scare the heck out of you:
FBI Director Christopher Wray:
"The level of collaboration between the private sector and the government, especially the FBI, has made significant strides." pic.twitter.com/MPOhYxEpLG
One writer says that we should fear the Globalist American Empire more than the bond-villain-like Klaus Schwab. I agree. The GAE are more manipulative. Another writer says that All NWO Roads Lead to Israel. I also agree. And, this would comport with the what’s written in the Revelation of John. I would have no doubt that many godless and Christ-rejecting Jews are behind “mastering the future” programs. They will chose lesser gods.
If you have listened to or read any of the WEF’s grandiose word-salad propaganda, you never come across a mention of God. The WEF, you see, is a humanist and materialist anti-Christ organization. It is not aligned with “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. Rather, it is aligned with” My kingdom come, My will be done, on across the earth as it is in my stake holdings.”
The Globalist Lord’s Prayer is a prayer for more wealth transfer. To wit, per Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State “a significant new security assistance package to help Ukraine” is in the works.
This package, which totals $2.5 billion, will bring total U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to an unprecedented approximately $27.5 billion since the beginning of the Administration. (Emphasis mine)
(Ukraine is not a U.S. ally. It’s a money laundering country. Ukraine’s border problem is Europe’s issue. Let Europe pay for guns and supplies. U.S., DO NOT escalate this fight. Nuclear war is on the table!)
“The theme of our meeting in Davos is cooperation in a fragmented world,” Klaus stated. In what the WEF calls the “Year of the Polycrisis,” Klaus declared that “economic, environmental, social, and geopolitical crises are converging and conflating, creating an extremely versatile and uncertain future.
The resolution of uncertainties is a very human concern. For the WEF and its Globalist cabal, resolution of uncertainties entails wealth transfers, complete digitization of life, monitoring every move, purchase, and association. We will eat and live as we are told. This will be our Orwellian future under the “masters of the future” unless we say “NO!” to their every incursion into our lives.
Noor Bin Ladin Issues a Direct Message to Klaus Schwab & His Handlers
"My name is @NoorBinLadin. I am a human being—not a QR code. I don't want to eat the bugs. I don't want to live in the pod. I don't want to be trapped in a digital jail, and nothing they can do will make me." pic.twitter.com/B8EA9xZPwV
I cannot know individual motives. I can only base my opinion on messaging and methods and the obvious.
Let’s start here. The WEF has an underlying set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. The WEF has a “global order” moral code to govern the conduct of human affairs. As you will learn, globalist morality will be compulsory.
Any institutionalized system that practices, with ardor and faith, a cause, principle, or system of beliefs and creates disciples is a religion. The WEF has obvious characteristics of a religion. (Even the godless have to believe in and worship something.)
The Global Order religion views the world through a materialist lens. Its practitioners employ a faith in means – the means to an end, as in seizing the means of production. Such is their communistic bent. They will take control of businesses for “the greater good”.
What we are witnessing now, via the WEF, is a “cooperative” takeover of businesses. But once the New World Order is fully established, those who think that they will remain in control of their businesses will find out that another, perhaps a DEI candidate, will be in charge. NWO party commissars will be in charge to teach party principles and party loyalty.
The Global Order religion will use everything in their stakeholder power to force a New World Order in our “hyper partisan, hyper polarized time”.
DAVOS WATCH: The WEF declares they must establish a NEW WORLD ORDER
They also openly acknowledge they may not be successful establishing a NWO right now due to times being “hyper partisan and polarized” but are hopeful to establish it in the near future #wef23pic.twitter.com/H9gykczzbf
The Global Order religion is not a new way of thinking about and managing mankind and civilization. “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains” is the opening sentence of Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s (1712–1778) essay The Social Contract.
Rousseau, like many since, assumed that man by nature is a free and innocent being. Man, he insisted, was born with the potential for goodness but civilization, with its envy, self-consciousness, and competition has made men bad.
Fellow philosopher Voltaire charged Rousseau with primitivism, accusing him of wanting to make people go back and walk on all fours. One will find similar noble savage myths in the environmental movement’s talk of the Axial Age and the Dark Green religion (see Iain Proven’s Convenient Myths: The Axial Age, Dark Green Religion, and the World That Never Was)
When institutions are fixed, Rousseau believed, mankind will respond in positive social ways.
Today we hear of “systemic racism” and the need for “change we can believe in”, “fundamental transformation” and a “Great Reset”. As more and more American institutions become aligned with the globalist collective, it will be out with the old and in with the new Global Order religion.
And with each transition we seethe perverse irony in the WEF’s “rules-based order” and the consensus implied in The Social Contract of Rousseau: man who is “born free”, is to take on the “chains” imposed by the institutions of the globalist collective for a better “future”. With each transition we see that globalist utopia means global dystopia.
For the Christian, the materialist view of the world is way too small and incomplete. Christians view the world through a much broader lens. The wide-angle lens includes both the physical world and, by the operation of faith, “the things that can’t be seen. After all, the things you can see are here today and gone tomorrow; but the things you can’t see are everlasting.” (2 Cor. 4:18).
It is a down-to-earth view that includes man, not as an innocent being, but man as corrupted by sinful choices and yet redeemable because of Christ. It is a view that sees that the whole of creation is groaning as it waits for redemption. It is a elevated view that sees the Kingdom of God and the restoration of the cosmic order.
The Christian views the material world relation to the transcendent. For one example, read the poem God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins.
Faith, as described in Hebrews 1: 1-3, is the means to bolster our confidence about things we can’t see or see as puzzling reflections in glass (1 Cor. 13: 12). Faith is the means to see past, present and future in the hands of the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever.
With confidence bolstered we can move out from a dark cave-dwelling existence of disturbing shadows – the Shadowlands – and look ahead into the broad daylight and Reality. We faith it out as did Abraham:
“Off he went, not knowing where is going.” . . . “He was looking ahead, you see, “to the city which has its foundations, the city of which God is the designer and builder”. (Heb. 11:8, 10).
Did Abraham really imagine a city such as that? We don’t know. We do know that tent-dweller Abraham who lived under a starry canopy had been promised descendants as many as the stars . . .. “the designer and builder” of all that is above would make sure of it.
Challenges? Stakeholders? Resolutions?
Christians deal with challenges not by making others do want we want as the WEF is proposing. We face challenges head on by faith. Read Hebrews 11. There, we read of people whose faith transcended the threat of pain and death by political mercenaries.
Christians are stakeholders in both the seen and unseen. We seek resolutions to a disordered cosmos. And so, we pray, we faith, we work. We pray, we faith, we work. We pray, we faith, and we work every day.
Who holds the future? Not those called to “master the future” by the World Economic Forum. Masters of faith know Who holds the future and act accordingly.
Why were you and I born in this space and time? It was to know the grace and love of God in our times and to hold the world, the flesh and devil in check.
“God leads us step by step, from event to event. Only afterward, as we look back over the way we have come and reconsider certain important moments in our lives in the light of all that has followed them, or when we survey the whole progress of our lives, do we experience the feeling of having been led without knowing it, the feeling that God has mysteriously guided us.” -Paul Tournier
And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity; that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith. – Søren Kierkegaard
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The imagination plays an important part in faith. It should be no surprise to a Christian that the media militates against imagination leading to faith. The media images and sounds are from a world moving in the direction of the NWO. The media constantly lies, telling us to deny what know to be true. The media is paid to do so.
Protestants have banished images from their religious practice. And yet they fill their lives with media images. Huh. How can faith take hold without a holy imagination?
More on this in another post.
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Wise words from Fr. Chad Ripperger on the State of Evil in the World, Jan. 5th, 2023.
“The demons know their time is coming.” He speaks of a remnant. “God made man for rightly ordered worship.”
“In fact what we are signing up for is a digital jail” @NoorBinLadin discusses the reality of digital surveillance systems. @Ezralevant then gives the real world perspective of how digital ID has already been weaponized and used against the citizens in Canada. #WEF23pic.twitter.com/EoaFPh5Ufq
“gays just want to get married” – Isn’t that what many conservatives have no problem with.
Todd Young, Indiana’s senator, you replied to my message speaking against the “Respect for Marriage” Act saying that you voted for the Act to give married gays “dignity’. I replied that you don’t know the LGBTQ community. Gays discharge dignity to live their lifestyle. You virtue signaling fool!
According to a copy of the 17-count indictment Townhall has obtained, the adoptive dads allegedly performed oral sex on both boys, forced the children to perform oral sex on them, and anally raped their sons. . . .
William admitted to forcing his 11-year-old adopted son to perform an act of sodomy, a.k.a. “oral copulation,” on him “with the intent to satisfy his own…sexual desire,” reads a sworn affidavit filed in support of William’s overnight arrest back on July 27. . . .
An updated criminal affidavit says the child sexual abuse was filmed by William’s husband Zachary, “with whom he routinely engaged in sexually abusive acts” on the boy. Zachary, the household’s breadwinner, confessed to being the cameraman, and authorities allegedly found a folder on his cell phone—labeled “US”—that contained videos of William sexually abusing the child.
A recent trip to a modern eatery has me wondering about our digital destiny.
Last Sunday I visited a “Test Kitchen” in my area. There, under a single roof, three separate kitchens offered three different low-priced menus. I had lots of choices, as shown on the order touch screen.
I poked out my choices and then “Checkout”. The screen told me to swipe or insert my credit card or use a mobile app to pay. I was taken aback. I came prepared to pay cash.
Not only was there no cash drawer, there was no human interface. Humans were scurrying around back in the kitchen filing orders. But I was forced to conduct business with a machine.
I understand the implications of hiring humans to deal with cash registers. There is the search for and interviewing of willing and able prospective employees. There is the decision to hire people who can add and subtract and think on their feet. There is the training of new hires to understand the system and to be customer friendly. There is the constant monitoring of the cash drawer for pilfering, and more. To those time-consuming aspects of hiring, add the cost of incentives, hourly salary, and benefits. Business sense would act to cut out the middle man – the counter person.
Outside forces also work to cut out human engagement. Idiotic COVID mandates created social distancing guidelines. Empathy was sold as hiding faces behind masks and staying away from people including your aged and dying parents.
Minimum wage laws increase the use of robots. (What’s next? Minimum employee laws with DEI hiring requirements? Governments can’t pilfer tax money from robots.)
My recent trip to a modern eatery was a trip to a vending machine. The machine took my order. The machine took my payment and the machine took my phone number so it could text me when my order was ready. How nice of the machine to do this!
The machine later texted me asking about my “recent experience”. The text contained radio button choices but no comment space for actual opinion. I deleted the text. I didn’t want to be part of the machine’s feedback loop.
For me, human interface is enriching, and even when the person behind the counter has purple hair, nose and mouth jewelry, tattoos and an attitude. My attitude comes from following Jesus and reading about his interactions with people that included Samaritans, self-righteous types, and sinners.
A man-man interface is what I look for in a “recent experience” and not a man-machine interface. That is why I prefer eating at diners. There, at least, I’m part of a community and not just a node in a network.
Another “recent experience” left me concerned about our digital destiny. Last fall I received an email from the church I had been attending. The email asked for my opinion. It contained an online poll with, as I recall, over a hundred questions with radio button choices and some comment spaces.
The poll questions ranged from quality of pastoral care to aspects of ministries involving children, youth and adults to questions of homosexual involvement and whether political topics should be addressed from the pulpit.
I didn’t take the poll. My first thought was “Why did the three priests and vestry need to send out a poll to know the status of things in the church?” Apparently, they didn’t know the status and didn’t know the people of the church or the mind of God for that matter.
And like the test kitchen text, I was asked to provide feedback about my “recent experience” into the system. Was this done to hone the church into an efficiently run operation and a satisfactory customer experience?
There was never any reason to keep me at data’s length. If anyone in that church wanted my opinion they could come up and ask me – face to face, just as Jesus did with his disciples: “Who do the crowds say that I am?” And then individually: “What about you? Who do you say that I am?” (Luke 9: 18-20)
And my understanding of the Christian church is a human-to-human engagement with the Living Lord and not a relationship with a business or corporation with bills to be paid and customers and stockholders to be mollified and handled.
Where am I going with all this? Honestly, I’m trying to be vigilant on my watch. I see the benefits of digital technology and I also see how digital technology can be used to condition, control and denigrate humanity. I see how digital technology polarizes just about everything including the user.
I am old enough to remember a time when digital devices were not around. There was no constant pinging and no bits and bytes clamoring for attention like carnival attractions. Vending machines were the man-machine interfaces. In 1964 I could put a dime into the machine for a bottle of pop. It was a simple hassle-free transaction. Buy anything today via digital means and one is constantly hounded to buy more and to provide feedback.
Back then, instead of a tracking device carried on my person that constantly wanted to sell me something there was a phone on the wall with a cord that limited its reach.
There was no need for a usernames and passwords. Friends used nick names.
Instead of logging onto web sites with two-pass authentication using purchased security software on a purchased laptop I walked to the library to check out books.
Instead of online banking I received paper statements that I used to reconcile my accounts.
Instead of social media I had neighborhood, school, and church friends. There was no façade of community that social media offers.
Instead of the internet of things I had books, games, LPs and 45s, a transistor radio, and lots for room for imagination. I can’t say that digital technology has improved my “recent experience” with regard to any of the above interests.
And, if the gov’t wanted to spy on me, they would send a couple of guys in overcoats and have them sit in a parked car across the street. And to monitor my phone calls, a wiretap order from a judge would be needed. In this digital age I’m not sure who is spying on me. Maybe the FBI and CIA are surveilling my every word and association.
Working as an engineer for most of my life, I understand how digital technology and the internet of things (IoT) supports engineering projects and a business’s bottom line. There are benefits galore. But the IoT doesn’t bolster my bottom line. Human connectivity, for me, is more desirable than being on a network with me as one of its nodes. Thankfully, that was my experience at work.
When I announced my retirement, managers and coworkers mentioned that they were grateful for my efforts and the time they spent working with me. Chirag, manager of the comms group I was part of, called me when he heard I was retiring. We had had many conversations on MS Teams regarding projects and some personal topics. We talked about my move to Indiana among other things.
During my call with Chirag, I said that he was the best manager I had worked with during my time with the company. I told him that he was personable and easy to talk to. He had listened to what I said and worked on solutions to issues I raised. I thanked him for my time working with him. I never felt managed. I felt engaged.
Chirag’s’ reply to my comments: “I treat people like humans.”
I’m not a sentimentalist. I don’t want to go back in time. But over time I have sensed a growing loss of the analog human-to-human interface for . . .. digital efficiency’s sake. Organic human connections are being disconnected. This loss is occurring not only in everyday transactions such as self-checkouts at stores but also in a politically determinative sense.
With increasing connectivity, I see digital communications acting to divide, isolate, and condition people “efficiently” for political ends. We saw this with the creation of digital vaccine credentials such as “VaxPass”. We see this with gaslighting bots on Twitter warping reality. We see this with the brainwashing, weaponization, hostilities, and persecutions that have come about as people share their thoughts on social media. More digital destruction is beaming our way.
5G towers are going up everywhere and with them, ways to monitor and manipulate the public. Janet Yellen, the worst Secretary of the Treasury ever, is working to do away with physical cash (and the corresponding human to human transactions). Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) is coming and so is social credit scoring using smartphones and facial recognition software. Working on a digital chain gang will become a reality. Our digital destiny is the Inhumanity of Things.
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You must view this, especially as the 5GW information involves digital matters:
Raise your children to have good values and not the values the state wants them to have
Grow your community. Create networks of friends.
Create white space – terrain and obstacles that slows down enemy advances, including privacy.
Communications – decrease reliance on cellular and internet communication. Get away from using Smartphones – intelligence collection sensors. There is no more effective tool used against the American people than the smartphone.
The internet is nothing more than data going through servers. The “Cloud” is your data on someone else’s computer.
Feedback loops – Here’s something you should be sensitive to. Your kids might be getting affirmation from all the wrong places:
Social Media May Alter Brains of Children — Study
Habitually checking social media as a young teenager is linked to hypersensitivity to peer feedback and may potentially lead to permanent changes in the brain’s reward and motivation centers, neuroscientists at the University of North Carolina suggested in a recent study published in JAMA Pediatrics.
The study looked at a group of 169 teens as their brains developed between the ages of 12 to 15 and their self-reported use of Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat.
When those with usage the researchers classed as “habitual” – meaning they checked their accounts 15 or more times a day – played a game that modeled feedback in the form of peer approval, they became increasingly sensitive to that feedback.
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“ . . . a terrifying item buried within the Biden-McConnell “infrastructure” legislation, which passed in August 2021. According to [Congressman Bob] Barr, the government will now have the power to shut off your vehicle if they determine you are partaking in any “illegal” activity.
Does anyone really believe the Biden Regime will not abuse this newly obtained power?”
“COVID-19 is unquestionably the largest, most sophisticated propaganda operation in history. Psychological techniques were extensively used during 2020 to incite fear and panic in the population, while other persuasion strategies were used to get people to support and defend COVID measures such as masking, isolation, social distancing, lockdowns and jab mandates.”
Dr. McCullough: The C19 Shots Sets Up Heart Inflammation and Adrenaline Triggers Injury and Death
"The vaccines set up the heart inflammation … and then it's the big surge of adrenaline … during a basketball game — during sports, that's triggering these deaths." pic.twitter.com/FotBSQyZx9
“CDC’s VAERS safety signal analysis based on reports from Dec. 14, 2020 – July 29, 2022 for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines shows clear safety signals for death and a range of highly concerning thrombo-embolic, cardiac, neurological, hemorrhagic, hematological, immune-system and menstrual adverse events (AEs) among U.S. adults.”
🚨 BREAKING: Pfizer scientist Chris Croce was aware that their experimental mRNA "vaccine" was the likely cause for the myocarditis. #ProjectVeritaspic.twitter.com/10RWrZHh8F
The numerous mandates birthed by the onset of the Covid-19 scenario were all designed to deliberately break the global economy and crush small businesses as well as break people’s minds, will and the social fabric, in order to “build back a better society” that conforms to the dystopian visions of the psychopaths waging this class war. . ..
Put simply, Covid-19 was not a widespread medical emergency, it was a money laundering scheme, a massive psychological operation and a smoke screen for a complete overhaul and restructuring of the current social and economic world order.
“I’ll paraphrase the phrase of my old neighborhood: The rest of the countries, the world is not a patch in our jeans, if we do what we wanna do, we need to do,” Joe Biden.
On or off script, Joe Biden, the head of the Democrat party, speaks from a stage of decline that often veers into irrationality as he verbally searches for self among memories real or imagined. His disjointed stream of consciousness monologues reminds me of the unnamed protagonist in Samuel Beckett’s final novel in his trilogy: The Unnamable.
Where now? Who now? When now? . . .
I’ll make myself a memory, I have only to listen, the voice will tell me everything, tell it to me again, everything I need, in dribs and drabs, breathless, it’s like a confession, a last confession, you think it’s finished, then it starts off again, there were so many sins, the memory is so bad, the words don’t come, the words fail, the breath fails . .
Beckett, Samuel (1958). Three Novels: Molloy, Malone Dies, The Unnamable.
Thank goodness we don’t have to live in Biden’s unnamable world. Or, do we? Are we being driven from home and a sense of self? Are we being driven into madness?
“[Philosopher Sir Roger Scruton’s] concept of oikophobia, which he defines as an “educated derision that has been directed towards historical loyalties by our intellectual elites, who have tended to dismiss all ordinary forms of patriotism and local attachment as forms of racism, imperialism or xenophobia of which it accuses the world.” He goes on to say that he means more than mere fear (Gk. phobia) of home (Gk. oikos), but repudiation of home. I [Erin Doom] suggested that instead of calling it oikophobia, we should call it oikomachia: not just fear of home but fighting (Gk. machia) home. We don’t just live in a secular age, one in which Christianity is just one option among many (and often the most difficult option), but also in an age of oikomachia, one that is fighting against the local home, family, and nation in favor instead of transnational institutions and “enlightened universalism against local chauvinism. . ..”
At the most fundamental level, then, building our own “home” is synonymous with building our self. And the construction of a holy self inevitably leads to the construction of a good and beautiful community, to little platoons [Edmund Burke] . . . “
Restoring a Sense of Home and Community
There are those who are concerned about the loss of a sense of home and community, as am I.
Sir Roger Scruton, referred to above, was one such person who strongly advocated for a sense of Oikos and Attachment.
Swedish conservative and think tank (OIKOS) founder Mattias Karlsson is working to restore OIKOS in Sweden.
“I know that there is a Swedish culture. I know how it feels to grow up in a homogeneous society, where everyone has the same identity. And when people say, ‘it’s never been like that, Sweden has always been multicultural, that’s all just imaginary,’ I know they’re lying.” – Mattias Karlsson
Here’s a Dutch woman speaking to an OIKOS gathering. She is assessing the situation in the Netherlands:
And Poland rejecting the Left:
Currently, the U.S. is undergoing a massive invasion through our southern border. This, while Washington sends taxpayer money to Ukraine and other countries so they can defend their borders and nothing to defend our southern border.
The dilution of our country by the invaders is purposeful. It is meant to weaken any united resolve for home, country and Americanism. It is also meant to furnish a multitude of low paid workers to produce profits for global corporations and Democrat voters to produce more of the same. The Democrat collective loves worker bees and proles. Corporations love consumers.
My friends, please, don’t be naïve about what is going on. Our homeland, our OIKOS is being destroyed by Not-Americans with Joe Biden mindsets.
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Identity issues, I believe, are at the core of our fragmentation as a nation, a culture, and as individuals. Identity is being usurped, handed over, and traded. And with each alteration, identity loses ground and becomes less sure and schizophrenic as it devolves into the Unnamable self.
From my previous post . . . “for the military-industrial complex to financially survive it must produce and sell weaponry . . . and war. For the bio-medical complex to financially survive it must mass produce new serums and pandemics to sell.
Repurposed drugs like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are not money makers. Of course, the politicians and media who support the military complex and/or the bio-medical complex and not the repurposed drugs are rewarded.”
Dr. Chris Shoemaker: "They knew Ivermectin was the answer to a coronavirus outbreak. They had done the research in advance. Then they kept it from the public in favour of lockdowns, masks, and gene therapies."#EdwardSnowdenpic.twitter.com/2KHmGzM75s
Looking back, how many of you, during the COVID planned-demic, wore a mask, or worse, received the experimental DNA-altering jab because you feared losing access to someplace or someone, or losing your job? Authoritarians, and their media handmaids, made a point of telling you to fall in line and fear repercussions. Authoritarians control people with narratives that are to be taken as gospel.
If you and I did not practice the gospel of safetyism – a means to scare everyone into conformity under authoritarian rule – then you and I were portrayed as heartless and extremists.
Let us not forget. The abusive, manipulative and corrosive nature of authoritarianism has been evidenced the past two years. Our lives, families, and communities have incurred massive blows from the hammer of unconstrained authority. Liberty – freedom of thought, word and association – be damned!
It has been and continues to be the authoritarians who see themselves as the most intellectually and morally advanced people. They have no issue telling others what to do and making them do so with jackboot mandates. They speak in terms of power to truth.
One ubiquitous televised authority told you that he was “science” – period! Based on this pronouncement, you and I were to immediately end critical thinking and questioning about COVID “science”. We were to submit to the apotheosis of “the science”.
Several authorities used manipulative ways to bring about conformity to their will: This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated!
Now, one authority figure is saying “I think we all agree the most important thing going on in the world right now is the war in Ukraine”. Really?! Ukraine’s border is more important than the massive invasion happening at our own southern border? What this authority figure is really saying is that the military-industrial complex must be served first before the concerns of Americans.
The last two years have also shown us that authoritarians demand that the bio-industrial complex be served at the expense of freedom and human life.
You see, for the military-industrial complex to financially survive it must produce and sell weaponry . . . and war. For the bio-medical complex to financially survive it must mass produce new serums and pandemics to sell.
Repurposed drugs like Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin are not money makers. Of course, the politicians and media who support the military complex and/or the bio-medical complex and not the repurposed drugs are rewarded.
There is no question in my mind that very significant powerbrokers around the world have either planned to take advantage of the next pandemic or created the pandemic. – Dr. Michael Yeadon, ex-Pfizer VP
Global authoritarians are now telling us to believe in climate change and to be prepared to pay a price to fix it. Yet, scientists say there is no climate emergency.
Those who have read my blog since 2020 know that I haven’t accept COVID authority. I did not get the jab and I will not wear a mask. I have questioned everything that comes from the CDC and on TV. I have witnessed true science being denied so that authoritarians can have their way.
I have linked to hundreds of commentaries that question the validity of COVID “science” via each post’s “Informed Dissent”. I question what is posited as “the science” and gospel truth. I question authority and take on challenges.
What follows is a common authority challenge presented to Christians from the pulpit and elsewhere, as you will see:
The conversation that follows started with a recent social media post that included a video.
The post: What’s your authority – God’s Word or man’s word? The age of the earth issue is not a science VS faith or an interpretation issue, it’s actually an authority issue. And that issue affects the Gospel. Find out how in this episode of Creation Basics.
Does the Bible support evolution or billions of years? Whatever your final authority is will determine how you answer this question.
The video’s premise: “adding billions of years into the Bible destroys the concept of Biblical authority”.
Underlying premises: science is secular thinking; empirical science doesn’t apply to creation origin; “If the Bible isn’t true to the facts of the real world, about the age of the earth, then there is really no reason to trust it . . . “; (and Bible skeptics and atheists might get the upper hand).
Per the video’s premise, I’m a Biblical authority denier for “believing the secular geologic time scale”. To this and to the brazen and distorted underlying premises of Biblical authority and the gospel as compromised by science, I had to write a reply.
My comment to the post:
Wow! This video is messed up. This way of thinking is messed. up. Authority issue? Pitting manmade “Biblical authority” against manmade science authority? What foolishness. The physical world existed long before God gave the cosmos function and order. Genesis tells us that God set up the existing cosmos to be his temple within 7 literal days. Genesis 1 -11 should be understood as being written to ancient Near East people. The Genesis account made sense, in temple terms, to these readers. They understood Genesis as describing functional origins rather than accounts of material origins. Genesis begins with the functional origins of an existing universe that science confirms came into existence billions of years before. Genesis is theological history and science the physical history. I see no conflict.
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Marq, a proponent of Answers In Genesis message, replied to my comments:
If the Bible is fantasy than how did it know that there were springs in the oceans, Genesis 7&8?
BTW, God created the earth the seas and all that is in them in six twenty-four-hour days. Although it could be six twenty-hour days.
BTW, if you’d like to refute the Bible try proving abiogenesis. Omne vivum ex vivo. If you can give us the formula to prove abiogenesis, maybe we could then entertain the idea of evolution being plausible.
You see no conflict? Jesus said it was real history. There is your conflict. I can’t trust in someone who is either a liar or is delusional. Maybe you don’t have that problem, but I do.
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My reply to Marq:
I didn’t say the Bible is fantasy. The OT was written for us but it wasn’t written to us. It was written to ancient Israel who understood Genesis in temple creation terms- functional terms – and not in physical material creation terms. You are forcing Scripture – taking it out of context – to have it say what you want it to say. I grew up with the same reductionist thinking. I went to Moody Bible Institute. I was taught that Genesis was literal – but Gen. 1-11 is not literal. God used true mythology to give ancient Israel an explanation of origins and operations. BTW: God gave us two Scriptures – the Bible and science. We can learn from both scripture and science while not forcing the other to have it mean something that is not true. The study of scripture and science must include history, ancient history. We must look at all of the evidence God laid out. The people in the ancient world understood things differently than we do. Genesis was written to them so we must read Genesis in their context of language, culture and meaning. which included mythology to explain things. Study the ancient history, the language and culture. God didn’t give us a Sunday School color-in-the-lines paper to take home. He gave us a world to explore.
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Marq replied:
I know what you meant, as I have debated theistic evolutionists. I’m saying we have proof of the literal interpretation.
We know from science that springs actually exist and it was written in Genesis 7&8, you know that part you said is mythology. It wasn’t until 1971 that science proved it and it was only postulated by science in the 1960’s.
So, your mythology takes [sic] crumbles into reality. Also, the migration of people in Genesis eleven is also proven by archeology and now it is shown by the Y-chromosome DNA again sowing [sic] it’s not mythology.
It has been proven repeatedly that life only begets life, omne vivum ex vivo, just as Genesis said. Remember paganism has always believed the universe created itself.
Finally, as I said Jesus would be a liar because he taught that Genesis was true history as did the apostle Paul to Areopagus and not an allegory.
As Jesus said, “John 3:12 If when I tell you earthly things, ye believe not, how should ye believe, If I shall tell you of heavenly things?”
Do you believe Jesus raised Himself from the dead? Do you believe He walked on water? Do you believe He raised Lazarus from the dead? If you do, what scientific proof do you have of those events?
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My reply to Marq:
You have provided no proof of a literal interpretation. You provided inuendo, circular reasoning and crumbling logic.
You say that science backs up some things in Scripture and therefore proves Genesis 1-11 to be literal and not myth. Based on that you tell me that since science cannot prove other things in scripture therefore scripture trumps science and myth. Let’s talk mythology.
Modern man views mythology as being false. C.S. Lewis, for one, thought otherwise. God, the great storyteller, revealed Himself through different mythologies throughout history. The core ideas behind the myths were “literally” fulfilled in the first century via Jesus of Nazareth’s incarnation, death, and resurrection.
Myths as false?
Jesus spoke to the multitudes in myth-like parables. These tales were not literal historic events. These were allegorical, metaphorical, and symbolic stories that were spoken in contemporary terms. The parables conveyed truth to the listener.
God gave us science so we could explore and understand the physical world that he created. Science is not a discipline that explains things metaphysically just as theology is not a discipline that explains creation in physical terms. Science is NOT in conflict with scripture – except when secularists and fundamentalists make it so. God gave us both science AND scripture to reveal Himself to us. The material world is incredibly important to God – the word became flesh.
Genesis 1-11 is the true myth written to ancient Israel living within a pagan culture. It wasn’t written specifically to a Sunday school class in the ‘50s that had been taught to hate Darwin and evolutionary creation.
Ancient cultures understood all that is not in science-based terms but in metaphysical-based terms. The saw their world as controlled by gods. They had temples to these gods. The temples were thought of as the cosmos. In their way of thinking, the creation of a temple is the creation of the cosmos.
The apostle Paul addressed the god/temple way of thinking during his speech to the Athenians at the Areopagus. He tells them about the “Unknown God” who created the world. He goes on to say that this “Unknown God” does not live in a temple made by human hands. God created a temple out of the cosmos so that people could seek him out and know him.
Genesis 1 is an account of God inaugurating order (out of the existing chaos) and functionality for his cosmic temple. Genesis 1& 2 is not an account of material origins and material preparations for his temple. Genesis 1 & 2 should be understood as a temple-based explanation of creation.
Over 6–24-hour days God ordered the existing chaos (after the Big Bang) and gave it functions. Heaven and earth, sea and dry land, light and dark, night and day, seedtime and harvest, seasons . . . On the seventh day God “rested” in his cosmic temple and oversaw his creation.
The English word “created” used for Genesis 1:1 translation does not help our understanding. The Hebrew word (bara), in its ancient context, does not imply God creating the universe ex nihilo and it does not imply a function-giving interpretation. Within its context in scripture (about 50x) it does seem that ancient Israel viewed things in functional terms rather than material terms.
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Marq’s response:
Nice try! But the Y-chromosome and as I said the springs in the seas in ch. 7,8, and 11 shows it is not an allegory.
Just as omne vivum ex vivo destroys any concept of evolution. There is zero evidence of evolution or your logic. Evolution uses circular reasoning which creationists exposed, because evos use fossils to date the rocks and rocks to date the fossils based on their belief of the rock strata presupposition.
Even SCOTUS when evolutionists brought suit to keep creationism out of school could not confirm evolution so SCOTUS said creationism could not be taught because of separation of church and state.
When our own school board in Columbus, Ohio was allowing creationism to be taught alongside evolution in 1976 evolutionists showed up arguing against it saying separation of church and state. Again, they did not present facts because there are none. I was present at the meeting and as always creationists brought facts.
Evolutonists are scared of facts as there are none that a reasonable person would consider. As Richard Dawkins found out when he debated A. E. Wilder-Smith at Oxford University. Wilder-Smith and another creationist of whom I can’t recall his name was able to persuade quite a few people at this bastion of evolutionary dogma.
After it was over Dawkins refused to openly debate and warned other evolutionists not to debate openly.
Instead of engaging me on evidence you too resort to innuendos. As I said if God was just using parables than how did springs (fountains) end up being real? How did Genesis 11 and the migration of Shem, Ham, and Japheth turn out to be true? or omne vivum ex vivo?
You, and your evo friends, are the ones hiding behind mythology.
Let’s settle this argument. Give me the mathematical formula that proves evolution. One that can be demonstrated time and time again.
Stop hiding behind mythology and it takes millions of years to hide behind the fact that you have no answers. Evolution is only in fairy tale books fit for little children.
Genesis 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month, in the same day WERE ALL THE FOUNTAINS OF THE GREAT DEEP WERE BROKEN UP, and the windows of heaven were opened,
Job 38:16 “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?
Matthew 24:37 For as were the days of Noah, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. 38 For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, 39 and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man.
May God open your eyes.
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My reply:
Your words: “the Y-chromosome and as I said the springs in the seas in ch. 7,8, and 11 shows it is not an allegory.” How?!? That literal things existed that science later discovered and therefore Genesis 1-11 could not be a myth explaining existence in temple-making terms to ancient people? So, according to you, everything in Genesis 1-11 must be considered literal because things existed? Your logic makes no sense.
Here’s another example of the same illogic:
“As I said if God was just using parables than how did springs (fountains) end up being real?”
By the same logic, learning some 2000 years after Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan that there were actual Samaritans and Levites in Jesus’ time would mean that what Jesus said in parable format should be discounted as false and not literal authoritative. NB: their literal existence didn’t refute the use of parable by Jesus to speak (the unseen) kingdom truths.
Does everything have to be literal to be proven true? If so, that is a sad commentary on modern man. If so, that supposition also shows that left brain literal thinking has taken over.
Back on track, we are talking about whether Genesis 1-11 is a myth explaining to Israel the setup of a cosmic temple or Genesis as a literal science explanation of creation using 6-7 24 hr. days. Right?
We are talking about whether the cosmos is billions of years old (a science calculated estimate) old or 6-8k years old (a young earth creationist calculated estimate). Right?
The video would have us believe that if we do not accept the authority of scripture – a 6-24 hr. day material creation postulated by Answers in Genesis – then we are misled and are denying scriptural authority. What utter nonsense and pretentiousness! What a con job!
I don’t believe in spontaneous generation. I don’t know any biologists who do. I don’t know anyone who does. Evolution is a scientific theory that doesn’t contradict the Bible. (Note: social Darwinism is not something, as a Christian, I adhere to.) Like with the study of ancient cultures, it is more than OK to look at historical evidence: rock strata, fossil records, and genetics. It is Ok to understand the biogeography of nature. It is OK to study the natural order. It testifies of God.
“The Heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands” (Psalm 19:1)
And so it is that understanding of the stars has led scientists to refine the ages of the stars in globular clusters, and now estimate them to be about 13 billion years old. This means that the stars in the globular clusters must have formed within the first several hundred million years of the universe’s existence!
No mythology: The approximate age of the universe can be derived using Hubble’s law: v = H0d where (d) is the distance between two galaxies, (v) their apparent separation velocity, (H0) the expanding universe (Hubble’s) constant. The velocity of the galaxy, aka, redshift, is directly proportional to its distance.
Q.E.D.
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Marq’s next response:
Flavius Josephus, Jesus, and all of the Apostles all believed Genesis 1-11 was true chronological history reserved for mankind and not mythological or allegorical account not to be taken as literal.
So, it’s the evolutionists job to prove what is obvious to any casual observer.
Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. 21 For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools, 23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things.
From Flavius Josephus Antiquities of the Jews Book 1, Chapter 3:9. Now when Noah had lived three hundred and fifty years after the Flood, and that all that time happily, he died, having lived the number of nine hundred and fifty years. But let no one, upon comparing the lives of the ancients with our lives, and with the few years which we now live, think that what we have said of them is false; or make the shortness of our lives at present an argument, that neither did they attain to so long a duration of life, for those ancients were beloved of God, and [lately] made by God himself; and because their food was then fitter for the prolongation of life, might well live so great a number of years: and besides, God afforded them a longer time of life on account of their virtue, and the good use they made of it in astronomical and geometrical discoveries, which would not have afforded the time of foretelling [the periods of the stars] unless they had lived six hundred years; for the great year is completed in that interval. Now I have for witnesses to what I have said, all those that have written Antiquities, both among the Greeks and barbarians; for even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian History, and Berosus, who collected the Chaldean Monuments, and Mochus, and Hestieus, and, besides these, Hieronymus the Egyptian, and those who composed the Phoenician History, agree to what I here say: Hesiod also, and Hecatseus, Hellanicus, and Acusilaus; and, besides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus relate that the ancients lived a thousand years. But as to these matters, let every one look upon them as he thinks fit.
II Peter 3:1 This is now the second letter that I am writing to you, beloved. In both of them I am stirring up your sincere mind by way of reminder, 2 that you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior through your apostles, 3 knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. 4 They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” 5 For they deliberately overlook this FACT, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, 6 and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. 7 But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly.
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My reply:
“What is obvious to any casual observer” is that you are dropping a lot of names and scripture bombs to conceal your lack of a coherent argument. None of your references support a literal 6-24 hr day creation. They just refer to creation as creation.
Of course, Jesus believed in creation. NT writers told us that he is the creator (Jn. 1, Col. 1). But nothing in the NT tells us that Jesus spoke of or believed in literal 6-24 hr. days of creation.
Colossians 1: 15 “He is the image of God, the invisible one, The firstborn of creation”.
How should we understand the “firstborn of creation” words from this early Christian hymn? In literal terms? By the authority of scripture, we can fully acknowledge the metaphor that Jesus is the “firstborn of creation.”
A metaphor helps us understand a truth we cannot fully grasp. This, it seems to me, is how Genesis 1-11 was written – in true myth to an ancient people.
Remember the words of Jesus: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Those around him took it literally. It wasn’t until the resurrection that the disciples understood what he meant.
Remember Jesus saying “If you’ve got ears, then listen!” after he told them parables. The multitudes loved the literal feedings, the literal healings, and the literal exorcisms. They came to him for the literal. But the things of the kingdom of God, expressed in parables, were not literal enough for most of them.
Jesus telling Nicodemus that he must be born again confused him.
There are many, many metaphors, allegories and true myths in scripture. Is Song of Solomon literal? Should I cut off my hand if it makes me sin? Genesis 1-11 as true myth should not upset anyone’s theology.
One last word on Genesis 1-2.
In the last two chapters of the Revelation of John we find that God’s cosmic temple-based explanation of creation, written as true myth to ancient Israel in Genesis 1-2, is fully realized.
“I heard a loud voice from the throne, and this is what it said: “Look! God has come to dwell with humans! He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them and will be their God.” Rev. 21: 3
The peace of the Lord be with you.
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Marq’s next response:
I forgot to mention that I went to a Messianic Synagogue to learn Hebrew. They believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis and Yeshua as God incarnate.
They were also taught as children the literal interpretation of Genesis as Jews. In fact, most orthodox Jews believe in the literal translation of Genesis. Again, this counters your argument that they did not believe in the literal interpretation of Genesis 1-11.
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My friend, I cannot vouch for what others think or for the generation of their beliefs.
As I understand it, you believe the verb bara’ translated as “create” infers a material creation of the universe that lasted 6 -24 hr days. The seventh day is tacked on as a non-workday, I guess.
We would both agree that Hebrew lexicons translate the verb bara’ as “create”. That is the closest English word. The definition given for bara’ is to create, shape and form.
Bara’ (Gen. 1:1) can be God choosing to give order and purpose to the material creation out of the existing chaos. Bara’ can describe a formative process and a function-giving process.
Examples of bara’ would be an artist who “creates” a painting or an architect who “creates” a temple. The materials are there and the scope/vision is there. Creation is the application of materials and vision to produce the desired outcome.
That creation understanding is my understanding of the literal 7 days of Genesis. God gave functions and roles to the existing creation to support mankind. Man was created to be the caretaker-priest of his temple creation. We find out later that Adam, an archetype of caretaker-priest mankind, needed someone to help with the caretaking of the temple. Hence Eve, derived from one-half of Adam and another such archetype.
Reading the 7 days of Genesis in functional terms and not in material creation terms, makes sense. God is inaugurating his cosmic temple over the 6 24 hr days. On the seventh God “rests’ or sits and rules in his cosmic temple. Ancient people would understand the temple building, temple inauguration, and priests serving temple gods.
Note: the temple theme begins in Genesis 1 and goes through scripture to the last chapters of John’s Revelation. Temple creation, tent-tabernacle, Solomon’s temple, the second temple, new creations as the temple of God, and finally God dwelling with man and . . .
“I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God the Almighty is it temple, together with the Lamb.” Rev. 21: 22
Finally, my initial comment was directed to the video posted. I rejected its premise:
The age of the earth issue is not a science VS faith or an interpretation issue, it’s actually an authority issue. And that issue affects the Gospel
The Catholic church also had “authority” issues. Those issues led to the Inquisition to combat “heresy”. The Inquisition generated dread – people feared being rejected by the church and loss of salvation. There were horrific consequences if they did not profess whatever they were told to profess. They accepted, out of fear of losing their salvation, whatever they were told to accept. The video reminded me of the Inquisition and how church authorities felt threatened by those questioned what their authority dictated.
People of science should never be marginalized and ostracized by the Christian community.
I’m done here. Thank you for the back and forth.
The peace of the Lord be with you.
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Marq’s final words:
Ultimately, what you are saying is that the universe created God?
The first Law of Thermodynamics says the universe cannot create itself and the 2nd Law says it had to be created.
This is just common logic, otherwise, God is just as material and useless as the pagan gods and Jesus would just be a clown.
It’s funny because the Catholic Church has always believed in evolution and the scientific community which is why they adopted the pagan Aristotle and Ptolemy. It’s the evolutionists who are running the inquisition. They are saying that evolution is a fact that needs no proof.
Again, the only proof you’ve proffered for evolution is that Genesis was meant as an allegory.
Since the Laws of Thermodynamic are mathematical proofs and cannot be refuted, evolutionists try to say we don’t understand so their sycophants fall in line. You do not demand that evos put up or shut up.
You’d think after thousands of years they’ve spent trying to convince people they could put something together that was coherent.
May God open your eyes to the obvious truth.
And . .
Thank you too for conversing!
**********
Marq’s replies reveal that he totally missed what I was saying all along. Or, he just didn’t want to deal with what I was saying except in scripted terms. Marq’s final words are defensive and dismissive. He does not offer new information in support of a literal 6-day 24 hr. creation. Before that, he claimed that others believe that his position is true and therefore that proves it to be true.
And like the unconscionable video message, Marqe pits science against scripture, as if God’s own material creation would betray God’s own word to us.
Legal experts from Jerusalem set up a similar adversarial scenario – “it’s not the way we say it’s supposed to be” vs. the way it is. The Gospel according to Mark chapter 3, vs. 22-30 records Jesus being accused of being possessed by an unclean spirit because he cast out demons. His response: “How can the Accuser cast out the Accuser?”
And how could material creation betray the creator? Even the stones would be shouting out praise to the Living Word if all else is silent!
In my responses I never said or implied that the universe created itself or that God didn’t create the universe. I was stating that scripture, and Genesis in particular, is not scientific revelation. The opening chapters of Genesis are true myth written to an ancient people and their understanding.
Apparently, he thinks that since I am positing Genesis 1 & 2 as true myth – God’s way of explaining creation to an ancient people – that I am saying God didn’t create the world. God did create the universe and, as I tried to convey, perhaps not in the way that Marq insisted it happened. And, of course, the laws of thermodynamic operate in the physical world.
I don’t read Genesis, and scripture as a whole, as scientific revelation. Scripture is a revelation of identity, function and purpose. We find out from scripture who God is and who we are and what we are to be about.
To convey this in contemporary terms, God used the culture, language and understanding of an ancient writer (and every writer of scripture since) to convey what He wanted the people of that time to know. Genesis was written in their ancient terms.
I responded to Marq, not for a debate, but so that I could present another look at Genesis 1-11. Not once did he respond to my temple creation viewpoint. Instead, he tied me in, as if going by a young earth creationist playbook, with evolutionists and the godless cabal who deny the authority of “6-day 24 hr. material creation” and therefore the authority of the Bible. (Here I am being accused of being a scripture denier, not a “COID science denier”.)
The opening of the video presents a red herring argument: “scripture doesn’t mention billions of years” Well, scripture is not a scientific journal of events.
Scripture also doesn’t mention, among many other things, that the earth revolves around the sun. Science figured that out and church authoritarians rallied against such a finding because it didn’t align with their teaching. Huh.
Again, scripture is a revelation of identity and relationships. Genesis 1 & 2 names the functions of the cosmic temple, Adam and Eve are the named archetypes of mankind, genealogies follow, Jesus names the twelve, Saul is renamed Paul, new names are handed out as recorded in the John’s Revelation. Names and relationships.
What the video would have us believe: “If you don’t affirm what I saying about a literal Genesis account as being authoritative then the gospel you believe cannot be authoritative.” This setup is not just childish and unconscionable. It is a demonic point of view.
Because science and scripture present different ways of understanding reality, they will not look like they sync. And that is not a justification to reject either one. To suggest that science should be rejected in order to support “Biblical creation” is also a demonic point of view.
Scripture is authoritative. Interpretation is not. Every directive from an authority should be questioned, whether it be from pastor, priest, Pope, Jesuit, professor, the CDC or politician. Don’t roll over and play dead. Study and become convinced of what you believe. As a trailblazer who will not stand being shamed for referring to scripture and science maps, “carve out a straight path for the word of truth- the gospel” (2 Tim. 2:15).
Recall that Jesus had to constantly inform and upbraid legal experts and Pharisees. Many of these self-styled authoritarians presented themselves as “the most intellectually and morally advanced people” in the community and therefore qualified to communicate authoritatively. But they had settled on interpretations of God’s word that missed the mark. As synagogue authorities they passed on their interpretations to the communities in which they lived.
It is a serious matter to Jesus if the interpretation and teachings of God’s word causes anyone to stumble (see Matt. 18:1-7). And remember: the only one who possesses all truth is Jesus, and he served as a model of meekness.
“The lawsuit, filed in October, 2021 by Liberty Counsel, represents more than 500 current and former health care workers who were unlawfully discriminated against and denied religious exemptions from the COVID shot mandate.”
People are turning down Remdesivir at hospitals, so the hospitals are still giving Remdesivir to them, but under another name: Veklury Generic Name: Remdesivir Brand Name: Veklury Same deadly fauci drug.
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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Cindy Wity 
Daylight on the Garden of Good and Evil
March 19, 2023 Leave a comment
In the early chapters of Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina, we are introduced to the winsome character Stiva Oblonsky. With a smile and self-possessed mannerisms, he draws the attention and affections of many. He comes across as likeable, amiable and nothing out of the ordinary – as one of us. Yet, the first thing we read is that Stiva has thrown his household into chaos.
We immediately learn that he has been unfaithful to his wife, Dolly. He’s had an affair with their children’s former governess. We go on to learn that Stiva is remorseful of the exposure of the affair but has not one iota of remorse about what he has done: “He repented only that he had not done a better job of concealing this fact from his wife.”
When confronted by a note exposing his adultery, Stiva worried more about his response than about the hurt he caused his wife. The narrator gives us insight into that moment:
“Instead of taking offense, disavowing it, justifying himself, begging forgiveness, even feigning indifference – anything would have been better than what he did do! – his face, quite involuntarily (“the reflexes of the brain,” thought Stepan Arkadyevich, who was fond of physiology), suddenly, and quite involuntarily, broke into his usual good-nature, and thus foolish, smile.”
Stiva passes the blame for the mess he’s in: “That foolish smile of mine is to blame for everything”. It is his smile that first endeared him to Dolly. And now, as a response that appears to mock remorse, the smile allows Dolly to begin to see what lies behind Stiva’s beguiling demeanor.
Stiva’s evil is not the blatant action-taking evil. History has a record of such people. Rather, it is the absence of good. Stiva forgets, neglects, and fails to act. We get a sense of this in Part III, chap. 7:
“No matter how hard Stepan Arkadyevich (Stiva) tried to be a concerned father and husband, he never could remember that he had a wife and children.”
Remembering is unresolved grief. It’s not for a committed hedonist such as Stiva. He would never embrace suffering. And remembering brings guilt and guilt is suffering, so he is willing to tolerate a sense of sin to get on with life. Life’s unpleasantries are a bother. His forgetfulness is achieved with a smile and social acceptance. Stiva “was the familiar friend of everyone with whom he took a glass of champagne, and he took a glass of champagne with everyone”.
Behind Stiva’s good-natured smile is what Tolstoy described as “the liberalism of the blood”. Stiva fostered an easy-going liberal mindset:
“Stepan Arkadyevitch took and read a liberal newspaper, not a radical one, but one advocating the viewpoint maintained by the majority. And even though neither science, nor art or politics held any particular interest for him, he firmly maintained the same views on all these subjects that were maintained by the majority and by his paper, and he changed them only when the majority changed them, or, better put, he did not change them at all; they imperceptibly changed within him . . .
“And so liberalism had become a habit of Stepan Arkadyevitch’s, and he liked his newspaper, as he did his cigar after dinner, for the slight fog it diffused in his brain.”
Reading further, we find Tolstoy contrasting the ordinariness of self-giving love, as expressed by Dolly, with the ordinariness of Stiva’s self-satisfying evil, expressed without ill-will or bitterness. Making waves would disrupt his complacency and the slight fog diffused in his brain.
For many years I’ve enjoyed reading Russian literature. Russian history has veered toward extremes – totalitarianism and atheism produced by the intelligentsia aka politically connected radical socialist atheists. Russian literature offers a window into the life and times of Russia, its people, and the thinking that led to so much suffering.
Realism abounds in the works of Solzhenitsyn, Chekhov, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy. Ultimate questions and meaning of life issues are openly dealt with. No AI. No BLM, CRT, LGBTQ, pandering, no Wokey-dokey or playing with pronouns. Just serious adult things.
With Anna Karenina Tolstoy portrays prosaic good and evil, self-deception, and the nature of love – the seemingly fate-occurring dramatic love of romance vs. the committed non-trumpeting prosaic love that does good, i.e., cares for the family. With more than a dozen major characters and around 800 pages, the novel fleshes out the first line: “All happy families resemble one another; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
Once you read Anna, I think you’ll find that Tolstoy’s characters, including the absence-of-good Stiva, are not unique. You may find yourself in their stories and perhaps the impetus for change.
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Consider that Stiva is the first transhumanist. Look at his utter acquiescence to whatever is printed and accepted by the majority. And look at his attitude– cooly dispassionate and compliant. He’s a non-entity with a pasted-on smile.
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I coined the term “pornservatives” to describe the type of person who on paper or in person looks like a good old-fashioned red-state conservative, but in practice is living a morally dubious lifestyle antithetical to anything that resembles “conservatism” or “trad” values.
Hicklibs on Parade – The American Mind
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Tell me, where is the wisdom when you promote experimental COVID vaccines and refuse to promote safe, effective, and cheap repurposed drugs? (REPORT) US heath officials hid urgent recommendation to use ivermectin for Covid | Sharyl Attkisson
“So [the effect of the COVID vaccine] is negative, and that continues. The magnitude of that negativity increases over time. What does that mean, folks? It literally means that the people who received that vaccine were more likely to contract COVID-19 after seven months than the people who did not. That is a fact, has the CDC or FDA ever said a word about that? No.”
“I’m Not Sure Anyone Should Be Taking Them” – Florida Surgeon General Declares mRNA COVID-19 Vaccines Have a “Terrible Safety Profile” (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit
Tell me, where is the wisdom of financially befitting – with tax-payer dollars – NGOs like Catholic Charities who are doing the bidding of godless globalists under the pretense of Christian charity? Such groups aid and abet illegal border crossings which undoubtedly involve the trafficking of children, of criminals and of fentanyl? Such involvement serves to dilute and weaken the U.S. with an America hating Progressive/Globalist agenda.
Tell me, where is the wisdom when you employ out-of-control spending and money printing that leads to expected out-of-control consequences such as inflation and devaluation of the dollar?
Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) has been embraced by progressives, like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who see MMT as the means for increased government spending that could help finance initiatives such as the Green New Deal policy on climate change and, of course, buy votes.
MMT says that a government can basically blow as much money as it wants to boost its economy as long as that government borrows in its own currency because it can always just print more money. This allows the government plenty of room for free spending without forcing it to raise taxes. It also means it would be impossible for that government to default on its debts.
“The central idea of MMT is that governments with a fiat currency system under their control can and should print (or create with a few keystrokes in today’s digital age) as much money as they need to spend because they cannot go broke or be insolvent unless a political decision to do so is taken.” – Modern Monetary Theory (MMT): Definition, History, and Principles (investopedia.com)
“According to MMT, the only limit that the government has when it comes to spending is the availability of real resources, like workers, construction supplies, etc. When government spending is too great with respect to the resources available, inflation can surge if decision-makers are not careful. (Emphasis mine)
The Failure of MMT Is Now Evident (noqreport.com)
And so it is the political decision of Democrats and Globalists to leave the southern border wide open for the infusion into the economy of low-cost workers to help finance MMT spending for such progressive legislation as universal healthcare and other public programs for which governments claim to not have enough money to fund:
During the past 25 years, low interest rates and highly expansionary monetary policy with little apparent inflation have created the illusion that a government can simply print money to fund exorbitant deficit spending with no repercussions. This core tenet of so-called “modern monetary theory” ignores the fact that deficit spending is constrained in the long run by a government’s ability to satisfy creditors. (Emphasis mine)
MMT and Government Finance: You Can’t Always Get What You Want | Richmond Fed
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Informed Dissent:
“I Was Severely Injured by the Moderna Vaccine” – Former Pussycat Dolls Member Shares Her Vaccine Injury Story (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit
UPDATE: Contracts Released For CDC Purchasing Of Phone Data To Track Americans’ Compliance With COVID Lockdowns | The Gateway Pundit
Too many doctors and nurses to count in recent months have told me about the alarming rise in sudden cancers in young people since the introduction of the experimental COVID vaccines.
“Turbo Cancer” Comes For The Vaccinated (substack.com)
(REPORT) US heath officials hid urgent recommendation to use ivermectin for Covid | Sharyl Attkisson
TRAGIC: 37-Year-Old Italian Swimmer Reportedly Took His Own Life After a Long Period of Suffering Due to COVID Vaccine Reaction | The Gateway Pundit
Chicago:
Indiana:
We need your help to protect parental rights in Indiana! HB1407 is the bill we emailed you about a few weeks ago that protects parents’ rights to direct the care and upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of their minor children. The bill passed through the House at the end of February, but with concerns held by a few judges. The bill’s author, Rep. Dale DeVon, advocated hard for the bill on the House floor and thankfully, the bill passed through to the Senate.
Sadly, several groups are trying to kill this important piece of legislation, despite Rep. DeVon’s assurances that the judges who have reservations would be able to testify in the Senate committee, as well as his vow to work with them on amendments that would resolve their concerns.
HB1407 is a parental rights bill that protects parents’ rights to direct the care and upbringing, education, health care, and mental health of their minor children. The bill passed through the House at the end of February, but with concerns held by a few judges. The question is whether the Senate will hear and pass the bill despite the judges’ concerns.
Take action here to support HB1407>>>>
INDIANA: Parental rights bill in danger | Stand for Health Freedom
Health Freedom Advocacy Center | Stand For Health Freedom
Under the guise of “health education” the grant focused on coercing those in poorer communities to get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Florida’s Collier County rejects CDC/NIH grant, logging an important win for health freedom | Stand for Health Freedom
Canada:
Where are other pastors like Pastor Derek Reimer? Are they hiding behind Romans 13?
Read this for background on above >>>>
Breaking: Calgary pastor arrested protesting new law limiting anti-drag show demonstrations – Rebel News
J6 FedSurection:
HE HAS THE PROOF: DC Gulag Political Prisoner and Decorated Army Special Forces Soldier Jeffrey McKellop Reveals Extent of Government Agents at J6 Capitol Protest – IT WAS A COMPLETE SET-UP! (Audio) | The Gateway Pundit
DOJ Claims Trump Tweet Started Jan 6, but Bodycam Suggests Tear Gas Sparked Crowd – Valiant News
J6 Political Prisoner Matthew Webler: The FBI Raided His Home After He Walked into the US Capitol with a Flag – Then Feds Came Back and Took His Son | The Gateway Pundit
Ugh! Mike Pence:
Mike Pence Pandering To D.C. Media Is Pathetic And Disqualifying (thefederalist.com)
In caving to corporate and elite pressure to “fix” Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Gov. Mike Pence and the rest of the state’s laughingstock Republican leadership have ironically bungled into amending it in a way that now makes Indiana the most hostile state in the country to the conscience rights the original law was designed to protect.
Indiana Is Now The Most Hostile State To Religious Freedom (thefederalist.com)
Professor: Indiana RFRA ‘Fix’ Could Send Christians to Jail (breitbart.com)
The Netherlands:
The strength of green feeling here, both for and against, is a bellwether for the struggle to come in other countries and farming economies. But BBB [the Farmer Citizen Movement (BoerBurgerBeweging] should not be dismissed as ‘anti-green’; rather farmers are more of a lime green versus the dark green of the eco activists, both of whom claim they want to protect the land.
Dutch farmers’ party secures landslide victory – The Post (unherd.com)
Unchanged Climate Change:
Banking Climate Change:
WSJ oped discusses why Silicon Valley Bank failed (unusualwhales.com)
Woke Silicon Valley Bank Gave Over $73 Million to Black Lives Matter Movement | The Gateway Pundit
Congress Takes Brief Pause From Sending All Your Tax Dollars To Ukraine To Send Them To Silicon Valley Bank | Babylon Bee
Why would anyone use a Tier 2 Bank… – CITIZEN FREE PRESS
“It doesn’t matter what you call it, it’s still privatizing the gains and socializing the losses.
So is your $250,000 bank guarantee you currently enjoy.
You have to have a deposit guarantee.”
“Biden’s Spending, Leads to the Biden Inflation, That Leads to the Biden Bonds, that Leads to the Biden Banks” – Steve Bannon Puts Entire Blame for Massive Financial Crisis We Are In Today on Biden | The Gateway Pundit
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Filed under 2023 current events, Climate change, Globalism, Literature, Political Commentary, Politics, Short Story Tagged with Anna Karenina, evil, Globalism, Mike Pence, Modern monetary theory, open border, Tolstoy, transhumanism