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.
******
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.
*****
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.
*****
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.
*****
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.
Ezekiel Evans looked out the front room window. A snow-buried Camry sat dormant under the streetlight. “Still there” Ezekiel said to the glass reflection of Tonya decorating the Christmas tree. He stood there another minute to reassure himself and then returned to his chair. “You never know what will happen next around this doggone place. The city’s gone to hell.”
“Don’t worry, Ez,” Tonya teased, “Chicago has an intersectional mayor. All you have to do is believe in her just like weez all spose to pretend to believe in Santa Claus.”
“I’ll believe in Santa Claus before I believe in her!” Ezekiel replied.
When they moved to the Chicago area several years before, Ezekiel and Tonya overlooked a lot of things. Coming from a Georgia farm, they saw the cosmopolitan city as an upgrade. It was a place to live independently and experience new things. They moved to the Roseland neighborhood on Chicago’s south side.
The five-bedroom brick bungalow on Wentworth Avenue was big enough for their growing family. It was something they could afford. What they couldn’t afford was a carjacking and what some hoodlums were doing in the neighborhood – robberies, burglaries, thefts, assaults, shootings and sex trafficking.
“We’ve got to get that garage door fixed so we can park the car inside. Then you can have some peace of mind Ez,” Tonya offered.
“Yeah, but my peace of mind needs to cover a lot of ground. The kids need food and clothes and shoes, doctor visits, and . . . a decent place to live.”
When they bought the place, it needed a lot of work. Ezekiel spent what extra money they had to fix the place. But the more things in the neighborhood became unsettling the more unsettled he became. His uncle’s Georgia farm, where he lived after his father died suddenly, was a touchstone that kept coming back to mind.
Uncle Abrams raised grass-fed and pasture-raised beef, lamb, goat, and pork. During his time with his uncle, Ezekiel learned animal husbandry and the ways of the Lord. His uncle was a godly man. But a time came when Ezekiel felt he had to find his own way and be his own man. He saw the farm as restraint holding him back.
After his marriage to Tonya, he headed north to the south side of Chicago. There he opened a butcher shop that sold meats from a local packer and from his uncle’s farm. The enterprise was fairly successful, but also a struggle. Maintaining a decent price for the quality being offered hindered sales. His cousin John drove the Georgia meat up to Chicago once a week. John had to be paid.
And there were substantial losses at one point. Around Christmas last winter the store was broken into. The meats on display were taken. A police report was filed but no suspects arrested. Insurance covered the loss and then raised rates six months later. Ezekiel didn’t like putting window grating on his store windows – the cost and the eyesore -but he did what he had to do to maintain business.
Andre was asleep in his crib. Alana was carried to bed by her father. After a retelling of the Christmas story – the one about shepherds and the stable and of Joseph and Mary and the baby – four-year old Alana asked, “Did baby Jesus cry like baby Andre?”
“The story doesn’t say, Alana,” her father replied. “Babies don’t have words yet to say what they want like you and me. Baby Andre fusses and cries when he is hungry and uncomfortable.”
Alana thought for a moment. “I think baby Jesus cried. But then his mama fed him like mama feeds baby Andre.”
“I think you are right.” Dad gave Alana a kiss on the head and tucked the covers around her.
“I’ll leave the hall light on for you. Mom and I will be right here in the next room.”
Ezekiel and Tonya sat in their kitchen listening to the radio. A local station played Christmas carols. Ezekiel looked through the bills and Tonya her grocery list.
“Do you think your uncle will send us another roast for Christmas?” Tonya asked.
“Maybe. I don’t know Tonya.” Ezekiel replied
“Ask him. He’s a good man, a man of faith.” Tonya pushed.
“Yeah, he is a good man. I’m not so sure I’m a good man for taking off and leaving the way I did.”
“I thought you two had worked that out.”
“I worked out that I wanted to go my own way. And when I told my uncle he offered me my choice of acreage on the farm . . . “to build your own future” he said. Uncle Abrams had no problem offering me the better pastures. I guess he figured that God would keep blessing him. He often talked about following God’s leading. I’ve been thinking ‘bout that for a while now.”
“I’m sure he’d like to hear from you other than about another order,” Tonya urged. “Call him tomorrow.”
Ezekiel got up from his chair and headed to the front room window to check on the car. He looked out and saw the car. And some trouble heading his way.
There was a sudden frantic pounding on the front door. “What the . . .!”
Looking out onto the lighted porch he saw two terrified young men. When they saw Ezekiel, they screamed louder. Ezekiel opened the door.
“Help us mister! They’re coming!”
“Who is coming?” Ezekiel shouted through the storm door.
“Those men!” One of the boys pointed. “Let us in mister please!”
Ezekiel hesitated, not sure if it was a ruse. Then he saw four men running down the sidewalk towards the house. Something didn’t seem right. The boys were only wearing sweatshirts, sweat pants and dirty socks.
“Come in. Let me find out what this is all about.” Ezekiel opened the storm door and the two teenagers bounded in behind Ezekiel. Tonya grabbed some blankets from the hallway closet and handed them to the boys.
“What’s this all about?” Ezekiel looked at the boys and then at the approaching men.
The shorter boy started, speaking as fast as he could. “Those men took us off the street. They said they had plans for us.” He stopped to catch his breath. “We escaped the van when it got stuck in the snow . . . we saw you looking through the window . . .”
“What plans?”
The taller boy spoke. “Something about service jobs for me and him,” he pointed to the other boy chattering his teeth, “we’ve been friends for a while . . . we want nothing to do with them.”
“Where do you live?”
“Mister, we have no home. The street’s our home. These guys came up to us and said we could be warm and have food if we came with them. We thought it would be OK. One of them looked like he was a priest.”
“Go on,” Ezekiel pressed. But now the men were on the front porch. One of them was rattling the storm door by its handle.
“Where are those boys? Bring them out to us so that we can talk to them.”
Ezekiel opened the storm door and the men backed up. He came out and folded his arms. “I’ll do their talking. What do you want with them?”
A large bald man stood in front. Behind and to the left of him stood a squirrelly-looking man with a pockmarked face. He kept looking around. Next to him, on the other side of the bald man, stood a thin goateed man making a solemn look The other man who was out of view down on the sidewalk. The bald man spoke.
“Mister we just want to talk to them. We saw them on the street they looked like they needed shelter and food. We don’t know why they ran . . . these two young boys need our help. We do this all the time – help homeless kids”
“I see. You need their help in a service industry?”
“We wanted to give them jobs . . . you know, . . . helping . . . serving people.”
“I see. Well, these boys want no part of it.”
“Listen mister . . . “, the bald man growled and grabbed Ezekiel by his shirt to pull him away from the door.
At that moment Ezekiel thought he made out the face of his lawyer friend. “Ken . . . Ken! . . . is that you?”
The man on the sidewalk turned and walked away.
The large bald man began to pull harder on Ezekiel. “Listen mister . . . it’s none of your affair.” The two other men tried to open the storm door behind Ezekiel.
The two boys saw this and pulled Ezekiel inside. Ezekiel locked the door. Through the glass he shouted “My wife has called the neighbors. You better not come back here lookin’ for what ain’t yours!”
The men turned and saw porch lights turning on. Neighbors came out to see what was happening.
“Get back in your van and get the hell outta here! NOW!” Ezekiel eyes blazed.
The four men took off down the sidewalk, hiding their faces in their collars as they ran.
Ezekiel watched the van drive off. He stood there for a long time to reassure himself that it was gone.
Tonya had the boys settled at the kitchen table. While talking with the neighbors on the phone Tonya made hot cocoa and oatmeal for the boys. They still shook from the cold under the blankets and their eyes remained wide open.
One of the boys asked “You didn’t call the police?” Tonya stopped what she was doing and replied.
“Even if those four predators were caught and arrested, they would be released without bail. That’s how things go around here. Criminals run free and good people are supposed to put up with it.”
Ezekiel walked into the kitchen for a moment and then turned and walked down the hallway. He returned ten minutes later.
“I’ve made up some bedding for you two in the back room. You don’t go anywhere tonight.”
The boys looked at each other. “Thank you, . . . mister?”
“Ezekiel, and this is my wife, Tonya. In the morning you’ll meet our two little ones.”
****
Baby Andre made the first sound in the morning. His cries woke Tonya. She got him up and nursed him. A while later Alana came into the kitchen rubbing her eyes.
“Alana, we have two guests in our house. They slept overnight in the back room.”
“Who are they mama?”
“Two young men who needed some food and a place to sleep.”
“Were they crying?”
“No Alana. We knew what they needed. I’ll make you oatmeal.”
Ezekiel walked in the front door. He’d been out clearing off the car. Tonya handed him a cup of coffee.
Ezekiel spoke in hushed tones. “Those two . . .,” he nodded to the back room, “let them sleep in. I’ll bring home some extra ground beef for dinner. Find out their names”
That evening Ezekiel, Tonya, Alana, baby Andre, Booker and Darius sat around the table eating a casserole and potato salad. After a blessing they talked about the day. Alana, who couldn’t hold back, started.
She told her father about building a snowman with the two boys. Tonya had given the boys some of Ez’s old coats and gloves and shoes and socks to wear. The boys each said that they had never built a snowman. And though still somewhat pensive about everything, they began to open up.
Each boy talked about living in the projects and taking care of their mother. They talked about people coming around. They talked about their mothers becoming drug addicts. They talked about their baby sisters being taken away. And of not knowing who their father was. And then Booker and Darius stopped talking. Alana began asking questions. Tonya assured Alana that she would tell her what she needed to know later.
Baby Andre’s day, per Tonya, consisted of wide-eyed wonder and giggling when the boys played peek-a-boo with her. The boys helped keep baby Andre occupied while she did what she had to do.
Tonya’s unreported day consisted of changing diapers, laundry, fixing lunch, and neighbor phone calls. After last night, neighbors wanted to know if the Evans family was OK. One neighbor brought over a meal to find out. “This cornbread chicken bake comes from the James family next door,” was Tonya’s update.
After the meal Ezekiel read Psalm 34. Then he repeated these words:
This poor soul cried and was heard by the Lord and was saved from every trouble. The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and delivers them.
The next morning, Christmas morning, it wasn’t the aroma of a grits and sausage casserole warming in the oven that brought the boys to the kitchen. They had something they wanted to get out. They walked back and forth nervously. Ezekiel had them sit down at the table across from him and Tonya.
With a terrified look Darius blurted out “We had a dream, mister Ezekiel, ma’am.”
“We both did,” Booker interjected.
Darius continued. “We both saw very bad things heading this way. We both heard “Leave this place!”
“What do you think it means Ez?” Tonya asked.
Ezekiel began rubbing his forehead. “It means . . . it means . . . it means we better leave.”
“What?! But my brother and his family live here . . . we can’t just pick up and leave!”
“We will warn them to leave.” Ezekiel came back.
“Ha, good luck with that!” Tonya snapped. She got up and put her hands on her hips.
“Ezekiel, a dream? We’re gonna pick up and leave based on a dream?! What about the store?”
“Tonya, if that isn’t a warning, Ezekiel replied, “nothing is. And look what happened to these boys. That was no dream.”
. . . when the fullness of time arrived, God sent His Son . . .
You and I, remnants of dying stars, have recently arrived on a habitable zone planet within an incredibly old cosmos . . .
American astronomer Edwin Hubble (1889-1953) discovered, through analyzing the distance and redshift effect of two dozen galaxies, that galaxies are receding from us at a velocity that is proportional to their distance from us. A clear straight-line relationship of recession velocity to distance exists and is called Hubble’s constant (H0).
From his discovery we learned that the universe is not static. It is expanding at a constant rate. And, that we are able to estimate the age of the universe based on the relationship of objects in space that were at one time tightly compacted together.
If we assume that the expansion’s apparent velocity (that is, how fast the galaxies appear to be moving apart) has been constant over the history of the universe, we can calculate how long ago the galaxies began their separation. This should tell us the time that the expansion began, which should give us an estimate of the age of the universe.
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.
. . . advances in our understanding of the stars has led us to refine the ages of the stars in globular clusters, and we now estimate them to be about 13 billion years old. This means, though, that the stars in the globular clusters must have formed within the first several hundred million years of the universe’s existence!
An explanation of the age calculation and the source of the two quotes above are found here:
In addition to calculated estimates based on distance and velocity, an imaging spectrograph such as the one outfitted on the Hubble space telescope provides a detailed stellar history, in light wavelength format, of the cosmos.
A star’s spectral light provides its life story. From it we learn of the star’s distance from us, its size, its mass, its composition, its pressure, its magnetism, its solar system connection and where it is in its life cycle.
Deborah Haarsma, astronomer and president of BioLogos, provides further perspective of our cosmic setting:
With a telescope and spectrograph, we learn of the history and makeup of our physical world. We learn that matter-energy, space-time, and the laws of physics existed well before 6-8000 years, as some would have it. Most important, such observations could only happen in a universe designed to support a developing intelligent life.
With a cover-to-cover reading of scripture we learn of the history and structure of reality. That reality involves causal relationships in both the physical and metaphysical realms. John Polkinghorne (1930-2021), theoretical physicist, theologian, and Anglican priest, offers insight into the interactions of human agency and the divine:
You and I, remnants of dying stars, have recently arrived on a habitable zone planet within an incredibly old cosmos . . . and so did Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Deborah, Samson,Hannah, David, Elijah, Daniel, Ruth, Esther, Elizabeth and Mary, Peter, James, Mary of Clopas, John the elder, Saul/Paul, and Joanna the apostle. These and many others were born during pivotal times per biblical accounts. Their interaction with God made a difference to the world we live in. Their stories are told today.
The apostle Paul, who over time had come to understand the significance of all that had come before after the Damascus Road encounter with Jesus (Col. 1: 1523), had to remind the Jewish Christians in Galatia (Gal. 4) that, like him, they were born into this world as heirs. But before they encountered the living Lord they were slaves to the “elements of the world”. The heir/slaves had been kept under guardians and stewards until a time set by God:
When the fulness of time arrived, God sent out his son, born of a woman, born under the law, so that we might he might redeem those under the law, so that we may receive adoptions as sons.
So, you and I, remnants of dying stars are to inherit all that God has created in this incredibly old cosmos.
Why you and me here and now in this ancient universe? Why this place and time? What’s our telos? Let’s space it. It’s time to get our heads out of cyberspace and ponder something greater than, say, the Twitterverse. The fulness of time has come for us, the heirs of redemption.
Lift up your eyes on high and see: Who created these? He who brings out their host and numbers them, calling them all by name; because he is great in strength, mighty in power, not one is missing. – Isaiah 40:26
*****
“In February 2003, the WMAP project released an all-sky map of the radiation emitted before there were any stars. This cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB) is the remnant heat from the Big-Bang and was predicted already in 1946 by George Gamow and Robert Dicke.”
As I have mentioned before, inflation is another tax . . .
Inflationary pressures and rising wages continue to benefit State tax revenues. Revenue drivers are personal income tax payments, much of which are forwarded through paycheck deductions, and sales tax payments, which are charged as percentages of the price of the goods sold. Inflation increases these prices and pay rates, thus increasing income and sales tax revenues.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
-The Gospel According to John 1:5
Night after night the natural illumination of billions of stars and reflective orbs goes unnoticed except for an occasional glimpse at the obvious moon. When the sun goes down, we use artificial light to focus our attention elsewhere.
Most of us live in areas immersed in artificial light. Streetlights, flood lights, porch lights, garden lights, gas station lights, stadium lights, airport lights, and the composite glare all detract from what can be seen in the heavens. City lights certainly keep one from seeing the dazzling brilliance of billions of stars and orbiting planets.
As a student at Moody Bible Institute many years ago, I looked out my dorm window located seven floors up from the street. I wasn’t able to see the night sky. All I saw was sky glow generated from the all-night lights of the densely populated city of Chicago. I remember feeling unplugged from what made me tick – the electric night sky.
Later in life, when I returned from business trips, I looked down on the massive grid of orange white sodium street lights as the plane approached O’Hare airport.
Maybe you’ve seen photo comparisons between an industrialized country at night and North Korea at night. The photos are captioned to favor the massive lighting of the industrialized nation. North Korea is said to be “left in the dark ages”. But . . . maybe there is a tyranny of artificial light in the industrialized countries that matches the dark penumbra of dictators in others.
Let’s look at recorded night sky seasons of light.
One starry, starry night God covenanted with Abraham and made him promises (Gen. 12:1-3): “… I will make you a great nation … in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”
Later in the Genesis account (Gen. 22:17): “I will indeed bless you, and I will make your offspring as numerous as the stars of heaven and as the sand that is on the seashore”.
Living in a time when there was no light pollution, Abraham could easily view the galaxy with billions of stars. Maybe he was looking at the Milky Way when God spoke to him about his descendants.
Two millennia later, another starry, starry night revelation confirmed that God would fulfill his covenant with Abraham and do it in a way that no one in heaven or on earth expected. Doctor Luke records what happened (Lk. 2:8-14):
There were shepherds in that region, out in the open, keeping a night watch around their flock. An angel of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
“Don’t be afraid,” the angel said to them. “Look: I’ve got good news for you, news which will make everybody very happy. Today a savior has been born for you – the Messiah, the Lord! – in David’s town. This will be the sign for you: you’ll find the bay wrapped up, and lying in a feeding trough.”
O Holy night! The stars are brightly shining It is the night of our dear Savior’s birth … in “David’s town!”
Remember the young shepherd boy David? He kept a night watch over his father Jesse’s flocks. The starry hosts not only provided enough illumination for him to keep an eye on the sheep, they also kept him company. And they gave him musical inspiration. From David’s Psalm 19:
The heavens are telling the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day to day pours forth speech,
and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words;
their voice is not heard;
yet their voice goes out through all the earth,
and their words to the end of the world.
This rough and tumble God-hearted boy with enough stones to kill a Philistine giant would be chosen to be King over Israel. He was promised much more.
One night, God instructed the prophet Nathan to speak to David: “Thus you shall say to my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel.”
Nathan then speaks of God’s unconditional covenant with David. God promises David that the Messiah (Jesus Christ) would come from the lineage of David and the tribe of Judah and would establish a kingdom that would endure forever (2 Samuel 7: 1-29). Another night sky revelation pointed the way to God’s fulfillment of his promise to David.
Some time after the birth of Jesus, a group of eastern scholars looked up at the night sky, noticed a particular star, understood its significance, and decided to follow it. When they arrived under the star’s location they asked “Where is the one who has been born to be king of the Jews? We have seen his star rising in the east, and we have come to worship him.”
It was under a star-studded night sky that Abraham heard God detail his covenant with him. Night after night thereafter the constant spectacle of luminous stars reminded Abraham of God’s covenant faithfulness.
It was to the star-studded night skythat David looked for knowledge of God and for inspiration. David intuited from the night sky what the apostle Paul wrote later to the church in Rome: For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made . . .
It was a star-studded night when shepherds were suddenly roused in their quiet pastoral setting. A brilliant celestial being – an angel – brought the good news of a savior. Today a savior has been born for you – the Messiah, the Lord!
It was a singular star in the night sky that wise men followed to find their way to a distant town and a king.
It is written “What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun”.
Besides being blunt and depressing history and philosophy lessons, perhaps this verse in Ecclesiastes (1:9) can work as a motivator for us. We could seek out meaning above and beyond our mundane lives. Maybe a change in en-light-enment is in order.
Has technology blinded us to the heavens, to the billion points of light declaring the glory of God? It’s time we tone down the artificial so that we can behold the natural illumination of the night sky and gain a different perspective. The truth is out there, away from the city lights.
The light shines in the darkness, and the light pollution works to overcome it.
*****
This is your season to shine:
Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky, and those who lead the many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. – Daniel 12:3
*****
The following video discusses the effects of light pollution. Keep in mind that blue light, the closest to ultraviolet light, from electronic devices may damage your eyesight.
When was the last time you saw the Milky Way? The Big Dipper? Unadulterated night skies? See what you may have been missing:
Dr. Robert Malone, “As I have said repeatedly, it came out of a gene therapy research program. These & the adenoviral vectors are absolutely gene therapy technology applied for the purpose of eliciting an immune response.” pic.twitter.com/Ctw0kwYVOH
‘The pathway to prevent anymore harm is all the vaccines need to be pulled off the market, withdrawn – that needs to happen immediately. What’s at stake here is death’ ~ Dr Peter McCullough pic.twitter.com/oGBsyk1CMO
“In my hospital… they wanted me to use Remdesivir — it increases your risk of kidney failure 20 fold & increases your risk of dying by about 4%… The federal gov't will give hospitals a 20% bonus if you prescribe this toxic medication.”pic.twitter.com/iFqcahObRo
Under this bill, religious organizations and business owners who do not submit to the government’s attempts to dictate Americans’ theology will be subject to legal scrutiny, endless lawsuits, and fines. Young, Ernst, Romney, Moore Capito, Lummis, and their seven other Republican colleagues who voted for the objectionable legislation were warned of its problems by legal scholars, legislators, and religious liberty groups including Ryan T. Anderson, Roger Severino, Rep. Chip Roy, Sen. Mike Lee,Alliance Defending Freedom, and Liberty Counsel. Regardless of those warnings, the GOP senators voted to proceed. (Emphasis mine.)
Why is Indiana’s Senator Todd Young in favor of this bill? I’m not in favor of it. I oppose it like many others:
Heritage’s November poll (see link below), however, found that 47 percent, a plurality, of voters represented by Sens. Todd Young of Indiana, Joni Ernst of Iowa, Mitt Romney of Utah, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, and Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming strongly oppose the legislation.
These results show that voters’ opinions of the Respect for Marriage Act in these five states is not what is being reported. Voters in these conservative states oppose the bill and this opposition only grows when more information is given. It is clear that it will take more than a naming misdirect to convince the GOP base that this bill is not a threat to their religious liberty.
“Happy Thanksgiving”? A plague has cast a pall over the land.
Over several seasons much seed has been sown and much labor put in to cultivate good outcomes. But fields and harvests have been set upon by the narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, sadistic and authoritarian locust of the Left. They have picked clean what is to be gathered in for a National Day of Thanksgiving.
Known for their swarming behavior, these locust gathered to quickly devour the good that had been nurtured over time and leave behind toxic residues. The effect on mankind has been devastating. Lives have been mandated and masked, vexed and vaxxed, cancelled, and clotted. And more.
No amnesty!
Children have been held back in school because of idiotic COVID scientism policies that Democrat teacher’s unions went along with. And in class, children were ‘promoted’ with social emotional learning into Progressivism. They were taught to hate the color of their skin and the colors of the American flag and to love the colors of the rainbow flag.
Children have been and contine to be sexualized, mangled and affirmed to be something they are not in order to please the mal-adjusted psychopathic. Affirming what isn’t affirms the belief system of the Left – nihilism.
Parents have been told by school teachers, therapists and a certain Jesuit that it’s OK for their child to practice the inordinate desire of homosexuality instead of the virtue of rightly ordered love, as described by Saint Augustine:
But living a just and holy life requires one to be capable of an objective and impartial evaluation of things: to love things, that is to say, in the right order, so that you do not love what is not to be loved, or fail to love what is to be loved, or have a greater love for what should be loved less, or an equal love for things that should be loved less or more, or a lesser or greater love for things that should be loved equally. (On Christian Doctrine, I.27-28)
Of course, those who disagree with teachers, therapists and said Jesuit are considered to be out of order and are childishly called “homophobic”. A toxicity of being – “the world, the flesh, and the devil” – is being prescribed for our children.
Lives have been and will continue to be destroyed by the fentaynal, the criminals, the gangs, and the narco-terrorists ushered in by the Left’s open border policy. Leftist NGOs like Catholic Charities are enablers of illegal border crossings, human trafficking and the demise of human life using the mis-interpreted “welcoming the stranger” Scripture.
“What you don’t hear from the Biden administration is that 95% of the fentanyl killing Americans comes from the wide-open southwest border,” said [Mark] Morgan, now a visiting fellow in The Heritage Foundation’s Border Security and Immigration Center. “How many more people have to die before we say enough is enough and secure our borders?”
Lives of concerned U.S. citizens have been and continue to be DOJ’d and FBI’d for speaking out at school board meetings and online. “Extremist” labels continue to be pinned on those who take a stand against the growing evil. Evil projects to defend it narcissitic core.
Lives have been and continue to be aborted – exterminated at will.
Lives have been and continue to be corrupted by the media – both by the Left’s narrative ‘news’ and its Disney-fied entertainment.
Lives of low and middle class families have been and continue to be taxed by the “transitory inflation” produced by the draconian Green energy policies of the Biden regime (not by oil and gas companies and by not consumers). Disposable income is diminishing and so will donations. (Isn’t all welfare to come from the secular State per the secular State? Isn’t that what is hapening now with wealth redistribution? Thanksgiving is to become meaningless so that Big Brother can become the object of our enforced gratitude!)
The Left continues to cultivate pretense and lies just like their father the devil. The Left continues to censor truth. The Left can’t stand the light of day.
The Left’s right to destroy comes from a perverse need of mastery over others to preserve itself. That’s why acting as locust is their MO. As with demonic oppression and possession, the Left will go as far and devastate as much as you let them.
(Video Warning – Language!)
“They own everything…They don’t care about you…They got you by the balls.”
~ George Carlin
He absolutely nailed it. This is one of the greatest social and political commentaries of the modern era. pic.twitter.com/m565p03YnF
Turning to another analogy to underscore the plundering of our lives by the Left, we are being taken captive by the Brave New One World Babylonians. We are being removed from life as we have cultivated it. Babylonian satraps will determine how we live: “You will own nothing – and you’ll be happy about it.”
Right now, children and adults are being led away to the One World Babylon. They have been socially indoctrinated and pharmaceutically anesthetized to passively uphold and serve the authoritarian ruling order of globalists. The will must be broken before the “fundamental transformation” of Babylonian Globalist possession takes place.
To do this the Babylonians employ – by any means necessary – harassment, enticement, torment, addiction, defilement and enslavement. The conquest of the will and human agency will soon include the genetic re-engineering of humans.
With Biden’s recent executive order, humans will be genetically bred and tampered with – but not for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy, as the title of the order would have us believe. Rather, the genetic tampering is to be done to make humanoids that are passive and compliant. (Or, as Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni “has argued in a now-viral speech that the secular – progressive – left wants to turn people into ‘perfect consumer slaves’.”
Our freedom, our humanity, and our souls are set to be vanquished by the invading One World Babylonian hordes. Don’t expect “peace on earth and good will towards men” this year. Expect the pestilence of the Great Reset. Expect that like the locust (and the Biden inflation), they will ravage and plunder all that concerns you. The Left is a pandemic.
Call on the name of the Lord:
The Lord works vindication
and justice for all who are oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
his acts to the people of Israel.
-Psalm 103: 6-7
*****
“…for anyone who is concerned about the survival of culture, there are some important lessons in the armory of cultural instructions accompanying a humble tomato plant. Perhaps the chief lesson has to do with time and continuity, the evolving permanence that cultural animi no less than agricultural cultivation requires if it is to be successful. All those tips, habits, prohibitions, and necessities that have been accumulated from time out of mind and passed down, generation after generation: How much in our society militates against such antidotes to anarchy and decay!” Roger Kimball’s Fortunes of Permanence: Culture in the Age of Amnesia
Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano, former Secretary-General of the Vatican, warns that: The WEF through the C19 crisis has either direct control or blackmailed world leaders into following the plan of mass devastation through vaccination & submission to a new world order.
Below: The building on the right is an apt representation of Progressivism. The architects of Progressivism and the New World Order do not care that humans have to live with the hideous societal designs they come up with. They only care about being recognized and acclaimed for what they throw together.
More societal designs? A new world order?
In case you still think it’s a conspiracy theory that our elites want a world order, here’s French President @EmmanuelMacron yesterday at the APEC summit:
Jack Posobiec and Savanah Hernandez SLAM Klaus Schwab over his desire to see the "multicrisis" usher in the WEF's "Great Reset." pic.twitter.com/k6AhpmSyHo
Wait! What! I thought CO2 would make us toast! An MIT grade says differently.
No. No. No. Instead, of a climate apocalypse narrative, you and I are heading for wealth redistribution apocalypse! Climate change activists talk about CO2 sequestration. But what they mean is wealth sequestration.
12 Republican senators voted to make it possible for the LGBTQ to sue non-profits that do not bow to them. 12 senators voted against religious liberty including Indiana’s senator Todd Young:
Looking for new ways to part with money, science, common sense, and freedom? Well, you are in luck. There is a Pyramid Scheme called “Climate Change Crisis”.
The UN recruits investors during annual media-doting climate conferences. The recruits come to believe that they are part of a global response to a “climate emergency”. They make commitments to “substantially reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to limit the global temperature increase in this century to 2 degrees Celsius while pursuing efforts to limit the increase even further to 1.5 degrees” per the UN webpage.
That’s the ploy. But no one knows exactly how much carbon needs to get cut to produce results. We don’t know how much to cut, where to cut it, or why some industries need to work on this issue and others do not. Any reporting of a country’s carbon emissions cuts back to the top of the pyramid, of course, would be as questionable as the climate science data is.
And since “climate emergency” is the scheme’s appeal, unlimited draconian measures are urged and so is open-ended financing.No one knows exactly how much one should be forced to take the brunt of green agenda which would include carbon taxes, soaring energy prices, and population control. And, no one knows exactly how much one is forced to pay into the scheme. That’s the “beauty” of the wealth redistribution pyramid scheme! In return, for a(ny) price the scheme provides the pretense of climate activism while scamming the public.
Climate Recruits are led to believe that they are sending “financing to developing countries to mitigate climate change, strengthen resilience and enhance abilities to adapt to climate impacts.” Note: there’s no real product or business venture in a pyramid scheme. In the climate scheme there’s just questionable numbers coming out of a messaged computer program feeding even more questionable weather forecasting. There’s only GIGO climate data that fits the Greenies pyramid scheme narrative of “climate crisis”.
The UN: “The climate crisis is pushing more and more people to the brink in a year of unprecedented hunger. World leaders at COP27 must act swiftly to help millions of people facing rising hunger and famine.”
(Have you noticed that those who live in areas not conducive to agriculture and not supportive of life are not suffering the effects of climate change? Rather, they are suffering from an unwillingness to move to better environmental conditions. Climate cash will not change the environment.)
According to the current estimates, developed countries will be obliged to contribute up to $450 billion a year by 2020 to the GCF, which will then “redistribute” the money to developing countries allegedly suffering from the effects of global warming.
Robert Mugabe, the dictator who ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, salivated at the prospect of redistributed global warming cash.
Would-be dictator Obama pledged $3 billion to the Paris Agreement. Future annual contributions would continue increasing, per Obama. Note: the $3 billion did not come out of Obama’s pocket. Future payments will not come out of Obama’s pocket. Obama recruited U.S. tax payers into the pyramid scheme. You and I, our children and grandchildren and their children are on the hook.
The scheme’s recruits, which include “Heads of State, ministers, and negotiators, along with climate activists, mayors, civil society representatives and CEOs” are expected to make payments to the UN Green Climate Fund established in 2010 via negotiations that took place in Cancun, Mexico. But, as we have learned, the UN Green Climate Fund started in 2010 is “slush fund for global dictators.” Anyone staying in the agreement is contributing to this issue.
COP-27 is the latest convention promoting the pyramid scheme. (You can find the COP27 marketing material on the UN Climate Action webpage here.)
UN: “Faced with a growing energy crisis, record greenhouse gas concentrations, and increasing extreme weather events, COP27 seeks renewed solidarity between countries, to deliver on the landmark Paris Agreement, for people and the planet.”
World leaders, climate groups and activists are meeting in the Egyptian coastal city of Sharm el-Sheikh for the largest annual gathering on climate action. They are there to thrash out plans on how to safeguard the future of the(ir) planet. Expect a lot of photos of pyramid people lined up in solidarity. They will be smiling, ready to shake you down.
These global grifters flew in – using some 400 private jets– to tackle the “climate emergency” and commit to “finance climate action in developing countries” (with your tax money!). Carbon emissions from jet planes? No worries. These nomadic negotiators will chow down on vegan meals and use recycling containers and various “carbon offsets” for unavoidable emissions caused by the conference.
Of course, the busy bodies of Paris Agreement must also tamper with the social climate. The agreement veers into absurd political and ideological language, requiring countries to address extraneous themes like gender equity, biodiversity, poverty eradication, migrants, disabled persons, a “just transition of the workforce,” “creation of decent work,” and so on.
“A pyramid scheme” you ask? Consider that the recruits, called “stakeholders” by the WEF, expect to receive payments in terms of money and political profit from their media-generated recruits (i.e., taxpayers). When the number of new recruits (think psyop targets) fails to sustain the hierarchical payment structure the scheme collapses with most of the participants losing the money (and proposed climate bennies) they put in via taxes. Those at the top of the pyramid (and dictators) make off like bandits. In the meantime, the scheme generates wealth redistribution – from us to them.
(Isn’t it something how the govt. takes money out of our paychecks for Social Security and when we retire the govt. parcels the money back to us as a “Benefit”! The American people have been suckered so many times by so many schemes to separate us from our money.)
And this: The government doesn’t determine what is a “benefit” for me. I do!)
We are being sold into an OT Egyptian type slavery thanks to the pyramid scheme of Greenies. And, you can be sure that slavery will not include free speech. Climate Change “misinformation” censorship is next:
Big pharma made billions of dollars selling the clot shot. Big box stores did very well. But the little guy had to give it up. He was told to stay home and obey the Fauci TV.
You won’t hear Psalm 104 read at COP27. The godless and those who think that God is an absentee landlord come up with their own stewardship plans. Their stewardship plans involve your money, your freedom and your life via the climate change pyramid.
With the gathering of the climate grifters near the cradle of civilization, the fertile crescent, it would be good to remind ourselves of just who the ultimate Climate Change Caretaker is.
Psalm 104
God the Creator and Provider
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul. O Lord my God, you are very great. You are clothed with honor and majesty, 2 wrapped in light as with a garment. You stretch out the heavens like a tent; 3 you set the beams of your[a] chambers on the waters; you make the clouds your[b] chariot; you ride on the wings of the wind; 4 you make the winds your[c] messengers, fire and flame your[d] ministers.
5 You set the earth on its foundations, so that it shall never be shaken. 6 You cover it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they flee; at the sound of your thunder they take to flight. 8 They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys, to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills, 11 giving drink to every wild animal; the wild asses quench their thirst. 12 By the streams[e] the birds of the air have their habitation; they sing among the branches. 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
14 You cause the grass to grow for the cattle and plants for people to cultivate, to bring forth food from the earth 15 and wine to gladden the human heart, oil to make the face shine and bread to strengthen the human heart. 16 The trees of the field[f] are watered abundantly, the cedars of Lebanon that he planted. 17 In them the birds build their nests; the stork has its home in the fir trees. 18 The high mountains are for the wild goats; the rocks are a refuge for the coneys. 19 You have made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting. 20 You make darkness, and it is night, when all the animals of the forest come creeping out. 21 The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God. 22 When the sun rises, they withdraw and lie down in their dens. 23 People go out to their work and to their labor until the evening.
24 O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. 25 There is the sea, great and wide; creeping things innumerable are there, living things both small and great. 26 There go the ships and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.
27 These all look to you to give them their food in due season; 28 when you give to them, they gather it up; when you open your hand, they are filled with good things. 29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed; when you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. 30 When you send forth your spirit,[g] they are created, and you renew the face of the ground.
31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works— 32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke. 33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord. 35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Praise the Lord!
*****
On the back of tee shirt worn by a tornado damage recovery worker:
“LEAVE IT BETTER THAN YOU FOUND IT”
All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring
Leave the stewardship of the earth to us Hobbits. Elites just go and have your picture taken.
[Dr. David] Nixon has shared his findings with Wendy Hoy, professor of medicine at the University of Queensland who has called on the Australian government and its health authorities to explain the apparent spontaneous formation of chips and circuitry in mRNA vaccines when left at room temperature, and the abnormal objects that can be seen in the blood of vaccinated people. Hoy thinks that these are ‘undoubtedly contributing to poor oxygen delivery to tissues and clotting events, including heart attacks and strokes’ and asks why there is no systematic autopsy investigation of deaths to investigate the role of the vaccine in Australia’s dramatic rise in mortality. (Emphasis mine.)
I see everyone on the right fighting about Trump vs DeSantis for 2024 and I just laugh to myself. The presidency in 2024 is a pipe dream, with DeSantis or Trump on the ticket. To be frank I don’t know if we’ll ever see a Republican president again. Millions and millions of illegals pouring over our border and being distributed to key swing states. An electorate trained to believe that hundreds of thousands of mail in ballots appearing is normal. Demographics is destiny. He who controls the machines controls the outcome. We didn’t fix 2020 and we didn’t build the wall so don’t expect another “free and fair” election. – Andrew Torba, founder and CEO of Gab
We the People of the Left, in Order to form a more perfect Coalition of power by any means necessary, establish ad hoc social justice, discourage election integrity as voter suppression, provide for our media defense, promote overall dependency, and secure the trappings of power to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this “Democracy!” for the United States of America.
This unwritten and yet fleshed out preamble constitutes what governs the Left. It explains the stolen 2020 election. The Left thereby gained the means to weaponize the Dept. of Justice against concerned parents of school children and questioners of election integrity, disrupt domestic Tranquility with cashless bail and a wide-open border, provide for the Left’s self-defense, promote authoritarian agendas leading to ever increasing loss of liberty, and secure the Left’s place in power with fear-mongering narratives.
We’ve all heard the COVID and climate change doomsday narratives urging us to conform or else. I won’t repeat them here. Now comes the doomsday “Democracy!” narrative: “our entire democracy is now at risk”.
The so-called “scholars of democracy” in the link above warn that Republican-led states are proposing or implementing “radical changes” to election laws. Nothing could be further from the truth. This false narrative is total projection. It is the democrat secretaries of state that have radicalized elections laws, by-passing them to favor Democrat candidates. Republicans want to simply enforce the laws that are on the books and clean up voter rolls. The dead and non-existent are not legitimate voters.
These media “scholars” want National Voting and Election Administration Standards. They have no need for the states. Everything for these tenured narrative-drooling “scholars” is to be federalized so that the power grabbing Left can secure it place in power. Of course, the puffed-up demonic Hillary Clinton, weighed in with her dire prediction:
“We are standing on the precipice of losing our democracy, and everything that everybody else cares about then goes out the window.” . . . “Look, the most important thing is to win the next election. The alternative is so frightening that whatever does not help you win should not be a priority.”
Clinton has repeatedly claimed the 2016 election was stolen from her. But now she has no problem calling out “election deniers”. Clinton also accused Republicans of plotting to steal the 2024 presidential election in the future. So, we are being set up.
Here’s an alarmist rant from another delusional Leftist:
If Republicans win, "our children will be arrested and conceivably killed."
🚨MSNBC Presidential Historian Michael Beschloss with a deranged take days before the midterms.pic.twitter.com/oq8a13qHmZ
The governing principle at work in the Leftist preamble precludes a concern about anyone else’s welfare. The principle concerns itself solely with power – obtaining it and maintaining it. Period. This attitude is glaringly obvious in Joe Biden’s recent Union Station speech.
Did you hear any mention about inflation, about gas and diesel prices, about the open border and the 98 individuals on the terror watchlist caught on the border, about fentanyl deaths, about increasing crime? No. It was about threats to the “Democracy!” only the Left ordains and establishes.
Here’s Tucker Carlson’s take on Joe Biden’s doomsday “Democracy!” speech and election interference:
Biden’s speech, given with him dangling the “Democracy!” carrot 37 times, was anything but “We the People” inclusive. It was a snide divisive harangue directed at those of us who question election integrity. And, it was an obvious CYA setup. When things go badly for the Left on Tuesday, they can blame it on a stolen election and on “extremist” MAGA supporters. They might throw in “racism” and “white supremacy” as causes but climate change as a cause would be a bit difficult. They’ll say anything but blame themselves.
With the doomsday “Democracy!” narrative in place, the Left will say “I told you so”. Just wait and see.
. .. for the writing’s on the Union Station walls and tenement halls – Democrat’s days are numbered. They have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.
*****
Need I remind you? With stolen power, the authoritarian Left – Democrats, Progressives, Anti-white segregationists, Unicorians, socialists, globalists just to name a few – took over life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We were told to march to the beat of their drum and not our own.
Need I remind you? The Left shut down schools, churches, and businesses, and opened wide the border, liquor stores and any place where lottery tickets are sold.
Need I remind you of Intolerable Inflation, Illegal Immigration, and Immoral Injections?
Need I remind you that since the Left took over, Russia invaded Ukraine, North Korea began firing missiles and China is preparing to invade Taiwan.
The anti-flourishing population-controlling human-hating Left promotes abortion, homosexuality, obesity, mangling children in the name of affirmation, pandemics and spurious vaccines “brought to you by Pfizer”. “religions want “more souls” and the WEF “wants less on the planet.” Listen how the Leftist elites talk about you and me:
As anyone making a tight family budget knows, there are only two ways to balance it. The first is to increase income. The second is to decrease spending. Unfortunately, Catherine Austin Fitts says our government chose the latter to solve the Social Security problem. However, instead of reducing spending, they decided to lower life expectancies by increasing the death rates of senior citizens. As unthinkable as this sounds, it is accurate, and Austin Fitts has the evidence to prove it . . .
If you reduce life expectancy, you can bring the actuarial model back into balance.
And her [Catherine Austin Fitts] message is clear. A Great Reset is coming designed to transfer wealth from you and me to a small group of Oligarchs. And this is being accomplished through propaganda, deception, censorship, and psychological operations. Most significantly, it is backed by at least $21 trillion in dark money – money not officially on the books and money that has been stolen from us, the citizens. She refers to the people controlling the money as “Mr. Global.
A male middle school student in @ConejoValleyUSD allegedly masturbated in front of female students. When confronted by parents, the superintendent defended the male student and said he “doesn’t think that this is anything outside the norm.” pic.twitter.com/aNOm6FNvkw
Why is the U.S. giving this corrupt man and country anything? Why is the U.S. involved in a proxy war with Russia. Is it diversion from the Great Reset’s plundering of America?
The FED is vaccinating the inflation pandemic the Biden regime created in his Wuhan lab. The Fed is injecting higher basis point interest rates into the economy with no knowledge of what will happen – just like the deadly effect of forcing the jab on everyone.
Joe Biden, Merrick Garland and The Federal Bureau of Instigation hate Christians:
The DOJ sent a team of federal agents with rifles to the home of a pro-life activist named Mark Houck. Now Houck faces 11 years in prison for protecting his son from an abortion extremist. pic.twitter.com/eFmrnKKSO5
Not only is the FBI showing up at your door to scare you out of your free speech, banks with ties to non-free speech Communist China are de-platforming you because of your freespeech and associations. Ambulance chasers are showing up in kangaroo courts and show trials to de-monetize your voice.
If the Hideous WOKE don’t like your free speech or who you associate with, you are de-platformed, sued or FBI’d.
“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
*****
“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
*****
“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
*****
“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
*****
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
*****
“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
*****
Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
*****
If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
*****
“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.
*****
“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
*****
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
*****
“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?”
*****
“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.
*****
“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
**
“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
*****
“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
*****
“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
*****
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
*****
“…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
*****
Cindy Wity 
A Sense of Place or a Senseless Place
January 8, 2023 Leave a comment
“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?
The following quotes, from Scrutonian Oikophilia: Antidote to Oikomachia (eighthdayinstitute.org), shed light on the challenges we face becoming conscious of who we are and where we belong:
“[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
Sweden Democrats: Trump was right | Fox News
Rediscovering Conservatism in Sweden | Karl Gustel Wärnberg | First Things
Sweden conservatives to form new government after narrow election win | News24
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.
*****
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.
*****
The Biden Admin Is Paying To Bus Illegal Migrants To New York City | The Daily Caller
Dem Governor Will Start Transporting Illegal Immigrants To New York City, Mayor Says | The Daily Caller
Informed Dissent:
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.”
Ivermectin is trending
Massachusetts State Police Releases Statement Following the Sudden Deaths of Three Officers Within Four Days (thegatewaypundit.com)
Schizophrenia shows:
2 + 2 = 5:
The Church of Lord LGBTQ+
I like science. Not scientism:
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Filed under 2023 current events, Christianity, Immigration, Political Commentary Tagged with Christianity, democrats, home, Immigration, Joe Biden, Netherlands, OIKOS, politics, Sweden