The Patriots
July 3, 2016 Leave a comment
Father and son, Cantigny Park, Fourth of July
Juxtaposed! News ™ Hot Off the Wire – Climate Control
June 26, 2016 Leave a comment
News Anchor: “Good evening. I am Mary Summers and this is Juxtaposed! News ™ Hot Off the Wire.
We start tonight’s broadcast with a look at climate change. Dudley Waters has our report from DC.” 
Live Cam w/reporter: “The Senate approved a $1.1 billion Zika virus spending bill. The Obama administration then directed that a half a billion dollars from the fund Congress set aside to deal with international infectious diseases be used to help fund a UN agency recently founded to fight climate change. Here is Senator James Lankford to talk about the spending bill.”
Senator Lankford: “Last week, the Senate passed legislation to address and prevent the spread of the Zika virus. However, the Senate failed to pay for it, and instead approved a $1.1 billion “emergency” spending supplemental bill that is not subject to the budgetary caps that were agreed to last year.
While congressional inattention to the budget crisis is inexcusable, it is even more disturbing that the Obama administration already has the authority to pay for a Zika response from existing agency budgets, but chose not to.
I’ve said several times on the Senate floor, over the last two weeks, that the Zika virus is a serious threat and should be dealt with responsibly by funding immediate vaccine research and aggressive mosquito population control.
The threat to adults from Zika is relatively small, but the threat to pre-born children is very high. Our national priority rightly focuses on protecting the life of these young children in the womb, since each child has value, no matter their age or size.”
Live Cam w/reporter: “Thank you Senator. For more on climate change, here is Patsy Loggins.
Live Cam w/reporter: “Thanks Dudley Waters. I am here in Jakarta where Secretary of State John Kerry just wrapped up his speech on climate change. Here are some of his remarks.
Video: “When I think about the array of global climate – of global threats – think about this: terrorism, epidemics, poverty, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction – all challenges that know no borders – the reality is that climate change ranks right up there with every single one of them. This is not opinion. This is about facts. This is about science. The science is unequivocal. And those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand.”
Kerry went a step further with his assaults on climate change deniers, likening them to members of the Flat Earth Society, adding that “we should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific fact.”
“And let there be no doubt in anybody’s mind that the science is absolutely certain,” said Kerry. “It’s something that we understand with absolute assurance of the veracity of that science.”
Live Cam w/reporter: “Kerry’s speech took on an alarming tone regarding Indonesia, which he called “one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth. Listen in.”
Video: “But I wanted to start right here, in Jakarta, because this city – this country – this region – is really on the front lines of climate change,” said Kerry. “It’s not an exaggeration to say to you that the entire way of life that you live and love is at risk.”
Live Cam w/reporter: “Back to you, Mary.”
News Anchor: “Thanks Patsy. After the break, an eyewitness account of one man calming the seas.
…
News Anchor: “Welcome back. We turn now to a Juxtaposed! News exclusive: an eyewitness account of rising seas calmed by…we are ready to go to Shirley Goodness at the Sea of Galilee.
Live Cam w/reporter: “Thanks Mary. I am by the Sea of Galilee waiting for Simon Peter. Hold on he’s coming now. Simon…catch your breath first. Now Simon tell us what happened out there.
Simon Peter: “Yeah, well, I have this fishing business called UTrawl. Get the camera over here. My boat, she is a beauty!
Live Cam w/reporter: “Simon, can you tell our audience what happened last night?”
Simon Peter: “Sure, I…just wanted to…well, what happened was that we, I mean me and my buddies, spent the day listening to Jesus talk about his kingdom. Jesus would say stuff like, “This is what God’s kingdom was like,” and then he would go on and tell a …what did you call it John, a meta..?”
John: (Leaning in to the camera) “A metaphor.”
Simon Peter: “That’s John. Can they see my boat?”
Live Cam w/reporter: “Yes Simon, what happened last night?”
Simon Peter: “Well, in the evening we were all kind of tired and Jesus said, “Let’s get in your boat, Peter,” -that’s the one right over there – and let’s go to the other side. Jesus was exhausted so he lay down on a boat cushion and fell asleep.
While he was sleeping me and the guys talked about what he had said that day. You know, we never heard anyone talk like that before. I’ve heard a lot of fish tales in my time but this guy – I think he wrote the book about truth.
Anyway, I love being on the water at night, the air is so clean and my boat glides along in the breeze. But then last night, Whew! a big windstorm came up just like that! Bam! The waves were breaking in on us and my boat quickly began to fill with water. Jesus was sleeping so soundly that he didn’t notice the water soaking his clothes. We finally woke him up. We were…they were…a little frightened. You know, the others were going, “Teacher, we’re going to drown Don’t you care?” I just let them.”
Live Cam w/reporter: “Simon, weren’t you scared that you would lose everything, your business?
Simon: “I was scared for my business, of course. But, I’ve seen so many storms in my time. This storm, this one, this one was a doozy! I was starting to have a Jonah moment.”
Live Cam w/reporter: “What’s a Jonah moment?”
Simon: “A Jonah moment? I’m sure your viewers have heard about the prophet Jonah. No? Well, Jonah is on a boat and a storm comes up and the crew are praying to God for mercy. They want to throw “Jonah the jinx” overboard to settle with God. So Jonah is thrown overboard and the seas calm down just like that. Snap!”
Live Cam w/reporter: “Did they throw you overboard last night?”
Simon: “NO! But I saw them looking at me so I got Jesus up. And after Jesus got up, he rubbed his eyes and then looked at the storm and shouted, “Silence! Shut up!” Now, I have said some choice words to the weather in my time but what happened next…the wind died down just like that! Bam! And there was flat calm. What happened was no meta…
John: (Leaning in to the camera) “Metaphor.”
Simon: “Yes, John, move back so they can see my boat. Then Jesus turns to us and says, “Why are you scared? Don’t you believe yet? I think Jesus was calling us “deniers.”
I heard the other guys talking. They were saying stuff like, “Who is this?” and “Even the wind and the sea do what he says!”
Live Cam w/reporter: “Wow! That is amazing! You must be happy to be alive!”
Simon: “I know the guys are. I am just happy that my baby didn’t sink in that storm.”
Live Cam w/reporter: “Anything you want to say before we go, Simon?”
Simon: “You don’t see this kind of thing every day but I saw this with my own eyes. Maybe someday I’ll … John is calling what happened a “sign.” I call it “all in a day’s work for …what did Jesus call us John?”
John: (Leaning in to the camera) “Fishers of men.”
Live Cam w/reporter: “Back to you Mary.”
News Anchor: “Thanks Shirley. When we return we’ll hear about the possibility of Attorney General Loretta Lynch and the DOJ pursuing civil action against so-called climate change deniers.”
………………..
Here are Your Juxtaposed! News™ Top Stories:
Obama Spent Money on Climate Change Over Zika Emergency
Obama Raided $500M for Zika to Finance UN’s Green Climate Fund
John Kerry Mocks Climate Change Deniers
AG Lynch: DOJ Has Discussed Whether to Pursue Civil Action Against Climate Change Deniers
The Inkwell and the Writer
June 19, 2016 Leave a comment
a vignette 
Laurel moved into a two-bedroom apartment on Joy St. with her children. The divorce meant selling the house and saying goodbye to the neighborhood where her kids played and where their skittish sheltie nervously barked at passers-by.
Now living in an apartment with young kids and no support money– Laurel’s ex could not work – Laurel composed her resume. She began to seek out work wherever she could. But the economy was hobbling along. The positions she could fill were limited and usually far from home. When an employment agency finally found job openings Laurel was told that employers were afraid to hire long term employees. So, Laurel became a temp.
Temping, as Laurel would find out, meant that she would likely hear on a Friday afternoon that the manager didn’t need her anymore. And so on Mondays, as had become her routine over several years, Laurel would call the temp agency and see what else they had for her.
Outside of work Laurel took care of her kids and paid the bills. And when there was a small amount of extra cash Laurel purchased cut flowers. She would put them in vase for the center of the kitchen table. And when there was extra time Laurel composed poems, short stories and articles. The ones she liked she would post on her blog. Her motivation for her writing came from what she took in. She also read when time allowed.
As such, Laurel never called herself a writer. That was unthinkable to her. Besides, her time reading and writing had become for her a home away from home that her former church friends used to provide when she was married. Since the divorce, though, those friends no longer came around. She felt being single kept her from being invited to the couple’s gatherings. But after the move new friends came along.
Laurel attended a different church after the divorce, a church closer to her apartment. One friend, Margaret, helped Laurel when she needed to go in for a medical procedure. The anesthesiologist required Laurel to have someone drive her home after the procedure. Margaret was happy to do so. Once the procedure was completed and Laurel was awake, Margaret drove Laurel home and brought her lunch. Laurel was grateful. She wrote a thank you note to Margaret.
As was her habit, Laurel would bath and dress her kids and take them to church each Sunday. And each Sunday morning, as was her habit, Laurel would write a check. In the memo field she’d pen “of Thine own have we given Thee.” It was her way. And she thought God had His. One time she heard the rector say that “the Lord gives and the Lord takes away.” Laurel couldn’t argue with that.
It was only a few years before that Laurel had learned that her 18-year-old son had been killed in a freak car accident. His car had flipped over on a dry frontage road in Texas. There would be no answer as to why. Laurel took in the crushing news. And when she did she felt as if the ground she had been standing on all her life also collapsed. But her grief did not give way. Sorrow was added onto sorrow.
Years before Laurel’s college roommate had died in a car accident on the way to her roommate’s wedding rehearsal dinner. Laurel was shaken by the news. The loss of her close friend and roommate was devastating. Nothing before had so affected Laurel. As such, Laurel wrote a note of consolation to her roommate’s parents, recalling her roommate’s friendship and kindness. But the loss of her son would affect her like nothing before.
It wasn’t long after Laurel’s son’s death that her marriage fell apart. Their son’s death was more than each could handle. The loss compounded the problems in the marriage. The marriage gave way to divorce. Laurel had to take this in and move on.
One day in her new life something happened. Laurel would hear about that day later from her rector.
As her rector recounted, Laurel had been in a car accident. She had been stopped at red light when a large truck plowed into the rear of her car. Laurel went unconscious after her head hit the steering wheel and then whipped back to the headrest.
Laurel could recall little of that day. As ER nurses pumped fluids into Laurel she would go in and out of consciousness: “my kids? …how…? … there is so much pressure inside my head! … I feel sick to my stomach… my neck hurts so bad …How am I paying for this? …Death? …Ohhh…I just want to sleep forever.”
After that day and months of excruciating pain that Laurel could never begin to describe to her doctors, Laurel would receive several steroid shots. She wanted to stop the stabbing nerve pain that shot down from her neck and down her right arm and created tingling in her index finger. And when the shots didn’t relieve the acute pain she chose surgery. It would take two surgeries to fuse vertebra in her neck. Then finally the severe nerve pain had been stopped. But, chronic neck pain and relentless headaches continued. And when someone she loved declared himself, at that time, to be an atheist she thought the stabbing pain had now reached her soul. “Life, you’re killing me!” she would say to herself.
Now the thought of her death had never occurred to Laurel until those wavering sentient moments in the ER. She later told the rector what had gone through her mind that day. And she also told him, “there is such a deep well of pain inside me that if I ever were to draw from that well I may not make it.” The rector winced and nodded and remained silent. Then Laurel laughed, “At least with pain, I know I am alive. And I can’t write when I am dead. Oh life, you are killing me!”
© Cindy Wity, 2016, All Rights Reserved
Juxtaposed! News ™ Hot Off the Wire –There’s Something Rotten in Vermont
June 7, 2016 Leave a comment
News Anchor: “Good evening. From our National News Desk…
We start tonight’s broadcast with a report. Chip Block has our report from Denmark.” 
Video w/reporter voiceover: “At a recent presidential debate hosted by CNN, presidential candidate Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders brought up Denmark and the surrounding Scandinavian states when asked to describe what “democratic socialism” means to him.
Sanders: “I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden and Norway and learn what they have accomplished for their working people. In Denmark, there is a very different understanding of what ‘freedom’ means.”
Video w/reporter voiceover: “The senator’s affinity for the Danish society has stretched back years. In 2013, after hosting the Danish Prime Minister on a tour of his home state of Vermont, Sanders wrote an essay praising their model of government.
Sanders wrote, arguing the U.S. could learn from the way the Danes have “gone a long way to ending the enormous anxieties that comes with economic insecurity.”
Sanders: “Instead of promoting a system which allows a few to have enormous wealth, they have developed a system which guarantees a strong minimal standard of living to all — including the children, the elderly and the disabled.”
Video w/reporter voiceover: “But Danish Prime Minister Lars Lokke Rasmussen took strong exception to Sander’s statements recently in a speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.”
Danish Prime Minister: “I would like to make one thing clear, Denmark is far from a socialist planned economy. Denmark is a market economy.” 
Video w/reporter voiceover: “But it is a market with many differences from the United States. All Danish citizens have access to child care, state-guaranteed medical and parental leave from work, free college tuition in which students receive a paycheck from the government during enrollment, free health care and a generous pension, all of which Sanders supports.
But “free” is actually the wrong word to describe these services. Danes pay some of the highest taxes in the world, including a 25% tax on all goods and services, a top marginal tax rate hovering near 60%. The top tax rate in the U.S., by comparison, is less than 40%.
But there are aspects to the Danish model that you would never see on Sanders’ policy platform. As a small country heavily reliant on trade, Denmark imposes minimal tariffs on foreign goods. Businesses here are only lightly regulated. The corporate tax rate is much lower than in the United States, which has one of the highest in the world. There’s not even a minimum wage in Denmark, although most workers are paid high salaries in large part due to the strength of labor unions. And in the past few years, Danish voters elected a right-of-center government, which has been instituting reforms that have put tighter restrictions on access to the long-held safety net. And here’s what Lars Christensen, a Danish economist known here as an outspoken critic of his homeland’s model has to say:”
Lars Christensen: “When I hear Bernie Sanders talk about himself as a democratic socialist, it’s a little bit 1970s, the major political parties on the center-left and the center-right would oppose many of the proposals of Bernie Sanders on the regulatory side as being too leftist.”
Video w/reporter voiceover: “Few experts here believe that Denmark can long afford the current perks. So Denmark is retooling itself, tinkering with corporate tax rates, considering new public sector investments and, for the long term, trying to wean more people — the young and the old — off government benefits. One critic of the current system is Karen Haekkerup, the Danish Minister of Social Affairs and Integration:
Karen Haekkerup: “In the past, people never asked for help unless they needed it but now people do not have that mentality. They think of these benefits as their rights. The rights have just expanded and expanded. And it has brought us a good quality of life. But now we need to go back to the rights and the duties. We all have to contribute.”
Video w/reporter voiceover: “In 2012, a little over 2.6 million people between the ages of 15 and 64 were working in Denmark. This represents 47 percent of the total population and 73 percent of the 15- to 64-year-olds.
Yes, you’ve heard correctly. In Denmark, only half of the total population work. Maybe that’s why Danes are so upset with Bernie. While he’s praising a system that has enabled entitlements for an aging and unwilling to work population, Denmark has been hard at work overhauling entitlements, trying to prod Danes into working more or longer or both. Back to you, Todd.”
News Anchor: “Thanks Chip. After the break we’ll take a look at today’s financial headline. Up next: an interview with Sycamore Tree Funds CEO Zacchaeus Pure.”
…
Financial News Anchor: “Welcome back. After markets closed today, the Juxtaposed! ™ News team learned that Sycamore Tree Funds has contracted with Mustard Seed Growth Funds, whose Chief Investment Officer is Jesus.
Now word on the street has it that Sycamore Tree Funds CEO Zacchaeus Pure has, over the years, allegedly skimmed and embezzled thousands of Roman denarius from the fees paid to Sycamore Tree Funds. It should be noted that each denarius is about the equivalent of a day’s wage. If these accusations are true, Sycamore Tree Funds’ clients have much to be angry about.
Our sources also tell us that Sycamore Tree Funds’ board was having second thoughts about having its CEO Zacchaeus Pure solely managing its vast resources, even though the fund’s holdings had grown seven-fold during his tenure as CEO.
Zacchaeus, a well-known and many would say hated member of the financial community had grown Sycamore Tree’s enormous holdings by collecting exorbitant fees from his clients, fees that were well beyond the mandated charges. Sycamore’s clients are forced to pay Zacchaeus due to strict government regulations imposed upon them “to maintain their security.”
Here’s Lacy Hedge with her interview of Sycamore Tree Funds CEO Zacchaeus Pure.”
Lacy: “Zacchaeus, how is it that you contracted with Jesus? When did you first become aware of Jesus?”
Zacchaeus: “I became aware of Jesus when many of my clients began talking about the new money manager in town. Thousands of my clients had attended his seminars. I began seeing my clients carrying “It is More Blessed to Give than Receive” tote bags.
Like many in town I had heard about the just-in-time dinner meal served at two of Jesus’s life management seminars. As I mentioned, thousands of my clients had attended these seminars, so, I decided to get my own take on Jesus. And, as you can see I am a short man. But that has never kept me from going out on a limb and taking a risk. I take pride in my ability to be in the right place at the right time. 
So…it happened one day that Jesus saw me in a crowd. He, in fact, called me by name. I was flattered, of course. Jesus requested that we have a power lunch at my home. I accepted. Why not? The rest is, shall we say, history.”
Lacy: “But there is more to the story, isn’t there? Were your clients happy about your meeting with Jesus? ”
Zacchaeus: “At first no. They were not happy! They protested outside my home with signs and shouting, “This man is a crony of the Roman Government!” and “Jesus, have no dealings with this man!”
Lacy: “What happened at your lunch with Jesus?”
Zacchaeus: “I listened mostly. The face to face meeting made all the difference for me. The secondhand knowledge from my clients gave me only a hint of this man’s character. In my world trust is key. And from that one-on-one meeting I learned that I could trust Jesus implicitly. I felt completely secure with turning over Sycamore Tree Funds’ money management to Jesus.
So I contracted with Mustard Seed Growth Funds and made Jesus my Fiduciary for life. I decided to seal the deal with a toast. I announced that I would redeem half my holdings and make a donation to the poor. And, I would refund to all my clients at least half the fees imposed upon them. Of course, when my clients heard this they were relieved. Their protest signs went away. I had regained their trust.”
Lacy: “What did Jesus say about your agreement?”
Zacchaeus: “Well, he said that he was very happy to get my commitment and to see me begin to recover the trust I had lost. He said Sycamore Tree Funds’ turnaround had already begun. He also stated Mustard Seed’s mission statement: ‘to seek and to save lost coins.’ I’m all in.”
Lacy: “Back to you, Todd.”
Financial News Anchor: “Thanks Lacy. Stay tuned. After the commercial break, today’s winning lottery numbers.”
………………..
Here are Your Juxtaposed! News™ Top Stories:
Bernie Sanders’ American Dream is in Denmark
Denmark to Bernie Sanders: ‘Shut Up, We’re Not Socialists!’
Danes Rethink a Welfare State Ample to a Fault
Sorry Bernie: Scandinavia Isn’t Socialist. You Must Be Thinking of France
Hold the Scotch and the Logical Fallacy of Atheism
June 4, 2016 Leave a comment
“One more logical fallacy and we’re done.”
This past week I encountered atheists on Twitter. I noticed one atheist’s snarky scorn of Christians and I responded.
As you’ll see, I engaged him and one other for just a few rounds (please forgive my typos and some bad grammar, I was busy making a living at the same time). The atheists immediately stop tweeting after dismissing me out of hand: “One more logical fallacy and we’re done.” Their arguments must have fallen off the edge of the earth, the black hole of unbelief having sucked them away.
The exchange reminded me of a post I put together when Christopher Hitchens’s passed. (This is a long but hopefully informative post. So, grab some coffee and hold the scotch.)
In Memoriam: Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011
As you will see and hear in the video below, Christopher Hitchens’ (Hitch’s) arguments for atheism (exclusively an argument against theism), after many dead-end asides, were centered on his aversion to having anyone telling anyone what to do. His followers readily know that over the years Hitch has repeatedly taken umbrage on paper or in one-upmanship debates against totalitarianism and against any authoritarian person or religion having a say in his life or in the lives of others. For the record, William Lane Craig (marker 13:59) noted that Hitch despised and hated religion.
Hitch was certainly OK, though, with authoritarian imposition upon others if he felt the cause justified removing other authoritarian figures from the lives of those he thought were oppressed. He, to the horror of the liberal elitists, aligned himself philosophically with G.W. Bush regarding the Iraq war and the war on terror against radical Islamists.
The February 2012 issue of Vanity Fair includes Salman Rushdie’s “In Memoriam”, Christopher Hitchens: 1949-2011.” Rushdie wrote about Hitch’s return to the left:
“Paradoxically, it was God who saved Christopher Hitchens from the right. Nobody who detested God as viscerally, intelligently, originally, and comically as C. Hitchens could stay in the pocket of god-bothered American conservatism for long. When he bared his fangs and went for God’s jugular, just as he had previously fanged Henry Kissinger, Mother Teresa, and Bill Clinton, the resulting book, God is not great, carried Hitch away from the American right and back toward his natural, liberal, ungodly constituency.”
As a way of life Hitch sought to stand juxtaposed to the universal rule of law (his own conscience) in an antinomian position while at the same time declaring moral diatribes against religious and political authorities he considered too overarching in their imposition. A true Epicurean in his ways, Hitch also liked to keep his conscience well inebriated and his roving moralist eye ever looking elsewhere – looking outside and not within – denial and pretense being typical liberal traits.
With atheistic cowardice and hubris, Hitch attacked Mother Teresa, a little old lady. He apparently wanted to feed his prurient desire to neutralize any authority figure (overt or implied) by trying to bring her down several notches in people’s eyes. Why? He claimed she was pushing her authoritarian teachings onto the helpless. He accused her of hypocrisy in her dealings (an easy, self-serving claim for an atheist to make against any Christian). He may have felt threatened by her devotion to an unseen God and her ability to make things happen for others and doing so as a little old lady.
Why would a grown man verbally attack a helpless woman who indeed went about helping others who themselves were under the totalitarianism of poverty and squalor? Maybe Hitch thought she wasn’t helpless. Maybe it was a direct attack against God. It certainly was an act of unmatched intelligential cowardice. To be sure Mother Teresa fought the unseen authorities of this world (the “powers of darkness”) by physically helping the outcast, the hungry and the hurting with an agape-powered love and not verbal hubris.
Hitch, on the other hand, fought the very public “seen” authorities of this world by aligning rhetorically with causes which he felt were important for him. He should have noted that he and Mother Teresa were fighting the same issue – human suffering at the hands of others (whether a dictator or a false religion) -from two different sides. Yet, he chose to denigrate Mother Teresa. I believe he did this because he felt threatened by her belief in the unseen God.
Hitch postures that Christians, especially Christian missionaries like Mother Teresa, are hypocrites who say things they know to be true and good but live disconnected lives apart from such truth – their deeds not matching match their words. This argument (?) against God was replayed in his use the La Rochefoucauld quote “hypocrisy is a tribute vice pays to virtue.” Yet, this hypocrisy argument folds in on itself if one were to hold any moral standard at all. Perhaps Hitch, a polymath, saw moral laws as “many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore.” (The Raven, Edgar Allen Poe)
Clearly Hitch’s excessive lifestyle (his immoderate drinking, smoking, etc. have been noted elsewhere) made his salacious attacks against God all the more the more forthcoming and lubricious. His lifestyle had also proved his belief in nihilism – life is nothing if not suffering. So he apparently used a “get it while you can” justification to medicate the blows between verbal jousting contests.
His liquid lifestyle also spoke to the fact of Hitch’s drive for “freedom” from any limitation imposed on his person including by his own person – his physiology. He chose against himself again and again. He did this while throwing the world a bone now and then, choosing willy-nilly causes to deflect away any personal soul-searching which might lead to accountability to any higher authority. (see marker 25: 5, If god does not exist then objective moral standards don’t exist – a self-satisfying argument.)
Hitch detested dictatorships of all kinds and he did so while as a potentate of his own world. He would not bend the knee to anyone or to anything. He would fight, as Salmon Rushdie recalled in the same Vanity Fair article remembering his friend, for anyone who was made to do so. Hitch’s rebellion was against dictatorial authority of any kind and not just in the political and religious realm. And he certainly rebelled against authority stated as codified truth – the Bible and the recorded history of the resurrection of Jesus. His moral relativism, stated above, is characteristic of most atheists (and the “ungodly constituency”) since they affirm that no moral standard exists outside one’s self.
In the video Hitch asks the universal question posed to theism: why would a God who was all powerful and good allow suffering? My answer: suffering comes out of created man’s free-will choices in a fallen world. God has allowed it for a time but not forever. Justice will be meted out and suffering will end.
He continues his disbelief: “Why would God spend eons of time in creating a world that he could set up in a blink of an eye?” He went on to say that Christians are now co-opting evolution theory in accordance with the Creation argument, evolution being a position long held by atheists. He “christens” this “tactic” or “style” of argument as “retrospective evidentialism” or as a “second thought.” (marker 37:40)
As a Christian theist I see no conflict whatsoever with science and creation. I believe in theistic evolution-a finely tuned theistic universe, a personal cause of the universe and a theistic objective morality. As scientific evidence becomes available it should be used and not discarded. Beyond scientific proofs, my own belief in God is vindicated every day because I, a rational human being, know that God exists. I continue to pursue Him actively and I submit to His authority. Hitch, on the other hand, fled from any such authority outside of himself and employed his own existentialist belief system where he felt safe from intrusion.
Also in the video, Hitch uses the Creationist argument of a literal seven days to say that we as Christians are basically lunatics to believe such things. Again, I see no conflict with a Creationist’s position of a literal seven days and the theory of relativity which could make thousands of millennia appear as seven literal days. But as I mentioned above, I accept theistic evolution, so the point is mute in my case.
Hitch takes another jab at Christian theism by invoking his own god-like view point when questioning why God would do what Christian theists believe He did. He balks at the idea (and I’ll paraphrase): “…the eons of time that God has created-evolved – that all of this fine tuning, mass extinction and randomness is the will of a Creator God (marker 40:21) and that all of this happened so that one very imperfect race of evolved primates might become Christian – all of this was “with us in view” is a curious kind of solipsism, a curious kind of self-centeredness.”
Hitch jests that he thought Christians were modest and humble, not self-centered with certain arrogance to the assumption that this “was all about us.” And, “The tremendous wastefulness of it, the tremendous cruelty of it, the tremendous caprice of it, the tremendous tinkering and incompetence of it, never mind, at least we’re here and we can be people of faith.” This projection from one who, with his own free will, spoke from a self-centered and solipsistic core throughout his entire life!
The Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Creator, was always meant to bypass the wise of this earth: “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness to God. As the Scriptures say, “He traps the wise in the snare of their own cleverness.”” (Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthian church). A priori rebellion coded as cleverness is found in the Mitochondrial DNA of man.
Apart from Hitch’s free-wheeling self-directed solipsism, there is a bounty of sound arguments for theism and William Lane Craig (WLC) highlights them artfully: “No good argument that atheism is true, there are good arguments that theism is true – not via social questions or ethics (marker 16:00).
WLC philosophical arguments in quick notation:
Cosmological argument: things exist, not nothing; the universe began to exist not infinite, not eternal – Big Bang Beginning, ex-nihilo, a cause by an UnCause beyond space and time; David Hillburg – The infinite; there must be a cause of creation. This Being must be uncaused, timeless, space unfathomable & personal and not abstract thought or object; The universe has begun to exist and is not infinite, not eternal (astrophysics concur); Past event are real, there must be Personal creator of the universe, transcendent intelligent mind
Teological argument: (marker 20:00) finely tuned universe – mathematically constants (e.g., gravity) not determined by the laws of nature & the arbitrary conditions (entropy, balance between matter and antimatter); any change in these would be the end of life itself (the atomic weak force being altered)
Chance? Odds are incomprehensibly great, life prohibiting universes are more probable
It follows logically by Design – intelligent argument, intelligent designer
Moral argument (marker 25: 15): if god does not exist then objective moral standards don’t exist; if God exists then valid and binding; the morality that has emerged proves that god exists – via moral experience; we understand that there are things that are really wrong.
Historical fact (marker 27:40): The resurrection of Jesus a historical fact not just a belief; tomb discovered empty eyewitnesses; individuals and groups saw Jesus, appearances to believers and unbelievers; the original disciples believed in the resurrection and Jewish religion believed otherwise about when resurrection occurs; Christian die for the truth of the resurrection (marker 30:26)
Experiential knowledge: The experience of God or claim to know that God exists – properly basic beliefs part of a system of beliefs including the belief of an external world; context of physical objects; grounded in our experience of God; God immediate reality
Hitch responds (marker 33:16): “arguments the same across religions – belief in God but differences; presuppositionalists (by faith) and the evidentialists a distinction without a difference.”
As you will note Hitch’s arguments are all basically dismissive of Christian supporting arguments for belief and are not evidentiary in favor of atheism; note his “rather sweet” dismissal of those who believe – that those of faith should have evidence. (Hitch once again conveniently dismisses the facts of the resurrection and the improbability of causation by chance.)
Hitch: “We argue that is no plausible or convincing reason, certainly no evidential one to believe that there is such an entity…all observable phenomena is explicable (marker 42:00); I don’t believe that following the appropriate rituals…
“Even if this deity did exist it doesn’t prove that he cared about us…cared who we had sex with …care whether we lived or died… (marker 42:32)
“Miracles suspend the natural order – Christians want it both ways (“promiscuous”) (marker 44:00); The natural order – “It is miraculous without a doubt”
“I have to say that I appear as a skeptic, I doubt these things.” (marker 46:16)
“The theist says it must be true…” Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.”;
“Too early in the study of biology…to make these claims.”
Hitch, the verbal grappler, was as a sound and fury professional wrestler who was agile at avoiding a real match-up with Truth. But now, the fight has ended, the match is over. All that’s left in the empty corner is Hitch’s book “God is Not Great” and an empty bottle of Scotch.
Juxtaposed! News ™ Hot Off the Wire – Safe Spaces
May 26, 2016 Leave a comment
News Anchor: “Good Evening. We start tonight’s news with a special report: Campus ‘Safe Spaces.”
Video w/reporter voiceover: “When Brown University president Christina H. Paxson, announced that the university would hold a simultaneous, competing talk to provide “research and facts” about “the role of culture in sexual assault” student volunteers put up posters advertising that a “safe space” would be available for anyone who found the debate too upsetting.
Katherine Byron, a senior at Brown University and a member of its Sexual Assault Task Force, considers it her duty to make Brown a safe place for rape victims.”
Byron: “A “safe space” is intended to give people who might find comments “troubling” or “triggering,” a place to recuperate. I provide a room equipped with cookies, coloring books, bubbles, Play-Doh, calming music, pillows, blankets and a video of frolicking puppies, as well as students and staff members trained to deal with trauma.
Emma Hall, a junior, rape survivor and “sexual assault peer educator” who helped set up the room and worked in it during the debate, estimates that a couple of dozen people used it. At one point she went to the lecture hall to listen in but feeling overwhelmed, she returned to the safe space.
Hall: “I was feeling bombarded by a lot of viewpoints that really go against my dearly and closely held beliefs.”
Reporter: “Now the safe space concept seems to be growing and encompassing larger ground on many campuses. Last fall the president of Smith College, Kathleen McCartney, apologized for causing students and faculty to be “hurt” when she failed to object to a racial epithet uttered by a fellow panel member at an alumnae event in New York.
“The offender was the free-speech advocate Wendy Kaminer, who had been arguing against the use of the euphemism “the n-word” when teaching American history or “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” In the uproar that followed, the Student Government Association wrote a letter declaring that “if Smith is unsafe for one student, it is unsafe for all students.”
Kraminer: “It’s amazing to me that they can’t distinguish between racist speech and speech about racist speech, between racism and discussions of racism.”
After we come back… “Taking the fear out of bathrooms.”
….
News Anchor: “A leading North Carolina newspaper issued an editorial last week telling girls to attempt “overcoming discomfort” at the sight of “male genitalia,” should transgender bathroom laws be enacted.
Video w/reporter voiceover: “In a defense of President Obama’s order compelling schools to allow access to restrooms on the basis of gender identity, the Charlotte Observer editorial board compared the discomfort of school-aged girls seeing male genitalia in locker rooms to the discomfort of white people being around black people in post-segregation America.”
Here is what The Charlotte Observer May 13th editorial had to say: Quote:”This is what the Obama administration nudged the rest of the country toward Friday. Yes, the thought of male genitalia in girls’ locker rooms – and vice versa – might be distressing to some. But the battle for equality has always been in part about overcoming discomfort – with blacks sharing facilities, with gays sharing marriage – then realizing that it was not nearly so awful as some people imagined” .End quote.
While admitting that exposure to male genitalia is a possible outcome of transgender bathroom laws, the editorial went on to say that the notion that such laws constitute a threat to the privacy and safety of women and children is a “political fiction” pushed by Republicans.”
News Anchor: “Join us later tonight for our special report ‘Possession is nine tenths of the law.’”
Thank you for watching. Good night.”
…
Here are Your Juxtaposed! News™ Top Stories”
Just Juxtaposing! 5-24-2016
May 24, 2016 Leave a comment
“Good evening. From our National News Desk, our top story tonight…”
“The Bernieverse: Democratic Socialist Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign:”
Video w/voiceover: “. On Sunday night the chant from thousands in the stands was certainly loud, clear and heartfelt: “Bernie, Bernie, Bernie!””
Sanders: “Real freedom includes economic security. That was Roosevelt’s vision 70 years ago. It is my vision today. It is a vision that we have not yet achieved, and it is time we that we did.”
Video w/voiceover: “Sanders went on to speak of Medicare for all, tuition-free public college, a $15 minimum wage – a host of ideas intended to help America’s poor and middle class. Ideas that define his vision of socialism, a vision he says that will require top down centralized government with him as president to produce the desired outcomes.”
Sanders: “The only way we bring about real change is to create a political revolution where millions of people stand together and say loudly and clearly that this country belongs to all of us.”
“And in international news…”
“Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has placed Venezuela under a “State of Exception and Economic Emergency.”
“Maduro, also president of The United Socialist Party of Venezuela, has blamed capitalism for speculation that is driving high rates of inflation and creating widespread shortages of staples. He has often said that he was fighting an “economic war”, calling newly enacted economic measures “economic offensives” against political opponents that he and loyalists state are behind an international economic conspiracy.
Video w/voiceover: On Tuesday, a state-funded news service reported Maduro’s threat to dissolve the national legislature, which the opposition party won in a landslide election last December. “The National Assembly has lost political validity,” Maduro told reporters. “It’s a matter of time before it disappears.”
But Maduro is probably beyond saving. At this point, only 15 percent of his fellow citizens approve of his government. Political protests roil the streets, and normally law-abiding citizens have resorted to looting to get their hands on basic necessities. The government has responded with force.
Venezuela’s hospitals lack not only medicine but even soap, and cannot keep patients — especially at-risk infants — alive amid constant blackouts. Infant mortality rose by a hundredfold in 2015 from its 2012 levels, and five times as many women now die in childbirth. When his political opponents passed a law allowing foreign aid to prop up Venezuela’s hospital system, Maduro blocked it, calling Venezuela’s healthcare system the envy of the world.
Government agencies are now open only two days a week, as a cost-saving measure. The economy is in collapse, in the midst of its second straight year of double-digit contraction. Everyday items, including food, have long been difficult to buy in Venezuela, but they are now becoming impossible to find. Government-imposed price controls, combined with an astounding 700 percent inflation rate, have made toilet paper so scarce that it’s more valuable by the square inch than the Venezuelan currency one must use to buy it.
“Venezuela has been ranked as the top spot globally with the highest misery index score in 2013, 2014 and 2015. In 2014, Venezuela’s economy entered a recession.”
“After the commercial break, we take a look at this country whose future you won’t believe.”
Supermarket staff work next to partially empty shelves of toilet paper in Caracas May 16, 2013. Supplies of food and other basic products have been patchy in recent months, with long queues forming at supermarkets and rushes occurring when there is news of a new stock arrival. The situation has spawned jokes among Venezuelans, particularly over the lack of toilet paper. The government announced this week it was importing 50 million rolls to compensate for “over-demand due to nervous buying.” REUTERS/Jorge Silva (VENEZUELA – Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS) – RTXZPIP
Video w/Voiceover: “Venezuela Reaches the Final Stage of Socialism: No Toilet Paper””
“And at ten o’clock, our special report “Soda-less Socialism.””
Video w/Voiceover: “Sugar shortage forces Venezuela to stop producing Coca Cola as country struggles to fight crippling recession. Venezuelans struggle to get food, toilet paper, medicines.”
…
Your Security News Headlines:
Bernie-mania spreads to Texas as Sanders’ speech draws crowd of 5,000
Venezuela is ‘democratic socialism’ in action
Venezuela Reaches the Final Stage of Socialism: No Toilet Paper
Europe’s unemployment crisis is much worse than you thought
Breaking – Small Democratic Socialist town in middle of nowhere 8th most expensive to raise family
Cindy Wity 
By Dawn’s Early Light…
July 4, 2016 Leave a comment
Our Banner by Frederich Edwin Church
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light…
The seismic change in constitutional order taking place in the world…
That the U.S. (and Britain) is changing from an industrial nation-state to a market state…
That the growth of the informational market state is due to
-a global system of communications,
-international trade and finance,
-international human rights laws,
-Borderless threats like AIDS and SARS and now Zika, of Islamic terrorism and even the intimidation of the non-existential threat of climate change by flat earth “settled science” Inquisitors,
-Existential threats posed by weapons of mass destruction easily obtained in the world market (see Obama’s Iran Policy)
That the decentralized market state appeals to individualism and local governance as opposed to centralized representative government and at the same time requires an allegiance to multiculturalism, UNism and One World ism to establish trade…
A growing disdain and rejection of the Ruling Class – the “Experts” – governance (see Brexit) …
That the current presumed nominees for POTUS are both unworthy of a vote…
That nation-states, whether the U.S. or in Europe cannot return to the past when exiting the present…
That the American Dream, fostered by hard work, thrift and hope for a prosperous future, will be now redefined by the Information Economy of the market state, requiring individuals to adapt or wither away…
That continuing income inequality in the world is due to one’s geography, to one’s resistance to the market state, to overbearing government regulations (see the EU) and, primarily, the nation-state’s mismanagement of its currency…
That middle class Americans cannot save because the FED has kept interest rates near zero, thereby blessing investors and the stock market with growing income gains, creating further income inequality.
That the human capacity to invent and innovate and thrive will never be diminished but will only be rechanneled from out under odious nation-state regulations into market state space.
That though Keynesian economists see aggregate demand as the motivator of the economy and therefore in need of stimulation (even though their premise is an unacknowledged tribute to envy and its propensity for the inflation of greed), human flourishing is, by nature, enterprising innovation coupled with drive and determination and, finally, consumption to stay alive and fight another day.
That Keynesian economists strong-arm with their economic policies when they bind human hands with government debt and the taxation they require to overcome their mistakes (a minimum wage is a form of sales tax meant to fix an unyielding Keynesian economy).
That a nation-state’s monetary policy has the ability to determine incentives and growth – human flourishing…
That social justice means coercive, as opposed to voluntary and Christ-like, redistribution of your personal property (including your identity) to create an “equal” ability to consume relevant to a populist index of envy…
That the jack boots from Long March of Cultural Marxism have crushed values underfoot…
That college professors raise the banners of Marxism, of communitarianism, of moral relativism in their class room and in their cocktail table books…
That anthropocentricity is all the rage; God is sidelined by the need for “diversity” …
That the perennial Epicurean desire for sensate pleasure and security from judgement and from a knowing conscience is the basis of currently renamed hedonism: “Progressivism.” Progressivism gives license only to unbridled sexual desire and to nothing else. Oh, and to this…
That the “right” to abort a human being (who is not “human” until anthropocentricism deems him or her so) is now held as inalienable while the right to protect yourself is assailed with every new gun law…
…
That the Kingdom of God is very much in place…
That the number of Christians in Communist China is growing so steadily that by 2030 it could have more churchgoers than America…
That the numbers of persecutions and martyrdoms of Christ followers will grow exponentially…
That a Christian’s allegiance is to the Kingdom of God no matter what state, nation or market, free or slave, he or she find themselves in? (I am fixed to the Rock of my Salvation.)
O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light…
That Rider on a white horse? Marantha.
Rate this:
Filed under Fourth of July, Holiday, Political Commentary, Politics Tagged with America, Fourth of July, nation-states, politics, progressivism