So, no man is an…but you’re living in no man’s land. You owned your loneliness for four years and you named it Army…your universe is now expanding and your social capital is diminishing. Your universe has become dense, clammy and regulated.
As above. ‘Nam looks the same in every direction, down range left and down range right. Soldering under a blazing dying starI’m So Lonelypangs your gut. “Who knows I’m alive within the uniformity of this f*cked up universe?”
Lonely, I’m Mr. Lonely I have nobody for my own I am so lonely, I’m Mr. Lonely Wish I had someone to call on the phone
Now I’m a soldier, a lonely soldier Away from home through no wish of my own That’s why I’m lonely, I’m Mr. Lonely I wish that I could go back home.
You gasp in nostalgia while taking your sights. But the green, green grass of home recedes into jungle cover not yet deforested by Agent Orange.
The rules of nightmares begin. You aim your M16 and focus on anything that brings peace inside… and then maybe to the world.
Original Caption: Emergency Transfusion. Dak To, South Vietnam: During a bloody battle, when a soldier is wounded and needs a transfusion, it takes place there on the spot, in the battle zone. Here, a G.I. gets a transfusion near infamous Hill 875, captured by American forces after some of the most violent fighting of the war in Vietnam. North Vietnamese troops poured heavy mortar fire on an artillery base near Dak To and the Special Forces camp in Kontum, 40 miles to the South.
To home and beyond you will go…but not before tomorrow and not before you meet your only True Friend…
“Listen,” Louie says. “You’re never gonna get the same things as other people. It’s never gonna be equal. It’s not gonna happen ever in your life, so you must learn that now, OK? The only time you should look in your neighbor’s bowl is to make sure that they have enough. You don’t look in your neighbor’s bowl to see if you have . . . as much as them.”
“Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” [The magi]
“Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared.”…
“After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.” The Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 2
~~~
Star course: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…
“Our starting point has to be ‘what is a star?’ The visible Universe is, to a very good approximation, made up of hydrogen and helium, the two simplest elements formed in the first few minutes after the Big Bang. After around a billion years of expansion, the Universe was cool enough for slightly denser regions in the gas clouds to start clumping together under their own gravity. These were the seeds of the galaxies, and within them, around smaller clumps, the first stars began to form.” Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw, The Quantum Universe
Life Star or stellar nucleogenesis:
“Every atom of carbon in every living being was once inside a star, since the interior nuclear furnaces of the stars are the only places in the universe where this element can be made.” John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth (emphasis added)
~~~
The stars in the bright sky looked down where He lay
The little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay…
The cattle are lowing, the poor baby wakes
But little Lord Jesus no crying he makes (Well, after all, this little baby spoke the Big Bang! What could scare Him?!)
The Stars Align
The Star of Bethlehem or perhaps Venus or a confluence of the star Regulus with Jupiter and Venus was creations’ royal birth notice. Astrologers of the East took notice of the star’s position. They left on their long journey tracking the star’s brilliance to the very space and time of the king’s invasion – Mary and Bethlehem and the Roman empire (and w/o NORAD, too!)
“We, with our modern democratic and arithmetical presuppositions would so have liked and expected all men to start equal in their search for God. One has the picture of a great centripetal roads coming from all directions with well-disposed people, all meaning the same thing, and getting closer and closer together. How shockingly opposite to that is the Christian story!
One people picked out of the whole earth; that people purged and proved again and again. Some are lost in the desert before they reach Palestine; some stay in Babylon; some becoming indifferent. The whole thing narrows and narrows, until at last it comes down to a little point, small as the point of a spear – a Jewish girl at her prayers.
That is what the whole of human nature has harrowed down to before the Incarnation takes place. Very unlike what we expected, but, of course, not in the least unlike what seems, in general, as shown by nature, to be God’s way of working.” C.S. Lewis,” The Grand Miracle”, God in the Dock
Star of David nucleogenesis
“The poor baby wakes” …in a star-based body. God had laid down his garment of resplendent shekinah glory and put on oxygen and carbon and…a baby’s swaddling clothes and…the sin of the whole world. He did this out of love. This king would redeem the world He loved.
Earth’s most common element, iron, created by extremely large stars with extremely hot cores would be formed by Romans into nails. These nails would be used to crucify the invading King.
“The idea of a divine sharing in human life and triumph over death is certainly a powerful myth. However, as a Christian I believe it is more than that, for it is enacted myth.” John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth (emphasis added)
Death star or dust to dust, carbon to carbon:
“The doctrine of the Incarnation offers theology a profound insight as it wrestles with the problem of evil and suffering. The Christian God does not just look down with compassion on the travail of creation, viewed from the invulnerability of heaven, but in the cross of Christ we see that God is truly ‘a fellow sufferer who understands’ (in [A.N.] Whitehead’s phrase), knowing that suffering from the inside, so to speak. This moving insight seems to me to meet the problem of suffering at the deepest level of diving response and theological insight.”…John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth
Incarnation miracle – It was in the stars
“The central miracle asserted by Christians is the Incarnation. They say that God became Man. Every other miracle prepares for this, or exhibits this, or results from this. Just as every natural event is the manifestation at a particular place and moment of Nature’s total character, so every particular Christian miracle manifests at a particular place and moment the character and significance of the Incarnation.
There is no question in Christianity of arbitrary interferences just scattered about. It relates not a series of disconnected raids on Nature but the various steps of a strategically coherent invasion—an invasion which intends complete conquest and “occupation.” C.S. Lewis, Miracles
“Pilgrim, we’re home.”
“But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.” The apostle Paul’s letter to the Galatians 4: 4-7
The Dark Side
“This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil.” The Gospel according to John 3:19
“A fanatic is one who entrenches himself in invincible ignorance.” Oswald Chambers
~~~
Holster That Finger Obama
The recent messaging out of the White House is that “gun violence” was behind the massacre in San Bernardino, Ca. This verbal smokescreen is notable in its attempt to obscure the truth. What should have been said by the White House: “ThisBloodshed was caused byIslamists acting outQuran 8:12”.
Quran 8:12 – “I will cast terror into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Therefore strike off their heads and strike off every fingertip of them”
As you can read, these words are not spiritual “rah-rahs” to foster a closer relationship with Allah (unless Allah is demanding your sacrificial death in the process!). No, these words were written to inflame hearts to do battle against infidels in a certain battle.
Enter Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, two modern day warriors of Islam. Farook and Malik took these inflammatory words out of context, loaded them with vengeance and directed them against soft target gun-free ‘infidels’ gathered for a party in California. A cache of guns, ammunition, pipe bombs and Qurans would be their means to carry out the call to violence stated in Quran 8:12. It was this ‘scripture’ that had been loaded into the psyches of Farook and Malik. It was this ‘scripture’ and a personal commitment to Jihad that destroyed truth and love before any trigger was pulled.
The recent messaging out of the White House is that “gun violence” was behind the massacre in San Bernardino, Ca. Obama, using his personal commitment to “radical transformation”, took his words out of the San Bernardino massacre context, loaded them with guile and then finger-pointed not at the intents and motives of fanatical mass murdering Islamists. Rather, Obama finger-pointed at his projected political enemies – the ‘infidel’ citizens of the Second Amendment endowed and the “bitter clingers”… the soft targets not willing to be sitting ducks.
~~~
Whether it’s wealth or blame or guns, Obama is the Redistributor-in-Chief:
“People sometimes say that science deals with facts but religion simply trades in opinion. In other words, science’s concern is with truth, understood as correspondence with reality, but the best that can be said of religion is that it might be ‘true’ for an individual, but only in the weak sense that it was helpful for that particular person to look at life in that particular way, without necessarily implying anything about the way reality actually is. Two bad mistakes lie behind this claim…” John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth
Mistake #1: When it comes down to it any scientific fact is interpreted fact, a well-motivated opinion about one-dimensional information. Scientific phenomena are comprehended within other interpreted facts and within a personal cosmology. Any discovered fact is unique to an individual until in the process of truth-seeking it is corroborated by others seeking truth. A well-motivated belief then begins to grow that what you have found is consonant with an elegant and repeatable universality. Yet,
“Belief in scientific realism is well-motivated, but one cannot claim that it is logically proved to be true beyond any possibility of question, as if it would be willfully stupid for anyone to deny….the progress of science, with the changes of understanding that can result from this, make it clear that scientific achievement cannot be claimed to constitute the attainment of complete and absolute truth. Instead, science’s exploration of reality must be seen as resulting in the creation of ‘maps’ of the physical world which are indeed reliable, but only on a particular scale.” John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth (emphasis added)
Science ‘maps’ reality in terms of how, how much, how often, and of what terrain – matter and space-time. But a scientist’s impersonal encounter with ‘hard data’ generated from experimentation is self-limiting…
“Science’s declining to engage with the personal dimension of experience implies the limited character that it can give of reality. A scientist, speaking as a scientist, can say no more about music than it is vibrations in the air, but speaking as a person there would be much more to say about the mysterious way in which a temporal succession of sounds can give us access to a timeless realm of beauty.” -John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth
Beyond the wonderfully apparent discoveries of science, science certainly has ongoing areas of mystery. Consider that today we have a better understanding of quanta (small packets of energy) and yet scientists cannot readily explain the oxymoronic wave and particle theory of light. To unlock such mysteries inquisitive scientists as truth seekers will test their postulates using experimentation. Their theory will employ a certain amount of belief in and expectation of a supposed outcome. The final experimental data is then evaluated against theory. Science’s truth seeking process goes on in this fashion, seeking truth about a physical reality….except when ideology becomes its handler…
“environmentalism is school prayer for liberals.” Harvey Mansfield, Professor of Government at Harvard University
“Settled science” happens. Though science seeks to understand and map the physical world, science can easily be channeled into populist scientism ‘maps’ where fact is rerouted with ideology meant to produce a certain political outcome. The misconstrued and falsified data behind Global Warming Alarmism is pure scientism. In fact something of religious cult has now formed around a metaphysical belief in Global Warming. And, ‘outsiders’ who do accept such a far-fetched and unverifiable belief are called “deniers”.
The Global Warming cult leaders (Al Gore, Barack Obama, John Kerry, UNFCCC) preach their scientism as “settled science” in order to discharge any further truth-seeking. The light of day was not meant to shine on their furtive agenda – their ends, world-wide redistribution of wealth, justify their means of environmental alarmism and population control (a la John Holdren).
Science can be used to deny other means of truth-seeking. The New Atheists came onto the scene after the horrific 9/11 attacks. The New Atheists love to use scientific reasoning, not for truth-seeking, but for their dismissal of belief in God, a God who would allow 9/11. As such the science they comport is piecemeal and typically not readily provable, such as the (preexisting!) Quantum Foam messaged by Quantum Fluctuation equals Universe theory (Alexander Vilenkin). Then there is their use of the multiple universes theory that says that our universe is one of infinite possibilities wrought out of chaos and therefore (even so!) a Creator is not warranted.
The New Atheists, in scientific tone, try but cannot reasonably tell us how humans received a self-consciousness (Who am I? Why am I here? What about life after death?). Nor can they tell how we became intelligent, language based, moral agents and altruistic. Science cannot tell us how. Strict logical analysis fails to tell us how.
But strict logical analysis can tell us about the extreme fine-tuning found in the universe, a fine-tuning that makes earth inhabitable for life. Yet, The New Atheists, again in scientific tone and avoiding a Creator outside of themselves, will serve up the Anthropic Principle as the reason for fine-tuning – – the universe just happened to be because of us, we needed the universe to fit our needs.
“The odds against a universe such as we have are fantastically great, and so are the odds against the emergence of life and the advent of intelligence.” –Dr. Amir D. Aczel, mathematician and author of Why Science Does Not Disprove God
Something to ponder: “If Albert Einstein had not discovered general relativity, no doubt it would eventually have come to light through the labor of others, but if J.S. Bach had not composed the Mass in B Minor, that great work of art would have been lost to us forever.” John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth
Now consider a perfect circle and perfect square, Plato’s ideal forms. Consider that mathematicians accept that numbers, equations and geometry exist on their own and outside our physical universe. One would have to then ask, How do we know what is perfect? And, how do we know that an equation is simple and beautiful?
For now, in the interest of brevity, see one-dimensional interpreted science as only one of two addends in the following equation. An insufficiency of either one will cause a lower sum:
Science + religion = truth-seeking
~~~
“I am the Light of the World.” -Jesus
“Why is it that when we talk to God we’re said to be praying, but when God talks to us we’re schizophrenic?” Lily Tomlin
Mistake #2: Religion isn’t concerned about fact and therefore requires no reason.
True Christianity is truth-seeking. I perceive Christianity as using a microscope (natural theology), eyeglasses (systematic theology) and a telescope (philosophical theology) to seek out and record what is true. Central to true Christianity’s claim on a person is, not unlike science, a focus on truth, a truth ultimate and unchanging, an ‘atomic’ truth that you can set your soul’s machinations to. Truth, scientific truth and Christianity, is freedom.
It was Jesus who said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free.” Now I don’t think Jesus was talking about the Big Bang at the start of this manifest Creation, but He certainly let fly freely both matter and a ‘hair less’ antimatter and then the requisite bosons to form elements and to later compose you and me.
Christianity seeks to know the truth about why and who and from that derived knowledge goes on to the phenomenology of altruistic behavior, something evolutionary science cannot explain or ever reproduce.
Christianity is a personal “come and see”. Science is also a personal “come and see”. And whereas a scientist’s impersonal observations becomes a universally accepted theory through experimentation and corroboration, so too a Christian’s personal observations are corroborated by Scripture and by a chorus of others singing the same tune.
Christianity is centered on the facts of a person. This person, Jesus Christ, claimed to be God, very God, the Creator. Now, imagine very God limiting himself and taking on the form of a servant in evolved flesh – once a single cell amoeba later into ape-hood and then prehistoric man and then to mankind! I cannot fathom this emptying of God but it is true.
Consider the resurrection of Jesus. The resurrection of Jesus is a historical fact witnessed by hundreds of people.
We find a record of Jesus’ life and his death and resurrection in the four Gospels. The Gospels are written by close friends and followers who would die for Jesus based on their own eye-witness testimony. Would a scientist die for any discovered truth?
Keep in mind that Pontius Pilate found no fault with Jesus and yet found no reason to keep him alive, either. He asked “What is truth?” but Truth would be put to death in order to save his reputation
Like science religion can be perverted by powerful figures or groups into false religions and death cults with a phenomenology of terrorism. Acknowledging that no one group has all truth would be a major step toward abandoning the ‘settled theology’ of Islamic terrorism and the ‘settled science’ of global warming.
How should science and Christianity relate?
“Fundamentally, the two disciplines of enquiry should be thought of as cousins under the skin because of their shared truthful intent. Both operate under the rubric of critical realism, claiming the attainment of well-motivated beliefs, but not asserting the achievement of absolute certainty. The religious recognition of this fact is expressed in the understanding that believers walk by faith and not by sight…Religious faith dos not demand irrational submission to some unquestionable authority, but it does involve rational commitment to well-motivated belief.” – John Polkinghorne, Science and Religion in Quest of Truth
There is simply too much information about both science and religion to fit this post and to do justice to both truth-seeking disciplines. Besides you need to get ready for Christmas.
The wisest of men still seek Him…Study hard.
~~~
Now for something completely relevant: you could buy a book about soccer and read about the game as it is delineated (the scientific approach) or you could watch Men in Blazers for a ‘metaphysical’ explanation of the game (the religious soccer zealot approach). Actually, both approaches play the whole field and score goals.
The ‘settled science’ cabal wants you to know that they are no longer seeking truth. They have shut their minds to any further information. Nothing you can say will change their mind. They have become frozen consciousness ideological and hell bent on making you desire their brain freeze.
“Brain Freeze” by Herschel Fall
Then there are The Children of this generation – the Millennials and some adults. As products of the psych community (via therapy and/or public school) they have lost the ability to discern right from wrong, good from bad. Melancholia is their porridge.
And my friends, there are too many self-disenfranchising, self-marginalizing groups – LGBT, #BlackLivesMatter, etc. – to name all of them here and now. Suffice it to say that all of the above have used the following methods in one form or another:
A Million Ways to Die Democratically in the West or How to close the American mind:
See no truth, hear no truth: Avoid discussion, debate and dissension. Become myopic and bent inward. Demand that others change to your liking and Now!
Acknowledge nothing, deny everything, be dismissive. Case in point: Hillary Clinton, her personal server, classified intel exposed and political deniability. She may become president and then you die democratically. But anyway, “What difference at this point does it make!”
Do not confront and name evil. Use framing and PC language to synthesize evil with good; make all values equal. Make a “What difference at this point does it make!” judgment.
Demand that academia be a means for job security and not a place that fosters theoretical reasoning or knowledge.
Use academia as your second day care center.
Blame academia for your shortcomings. A mind is a terrible thing to pay for.
Expect academia to be a confirmation of you. Look for self-affirming cliques.
See academics not as a means for intellectual pursuit but for social networking where your social sensitivities can be honed into razor sharpness.
Forget history. It’s not relevant to current self-projection.
Forget tradition. It’s not relevant to current self-projection.
Forget the Constitution. The guys who wrote it do not understand me or the emo involved in me. A SCOTUS justice will award me dignity anyway.
Democratize morals into relativistic goo. Use your group narcissism as a voter block to destroy others not included in your ethos.
Use ‘settled science’ to block all further discussion. Call all non-believers “deniers”.
Go to the psych community for help and come out with your hard drive scrubbed of values.
Do not read a book. Besides, you don’t need to burn books if no one reads them. And that will make you look less controlling.
Avoid the Bible. Read Vox and POLITICO and Sojourners so that you can share in the Collective’s hubris.
Base all your thinking on what mother TV is telling you.
Avoid deep thought and reflection at all costs. Keep your e-device on at all times. Twitter your life away. You need to be heard.
Choose a self-marginalizing motif for your life to gain a politician’s notice.
Become an SPLC “hate watcher” so you decide who’s in the conversation and who is out. See this form of segregation not as a form of apartheid. Rather see this as a form of socially sensitive police action.
Avoid silence at all costs. You might realize you have a soul.
See government as a parent and never grow up.
Be heartfelt and anti-intellectual. Your ignorance is as good as someone’s knowledge in a democracy. (Isaac Asimov, paraphrased)
See beauty, not as intrinsic to God’s creation, but only skin deep.
Wait for Godot.
Read stream of consciousness literature.
Exercise sexual proclivities at all times.
Refuse moral courage at all times. See it as moral weakness.
Preamble and postscript your life with folly.
Listen to popular music, nothing else. An empty mind is one that can be filled with all the nuances of self.
See art as a pile of shit sitting atop a figure of Jesus. Laugh at Larry David’s tripe.
Do not choose reason. Leverage feelings every time. Enjoy the scream while you can.
Edvard Munch “The Scream”
Decide that God is judgmental and that you are inclusive. God doesn’t know what you know.
Become insular in your thinking. Shut out the light of day. Avoid criticism.
Don’t feed your soul. Tell God that He doesn’t exist and that you are always in control of things.
Find someone in the media who always tells you what you want to hear.
Close your eyes to your blessings and look at what others have; spend your life crying and whining about not having what overs have. Karl Marx did this. Why not you? Materialism is meaning. Right?
Ignore the Bible. Truth is what your friends let you get away with anyway (Richard Rorty).
And lastly, and not quite at the million mark, make sure that someone else is responsible for your life!
This list is not exhaustive and not a million ways to… but its Sunday and I have to call my mother.
~~~
Be Truth Seeker.
An opened mind does not mean you allow things to stay which are unworthy. Here’s where discernment comes in. Discern what is good and kick out what is not – with God’s help.
Pray for wisdom, knowledge and good understanding. That is what my godly mother taught me and this advice has never failed me during the unfolding of my life.
You’re a leper, one of ten who live quarantined outside the city. You hear of a miracle worker. You leave your colony and head for the crowd.
The crowd seeing you parts quickly, gasping. No one wants to be near you. But you are focused to where Jesus is standing.
Before Jesus you plead for a mercy healing. “Teacher, please.” You are immediately healed. Utterly healed.
You are told “Go, show yourselves to the priests” so that they may examine you before you return to society and its center, the synagogue. You go and are subsequently released back into the world you had once known.
Nine of your healed friends return home for Thanksgiving dinner and to watch a soccer match in their newly restored bodies with their newly restored relationships. But you, you are too excited to eat or to drink or to sleep. You can’t do anything until you say “thank you” to the One who made your flesh whole.
You find Him and throw yourself before the Word made flesh. You pour out your words of thanksgiving at his feet.
You acknowledge your Indebtedness and the Other. You do this, not in kind, but in thought and deed.
“The external act is an expression of an inner assent: the other is acknowledged and confirmed in what is due him” (Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues, (emphasis added))
Acknowledging the other and confirming what they have done for you is the justice of Thanksgiving.
The nine lepers who decided to ignore the Other and who calculated no indebtedness committed the injustice of ungratefulness. Their temporal well-being was all that mattered.
Setting 2:
Joseph, the 11th of Jacob’s 12 sons and Rachel’s firstborn, received a beautiful garment from his father – a token of a father’s love. Jacob loved Joseph more than his other sons.
Jacob’s gift, perhaps, was in anticipation of the promise of the Abrahamic covenant being fulfilled through his blood line. But, the brothers didn’t care about the reason. Jacob’s gift to Joseph and none for them was for them “inequality.” Their jealousy turned into the injustice of ungratefulness.
Though the older brothers all anticipated some fraction of a vast inheritance they quickly became envious of Joseph, of this material gift and of his spiritual gifts – Joseph could interpret dreams. You could almost taste the bitterness of their words:
“Why did Joseph, that little punk, get that gift from dad? “I never got anything like that from dad. Every day we take care of father’s land and flocks and Joseph is lying about at home or sitting on dad’s knee. “We have to eat sheep jerky and stale bread. Joseph gets fresh bread, kabobs and dates…yaddah, yaddah, yaddah.”
Pop psychology, one of the enablers of the inequality mindset, would say that father Jacob was being unfair and creating inequality. And even though Jacob was disposed to favoring Joseph more than his other sons, Jacob had every right and the prerogative to give whatever he wanted to whomever he pleased. Joseph’s brothers, already harboring expectations of their father and now creating new expectations, created the inequality in their own minds.
Joseph’s brothers should have acknowledged Joseph and their father and rejoiced with them. Instead Joseph was handed over to slave traders by his envious brothers. And…the rest of the story is found in the book of Genesis.
What? Giving thanks for what someone else has received? Isn’t that rewarding injustice? No, it is not. In God’s economy there is justice in the positive acknowledgement of the other receiving something good without making demands of or being acknowledged by the giver in return. It is the world’s zero-sum thinking that always ends in the injustice of ungratefulness.
Setting #3:
We live in a time of unprecedented well-being. We profit from new age technology, advanced medicine, online material goods access and massive individual consumption (aka Black Friday). We are overwhelmed by the multitude of choices. And around us there are fewer people living in poverty than ever before. But you wouldn’t know any of this by the constant and ubiquitous griping and whining. Such injustice of ungratefulness, though, usually occurs when the world around the grumbler is flush with good things. Expectations skyrocket during booming times.
“It can be persuasively argued that the postmodern critique of justice, like the postmodern critique of rationality, draws its pathos from the self-stultifying tendency to generate false expectations and then harbor disappointments when they fail to be fulfilled. It places impossible demands on a notion of justice, despairs over them not being met, and then declares all general notions of justice impossible and undesirable.” – Mirosalv Volf, Exclusion and Embrace, A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness and Reconciliation
Postmodern “justice” seeks to deconstruct Justice, from blind universal “J” to individual “I” “j’s’ and then re-packages it back into universal “J” form.
“…the liberal notion of justice: all should respect all; none should respect those who do not respect all.” – Mirosalv Volf
Bottom line “Justice”, in essence, has thus become a universal political-speak term for “someone has something that I do not have.” “I demand a debt be created that owes me something!” “I don’t care how. I want it now.”
And so, we arrive at the Sanders Claus List:
“I want world economic justice now because someone in this world has more than I do.”
“I want environmental justice now so I can feel better about the world around me while I’m in my online virtual environment texting and tweeting.”
“I want health justice now because “health insurance must be a right because Europe has health insurance coverage and I don’t.”
I want rights justice now because someone gets to be something I am not.
I want education justice now because those before me have something I do not have – education and money.
I want wage justice now because I should not have to work and merit the money like most plebeians.
I want speech justice because the use of the gift of free speech by the ‘other’ affects my Disney world. And, even though my universal justice says that individual differences are to be accounted for, the ‘other’s’ words do not account for my individual justice and is therefore unjust.”
These days the demand side of life is ever promoted and never the supply side of Thanksgiving. Democratic “Demand” Socialism, whether of the European or Sanders or Clinton variety, is the golden cornucopia that the many have created and now worship in their quest for their self-serving “justice”.
Such an idol breeds contempt for the other and beyond that, the tyranny of materialism and the injustice of ungratefulness.
~~~
Jesus asked:
“Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?”
ISIS is a widow and orphan maker. Is there any doubt after the Paris attacks?
A man gestures as he places a candle at a makeshift memorial outside the Consulate General of France to pay tribute to the victims of the terror attack in Paris, in San Francisco, California November 13, 2015. REUTERS/Stephen Lam – RTS6XJZ
Pastor Saeed Abedini spends another birthday in an Iranian prison…apart from his wife and children.
Barack Hussein Obama gave Iran carte blanche to build a “widow and orphan” maker nuclear arsenal. But what about imprisoned Christian Pastor Seed Abedini? Oh that’s right; Pastor Abedini is a Christian and not an Islamist prisoner that ‘must’ be released from Gitmo.
Skull and crossbones internationalism: Barack Obama hates flag waving as do liberal elites in academia. But, BHO and the effete John Kerry will wave the multicultural flag of “rationale” that says that all values are of equal value and theirs being more equal.
Red Lipstick Lines: what about the passive-aggressive King of Food Stamps, Barack Hussein Obama, as he stands back to watch ISIS commit beheadings and slaughter after slaughter and then mocks certain Americans for not bowing down to his plan to accept unvettable refugees?
The ‘welcoming” welfare city of Chicago creates widow and orphans.
~~~
“The idea that poverty is a breeding ground for violence and terrorism derives, ultimately, from Karl Marx and, like most of his teachings, it sounds plausible enough until you stop to analyze it. Revolutionary violence, historically, has tended to occur, not at times of deprivation, but at times of rising wealth and aspiration. Put bluntly, people who are worried about where their next meal is coming from have little time for protest marches, let alone bomb-making.
The modern welfare state, by contrast, is the ideal terrorist habitat. It keeps people fed but idle. And, naturally, it makes them resent their paymasters.” (emphasis added)
-Daniel Hannan, British MEP, The New Road to Serfdom, A Letter of Warning to America
~~~
No, Barack Hussein Obama, we are not “afraid of widows and orphans”. We are afraid of “widow and orphan” makers.
This headline caught everyone’s eye this past week. Sheen’s admission reminded me of a visit to a LGBT support group several years ago.
Back then I was doing research for a blog. As a Christian I wanted to know what topics were being discussed among LGBT members and how I could address them as a Christian. I began to see that many churches were becoming rainbow ‘inclusive’. And being a person of discernment and a defender of the faith I knew that sheep were going badly astray in name of Christ.
Love knows No Boundaries and No Boundaries is HIV positive.
I meant to publish the results at the time but I was repulsed by what I learned. I felt unclean and in need of cleansing. Honestly, I didn’t want to even think about that day.
I publish the story now because people need to know the truth about the LGBT community and about the sex addicts, like Charlie Sheen with his “psychological escapism.”
Prior to this visit I had visited two other LGBT support groups in Chicago’s Oak Park area. So, this report is not a one-off.
I had decided to attend a LGBT support group meeting in a town not far from me. The meeting time and place were published online. The meeting was described as a “Transgender Support Group Meeting”. It took place on a Sunday afternoon. So after church I made my way to the northwestern suburb of Chicago and the community building.
As I entered the building I knew that I would stand out. I couldn’t say that I was gay or relate to their ‘issues’ or experiences. And my being there as observer might affect my observation, much like someone in a quantum mechanics setting trying to accurately specify position and momentum at the same time: the more precisely one property is known, the less precisely the other can be known (aka, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle).
I found the meeting room and the leader. Rosie (not ‘her’ real name) greeted me. Rosie approached me in a floral dress with long hair shrouding guy features. She was the “T” of LGBT.
Rosie introduced me to the thirteen attendees. Looking about me I saw various older men in women’s attire, many with beards and facial hair. “OK” I thought, are they transgender or transvestite? I waited for the answer to reveal itself.
Rosie brought the meeting to order. After going over the minutes of the last meeting Rosie went on to new business.
New business: the next meeting date and time; meeting men in a nearby forest preserve; introducing the speaker.
The speaker: Rosie introduced Jim (a pseudonym he used) as “someone who will teach us about AIDS.” “We are required to talk about public health related issues once a year since we are federally funded.”
Hearing that, I perked up hopeful that some good would come out of his talk. But, as the Uncertainty Principle would have it, an HIV ‘donor’ stepped up front and center instead.
Jim told his story: abandoned by his father he was raised by his mother – a pattern all too common in the LGBT individual’s history. (The loss is of a parent whether of abandonment or divorce or by verbal denigration by the other parent is usually never dealt with adequately by children alone. It is brushed under the ‘I love mom” rug. And soon an ad hoc ‘parent’ is sought to fill the emotional need. In doing so the person moves into homosexuality and the group experience of the LGBT community, which supports emotional and sexual co-dependence.)
Jim proceeded to talk about his homosexual experience. He had been with so many men that he didn’t know the count. He talked about going to Boy’s Town on the north side of city of Chicago and the bath houses he visited. He then mentioned that he had contracted AIDS from someone there. At this point he gave no warning or advice. He simply, unabashedly, stated that he continued to have sex with men in these places. His words of defense: “These guys know what they are getting into.” That was the end of his talk about AIDS.
Two of us out of the dozen or so listeners sat stunned. No questions were asked of Jim. As a newbie I shamefully kept my mouth shut until I could voice my concern to the leader of the group. And I did. I said that “this man should be put in jail.”
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Here is a slightly dated news story that accurately depicts the “New Business” discussed above. Note the criminality of AIDS transmission:
[Kane County Forest Preserve District Chief Charles] “Budde told the Courier News that the sting didn’t target gay men, though he did tell WCT, “We’ve never arrested a woman for that. It’s always been males.””(emphasis added)…
“In addition to the public indecency charges, one man was also charged with three counts of solicitation of a sex act and attempted criminal transmission of HIV. Hogle told WCT that the latter charge came after both the man and his wife independently told officers that he is HIV positive.”
“Criminal transmission of HIV is a Class 2 felony, according to a 1989 law, punishable by three to four years in jail or a $25,000 fine. Under state law, a person is guilty of the offense if he or she, knowing that they are HIV positive, “engages in intimate contact with another,” transfers potentially infectious bodily fluids or sells and/or exchanges non-sterile intravenous drug paraphernalia.” (emphasis added)
Tiger’s Blood does not make one invincible, nor does a Supreme Court ruling. What you let into your life is what you have to live with. Boundaries (and borders) are life and death important.
“We have entered, as I see it, a spiritual limbo. Our educational institutions are no longer the bearers of high culture, and public life has been deliberately moronised. But here and there, sheltered from the noise and glare of the media, the old spiritual forces are at work” Roger Scruton
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“When a common culture declines, the ethical life can be sustained and renewed only by a work of the imagination.”-Roger Scruton
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“Jesus prayed, “This is eternal life, that they may know You . . .” (John 17:3). The real meaning of eternal life is a life that can face anything it has to face without wavering. If we will take this view, life will become one great romance— a glorious opportunity of seeing wonderful things all the time. God is disciplining us to get us into this central place of power.” Oswald Chambers
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“No power on earth or in hell can conquer the Spirit of God in a human spirit, it is an inner unconquerableness.” Oswald Chambers
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To those who have had no agony Jesus says, “I have nothing for you; stand on your own feet, square your own shoulders. I have come for the man who knows he has a bigger handful than he can cope with, who knows there are forces he cannot touch; I will do everything for him if he will let Me. Only let a man grant he needs it, and I will do it for him.” The Shadow of an Agony,Oswald Chambers
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“If we wish to erect new structures, we must have a definite knowledge of the old foundations.” John Calvin Coolidge
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Atheism is a post-Christian phenomenon.
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If social justice looks like your hand in someone else’s pocket then you are stealing.
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“In Sweden, giving to charity, absurdly, came to be considered a lack of solidarity, since it undermined the need for the welfare state.” – Roland Martinsson
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“…to love democracy well, it is necessary to love it moderately.” Alexis de Tocqueville
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Capitalism seeks to help others through a servce or product it provides. Free Market Capitalism is the most moral and fair economic system available to man. Capitalism augments personal growth, responsibility and ownership. Charity flourishes under capitalism. Charity dies under subjective “fair share” government confiscatory policies. Socialism redistributes ambivalence and greed.
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“We are to regard existence as a raid or great adventure; it is to be judged, therefore, not by what calamities it encounters, but by what flag it follows and what high town it assaults. The most dangerous thing in the world is to be alive; one is always in danger of one’s life. But anyone who shrinks from that is a traitor to the great scheme and experiment of being.” G.K. Chesterton
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Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent.
It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction. Albert Einstein
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“You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you odd.” Flannery O’Connor
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“There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to Him and bad when it turns from Him.” C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce
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“Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him” (Job 13:15).
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God’s grace is not about the allowance for sin. God’s grace is about the conversation God allows regarding sin.
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From the book of Proverbs: We are not to favor the rich or the poor. We are to pursue justice.
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“Always keep in contact with those books and those people that enlarge your horizon and make it possible for you to stretch yourself mentally.” Oswald Chambers
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One goldfish says to another, “If there is no God who keeps changing the water?”
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“The truth is always there in the morning.”
From Cat On A Hot Tin Roof script – playwright Tennessee Williams
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God blesses those who hunger and thirst for justice, for they will be satisfied.
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“America’s greatness has been the greatness of a free people who shared certain moral commitments. Freedom without moral commitment is aimless and promptly self-destructive.” John W. Gardner
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“Men of integrity, by their very existence, rekindle the belief that as a people we can live above the level of moral squalor. We need that belief; a cynical community is a corrupt community.” John W. Gardner
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“In the world it is called Tolerance, but in hell it is called Despair, the sin that believes in nothing, cares for nothing, seeks to know nothing, interferes with nothing, enjoys nothing, hates nothing, finds purpose in nothing, lives for nothing, and remains alive because there is nothing for which it will die.” Dorothy L. Sayers
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“Art, like morality, consists of drawing the line somewhere.”
G. K. Chesterton
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“The battle line between good and evil runs through the heart of every man.” Alexander Solzhenitsyn
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This is what the LORD says:
“Stand at the crossroads and look;
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
-The prophet Jeremiah, 6:16
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“…our common task is not so much discovering a truth hiding among contrary viewpoints as it is coming to possess a selfhood that no longer evades and eludes the truth with which it is importunately confronted.” James McClendon, Ethics: Systematic Theology, Vol. 1
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Cindy Wity 