What’s At Stake

March 21, 2025 Leave a comment

One day, after leaving the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus told the disciples that the temple would be leveled. His disciples then came to him privately and asked “What is the sign of your coming and the end of the age?” The conversation is recorded here: Matt. 24:1-35.

Jesus tells them what to watch out for and to not be fooled by. He warns of the persecution and death of disciples who bear witness to the truth they had seen and heard. He speaks of those who fall away and of those whose love for the kingdom of God grows cold because of a milieu of wickedness. Then he adds “The ones who stand firm to the end will be saved.”

The end of the age will come, he tells them, when the gospel of the kingdom is preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations.

Jesus goes on to reveal signs and wonders of the end times. He can’t tell them the day or hour of his return, as only his Father knows the timing. When it does happen, he says, many would be caught completely off guard.

Jesus went on to speak in parables about the signs and wonders he expected to see in those entrusted with the gospel of the kingdom before he returned.

In the Parable of the Faithful and Unfaithful Servants (Matthew 24:45-51), the faithful servant follows through doing what his master had put him in charge of until he returned. He is rewarded with more responsibility. The unfaithful servant assumed that with the master’s delay he could do as he pleased. When the master showed up unexpectedly, the unfaithful servant is dealt with severely.

In The Parable of the Ten Bridesmaids (Matthew 25: 1-13) ten young women are involved in a wedding tradition. The bride and her bridesmaids, I imagine, learned that it was the beginning of the wedding week sometime before nightfall one evening. They may have caught word about extensive preparations being made for the marriage feast. The ten women prepare for their part in the ceremonies.

By tradition, the bridegroom would process with his friends at night to retrieve his bride and bring her back to his house for the wedding feast and ceremony. When he arrives, the bridesmaids join the procession carrying oil lamps.

Not knowing the exact day or hour of the bridegroom’s arrival, five of the women bring flasks of oil. I imagine that they are thinking “This may take time, but we’re gonna make it happen, we’re gonna do what we have to do to make the wedding and marriage feast a success. The bridegroom is counting on us.”

We learn that when the bridegroom is delayed the ten bridesmaids get drowsy and fall asleep. Then at midnight a shout awakes them: “The bridegroom is on his way!”

The ten get up and trim their lamps by cutting the burnt part of the wick and adding oil. But there is a problem. Five of the women had run out of fuel and brought no extra. They lacked the wherewithal to continue the simple task they were given. So, they ask for oil from the other five with extra oil.

But that’s not going to happen. The prepared five will do what is expected of them and the depleted five are sent to do what they need to do – go buy more oil. While the depleted five are away, the bridegroom arrives and the prepared bridesmaids process with the wedding party.

The depleted five, returning with lamps lit, find out that they are shut out of the wedding banquet and not even acknowledged. The prudent five were mindful of their duty to the Bride and Bridegroom. The foolish five missed an opportunity of a lifetime. It was lights-out for them.

In The Parable of the Talents (Matthew 25:14-30), a master goes on a trip. Before he leaves, he entrusts money to three slaves, each according to his ability. When he returns, he wants an account of their stewardship of what he entrusted to their care.

The slave given five talents has produced five more. The slave given two talents has produced two more. The slave given one talent has not increased its value. He played it safe.

The two slaves that produced a return on investment are rewarded with the master’s favor and receive more responsibility. The slave who did not increase the value of one talent, not even with accrued interest, has the talent taken away. The master gives the one talent to the one with ten talents. I imagine that the master wanted to see what he could do with eleven talents.

Keep watch!

In each of these parables the participants are given a responsibility and an opportunity to show themselves prudent and productive as they keep watch. But some foolishly don’t value what they have been entrusted with (signifying the gospel of the kingdom) and worse. They don’t fear or respect the master or bridegroom.

Did their love grow cold? Their indifferent attitude as to what was at stake for them and the master caught them completely off guard. If they had known the day and hour the master or bridegroom would show up and feigned readiness, how would the master or bridegroom assess who to keep around and who to get rid of and lock out?

No participation trophies were handed out when the master returns. Instead, the worthless are kicked outside, into the darkness. Their weeping and gnashing of teeth will not be acknowledged by the master. They had their day in the sun.

But those who, in the master’s absence, took their responsibility seriously without fail and for as long as it took and those with the sense and wherewithal to keep watch for as long as it took for the bridegroom to appear and those who knew what to do with what the master entrusted them with – these who “stand firm to the end will be saved.”

The main thrust of these parables:  Remain vigilant. Be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you don’t know the day or hour of the master’s return and your labor is not in vain (1 Cor. 15:58).

~~~~~

Do you hear what Jesus said above echoed and amplified in his words, through John the Seer, to the church in Ephesus?

“To the angel of the church in Ephesus write: These are the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands:

“I know your works, your toil and your endurance. I know that you cannot tolerate evildoers; you have tested those who claim to be apostles but are not and have found them to be false.  I also know that you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name and that you have not grown weary.  But I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had at first.  Remember, then, from where you have fallen; repent and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.  Yet this is to your credit: you hate the works of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate.  Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches. To everyone who conquers, I will give permission to eat from the tree of life that is in the paradise of God.

Revelation 2: 1-7

What’s at stake. In the prophetic messages to the seven churches in Asia Minor, when Jesus has something against a church it comes down to the consequences he alluded to in the parables above: if you do not repent and change your ways before the master returns there will be judgement.

Note: This is the same alternative that those of us who bear witness to the truth presents to the world.

~~~~~

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds

 . . . this podcast covers the effects of too much screen time. Dr. Messina talks about this topic with Dr. Harry Gill, a renown psychiatrist who also has a PhD. in neuroscience. They discuss one of the greatest difficulties they see in their child, adolescent and adult patients who contend with way too much screen time, the all-encompassing phenomenon of ceaseless digital interactions that occur on various devices, over an array of social media platforms, and through multi-player online gaming. They contend that because we are bombarded with constant stimulation which causes us to be more distant and isolated from each other, various individual tragedies, addictions, and hollowed-out interpersonal lives are becoming commonplace in our world today. In addition, they talk about the fact that misinformation is spreading at a rapid pace while social structures are breaking down on a global scale. Their hope is to provide information that will help limit screen time for our listener and their family members.

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (1)

Brain Rot: What Screens Are Doing to Our Minds (1) – New Books Network

~~~~~

Victor Davis Hanson: Democrats’ 10-Part Strategy to Stopping Trump (At Any Cost)

Home – VDH’s Blade of Perseus

Filed under apocalypse, Bible, Christianity, Kingdom of God, parables, The Gospel of Matthew Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Sea Change

March 8, 2025 Leave a comment

Primordial disorder is the image presented at the opening of the creation account in Genesis. The earth, formless and empty (tohu wabohu), was completely covered by a deep (tehom) sea.

When God began to create the heavens and the earth, the earth was complete chaos, and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. – Genesis 1: 1-2

Earth’s oceanic outer layer undergoes a sea change when the Spirit of God’s hovers.

Psalm 104: 5-9 describes, in poetic form, the ordering of the watery chaos:

He set the earth on its foundations;
    it can never be moved.
You covered it with the watery depths as with a garment;
    the waters stood above the mountains.
But at your rebuke the waters fled,
    at the sound of your thunder they took to flight;
they flowed over the mountains,
    they went down into the valleys,
    to the place you assigned for them.
You set a boundary they cannot cross;
    never again will they cover the earth.

Reading on in Psalm 104 (v. 10-13) we find function. Channeled water provides the basic necessity for life on earth. Food growth follows.

Chaos Creatures Serve a Function

Once the chaotic waters of the primordial sea had been assigned functions, God, on the fifth day, created sea monsters, figures of menacing chaos (Gen. 1:21). Why bring order and then allow chaos creatures to exist? By God’s wisdom, we live in a world that has order, non-order, and disorder (See video below).

Mythical creatures from pagan myths, function in scripture as symbols of primordial chaos and opposition to God: sea-monsters, serpents, beasts, and dragons. Revelation presents them as fighting against God’s faithful witnesses who are working to restore order and bring God’s kingdom on earth.[i]

Sea Change Number Two

God created (gave functions to) the material cosmos over six days. Genesis 1 is a day-by-day account of establishing order from primordial disorder, establishing anthropic conditions and temple building. God pronounced each step in functional readiness “Good.” On the seventh day, he ‘rested’ in his temple to survey what had been done. The temple garden is a metaphor for the world.

Genesis 2. Mankind is placed in the temple garden and given instructions to maintain the good by God. But mankind goes off in a disordering direction. Evil and chaos ensues. God then acts to undo creation with the flood waters of chaos[ii] and to restore his “good” creation. Noah is the new caretaker.

Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of violence. God saw how corrupt the earth had become, for all the people on earth had corrupted their ways. So, God said to Noah, “I am going to put an end to all people, for the earth is filled with violence because of them. . .

I am going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens, every creature that has the breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish. Genesis 6: 11-13, 17

Sea Change Recalled

One day, Jesus’ disciples wanted Jesus to notice the temple buildings. Jesus then foretold the destruction of the temple. The perplexed and anxious disciples asked “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”

Jesus goes on to speak of the signs of the end of the age. He then speaks about the necessity of watchfulness for, he tells them, no one knows the day or hour when end things will come to pass. To underscore this, he references a familiar story that involved a cataclysmic event that caught many unprepared.

 For as the days of Noah were, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. For as in the days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day Noah entered the ark, and they knew nothing until the flood came and swept them all away, so, too, will be the coming of the Son of Man. – Matthew 24:36-39

History Lesson About the Moral Universe

The apostle Peter, in his second letter, tells his readers that there are scoffers who are saying that things on this earth have always continued the way they are now. He reminds them that this is not true. The earth was different when it was created and it was different again after the flood. He warns them that no one should scoff that God will make it different once again, judging the godless not with water but with fire. (2 Peter 3)

Jesus’ second coming will be a sea change for all of creation. Chaos will be removed.

It is Time for a Sea Change

Peter warned his readers, with reference to the Great Flood, about what can be expected if they continue as they are. John the Seer, alluding to the Great Flood in Revelation, writes that it is time (in his prophetic timeline) “for destroying those who destroy the earth.” – Revelation 11:18

“The ‘destroyers of the earth’ are the powers of evil: the dragon, the beast, and the harlot of Babylon (who in [Rev.] 19:2 is said to have ‘corrupted – or destroyed – the earth with her fornication’). With their violence, oppression, and idolatrous religion they are ruining God’s creation. His faithfulness to his creation requires that he destroy them in order to preserve and deliver it from evil. . .  This he did in the flood, which was a divine judgement aimed at delivering God’s creation from the ruinous violence of its inhabitants.”[iii]

John the Seer wrote Revelation in the context of the tyranny of the Roman Empire, the imperial cult, and a permissive and polytheistic culture. The apostle Paul, in the same setting, writes to a church with a more detailed description of the ruinous inhabitants of the earth and their similar fate:

Do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived! The sexually immoral, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, men who engage in illicit sex, thieves, the greedy, drunkards, revilers, swindlers—none of these will inherit the kingdom of God.  -1 Corinthians 6:9-10

I imagine that the proud, the perverse, the purposefully vague, the self-serving, and those who want to create a new humanity with demonic forces[iv] – any who plunder the created order for power, wealth and self-righteous ends will be met with divine judgement. Some will receive punishment that matches their sin (Rev. 16:8; 18:6; Rev. 22:18-19).

John the Seer prophesied about an end time involving a series of warning judgements to bring about repentance and the ultimate restoring of creation’s order from mankind’s reversion of it to chaos.

Final Sea Change

Scripture begins by telling an old story and ends by retelling the old story with a new and final outcome. Both narratives involve chaos and creation. The lynchpin of the two theological narratives – Genesis 1-11 and Revelation – and of history itself is the earthly, risen, and returning Jesus.

A final sea change occurs to restore creation. John the Seer writes:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. –Rev. 21:1

Creation is not destroyed, just as it wasn’t with the Great Flood. Rather, creation’s corrupting influence is removed. Think in terms of no longer being overcome by evil but the overcoming of evil with good. Think in terms of “if anyone is in the Messiah, there is new creation! Old things have gone, and look – everything has become new!” (2 Cor. 5:17)

“The waters of the primeval abyss, that represent the source of destructive evil, the possibility of the reversion of creation to chaos, are finally no more.”[v]

~~~~~

Lent is a time for a sea change. It’s a time to remove chaos from your life.

This Lent appears to be the first time that corruption, misuse of funds, money laundering, excess, and disorder in the government are being shown the detox door. Hence, the weeping and gnashing of teeth in the MSM. Hence, destroyers of the earth want the chaos to continue as before.

A leviathan in Washington recently surfaced. What emerged was corrupt and destabilizing influence involving actors in the State Department, the Department of Defense, the “deep state”, the unaccountable administrative state, the unchecked CIA meddling in foreign affairs and a politically motivated FBI meddling in internal affairs, activist DOJ and federal judges, shady non-profits, and the propaganda of the MSM to maintain cover for the chaos.

Maelstroms are sucking us in: a proxy war with Russia, Middle East conflicts, a huge federal deficit, out of control spending by Congress, the Green New Deal wealth redistribution scam, and what to do with the over 12 million illegal economic migrants bringing with them neediness, disease and crime.

In the first 50 days of the Trump administration, ICE reported arresting over 14,000 convicted criminals, 9,800 migrants with pending criminal charges, 1,155 suspected gang members, and 44 foreign fugitives.

An additional 8,718 arrests were categorized as “immigration violators.”

ICE has arrested 32,000 violent criminals in Trump’s first 50 days.

And there’s a new beast on the horizon – AI.

AI is being touted as a new pathway to greater productivity (Why do we need that? For greater profits? To be unburdened by what has been?). It is said that disruptive AI will transform the workplace, replace jobs, shake up economies and reshape global alliances. Our world, with Promethean AI, will look different by 2030. AI will look at us differently, too.

~~~~~

Dr. John Walton, Job, Lecture 25, The world in the Book of Job: Order, non-order and disorder

[i] The creation of the “sporty” Leviathan (Ps. 104:26), a creature that cannot be tamed, shows us God’s mastery over powerful creatures. Leviathan was used metaphorically to instruct Job (Job 41). Job (a behemoth-like creature) cannot tame God to his ideas of how the world works.

[ii] Consider that several ancient Near East accounts of a devastating flood were understood as a god using force to restore order in the world. See Genesis 6-9 for the theological interpretation of the mythic flood.

The writer of the Genesis Flood account, using hyperbole, wanted to impress upon the reader the theological implications of a universal “cataclysmic event” that occurred to restore creation. There was no global deluge, as science has determined and Ps 104: 9 indirectly states. No matter. The author wanted the reader to understand the theological significance of God’s act.

See also Genesis and the Flood: Understanding the Biblical Story – Article – BioLogos;

The Lost World of the Flood: Mythology, Theology, and the Deluge Debate

The Flood – Undeceptions

[iii] Bauckham, Richard. (1993/2018). The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge University Press, 1993. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511819858. PP 52

[iv] Yuval Harari, historian and futurist, gay Israeli and WEF advisor comes to mind and so does the N.I.C.E., The National Institute of Coordinated Experiments in That Hideous Strength by C.S. Lewis

[v] Ibid 53

~~~~~

Protect our food supply from the Cure worse Than the Problem

Action Over Talk: Join the Nationwide Protest Against Food Supply mRNA!

This Friday, Americans across the country are coming together to take a stand. Concern is growing as Secretary Rollins moves closer to approving mRNA vaccines for the beef, dairy, and poultry industry to combat diseases like Avian Flu. Many are voicing their opposition, demanding that these vaccines not be used in our food supply.

 Make Your Voice Heard! Flood Secretary Rollins’ email with your concerns:

AgSec@usda.gov

Contact Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins of whitehouse

Here is a structured email template for Secretary @BrookeLRollins:

Subject: Immediate Halt to Meat Supply Vaccination

Dear Secretary Rollins,

As Americans who supported the election of Donald J. Trump, we are deeply concerned about your plan to introduce vaccines into our nation’s meat supply, including pork, cattle, poultry, and even seafood.

We do not merely request a pause—we demand a complete and permanent stop to this effort. The American people will not accept government-mandated intervention in our food supply, especially without full transparency and consent.

If the USDA continues to push forward with testing and implementation of the H5N1 vaccine, we are prepared to take action. Our voices will not be ignored, and we will make it clear to President Trump that millions of Americans oppose this overreach.

We stand firm in our right to protect our food, our health, and our families. This is non-negotiable.

Sincerely,
[Your Name]
[Your State]

With the news that mRNA vaccinated beef, dairy, eggs, and poultry are already in the food supply, some are demanding to know where our Secretary of Health is. You’ll be pleased to know he’s practicing self-care with long walks in the mountains, while currently reposting advice from the CDC. 

https://x.com/SecKennedy

Filed under apocalypse, Christianity, creation, creation care, Culture, Political Commentary, Revelation, Revelation Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Evil’s Last Grasp

February 22, 2025 Leave a comment

“Dog Bites Man.” Not news. Madness – “Man Bites Dog” – is a headline! And so is nauseating “ultra-violence” (a term used in the disturbing A Clockwork Orange, Stanley Kubrick’s film version of Anthony Burgesses’ book).  To wit, a small sample of recent “ultra-violence” revelations in the headlines:

Cops identify NJ woman as mystery straphanger torched to death in horrific NYC subway attack

A homeless woman in the NYC subway was set on fire by an illegal immigrant who fanned the flames and then calmly watched her burn to death from a bench on the platform.

And, A mob attack at Edina Southdale YMCA leaves teen with brain injury

And, Metro-North rider stabbed in chest after complaining about loud music on passenger’s phone

And, NYC postal worker stabbed to death over food.

And, Transgender Teen Charged with Plotting Valentine’s Day School Massacre.

And, with taxpayer money, USAID funded Boko Haram slaughter of Christians in Nigeria – LeoHohmann.com

And, 70 Christians beheaded in church by Muslims.

To keep “ultra-violence” going Biden admin released 11 Yemeni detainees with suspected al Qaeda ties from Guantanamo Bay — including two alleged former bin Laden bodyguards

And, 158 DEMOCRATS VOTED AGAINST DEPORTING SEX OFFENDERS

Day after day headlines reveal man-made horrors beyond our comprehension and of absurdities that become received wisdom. Two more recent headlines:

Warrant executed for ‘child pornography’ at Texas Modern Art Museum’s LGBTQ exhibit… – Revolver News

Fauci approved $240 million for sexual mutilation (transgender) experiments on animals.

Shocking and bizarre evil permeates the moral order of the universe. And it is not ideological ordinariness, as seen by Hannah Arendt in her Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil:

Perhaps our age does not like the idea of evil or does not know what to make of it. And yet if there is one thing that we ought to be able to do, it is to identify true evil—the profundity of evil—when we see it. In our own day, it is put on display for all to see by death-cults like Hamas. – “The profundity of evil,” by Douglas Murray

‘Pure Evil’: Hamas Hands Over Remains of Dead Israeli Mother, Toddler & Infant

Hamas holds public celebration to hand over murdered babies in coffins.

Along with the use of extreme force to hurt or kill people, evil in the form of disorder, lies, chaos, corruption, grift, and utter perversion is in the news.

Here in America, the Progressive Blue Beast, allied with the primeval source of all opposition to God, refuses to give up its hold on its imperial capital. With the aid of the imperial cult propaganda machine – the main stream media – it whines, panders for sympathy and looks for ways to claw back power to continue its rule of tyranny.

It wasn’t long ago when the same propaganda machine told us to “trust (worship) the science.” We were told to pay homage to the idol the Blue Beast had created with masking, social distancing, and vaxxing the COVID mRNA spike protein vaccine into our bloodstream.

(Did you know? Yale Scientists Confirm Covid ‘Vaccines’ Cause VAIDS – Slay News  VAIDS = vaccine-acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. One has to wonder if the COVID vax was used for population control. Was it used to keep the population weak, sick, and controlled? To create complete dependency on Big Pharma’s “science?”)

Remember, the Blue Beast told us to believe in the Russian collusion hoax and in many other lies that came from its mouth.

The last four years of the Biden regime and the eight years of Obama have given us a eye-opening look at the direction and speed with which evil can overtake aspects of our lives. The evil processes of the Blue Beast from those days have become so entrenched that activist federal judges are blocking the eradication of it from government. (Be aware that programs like discriminatory DEI, like all of evil’s deceptive programs, is the moral opposite of (social) justice. See Solzhenitsyn quote below.)

The Blue Beast worships power and itself and tolerates no rivals. Evil in all of it various forms (serpent, dragon, and human) and devices, and throughout time, worships power and itself. Evil tolerates no rivals, and certainly not the Risen and Conquering Christ that the prophecy of Revelation testifies about.

~~~

First century Christians, without newspapers and headlines, saw and heard about violence, oppression, and idolatries in the Roman Empire. Their world, like ours and Job’s, seemed arbitrarily mean, capricious and unfair.

These early Christians knew the enemies of God in terms of satanic forces invested in polytheism, the Roman empire’s tyranny, the imperial cult propaganda and the pressure to submit to it. And, there were those preaching another gospel other than the one they received from the apostles. The power of evil was all around them and they were looking for a divine rescue.

They were also likely aware of gospel accounts of Jesus exorcizing unclean spirits and plundering the strong man’s house (Mk 3:27). For them, awaiting Christ’s imminent return, these accounts prefigured a final victory over evil and the final realization of the kingdom of God on earth. Into that context at the end of the first century, seven struggling churches in a Roman province in Asia received a wake-up call, the letter of Revelation.

The letter begins by addressing issues in each church through a prophetic word. There’s critique of a church’s waywardness, its false teaching, its lethargy and compromises. And there are warnings to get each church on track to be victorious. The letter effectively summons each church to get involved in the divine war against evil and to conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer, conquer (Rev. 2:7; 2:11; 2:17; 2:28; 3:5; 3:12; 3:21).

How they are to conquer and what victory means is described in the rest of the letter. (Hint: conquering in Revelation has nothing to do with how the world conquers. And victory? There’s a promise that comes at the end of the letter referring to what was promised at the beginning of the letter to each church that conquers (Rev. 21:7).

You will want to read the whole of Revelation in one sitting to find out about Evil’s Last Grasp (cf. Gen. 3:15) and whether the three petitions of the Lord’s prayer are fulfilled. Is God’s name hallowed? Does his Kingdom come? Is God’s will done on earth as it is in heaven?

What would be the Final Headline and will you be one of those who were victorious over the beast? (Rev. 15:2)

~~~~~

The Big Reveal

Everyone who does evil hates the light; people like that don’t come to the light, in case their deeds get shown up and reproved. -The Gospel According to John 3:20

2025: The most transparent administration in American history is following the money . . .

The recent incursion of DOGE into the labyrinth of government has made headlines. As DOGE sheds light on what lurks there, deep state denizens are scurrying to use measures to hide their dark ways:

Eruption In “BleachBit,” “Wipe Hard Drive,” “Offshore Bank” Searches In DC Suggest Deep State Panic Mode | ZeroHedge

DC Internet Searches For “Criminal Defense Lawyer” & “RICO Law” Erupt As DOGE Drains Swamp

Martha Bueno on X: “These Senators voted AGAINST cutting the federal budget $1.5 trillion dollars. They say they want accountability but vote against it. Which one is the biggest hypocrite here? https://t.co/E8GhjljHZ2” / X

~~~~~

As in A Clockwork Orange, where a government agency works to rehabilitate the violent criminal Alex with an experimental aversion therapy, the World has had ongoing attempts at manipulating humans with mind control programs. Such are the CIA psyops, MSM propaganda, AI, brain chips, transhumanism, and more.

How Did Communism Get into the Corporations

~~~~~

Podcast:

Andrew Klaven with Megan Basham discuss her book, Shepherds for Sale.

Churches are being infiltrated – Megan Basham with Andrew Klaven

~~~~~

The evil that State media doesn’t report: Democrats illegally allowed into our country over 12,000,000 unvetted (and unvaccinated) aliens. The migrants were brought in for Democrat’s purposes: to consolidate Democrat power with votes and to support Democrat’s billionaire benefactors with low-cost workers. The illegals are to become serfs serving their welfare state lords.

The open borders madness was aided by Progressives in pulpits and by USAID-funded NGOs who participated and became rich (nonprofit Catholic Relief Services received $4.6 billion, cf. Rev. 3:14–22 ) helping the ‘poor little foreigner’ based on some misconstrued scripture.

It is certainly costs nothing to be ‘magnanimous’ and free with other people’s taxed money, property, freedom, safety, and our vulnerable children when sitting in your safe neighborhood virtue signaling the ‘goodness’ of open borders and ‘helping’ the ‘poor little foreigner’ in a social media text or a sermon.

You will hear from the creepy SJ James Martin on ‘X’ that “Caring for migrants and refugees Is not optional.” This kind of debauched out-of-context and Christian-sounding mumbo-jumbo for the ‘other’, directed toward the gullible – SJWs, suburban women, soy boys, and the like – is used by Martin to justify open borders, not just of our country but also for all kinds of sexual perversion in the church. Have you heard of the Lavender Mafia?

U.S. Catholic Church Spends $5 billion on 16,276 Clergy Sex Abuse Allegations in 20 Years

Four in five victims were male and one-fifth of the victims were female, the survey recorded, confirming reports by The Stream and other experts of a “lavender mafia” dominating the Latin-rite Roman Catholic priesthood.

Beware These 3 Lavender Mafias Outside the Church| National Catholic Register

 Myopic, naïve, unwise, illegal, and compromised ‘compassion’ does more harm than good. Self-righteous compassion under the guise of “social justice” has become more important than the greater good.

Of course, if you speak out against open borders you are called “mean”, “racist”, a “xenophobe”, “unscriptural’, and more.

Apparently, ‘compassionately’ aiding and abetting foreigners in breaking U.S. law and thereby importing violence, narco-terrorism, fentanyl deaths, criminal gangs, drugs, felons, pedos, all kinds of disease, and economic migrants who flee their own country for a better ‘opportunity’ is OK as long as you help the “vulnerable” plunder and gut America and disregard the fact that our neighbors are made vulnerable to the above and to the chaos, disorder, disease, and cost that open borders causes.

Democrats have “invited every microbe on the planet onto our soil. And, now we are facing the consequences.”

Deporting Illegals Is A Good First Step, But Unfortunately The Microbes They Brought With Them Will Stay

The Immorality of Illegal Immigration – Victor Davis Hanson

Todd Bensman Discusses the Costs of Illegal Immigration

Interview with Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: The Pope’s Accusations Against the Trump Government are False and Delusional

More plundering of America enabled by the wicked. Activist federal judge is blocking deportation. His wife is “appears to be the former Vice President of National Immigration Forum, a pro-open borders advocacy group.”

“George Soros’s Open Society Foundation is also reportedly the group’s largest donor.”

~~~~~

“To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he’s doing is good, or else that it’s a well-considered act in conformity with natural law. Fortunately, it is in the nature of the human being to seek a justification for his actions…
Ideology—that is what gives the evildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination.”

― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

Filed under 2025 Current Events, apocalypse, Christianity, Culture, Immigration, Political Commentary, Politics, Progressivism, Revelation, Revelation Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Reentry

February 8, 2025 Leave a comment

April 1961. The first human to travel into space returned to Earth after traveling 17,500 mph for 108 minutes. He circled the earth once at a maximum altitude of 203 miles.

About 4.35 miles above the Earth, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin ejected from Vostok 1, a pressurized spherical capsule just two meters wide. He parachuted to the ground.

This first of its kind scientific event made Gagarin a space hero and made for a compelling narrative for the Soviet system to promote socialism and scientific atheism:

“For Soviet Communism, cosmonauts were utopianism made flesh – Socialist Realist heroes come to life – and Socialist Realism and socialist reality were never closer than during the Soviet space age.”[i]

After Joseph Stalin died on March 5, 1953, Soviet leaders during the Khrushchev era (1953-1964) were eager for a return to party purity. Stalin had given up trying to purge religion from Soviet Russia. He had wanted to produce an atheist society. But after seeing that the stubborn religiosity of the masses could not be eradicated, he finally decided to maintain authoritarian control over it. He heavily regulated churches and church leaders to keep them politically impotent.

“Under Khrushchev, then, the party realized that it was not enough to eliminate the political and economic base of religion. In order to transform the Soviet society of the present into the Communist society of the future, religion had to be eradicated not just from Soviet politics and public life but also from Soviet people’s consciousness.”[ii]

Khrushchev’s focus on party purity meant a return to campaigns to eradicate religious “survivals” and the promotion of a scientific materialist conception of the world as outlined by Marx-Leninism. The latter, in the form of secularist rituals, was supposed to fill the void left behind by a life without religion.

Soviet space flights were thought to show the world that the Soviet’s scientific, materialist, and atheistic worldview was superior to that of the religious and capitalist U.S. After all, wasn’t science the only path to knowledge, and matter the fundamental reality? And wasn’t it reason and not God who put a man into space? And a space-hero cosmonaut who didn’t see God in space, well . . .

Before a plenary session of the Central Committee, Russian Premiere Nikita Khrushchev gave all the Party and Komsomol organizations [Young Communists] the mission of promoting anti-religious propaganda. With that directive he said: “Why are you clinging to God? Here Gagarin flew into space and didn’t see God.”

Yuri Gagarin’s close friend and colleague, Colonel Valentin Petrov, denied that Gagarin ever said that. The words put in Gagarin’s mouth by Russian Premiere Nikita Khrushchev and Gagarin’s supposed godlessness became popular folklore and a party narrative created to support atheism. The party knew that people would have believed more in Gagarin’s words than in Khrushchev’s.

“There Is No God.” (Boga net!)

From out of the heavens, Yuri Gagarin, a baptized member of the Russian Orthodox Church, reentered into a world system that set itself up opposed to God. Gagarin was made a caricature of the atheistic propaganda the party wanted to propagate.

Khrushchev: “Why should you clutch at God” (you cannot see when you look out the capsule window into space when you can envision a materialist utopia in the successful figure of our own cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin.)

~~~~~

A view through a window into heaven . . .

At the end of the first century CE, seven churches of Asia received a circular letter sent from the island of Patmos. The author composed the letter “in the spirit” on the Lord’s Day. The letter was to be read out loud in full on the Lord’s Day when Christians met for corporate worship. Their circumstances served as a type of inset in the letter’s cosmic space-time mapping.

The churches were situated in a Roman province in what is now western Turkey. Some twenty years before, the Roman Empire unleashed its full power against a Jewish rebellion resulting in the fall of Jerusalem and the complete destruction of the Second Temple.

Though Christian persecution had been sporadic, the oppressive nature of the Roman Empire made for distressful times for these early Christians. Devotion to and worship of only one Lord and God kept these Christians under suspicion by Roman authorities.

The surrounding Greco-Roman culture was polytheistic. The official state religion, headed by Jupiter, was the Roman pantheon of gods. Temples to Jupiter, Mars, and Venus were built throughout Rome. Being able to add your god or goddess to the local pantheon of gods worked to keep a diversity of religions in check for Pax Romana.

The Roman empire operated under ‘divine’ authority. The emperor, both a political and a deified religious figure, held absolute power. He maintained authority through political alliances, military might and a dutiful citizenry.

Public support for the imperial cult worked to solidify the emperor’s authority. Citizens were expected to show loyalty to the ‘divine’ emperor by participating in religious festivals, rituals, and emperor worship. Neglecting the imperial cult was considered treasonous. 

Throughout the empire Roman power and political influence were on display with monuments, mosaics, iconography, frescos, and image-stamped coins. Adding to perceptions of Rome as a formidable world power was literature, inscriptions, myths, architecture, and elaborate public ceremonials.

All eyes on the emperor.

Roman imperial propaganda was also used to shape the public’s perception of the emperor. His presence, like Rome’s, was to be sensed everywhere – in public places and in the sanctuaries of the imperial cult in provincial towns.

Emperors were depicted as tough warrior and general types and as benevolent paternalistic protector and statesman types. At the time of the Patmos letter Emperor Domitian governed (81 to 96 CE) as divine monarch and benevolent despot. As such, he saw himself as a cultural and moral authority able to guide every aspect of a citizen’s life.

The expectation for everyone under Roman rule was to respond to Rome in its terms and beyond that, to show devotion to the sovereign emperor. Or, feel the force of the empire. Fear was the motivation. “Bread and circus games” were the distractions used to deflect from the fact that Roman emperors were selfish and incompetent tyrants.

The Patmos letter was sent to those who held an expectation of God’s coming universal rule and to those who lost that focus. A clash between an all-powerful Sovereign and his kingdom and the ubiquitous domineering emperor and empire was expected. The letter, with vivid prophetic imagery, did not disappoint.

Every eye will see him.

Christians in the seven churches, upon hearing “Look! He is coming with the clouds, and every eye shall see him, yes, even those who pierced him. All the tribes of the earth shall mourn because of him. Yes! Amen,” looked out the window of their imagination to see Christ and the coming of God’s universal rule.

As the letter was read, they recognized the “satanic trinity” fighting against them and God’s kingdom on earth: “the dragon or serpent (the primeval, supernatural source of all opposition to God), the beast or sea-monster (the imperial power of Rome), and the second beast or earth-monster (the propaganda machine of the imperial cult).”[iii]

And they heard a devastating critique of Roman power dynamics. The letter recognized “the way a dominant culture, with its images and ideals, constructs the world for us, so that we perceive and respond to the world in its terms. Moreover, it unmasks this dominant construction of the world as an ideology of the powerful which serves to maintain their power.”[iv]

They also envisioned their role in saying “No” to the idolatries of Rome (Babylon) and to be a witness of the truth worth dying for to all tribes of the earth. And then the Day of the Lord.

After hearing the letter read, the church community once again reentered into a world system opposed to their Sovereign. But now they had something their imaginations could clutch – a view of God’s throne room and of “what must soon take place” – and a counter-cultural approach for the church.

More about John’s Apocalypse or The Revelation of John in the next post.

[i] Smolkin, Victoria. A Sacred Space Is Never Empty: A History of Soviet Atheism. Princeton University Press, 2018. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt1zgb089. PP 86-87

[ii] Ibid 61

[iii] Bauckham, Richard. (1993/2018). The Theology of the Book of Revelation. Cambridge University Press, 1993. https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511819858. PP 89

[iii] Ibid 159

~~~~~

A counter-cultural approach for the church

In this parable of Jesus, recorded in the gospel of Mark (chap. 4), notice how the kingdom of God grows -not by power, might or militancy:

“This is what God’s kingdom is like. Once upon a time a man sowed seed on the ground. Every night he went to bed; every day he got up; and the seed sprouted and grew without him knowing how it did it. The ground produces crops by itself: first the stalk, then the ear, then the complete corn in the ear. But when the crop is ready, in goes the sickle at once, because harvest has arrived.”

~~~~~

Melanie Hempe, founder of Screen Strong, joins host Scot Bertram of Hillsdale College to discuss how to prevent your children from forming a lifelong screen addiction, simple tips for reducing screen time, and how to answer questions from other parents.

How to Combat Screen Addiction

How to Combat Screen Addiction – Hillsdale College Podcast Network

~~~~~

Filed under apocalypse, Bible, Christianity, Communism, Revelation, Revelation, Scripture Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

Surface Readings

January 25, 2025 Leave a comment

Now is the age of anxiety. ― W H Auden

“THE END IS NEAR.” Phenomena Pending.

Impending doom has been in the news during my entire lifetime. You can view some of the headlines and pronouncements here: Wrong Again: 50 Years of Failed Eco-pocalyptic Predictions.

Before I came on the scene in the early 50s, the advent of nuclear weapons in the 40s posed the threat of nuclear war annihilation. Adding to American’s anxiety and panic during the Cold War period that followed was the new mass medium of 1950s television. Its B&W news, public service announcements, documentaries, and science fiction programming brought into homes the stark magnitude of the nuclear age.

One response during that anxious time was to use ‘Duck and Cover’ drills in schools across the United States. Students were trained as to what they should do in case of an atomic attack – dive under their desks and cover their heads (Producing another Atomic Kid!).

And though in the early 60s the concept of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) was discussed as a mutual deterrent, no one knew what would happen as in 1962 when the Cold War nearly escalated into nuclear war. The United States and the Soviet Union faced off during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The escalating arms race was at issue.

Released in 1965, Barry McGuire’s The Eve Of Destruction protest song addressed the instability in the world – the prospect of nuclear war, the Vietnam War, the middle east conflict and civil rights.

During the late 60s and early 70s, I was involved in the Chicago area Jesus People movement. I remember attending a Larry Norman concert where he sang, I Wish We’d All Been Ready. (Sadly, the song refers to a “Rapture” event, a popular escape plan for Christians based on a mis-reading of scripture.)

Life was filled with guns and war
And everyone got trampled on the floor
I wish we’d all been ready . . .

There’s no time to change your mind
The Son has come and you’ve been left behind . . .

A man and wife asleep in bed
She hears a noise and turns her head
He’s gone
I wish we’d all been ready . . .

Spectacularly wrong environmental and climate predictions were made around the time of the first Earth Day in 1970. Some in 1971 predicted an Ice Age. Not one of the alarmist climate crisis predictions during my lifetime (or yours) have ever come to pass.

Nor did the wild claims of ‘The Adam and Eve Story’, written by a former US Air Force employee, UFO researcher and self-proclaimed psychic Chan Thomas in 1966. For the past 59 years the book has been kept under wraps by the CIA. The claims of the book are based around periodic cataclysmic events in history. The next one he proposed would be a sudden reversal of Earth’s magnetic poles, thereby wreaking havoc and total destruction to the planet in a matter of hours.

“You Never Want a Serious Crisis to Go to Waste.”

Along with the many end-of the world scenarios came Pop eschatology. The end-times prophecy business has been around during my entire lifetime. Not long ago I received a flyer announcing a weekend End-Times Prophecy seminar to be held at a local hotel.

In 1995 a series of books fictionalizing events surrounding a supposed rapture and seven-year tribulation period prior to the second coming of Christ began to appear on best-seller lists. The 16 Left Behind lowbrow thrillers of the Left Behind series, authored by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins, arrived on the scene twenty-five years after another end-times book.

When Hal Lindsey and C. C. Carlson came out with The Late Great Planet Earth in 1970 it sold millions of copies. Their ‘non-fiction’ end-times book was later adapted (1979) into a documentary film narrated by Orson Welles. 

Some readers might recall that Orson Well’s, on October 30, 1938, gave a dramatic War of the Worlds radio broadcast. It scared the heck out of a lot of people. Some say Lindsey’s book did the same.

The Pop eschatology of LGPE, applied to current events such as the Cold War, was released shortly after the Israel’s Six-Day War. The authors aligned their dispensational theology with contemporary geopolitical events to show that civilization was headed for doomsday. They pushed hardcore Zionism.

 Men Who Stare at Charts

The Left Behind series, The Late Great Planet Earth, and much of today’s “prophecy”, are steeped in John Nelson Darby’s dispensational theology and “rapture” nonsense. Darby (1800-1882) was an Anglo-Irish Bible teacher, clergyman, and founder of the Plymouth Brethren and the Exclusive Brethren. Among other things, he thought that Christians should not be involved in politics (as if Jesus ascended to the Father only to leave us here to ponder salvation in different epochs, to develop dispensational theology charts to schedule God’s acts, and to console ourselves with millennial dreams.)

In my estimation, dispensational theology, which didn’t exist in the church history until Darby came along and the Scofield Bible expanded its reach, is a way of charting Scripture into manageable chunks of salvation history and a way of managing God and expectations. This theology proposed to show how God planned for people’s salvation in each historical period by what relates to Israel, what relates to the church, and what the End Times will look like. It was a way to get a handle on dates and times and God.

Dispensational theology and its offshoot Pop eschatology seem to be a science project applied to theology. Darby, the originator of a pre-trib rapture, lived during the 1800s, a period following the Enlightenment when knowledge by way of rationalism and of empiricism was emphasized.

I don’t know that anyone cares about dispensational theology except for a few wonky theologians. If you do, then see The Rise and Fall of Dispensationalism: How the Evangelical Battle Over the End Times Shaped a Nation and What Is Dispensationalism and Who Believes It?

Pop eschatology looks at the geopolitical landscape, cherry picks what is literal and symbolic, and crams headline news into end-time predictions. But “de-coding” symbolic scripture prophecies to give a detailed scenario of end-time events is not Christian eschatology. It’s trying to time the market for the I wish we’d all been ready crowd to jump in. It’s manipulation of scripture and of people to produce a turn to God out of FOMO.

~~~

Added 6-23-2025, in light of the Israel/US attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities:

I have a great deal of sympathy for Christians who still believe the lore that dispensationalism offers. I understand what motivates them and why. But, it is well past time for the church to provide better Bible teaching that does not encourage American Christians to develop misplaced loyalties. American Christians have duties to their nation and their church. But for too many American Christians, misplaced theological convictions have led to political loyalties that prioritize Israel over both the church and their own nation.

https://www.jchasedavis.com/p/rumors-of-war

Questions Abound

This post is not meant to be a reproach to making sense and order of what is happening around us. That’s what we do, especially in a time and under those who “forsake the law and praise the wicked” (Prov. 28:4):

Why did Joe Biden award the wicked Hillary Clinton and George Soros the Presidential Medal of Freedom?

And why did Biden pardon the treasonous General Mark Milley and the murderous Anthony Fauci? Why did Joe Biden preemptively pardon them and the illegal Jan. 6 committee? (I don’t believe these Federal pardons are legal. In any case, states can bring charges against them.)

Why did Joe Biden commute the sentences of 37 of the 40 men on federal death row — a list that includes at least five child killers and several mass murderers? Biden gave the reprieve to some of the nation’s most violent murderers — nine of them found too dangerous to live after butchering fellow inmates — as part of his effort at “ensuring a fair and effective justice system.”

Why did Joe Biden preemptively pardon capitol police officer Michael Byrd, the one who murdered unarmed US Air Force veteran Ashli Babbit on J6?

Why haven’t the “Spies Who Lie” – 51  intelligence agents – who signed a letter in 2020 saying emails from Hunter Biden’s laptop carried “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation in an effort to interfere with the election been brought to justice? (Trump just yanked their security clearances.)

How does one justify Biden protecting Ukraine’s border with billions and billions of US taxpayer dollars and weapons as being more important than protecting our own overrun borders and our exposed citizens? And how does one justify Biden and Ukraine escalating the war with Russia to a point that’s dangerously close to nuclear war?

And what about those (Globalists, WEF, WHO) who appear to use dystopian novels as their guidebook to immanentize the eschaton with their version of sense and order – a New World Order – under the guise of saving the planet (from the people living here)?

And, going forward, why turn over our future to godless pagan Globalists and their anti-human tokenization of life?  Why let them concentrate power in human-replacing AI?

(Thank God. Trump just signed executive orders to get the U.S. out of the WHO and out of the Paris Climate Accord. He also signed an EO barring central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). CBDCs could facilitate a social credit scoring system that controlled a person’s behavior and assets.

Trump also signed EOs to secure the border with a National Emergency and EOs that work to eliminate “government censorship of free speech” and the “weaponization of government” against “political adversaries of the previous administration.” Thank God Christians were involved in politics this last election!

Seeing evil expand its reach over the last four years of the illegitimate Biden regime and finding out that there were Christians who supported four more years of it just to say “No” to Trump, had me horrified at where this world is headed. With Trump as president now we have some buffer against the evil that works to overcome us. The fight against dark forces is not over.)

Alarm bells should go off when you hear dogmatic pronouncements such as “Trump will destroy democracy” and “humanity is unequivocally facing a climate emergency.” These preposterous statements are meant to manipulate. We must be careful as to what and who we put our trust in.

When things converge and become dark, ugly and threatening, imaginations take on visions of the end times. And unless you are a nihilist and believe in Nothing except power, you desire a time when things will be put right. Most of us want justice to prevail in the end and to see all of our best hopes realized.

Despite literal, surface-level interpretations of conditions here on earth leading to end-of the world predictions, false prophecies, doomsday scenarios, worries about near-Earth asteroids, hyperbolic threats of “mass extinction” due to a “climate crisis”, and a “global crisis of unprecedented reach and proportion” (Fauci’s gain-of-function pandemic) The End has not happened during my 70+ years. Why?

“THE END IS IN PROCESS.”

The delay of The End, the delay in Christ’s Parousia or Second Coming, is God’s patience and grace giving people time hear the truth and to repent. How do they hear the truth? Those who have entered God’s kingdom as a result of his first appearance have a role in bearing witness to the nations to bring about God’s universal kingdom before his Second Coming.

Before “God through Christ Jesus judges the secret thoughts of all” (Paul in Rom. 2:16), all nations are to hear the gospel message. God’s desire is that all people hear the truth about His Son and turn to him and away from the worship of false gods and false power. This is what John of Patmos communicates to seven struggling churches in a Roman province in Asia with his apocalyptic prophecy Revelation.

John of Patmos writes to the seven churches, each in their own context, about their witness within the context of the worldwide tyranny of Rome and the broader context of God’s cosmic battle against evil and his purpose for his creation and kingdom.

John makes it clear that witness of the truth proceeds based on the church’s loyalty to God’s kingdom and the church knowing the truth worth dying for and on the church being a faithful witness of that truth even unto death. The truth:  Jesus Christ, the Lamb Who was slain, is One with God and worthy of all worship and praise.

Revelation was written within the setting of the Roman empire. Early Christians were struggling against the “satanic trinity: the dragon or serpent (the primeval, supernatural source of all opposition to God), the beast or sea-monster (the imperial power of Rome), and the second beast or earth-monster (the propaganda machine of the imperial cult).”[i] The worship and witness of only the One True God and not of the Roman emperor put these early Christians in serious opposition to this “satanic trinity.”

Regarding a surface reading of events and of scripture (sometimes called “the plain meaning of the text”), consider the reverse engineering applied to the Genesis creation account to create a ‘Biblical origins’ response to Darwin’s On the Origin of Species and later, for the Scopes Monkey Trial.

Based on research that includes astrophysics, geology, and the James Webb Space Telescope, the universe is estimated to be 13.8 -26.7 billion years old. But reverse engineering of earth’s age using a literal surface reading interpretation of the creation account in Genesis estimates the earth to be about 6-10,000 years old. In terms of Jewish and Chrisitan thinking over millennia, the young earth creationism (YEC) position came about recently.

The YEC position has tied itself to concerns of Biblical inerrancy as if only a plain reading of the text, the lowest level of understanding, is what makes the Bible the Word of God. The fact that the Bible was written for us but not to us, the YEC position doesn’t allow for a historically contextual understanding to be taken into account.

Consider that the same reverse engineering used for the creation account (recently, the attempt to conform physical evidence into a Young-Earth biblical framework) has often been applied to End Time accounts in scripture to conform events to dispensational theology.

The prophecy and theology of Revelation relates not literal dates and geopolitical events but cosmic eventualities and resolutions. Its message for those in Christ is to persevere while living with evil opposition all around and with the tension of the imminence and delay of Christ’s return.

John encourages the churches: the enemies of God are finally defeated to make way for the ushering in of God’s fully realized everlasting kingdom. Heaven and earth will be joined together.

The delay of The End is a concern in heaven. John writes (Rev. 6): When [the Lamb] broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered for the word of God and for the testimony they had given; they cried out with a loud voice, “Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long will it be before you judge and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” 

John’s apocalyptic vision, filled with symbols and with descriptions of mythical characters evoking the book of Daniel, summons our imaginations to visualize things as heaven sees them. John’s prophecy, like the hundreds of OT prophecies he alludes to, is to reveal God’s POV.

 Revelation, you see, is what history has been all about. With that understanding, we carry on “knowing what soon must take place” (Rev. 1:1).

More about Revelation in my next post.

[i] Bauckham, R. (1993/2018). The theology of the Book of Revelation. PP 88-89

~~~~~

The Tribulation and the Rapture – Dr. Walter Martin (Historic Premillennial)

~~~~~

“Can you give me a hand moving these?”

Daily Cartoon: Monday, May 13th | The New Yorker

Reports from Davos before President Trump speaks:

Personhood For Rivers And Trees: Larry Taunton On The Fundamentally Anti-Human Sentiment Of WEF

Noor Bin Ladin Reporting From WEF: The Golden Age Is Incompatible With AI Replacement

Filed under 2024 Current Events, Christianity, end times, Kingdom of God, prophecy, Revelation, Revelation, The Great Reset, The Kingdom of God Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

A Place of Worship

January 12, 2025 Leave a comment

Like all buildings, the building at 133 Adams St., was built for a purpose.

The west-side structure wasn’t a grand soaring Gothic edifice like other churches in Chicago. Rather, it was a simple structure built with minimal resources under the direction of a simple man and his wife: Daan and Linnea De Leeuw. They wanted a blue-collar Bible church for their growing family and the growing community.

The church was built according to the De Leeuw’s plans and the money God provided. Once the corner lot with an existing house was purchased and a permit issued, church members raised the structure as they could only afford to pay the building contractor.

Around a cornerstone with the inscription “1952+”, a concrete block building was erected with a pitched roof and no steeple. Three white stone crosses were set in relief on the brick face of the building. A parking lot was created. The old house on the corner became the parsonage.

The interior of the sanctuary was no nonsense. The concrete block side walls were painted-beige. Three windows with amber bubble glass lined each side wall. Forest green curtains bordered the windows. The walls around the windows were bare except for a small wooden rack near the organ. It held the numbers of the previous service and Sunday school attendance and the offering amount.

Front and center on the platform stood a large wing pulpit. Three large minister chairs were behind it along the choir loft. A piano and an organ flanked the platform. On the back wall above the choir loft was a plaque which read “God is in His Holy Temple. Let All the Earth Keep Silent. Hab. 2:20.”  

To the right of the platform and behind a large rectangular hole in the wall was the baptistry. A landscape was painted on the walls surrounding the water tank.

On the main floor in front of the pulpit was the oak communion table. “This Do In Remembrance of Me” was carved on the front. The table held the offering plates and a flower arrangement – the only element of beauty in the building.

Opposite the platform, sixteen rows of chairs back, was the entrance to the sanctuary. A clock was hung centered above the double door entrance to let the minister know when to end the service.

When the church was dedicated, Daan became its pastor. Thirty families joined the church. Over time there were altars calls, baptisms, weddings, and banquets. Weekly children’s programs were developed. The church membership grew. Two hundred more voices were added to the congregational government.

At one point it was decided that the church could take on more debt and expand. A large wing, at a right angle to the sanctuary, was added. The addition included a gym and kitchen upstairs and classrooms downstairs.

With a growth in membership came an increase in disagreements. Disputes arose about what Biblical texts meant, about how things should be handled, about who should or shouldn’t be a member, and about finances. Church business meetings became so rancorous that Daan and Linnea decided to leave the church, move far away, and abandon the building and its original purpose. With the De Leeuw’s departure, a pastoral search committee was formed to find a replacement.

The search would repeat itself over and over every few years as there was always dissatisfaction and disappointment with each person they brought in. Interim pastors would fill the pulpit more often than a full-time minister. Families, frustrated with the lack of cohesion, stopped coming.

Many began attending other local churches and some moved away. Membership dropped down to just a few of the original builders and attendees. As such, the church was no longer financially sustainable. The building and property were sold to a Jehovah’s Witness congregation which turned it into a Kingdom Hall.

A few years later the JWs sold the church when they moved across town to another building. The new owner was a restaurateur.

After rezoning to change the corner property to commercial use, he converted the gym into a banquet hall. There was a large kitchen adjacent to it. The sanctuary was converted into an entertainment venue. The classrooms became multipurpose rooms. One large room was made into a salon with hairstylists, nail specialists and an electrologist. A Yoga studio was set up in another and the other rooms became storage and stock rooms.

A large sign that said Transitions Banquet Hall & Entertainment Venue was installed in front of the three raised crosses. Garish lighting illuminated the sign and the outside walls. Neighbors were none too pleased about the lights, the traffic and the noise so close to their homes. They had lived by a non-disruptive house of worship and now a disturbing spectacle had taken its place.

Wedding receptions were held in the banquet hall. The room could accommodate two-hundred guests, a DJ and a dance floor. Strobe lights and a disco ball light hung from the ceiling.

In the sanctuary, singers, comedians, and magicians performed. Drinks were served. The concrete block walls, painted red, were covered with photographs of past and present entertainers. Sound speakers hung in the corners of the room.

The banquet hall and entertainment venue operated successfully for seven years, but there was something about it that was always at odds with the neighbor’s conventionalism. Concerned also about the area’s decline, its noise, rising crime, and rising property taxes, and wanting a better quality of life, homeowners fled the area. Boarded up properties, trash, and overgrown weeds began to appear.

It was only a matter of time before Transitions’ customer base eroded away. Wedding bookings dropped off and entertainment acts no longer booked. With the loss of customers and income, the building’s upkeep went into disrepair and service quality dropped off. The owner decided to start up again somewhere else. So, he put the property up for sale. But no offers were forthcoming.

Over a decade the abandoned buildings became covered with graffiti. The cornerstone and crosses, too. The onetime place of worship became an eyesore condemned by the community. At city board meetings neighbors voiced concerns about what was going on in the building and in the former parsonage. People were coming and going day and night. Was the building, once a symbol of hope for those who met there, now a heroin den?

The onetime house of worship would be fondly remembered through pictures on Facebook and good times associated with it. But the deserted and decaying house of worship now stands as a remembrance of the disputes which brought about its demise and abandonment of purpose.

Would a developer come along and renovate and repurpose the existing buildings? Would the developer know the building’s original purpose? Would he, instead, tear it down and build new? Would he keep the cornerstone or discard it for a new milestone?

~~~~~

The Angelus – Jean-Francois Millet 1857-1859

Millet: “The idea for The Angelus came to me because I remembered that my grandmother, hearing the church bell ringing while we were working in the fields, always made us stop work to say the Angelus prayer for the poor departed.

An X-ray of the painting on request of Dali who was impressed greatly by the contrast between the idyllic background and tragic poses of the peasants. It appeared that originally instead of the basket of potatoes Millet had depicted a baby coffin. Thus the couple was burying their child.

The Angelus (painting) – Wikipedia

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Have an Analog New Year

December 29, 2024 Leave a comment

I like my hand crank pencil sharpener. It doesn’t spy on me and report on what I am doing. It doesn’t try to sell me a new pencil when one is sharpened down to the nib. It doesn’t try to hack my pencil and steal it from me. It doesn’t need electric energy, Wi-Fi, a password, and app to use it. I don’t need to buy antivirus software. My analog hand crank pencil sharpener is a simple mechanical device that is noninvasive. I use it to sharpen pencils needed for the highlighting and marginalia of the physical books I read to expand my personal bandwidth.

My ’64 Chevy Impala – the first car I ever owned – had hand-crank analog windows and a Delco AM Push-Button Radio (which I tuned to Chicago’s WLS-AM 890). The Impala had mirrors and no cameras, screens, and distracting bells and whistles. The car was not dependent on a semiconductor chip or software engineering.

The Impala got me from point A to point B without tracking my whereabouts and driving habits with an embedded GPS transmitter and selling that data to a third-party data broker that sold it to my insurance company so they can adjust my rate based on my driving. The Impala didn’t invade my privacy by automatically storing text and call data from my cell phone. The car was not a rolling data territory.

The corded Touch-Tone wall phone hung on the wall of my parent’s kitchen used copper wires. It didn’t pretend to be a computer. It held no apps with choice architecture programming. It wasn’t a branch of cyberspace. The phone didn’t spy on me and data grab me. When the conversation was finished, I hung up the phone and walked away from it. It wasn’t an extension of me. It wasn’t omnipresent.

Back in the ‘50s, our black and white TV used “rabbit ears” to get the best possible reception. Aluminum foil was sometimes placed on the ends of the rabbit ears to enhance reception.

The original television technology used analog signals to transmit video and audio. It wasn’t connected to a cable or Wi-Fi. The programming had commercials but it didn’t ply me with the ads I spent time looking at in the weekly newspaper insert. It was a passive non-spying device.

I listened to 45s and LPs using a turntable. The devices used in the first third of my life have been analog. I was born some twenty years before the end of the analog age (the 1970’s when signals went from waves to digital 1’s and 0’s and the use of transistors in computers).

Having lived with analog technology, I prefer it over the “convenience” of “time-saving” digital devices. My reasons, echoed as concerns in the podcasts below, include not wanting to be spied on and exploited.

I do not want to be data-colonized by devices. I do not want to be an economic zone for more products and services and a mishmash of values. And, I do not want to be a product of That Hideous Strength (C.S. Lewis; the title comes from a poetic allusion to the Tower of Babel).

If you’ve read that story based on themes from Lewis’ lectures, you know about the National Institute for Coordinated Experiments or N.I.C.E. It was run by some masterminds who thought they knew best for everyone, increasing human efficiency to the point of human dissolution.

From The Devils in Our World – Official Site | CSLewis.com we read . . . N. I. C. E.’s . . .goal was “… the scientific reconstruction of the human race in the direction of increased efficiency …” (That Hideous Strength, 258). In The Abolition of Man’s more abstract terms, it was the power of some — the conditioners — over others; it was the conquest of nature and of human nature in particular through eugenics. Ultimately, it meant the abolition of man (63-64). (Emphasis mine.)

I am no fan of the digital technology because I see that the digital technology is no fan of me, a human.

Should human life be appropriated for data collection? Should an imposed alternate reality be tolerated for convenience and to ‘save’ us from boredom? Should we allow the “properties of being” to go the way of all totalitarian systems?

What do you get from your cell phone, your HD TV or the internet? Is it truth, beauty and goodness or is it isolation, loneliness, and nihilism streamed in 0s and 1s? Is it truth, beauty and goodness or is it materialism and modification of behavior?

I agree with Alexander R. Galloway, who considers the terms digital and analog in today’s world in his article Golden Age of Analog | Critical Inquiry: Vol 48, No 2, when he says  . . .

 If anything, the golden age of analog is happening today, all around us, as evidenced by the proliferation of characteristically analog concerns: sensation, materiality, experience, affect, ethics, and aesthetics. 

Analog concerns are human concerns whereas digital concerns are about data collection and modifying consumer’s behavior with choice architecture and ‘nudges” toward a profitable end for the “conditioners.”

I feel more secure and loved with a bookshelf full of classic books than with the bits and bytes of pseudo-reality that AI/ChatGPT promises.

Humans seek their own “profitable” ends via analog concerns. Have an analog New year.

~~~~~

I’ve been asked about my take on AI. There is a lot to consider. Here are a few thoughts:

It is said that individuals who learn to harness AI tools will improve their lives. They say that new AI technologies will save us time, help us live smarter, and become super-productive unlike anything we’ve ever seen before.

They say that AI will have the potential to help out with the boring and tedious stuff in our daily lives. And, that AI will solve complex problems including the fictitious “climate change crisis,” and offer a host of other benefits to mankind including massive amounts of information to make better informed choices. (Did you know that Computers Can’t Do Math?)

The downsides of AI/ChatGPT? There will be censorship of certain information and values leading to disinformation and misinformation – a machine’s type of ‘lying’. AI is capable of false narratives.

AI/ChatGPT has no ethics or morality but there will be bias no doubt favoring DEI, ESG, CRT, political correctness, and the green new scam. We all know the acronym GIGO.

MoneyGPT: AI and the Threat to the Global Economy by Jim Rickards contains the warning

 . . . we must remain vigilant on the question of whose values will be promoted in the age of AI. As Rickards predicts, these systems will fail when we rely on them the most.

MoneyGPT shows that the danger is not that AI will malfunction, but that it will function exactly as intended. The peril is not in the algorithms, but in ourselves. And it’s up to us to intervene with old-fashioned human logic and common sense before it’s too late.

There is the possibility of AI/ChatGPT inventing fantasy or confabulation when there are missing links of data. From Confabulation in Brain Injury: Causes and Treatment:

Confabulation is a memory disorder characterized by the production of fabricated, distorted, or misinterpreted memories about oneself or the world, without the conscious intention to deceive. It’s as if the brain, in its attempt to fill gaps in memory, creates a patchwork of experiences that may or may not have actually occurred. . .

Unlike lying, confabulation occurs without any intent to mislead. The individual genuinely believes in the truth of their statements, no matter how implausible they may seem to others. This can lead to a host of complications in personal relationships, professional settings, and even legal matters.

For all the proposed massive benefits of AI/ChatGPT, there is a real physical cost.

On Oct. 10, 2023 we were told that A.I. Could Soon Need as Much Electricity as an Entire Country:

A peer-reviewed analysis published Tuesday lays out some early estimates. In a middle-ground scenario, by 2027 new A.I. servers sold that year alone could use between 85 to 134 terawatt hours (Twh) annually. That’s similar to what Argentina, the Netherlands and Sweden each use in a year, and is about 0.5 percent of the world’s current electricity use.

A “green energy” grid is not able to handle charging a horde of EVs let alone power the semiconductors needed to store and process your personal data. The only good to come out of this: nuclear reactors will be built to handle base loads.

One of the “masterminds” behind “green energy”- Joe Biden – has created anti-oil and gas policies that “limit pipeline infrastructure and increased production on federal lands.” Natural gas prices have escalated because of this. Americans will suffer.

When temps drop this winter, AI/ChatGPT is not what’s needed. We need cheap and reliable energy.

Multiple Arctic outbreaks to affect more than 250 million in central, eastern US into mid-January

Going forward, I don’t see a need for AI/ChatGPT. Presumed to offer me a better self, I see AI/ChatGPT replacing thought and imagination with prescribed “answers.” We are not to think. We are to AI/ChatGPT.

Did the Greatest Story Ever Told come from AI/ChatGPT?

Will the greatest world ever known come about through AI/ChatGPT? No! That will happen when the New Jerusalem joins heaven and earth and we live in God’s immediate presence.

So, we use digital devices and AI/ChatGPT to save time. But what do we do with our saved time? Do we go back to a screen and throw away saved time? What does it mean to be “more productive”?

Digital technology and AI/ChatGPT seem to share the same ethics as Karl Marx:

“My object in life is to dethrone God and destroy capitalism.” – Karl Marx

“Keep people from their history, and they are easily controlled.” – Karl Marx

Besides the abolition of private property, Karl Marx wanted to destroy five things: the family, individuality, eternal truths, nations, and the past. All of this is possible with AI.

Will AI/CHATGPT become the opium of the masses?

“The best way to control the opposition is to lead them.” — Vladimir Lenin

And the best way to do that today is via a digital medium that includes AI/ChatGPT.

A post-human world, packaged and sold as modern conveniences and life enhancing, is being delivered by digital technology.

~~~~~

Still autonomous after all these years of data colonization? Asking for a friend.

In the present day, Big Tech is extracting resources from us, transferring and centralizing resources from people to companies. These companies are grabbing our most basic natural resources–our data–exploiting our labor and connections, and repackaging our information to control our views, track our movements, record our conversations, and discriminate against us. These companies tell us this is for our own good, to build innovation and develop new technology. But in fact, every time we unthinkingly click “Accept” on a set of Terms and Conditions, we allow our most personal information to be kept indefinitely, repackaged by companies to control and exploit us for their own profit. 

Data grab: the new colonialism

Data grab: the new colonialism of big tech and how to fight back – London School of Economics and Political Science

Data Grab: The New Colonialism of Big Tech and How to Fight Back a book by Nick Couldry and Ulises A. Mejias

~~~~

In October of 2022, I wrote “I’m becoming a neo-Luddite of sorts. I have a particular dislike for digital technology as it modifies the means of relating to ourselves, to those around us and to our world. Its dissociative medium detaches us from reality, thereby affecting identity, memory, perception, and truth.”

“The medium is the message.” -Marshall McLuhan 

With digital medium, have we transitioned from “lineal connections” to “configurations”? (McLuhan, Understanding Media, p. 12)?

For McLuhan, it was the medium itself that shaped and controlled “the scale and form of human association and action”. Taking the movie as an example, he argued that the way this medium played with conceptions of speed and time transformed “the world of sequence and connections into the world of creative configuration and structure.” Therefore, the message of the movie medium is this transition from “lineal connections” to “configurations”

Respond: Marshall McCluhan, Chapter 1: The Medium is the Message | Matthew Marchewka

Does a digital medium deskill users over time? Are “tech bros” looking to deskill more users with AI/ChatGPT and do away with human workers? Are we to become Zeros in a world of 0s and 1s? Welcome to the binary new world.

~~~~

AEI senior fellow Christine Rosen, author of The Extinction of Experience. In the technological age, we too often see basic human activities, from reading and writing, to shopping and conversing, as obstacles to efficiency that must be overcome, simplified, or replaced. And while digital technology has provided many benefits, it has also come with unintended consequences for our habits of mind and social interactions. Rosen argues that we need a “new humanism” that puts the human person front-and-center and encourages people to regularly “touch grass.” 

Keeping it Real – Law & Liberty

~~~~~

Do you know that Congress has passed a law to shut off your car?

 Vehicle monitoring software could soon use ‘kill switch’ under the guise of ‘safety’ – LifeSite (lifesitenews.com)

Do you know about another digital trend that needs to be reversed: Going Cashless.

“It’s Just Not Right”: Major Venues Now Punishing People For Using Cash Vs. Plastic | ZeroHedge

The potential benefits of central bank digital currency or CBDC are being discussed by the “masterminds” of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). We will be told that using CBDC will be more convenient, but for whom?

CBDCs create a “digital trail”, IMF’s handbook notes. Our data – transaction histories and user demographics — could be collected and stored. AND, our CBDC accounts could be restricted or blocked by the powers that be or AI as a form of a social credit system and digitally based conformity.

If instituted, say goodbye to privacy and, perhaps, your balance. Welcome to the Binary New World and the surveillance State.

Please don’t tell me it’s more convenient to use digital.

Gold and silver and even the fiat dollar are analog assets. They can’t be hacked.

~~~~~

“A September report by Mozilla News’ *Privacy Not Included team called modern cars the “worst product category we have ever reviewed for privacy.”

“The team researched 25 car brands and concluded, “Every car brand we looked at collects more personal data than necessary and uses that information for a reason other than to operate your vehicle and manage their relationship with you.

“They can collect super intimate information about you — from your medical information, your genetic information, to your ‘sex life’ (seriously), to how fast you drive, where you drive, and what songs you play in your car — in huge quantities. They then use it to invent more data about you through ‘inferences’ about things like your intelligence, abilities, and interests.”

Your Car Stores Your Text Messages – Law Enforcement Can Retrieve Them Anytime, Following Federally Rejected Lawsuit | The Gateway Pundit | by Stefanie Ladner, The Western Journal

~~~~~

The new law would change the definition of “electronic communications surveillance provider” via an amendment to vastly expand what Goitein describes as “the universe of entities that can be compelled to assist the NSA.”

Tell your representatives to vote NO on massive expansion of domestic surveillance state – U.S. businesses to be forced to serve as NSA spies – NaturalNews.com

~~~~~

For the past few years, parents, researchers, and the news media have paid closer attention to the relationship between teenagers’ phone use and their mental health. Researchers such as Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge have shown that various measures of student well-being began a sharp decline around 2012 throughout the West, just as smartphones and social media emerged as the attentional centerpiece of teenage life. Some have even suggested that smartphone use is so corrosive, it’s systematically reducing student achievement. I hadn’t quite believed that last argument—until now.

Are Phones Making the World’s Students Dumber? – The Atlantic

~~~~~

Invasive Technology – Smart Dust

Is the fog Smart Dust?

~~~~~

‘They hate people’: Bleak tech billboards spark angst in San Francisco

Request a Consumer Disclosure Report

Access your file and learn more about the personal information LexisNexis Risk Solutions maintains about you in accordance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act:

Home – LexisNexis Risk Solutions Consumer Disclosure

Is AI/ChatGPT “extremely dangerous to our democracy?”

Multiple local news stations say the same thing verbatim

Is AI/ChatGPT and Facebook extremely dangerous to our humanity?

Ungar-Sargon: “Of Course Mass Immigration Raises The GDP, It Makes Oligarchs Unbelievably Wealthy.”

Filed under privacy, Technocracy, technology Tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Birding

December 14, 2024 Leave a comment

Thanksgiving morning Toby woke up to noise and smells. He got out of bed and went downstairs in his PJs. The noise and smells were coming from the kitchen. His mother, aunt Susie and grandma Evans were talking and cooking. His seven-year-old sister Tilly was sitting on the counter singing one of her happy songs.

In the family room, Uncle Kevin and his father were sitting at a card table. Grandpa was sitting in the big chair reading a book. Toby went over to the card table.

“Hey Tob,” said Uncle Kevin.

“What are you doing?” Toby asked.

“We’re playing Risk,” replied his father.

“Can I play?” Toby asked.

“I think this game is a bit too hard for you,” his father replied. “We’ll play a different game later.”

Grandpa called Toby to come over and sit on his lap. Five-year old Toby did just that. He wanted to know what grandpa was looking at.

“It’s A Year-Round Guide to Indiana Bird Watching,” grandpa told him.

“Why you reading that grandpa?

 “I like birds, Tobias. Do you?”

“Uh-huh.” Toby rubbed his eyes and lifted the book to see the pictures. “What’s that?’ He pointed to the page.

“That’s a Dark-eyed Junco,” grandpa replied. “It says here that they like to eat seeds, insects and berries.”

“Huh. His name is Junco?”

“Yes. If you were a bird, I’d call you a Blue-eyed Tobias.” Grandpa smiled.

Toby turned the page. “Why do you like birds, grandpa?”

“Birds are special creatures. They seem to be wherever we are, as if God wanted to make sure we notice them. They are free and at the same time totally dependent on God and His created order.

“And there are so many kinds of birds, Tobias.” Grandpa flipped through the pages. “They bring color and sound to our lives. Seeing them and hearing them is proof that nature is healthy. I try to spot a bird by its coloring and by its songs and calls.”

“Birds have songs?”

“They sure do. Male birds sing to attract female birds. They also sing to scare off other birds from their territory and to bond with mates and young’uns. You want to hear a Mourning Dove Song?”

“Yeah.”  

Grandpa took a deep breath, formed his mouth and went “coo-AH-oo coo-coo”. He waited and then again “coo-AH-oo coo-coo.”

“The Mourning Dove keeps repeating this song until a female is attracted. That’s how I met your grandmother.” Toby’s eyes lit up when he saw grandma smile.

“Bird experts can tell the species of a bird by just listening to its song. Each species has its own song.”

“What’s speecheese?”

“A species is a way to name animals that are alike and have babies like them. Let’s see,” he found the page. “It says here that the Dark-eyed Junco is a species of Junco, a group of small, grayish sparrows.”

“It also says that Male Dark-eyed Juncos sing a sweet, high-pitched trill that sounds similar to the songs of the Chipping Sparrow and Pine Warbler. And during the winter, Juncos come to backyard feeders for millet and bird seed. I saw one at my bird feeder this morning.”

Toby looked over at the kitchen. “Let’s see if your mother has something for you to eat.” Grandpa moved Toby to his feet, got up, and the two of them went into the kitchen.

Toby was given a yogurt by his mother. Eating it, he watched Grandpa put his finger into the cranberry sauce, taste it and pucker his lips. Then grandpa put his finger into the mashed sweet potatoes, tasted it and said “Yum!” And then he put his finger into the pumpkin pie mix, tasted it and said “mm-mmm.”

When he reached for the stuffing, Grandma, hands on her hips, said, “Shoo you two. Come back when we’re ready to eat, in about two hours.”

“Let’s go for a walk Toby,” Grandpa said. “Get dressed in warm clothes. We’re going birding.”

A voice in the next room said, “Dad, the weather man said that central Indiana is 30 degrees and cloudy.”

Before Toby left the kitchen his mother said, “Go make your bed first and then put on your corduroy pants and blue sweater and then comb your hair.”

Toby shot upstairs and came back down two minutes later. His mother looked him over and then had grandpa put on his winter coat, his gloves, and the knitted hat that grandma made for him.

Outside, grandpa went over to his car and took out a pair of binoculars. He showed Toby and said “Maybe we will see a cardinal today.”

As they walked down two blocks past houses, they saw no birds. But then Grandpa spotted a Mourning Dove on a roof. He handed Toby the binoculars after adjusting the focus. “Let’s wait here and listen.”

When the dove began its song, Toby was transfixed until the dove flew out of sight.

They walked to the end of the street and came to a T-intersection. On the other side of the crossroad was open farmland. Wind whistled through the field of corn stalk stumps. Grandpa tied the ear flaps of Toby’s knitted hat below his chin.

To their left and down the road about forty yards was a small group of trees and undergrowth. “Let’s head there,” Grandpa told Toby.

As they walked along on the farm side of the road, Toby found a corn cob. Holding the smooth kernelled end, Toby showed grandpa the half-eaten end.

Grandpa looked it over and said, “Probably some squirrel started eating it. Or may be a goose.”

As they neared the trees, grandpa stopped and brought the binoculars to his eyes. He then handed them to Toby. “What do you see in that tree?” Grandpa pointed.

Toby looked and said, “The birds keep moving so I can’t see them.”

“They might be getting ready for winter,” Grandpa replied. They’re probably in a hurry to get out of the wind and get things settled for winter.”

Then Grandpa spotted a falcon perched on top of a utility pole that was about thirty yards down the road. He adjusted the focus of the binoculars and handed them to Toby. “Look up there. Can you see that falcon, Tobias?” He pointed to the electric pole.

Toby looked and said, “That is a falcon?”

Grandpa looked again. “Yes. A falcon known as the American Kestrel. I can tell by dark gray head, the rust-colored back and tail, the white cheeks and throat and blue-black bill. It’s the smallest of falcons. Some call it a “Sparrow Hawk”.”

“They like open areas without dense cover. He’s sitting up there to view the whole area for food. He’s scanning for prey on the ground. He’ll sit and wait. He’ll only attack when he’s sure that he will succeed. When he has prey in sight, he will either catch it on the ground or in flight. 

“In the summer months he’ll hunt and eat dragonflies, cicadas, beetles, grasshoppers, butterflies and moths, scorpions, and spiders. He’ll hover and capture insects in the air.

“In winter weather, like right now, he’ll hunt small mammals like mice, voles, shrews, and bats. And he’ll hunt small birds . . . like that little sparrow that just flew into the field. He pointed to it.

Grandpa let Toby use the binoculars to observe the falcon. “Let’s see what happens,” he said. “I wonder if that falcon noticed that small bird.”

A moment later, the falcon swooped down, grabbed the bird with his claws, and flew back to his high perch.

“Did you see that grandpa?” Toby asked.

“I sure did. He’s going back to his perch to eat it. Take another look.”

“Do birds eat other birds, grandpa?”

“They sure do. Birds of prey, like this falcon, have evolved to catch diverse things like insects, small mammals, and birds.

“I just remembered something. When I was a boy, Tobias, my father took me birding. One day he said “Frankie, there are so many birds but you never see dead birds. He told me that dead birds vanish because predators and scavengers come along and eat them. That’s why most bird bodies disappear. Creatures like foxes, badgers, ants, and birds of prey scavenge dead birds. The value of the bird’s life is returned to nature. Nature, he said, provides food for itself. Live birds and dead birds contribute to the lifecycle of our ecosystem.”

The sun never came out. The icy wind blowing across the open field made Toby’s nose and cheeks red. Grandpa said it was time for them to head back.

When they arrived home and opened the door, they were met with a rush of warm air, laughter, and savory smells. They saw the dining room table was set and the food ready to come out.

“Go wash your hands you two,” mom said. “We are ready to eat.”

When everyone had found their place at the table, mom asked grandpa to pray the blessing.

We give you thanks, most gracious God, for the beauty of
earth and sky and sea; for the richness of mountains, plains,
and rivers; for the songs of birds and the loveliness of flowers.
We praise you for these good gifts, and pray that we may
safeguard them for our posterity. Grant that we may continue
to grow in our grateful enjoyment of your abundant creation.
And now we ask Your blessing on this food we are about to eat. Amen.

A loud “AMEN!” followed.

Toby’s mother then handed Toby’s father a knife and said, “Carve the bird.” Toby gulped when he heard that. He looked over at grandpa.

“Tom turkey has been well fed. Now, he feeds us. Tobias, do you know which bird is at every meal?”

“No.”

“A swallow. Do you know which birds go to church a lot?

“No.”

“Birds of prey. What do you call a mean turkey?”

“I dunno.”

“A jerk-ey. What do you give a sick bird?”

“I dunno.”

“Tweetment! Did you hear about the owl with no friends?

“No.”

“He was owl by himself.”

The adults groaned. Toby wanted more.

After plates were filled and people were busy eating, Uncle Kevin asked Toby to tell everyone what he saw birding with grandpa.

“I saw a falcon. It came down and got a bird and ate it,” Toby exclaimed.

“Ewwwww!” Tilly didn’t like the thought.

Toby forked a piece a turkey, held it up, looked at his sister and said “Now I am a falcon!” and gobbled it down.

©Lena Johnson, Kingdom Venturers, 2024, All Rights Reserved

~~~~~

American Kestrel

American Kestral – Call of the Male

Dark-eyed Junco

Dark-Eyed Junco

Dark-eyed Junco Sounds, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Bird Sounds and Songs of the Dark-eyed Junco | The Old Farmer’s Almanac

Dark-eyed Junco | Audubon Field Guide

Easter Morning Central Indiana Bird Song

Easter Morning Central Indiana Bird Song

~~~~~

American Kestrel – Photo by John Mariani

Vermilion Flycatcher at Cattail Marsh in Beaumont, TX – Photo by John Mariani

Eastern Phoebe at Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge, TX – Photo by John Mariani

American Tree Sparrow, Northwest Ohio – Photo by American_Phoenix

The quirky nature humor of  https://rosemarymosco.com/

Northern Shrike, new cartoon by Rosemary Mosco.

~~~~~

The presence of birds in our lives brings good health. Indeed research shows that the richer and more various the birds in a neighborhood, the higher people’s satisfaction with life. Birdsong is the natural sound linked most strongly to reducing stress and promoting restoration, particularly when it is more diverse and people are prompted to notice it. Birds bring joy.

Five curious health benefits of dark midwinter, according to science | The Independent

~~~~~

Imagination sees a parallel universe.

Filed under Christianity, Holiday, nature, Ornithology, short piece, Short Story, Thanksgiving, Writing Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

What’s Your Relationship with Wisdom?

November 27, 2024 Leave a comment

Imagine. You are the half-brother of a new baby brother. The little guy seems to be prized above all else. Certainly, there was a big fuss about his birth. Field workers showed up just to see him. They talked of angels appearing.

A couple years later, sages come from a long way away. They talk of being guided by a star to find a newborn king. They give your half-brother expensive gifts.

Then your father has a dream. He says that authorities want to kill your brother. Your father and step-mother suddenly take your brother and flee to another country. You and your brothers and sisters stay with relatives in Bethlehem. When they return with the boy, your family moves to Nazareth in Galilee. There are too many eyes on Bethlehem, your father says.

You can’t forget the time your family went to up Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. Afterward, walking for a day toward home, your step-mother finds out that your half-brother is not around. When asked about his whereabouts, you said “How should I know where he is? Am I his baby sitter?”

Your family walks back to Jerusalem to look for him. Your father and mother ask folks along the way if they’ve seen your brother. It turns out, after three days of looking for that guy, that you find him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. He’s got their attention! The nerve of your twelve-year kid brother!

Your step-mother was panicky. She was not at all happy when we finally found him. She said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

And he says “Why were you searching for me? Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” That sounded like crazy talk.

You, Jacob, and your brothers, Joses, Judah, and Simon and your sisters Salome and Mary are astonished at the attention your father and step-mother and others give to your half-brother. You become jealous and find it easy to look askance at him. You are not alone in these feelings.

When he teaches in your synagogue, people whisper “Where’d he get all this? Where’d he get this wisdom? How does he have that kind of power in his hands?” Everyone was wondering “Who is this guy?” “Isn’t he just a local yokel like the rest of us?” They took offense at him.

He is your brother, so you try to reserve judgement. He does say and do astonishing things but you find it really hard to believe in him. He’s been a mystery since the beginning. You and your three brothers think that if he really is such a big deal he should go show himself to the whole world. The four of you push him to do this. But he goes in a deadly direction.

After your half-brother’s resurrection, you are convinced beyond any doubt that he is the Christ, God’s great mystery. You agree with the apostle Paul that he became to us wisdom from God. And, that everything that we have – right thinking and right living, a clean slate and a fresh start – comes from God by way of Jesus Christ.

~~~

Who is Jacob, in translations called James? He was a half-brother of Jesus and therefore, an eyewitness of his life. He was likely one of the sources for the gospel of Luke along with Peter, Cleopas, Mary, and Joanna. James could vouch for the infancy narrative and childhood of Jesus. The gospel of Luke notes, in the account of the boy Jesus at the temple, that “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.” Both James and Mary would know this.

James is mentioned in the gospel of Mark (6:3) and the gospel of Matthew (13:55). He is in Paul’s list of eyewitnesses who saw the risen Lord (1 Cor. 15: 5-7).

Paul mentions that he received his apostleship in the same tradition as the Jerusalem apostles, including Peter and James (Gal. 1:18). He mentions James first, and then Peter and John, as “pillars” in his allusion to the temple (Gal. 2:9).

After the resurrection, the Jerusalem church became the mother church of the Christian movement under the leadership of The Twelve and James. James is mentioned as head of that church (Acts 12:17; 15:13-21; 21:18-25). (It needs to be said: all first-century Christianity was Jewish. Early Christianity was a distinctive form of Judaism. James writes from the same Jewish heritage and wisdom tradition that Jesus taught from. “Christianity” was not a break from the past.)

Jacob wrote the letter/book of James.

James is considered the Proverbs of the New Testament. Written with knowledge of Jewish wisdom-traditions and Torah, James is simple and direct in his words. He writes wisdom sayings – practical moral instruction. He doesn’t pull any punches.

James instructs us to match faith with good works and to “Show by your good life that your works are done with the gentleness born of wisdom.” And not just any wisdom. We are to choose “wisdom from above” and not the “earthly, unspiritual, devilish” kind. (James 3: 13-18).

It has been suggested that the New Testament book of James “has been heavily influenced by two sources, the first of which is Jesus’ teaching about life in the Kingdom of God, especially the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5-7).“ See “hearers and doers” example in Matthew 7: 24-27 and James 1:22-25.

“The second key influence is the biblical wisdom book of Proverbs, especially the poems in Proverbs 1-9.” See Proverbs 1-9  and James 1:5 regarding the importance of acquiring wisdom.

Reading James, I see the parallels and influence of Proverbs and the Sermon on the Mount. I also read James in terms of another selection of wisdom literature: the Book of Job. Therein, hardships and trials require a new perspective. The letter of James, written to the Jewish Christians throughout the Diaspora, speaks of the need for wisdom and Job-like perseverance in a world where people struggle and suffer because of what they profess.   

Read James with the Book of Job in mind:

My brothers and sisters, whenever you face various trials, consider it all joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance. And let endurance complete its work, so that you may be complete and whole, lacking in nothing.

And . . .

Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. No one, when tempted, should say, “I am being tempted by God,” for God cannot be tempted by evil and he himself tempts no one. But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it; then, when desire has conceived, it engenders sin, and sin, when it is fully grown, gives birth to death. (James. 1: 12-15)

And . . .

Indeed, we call blessed those who showed endurance. You have heard of the endurance of Job, and you have seen the outcome that the Lord brought about, for the Lord is compassionate and merciful. (James. 5:11)

The Book of Job tell us where not to look for wisdom.  Job 28: 12-15 says that we won’t find wisdom and understanding in the human realm:

“But where shall wisdom be found?

And where is the place of understanding?

Mortals do not know the way to it,

and it is not found in the land of the living.

The deep says, ‘It is not in me,’

and the sea says, ‘It is not with me.’

It cannot be gotten for gold,

and silver cannot be weighed out as its price.”

James tells us where to look for wisdom:

 If any of you is lacking in wisdom, ask God, who gives to all generously and ungrudgingly, and it will be given you. But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For the doubter, being double-minded and unstable in every way, must not expect to receive anything from the Lord. (James. 1: 5-8)

~~~

The Lord by wisdom founded the earth;
    by understanding he established the heavens;
by his knowledge the deeps broke open,
    and the clouds drop down the dew.

Prov. 3: 19-20

The Lord created me [Lady Wisdom] at the beginning of his work,
    the first of his acts of long ago.
Ages ago I was set up,
    at the first, before the beginning of the earth. . .

I was beside him, like a master worker,
and I was daily his delight,
    playing before him always,
playing in his inhabited world
    and delighting in the human race.

Prov. 8: 22,30-31; Proverbs 1:20–33 and Proverbs 8:1—9:12

Christians typically start their version of the creation narrative in Genesis 1 and 2. I start with what many scholars consider, based on archaic language, style, themes, and similar works, the oldest book of the Bible, the Book of Job. After hearing the human perspective about the cosmos from Job’s friends, I want the Divine perspective which includes the Wisdom Hymn in Job 28.

God alone knows the way to Wisdom,

he knows the exact place to find it.

He knows where everything is on earth,

he sees everything under heaven.

Job and his friends thought the world worked a certain way. They thought God acted a certain way. But they lacked Divine perspective – wisdom. After all that is said in the human realm, God questions Job from out of a whirlwind:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.”

“Have you ever in your days commanded the morning light?”

“Where does light live, or where does darkness reside?”

“Can you lead out a constellation in its season?”

God reveals to Job and his friends their utter lack of understanding of how the complex cosmos is ordered. He describes intricate wonders of creation (Job 38-41) and challenges Job to even begin to understand His world. It becomes quickly evident that it is not their place to question God’s rectitude or wisdom.

To illustrate further, God instructs Job with the ways of Behemoth and Leviathan (Job 40-41).

Wisdom from God matches us up with the created order and the Creator. Wisdom is working with God’s created order, avoiding disorder and recognizing non-order (John Walton). See Uncharted Understanding | Kingdom Venturers

Having information is not having knowledge. Having information is not having wisdom. Knowledge is knowing what to do with information. Wisdom is understanding, discernment, and character supplied by God and applied with knowledge. Lady Wisdom calls us to good sense, sound judgment, and moral understanding. Wisdom has the capacity to contemplate profounder problems of human life and destiny.

It is the wisdom of the clever to understand where they go,
    but the folly of fools misleads. Prov. 14:8

To get wisdom is to love oneself;
    to keep understanding is to prosper. Prov. 19:8

Buy truth, and do not sell it;
    buy wisdom, instruction, and understanding. Prov. 23:23

James, steeped in Jewish wisdom-traditions, knows that wisdom belongs to the very nature of God himself. He knows that wisdom comes to man only as a divine gift. He writes telling readers to ask for the divine gift of wisdom by faith.

 If you don’t know what you’re doing, pray to the Father. He loves to help. You’ll get his help, and won’t be condescended to when you ask for it. Ask boldly, believingly, without a second thought. People who “worry their prayers” are like wind-whipped waves. Don’t think you’re going to get anything from the Master that way, adrift at sea, keeping all your options open. (James 1:5-8)

The beast Behemoth is not worried:

A raging river does not alarm it;
    it is secure, though the Jordan should surge against its mouth.

-Job 40: 23

~~~~~

Proverbs: Lady Wisdom and Lady Folly

Proverbs: Lady Wisdom & Lady Folly

~~~~~

Foster Care

Ronda Paulson and her husband Corey founded Isaiah 117 House to provide a safe and loving home for children awaiting placement in the foster care system. Isaiah 177 House was featured on Mike’s Facebook show, Returning the Favor. Ronda tells how her appearance on the show affected her mission, her life, and especially her health. 

Podcast – Mike Rowe

Isaiah 117 House

~~~~~

O’Keefe strikes again.

https://x.com/i/status/1861189891985678696

Wisdom (and the restoration of Democracy):

The Trump-Vance transition team announced that Stanford Professor Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, author of “The Great Barrington Declaration,” is his pick to lead the National Institutes of Health. This is a terrific choice; Dr. Bhattacharya is highly respected and was right about the negative effects of lockdowns during the COVID pandemic when so many others were wrong. He didn’t back down despite numerous attempts to silence him. (Emphasis mine.)

(Professor Jay Bhattacharya is ten-thousand times better than former NIH director Dr. Francis Collins!!)

Trump Nominates Professor Who Sounded Alarm on COVID Lockdowns—and Was Censored—to Lead NIH – RedState

What Jay Bhattacharya, Trump’s NIH Pick, Has Said About Anthony Fauci – Newsweek

Restoring order (and Democracy):

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum addressed U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s renewed threats of steep tariffs this week, asserting that migrant caravans are no longer reaching the U.S.-Mexico border.

Migrant Caravans Not Reaching Border, Claudia Sheinbaum Says After Trump Threats – Newsweek

~~~

Doris Lee, Thanksgiving, 1935, Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA.

Filed under Christianity, Proverbs, Proverbs, Scripture, The book of Job, Wisdom, wisdom literature Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Tyranny Priced In?

November 17, 2024 Leave a comment

You likely don’t gauge your economic future with economic charts, indicators, and theories. You don’t watch CNBC or Fox Business programs. You sit down at the kitchen table, go over the monthly bills, and see reality – there are forces at work driving prices up. So, when you heard Kamala Harris talk about “price controls” what did you think?

If on the Left and a Progressive, you might agree with the fiery rhetoric of politicians Kamala Harris, AOC, Liz Warren, et al. pronouncing corporations and grocers as “price gouging greedy bastards” and that they need to be controlled. You would be OK with government intervention.

If on the Right and a conservative, then you would balk at “price controls” talk. You want the government to be hands off knowing that when government gets involved a great imbalance is thrown into the market. You understand that politicians do not know how to solve inflation. They just create more problems with their fixes’, including price fixing and price freezing.

Sometimes it seems as if there are more solutions than problems. On closer scrutiny, it turns out that many of today’s problems are a result of yesterday’s solutions. – Thomas Sowell

It’s bad enough (terrible, really) that the U.S. Treasury and the Fed mess with the economy, making the rich richer, the rest of us poorer, and throwing our future up in the air with their ‘adjustments’.

Remember the 2007-2008 financial crisis. The Fed created the real estate bubble. By lowering interest rates to record lows it drove a huge increase in home prices as many jumped on board the balloon ride.

The home lending market “financialized” high-risk subprime mortgages to low-income homebuyers. Wall Street firms became heavily involved in collateral debt obligations (CDOs) and mortgage-backed securities (MBSs).

The housing boom in the early to mid-2000s became extremely unstable as interest rates increased on ARMs and housing prices began to fall. Many subprime borrowers began to default on their payments. As a result, financial institutions worldwide suffered severe damage. There was an international banking crisis. On September 15, 2008 the Wall Street brokerage firm Lehman Brothers sought Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

The subprime mortgage crisis devastated financial markets and contributed to the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. Read or see The Big Short for a sense of that economic disaster.

It’s not just the economic czars of the U.S. Treasury and Fed that screw things up. Congress not long ago passed spending bills with the Orwellian names “Cares Act” and “Inflation Reduction Act.” Both Acts have added to a massive deficit that is financed by the Fed’s creation of new money which increases the money supply and ergo inflation, the “price gouging” culprit that “price controls” would only exacerbate because nothing happens in isolation.

We don’t have inflation because the people are living too well. We have inflation because the government is living too well. -Ronald Reagan, during the 1980 presidential debate with Jimmy Carter.

Talk of “price controls” is nothing more than government avoiding accountability for its lack of spending control and its disruptive fiscal policies. And when you don’t understand that the seemingly complex and multitudinous causes of inflation boil down to too much money chasing too few goods and you are insulated from consequences, you continue the “price controls” rhetoric. You go on picking winners and losers.

Even if the government spends itself into bankruptcy and the economy still does not recover, Keynesians can always say that it would have worked if only the government had spent more. – Thomas Sowell

I raise the “price controls” issue as a way to raise awareness as to how our lives, our monthly bills, are influenced by outside forces and to address an ominous scenario on the horizon: a dictated, regimented, and authoritarian economy is in the works to “price control” us into place.

Wherever you are on the spectrum of “price controls” – hearing what you want to hear or hearing alarm bells – be aware that The Great Reset’s Globalist policies are a monolithic version of Kamala’s “price controls.” They encompass not just how businesses do business (who to employ, for how much, social and environmental impact, etc.) but what is to be valued – by everyone.

Simply put, our ‘betters’ will determine who does what and why. They will “price control” our lives with their values. That Kamala mentioned “price controls” shows that she was signaling Big Brother intimidation – pressure on specific industries against specific price increases. This same bullying will be exponentially greater under The Great Reset globalist ‘economy’.

Under The Great Reset, we will be made to swallow an alphabet soup of “price control” values and the institutions producing them, including DEI, CRT, ESG, LGBTQ by the UN, WEF, and WHO.

We will be told to value safetyism and therefore to prioritize world health at all costs to our individual liberty, national sovereignty, common sense, and actual science. We will be made to value One Health.

Who can forget the COVID madness? Lockdowns, closed schools and churches, forced vaccines, families separated, businesses destroyed. All the COVID mandates were price controls. Government mandated value.

The World Health Organization is scrambling to push a “Pandemic Agreement (Treaty)” – a global health control agenda that will override U.S. sovereignty. The WHO wants unprecedented power to declare “health emergencies” whenever they choose. And that could mean forced vaccines, lockdowns, and sweeping mandates—all justified under the guise of a so-called “emergency” of whatever nature.

The WHO Pandemic Treaty would give these Global Elites the power to:

-Globally authorize untested vaccines and pandemic products, pressuring governments to purchase and enforce their use on you, your family, and your friends.

-Dictate when and where you can travel, what you can eat, whether you can gather for worship, and even what you’re allowed to say online.

-Strip away your country’s ability to decide how to respond to future health crises, putting these decisions into the hands of WHO bureaucrats who do not represent you.

Again, if you are on the Left, recent history shows that you were OK with Big Brother forcing people to wear masks, social distance, and be vaccinated. And, if people didn’t obey, you were OK with people losing their jobs, businesses being fined and shuttered, and the COVID-positive being sent off to quarantine camps.

People were to be isolated, given only food and some cleaning supplies. They would be banned from participating in any religious services. The plan included contingencies for preventing suicide. There were no provisions made for any legal appeals or even the right to legal counsel. 

The CDC Planned Quarantine Camps Nationwide ⋆ Brownstone Institute

Interim Operational Considerations for Implementing the Shielding Approach to Prevent COVID-19 Infections in Humanitarian Settings | CDC

If you are on the Left, you believe in forced degrowth because of a “climate crisis.” You follow “the science” wherever it goes. You believe in censorship, and everything else that “price controls” people. A Karen on the Left ‘price controlled’ the life of Peanut the squirrel.

If you are on the Left, you are OK with the Globalist agenda of the UN, WEF, and the WHO. You are OK with tyranny being priced in to all you do.

If you are not on the Left and are an independent critical thinker and have expanded your personal bandwidth to include history, you are aware that there are those who, in the bubble of their superior intellectual, moral and humanitarian enlightenment, see themselves in a superior position to make choices for you and me. If they can elevate choices to an existential level (pandemic, climate, etc.) then they believe they have a right to do so. Tyranny will be priced in.

Will the Fed convert the U.S. Dollar to Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC)? If so, it would be only a matter of time before CBDCs are linked to a global database controlled by the UN, IMF, the WHO, or God forbid, the WEF.

I write this to warn Christians about what is ahead. Stop looking for Signs of the End Times in the Mideast. Forget the “Rapture” and “Left Behind” fantasies. Get prepared for the onslaught of “price controls.” Christians will be put under immense pressure to conform to the imposed values. Know what you will do when that happens. And get prepared for the Lord’s return. “Stay alert. You have no idea when the Lord might arrive. (Matt. 25: 1-13)

~~~~~

Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated. – Thomas Sowell

If politicians stopped meddling with things they don’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates. – Thomas Sowell

No government of the left has done as much for the poor as capitalism has. Even when it comes to the redistribution of income, the left talks the talk but the free market walks the walk. What do the poor most need? They need to stop being poor. And how can that be done, on a mass scale, except by an economy that creates vastly more wealth? Yet the political left has long had a remarkable lack of interest in how wealth is created. As far as they are concerned, wealth exists somehow and the only interesting question is how to redistribute it. – Thomas Sowell

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive. – Thomas Sowell

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. – Thomas Sowell

~~~~~

American Citizenship and Its Decline: The Global Elite

On this episode of The Hillsdale College Online Courses Podcast, Jeremiah and Juan discuss how much the COVID Pandemic changed their understanding of government overreach before introducing Dr. Victor Davis Hanson.

Citizenship is rare in human history but essential to free government. Today, the constitutional rule of citizens in America is threatened by a new form of government, unaccountable to the people, in which power is held by a ruling class that seeks to transform our society. In this eight-lecture course, students will examine the origins and history of citizenship in the West and the grave challenges American citizenship faces today.

There is a growing movement to surrender American sovereignty to international bodies. This effort—championed by a global elite—excludes the participation of the American people and threatens our national security.

Topics include the globalists, the Great Reset, the WHO and WEF

American Citizenship and Its Decline: The Global Elite

Hillsdale College: American Citizenship and Its Decline: The Global Elite

~~~~~

The Dangers of Price ControlsDownload

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Trump picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. Hopefully he can get rid of the “price control” lobbyists who have shilled their unhealthy junk to Congress and the American people. MAHA.

Trump pick is Al Gore’s worst nightmare.

Filed under 2024 Current Events, Economics, Globalism, Political Commentary, Politics, social engineering, The Great Reset, totalitarianism Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

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