The Way We Live and Die Now

May 7, 2023 Leave a comment

“According to the report “Martyred Christians in Nigeria” issued by Intersociety, over the past 14 years at least 52,250 Nigerian Christians have been brutally murdered at the hands of Islamist militants.’

Over 50,000 Christians killed in Nigeria by Islamist extremists – Vatican News

5,068 Citizens Massacred For Being Christians In Nigeria In 2022, 1,041 Slaughtered In First 100 Days Of 2023 – InterSociety (intersociety-ng.org)

“The attackers targeted the St Francis Xavier Catholic Church in the town of Owo as the worshippers gathered on Pentecost Sunday, according to local officials. They gunned down parishioners and detonated an explosive device, local media reported.”

Nigeria: gunmen kill dozens in ‘satanic’ attack on Catholic church | Nigeria | The Guardian

The world hates and crushes those not in conformity to its prescribed world-order manifestations.

A prescribed world-order? Above, Islamic extremism carried out genocidal attacks. Here’s another example from the last century:

“Although the Bolsheviks called for the abolition of private property, their real goal was spiritual: to translate Marxist- Leninist ideology into reality. For the first time, a state was created that was based explicitly on atheism and claimed infallibility. . . In countries where communism came to hold sway, it hollowed out society’s moral core, degrading the individual and turning him into a cog in the machinery of the state. Communists committed murder on such a scale as to all but eliminate the value of life and to destroy the individual conscience in survivors.”

100 Years of Communism—and 100 Million Dead | Hudson

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn chronicled the dehumanizing and destructive force of a prescribed world-order – Marxist-Leninist Stalinism – with its relentless steamroller of conformity.

The same crusade to exact conformity to the prescribed world-order is present today. We see this in calls for “Diversity”, conformity in drag. “Diversity” is one of the ruses used to sort out those who conform from those who do not conform to the prescribed world-order.

COVID mandates – lockdowns, masks, social distancing, vaccines, etc. – were all done by edicts to bring about conformity to a prescribed world-order. Turning over America’s sovereignty to the World Health Organization (WHO) is meant to enforce conformity to a prescribed world order.

A system of spying on people is meant to enforce conformity to a prescribed world order.

New WHO Pandemic Initiative Uses ‘Listening Surveillance Systems’ To Identify ‘Misinformation & Rumors.’ – Stephen K Bannon’s War Room

A digital currency is meant to enforce conformity to a prescribed world order.

Digital Dollar: When You Don’t Own Money – In The Tank #395 – The Heartland Institute

Steamroller conformity measures – executive orders, regulations, etc. – are now being rolled out for the “climate crisis”. Any who do not conform will be dealt with one way or another.

The same spirit of the world, with its drive to conformity, existed in the first century.

In the gospel according to Mark, we read that religious and political authorities did not like what was Jesus was saying and doing. Jesus had posed a question to a sabbath synagogue group, which by their non-answer, exposed their hard-heartedness. In spite of their conformity-based silence (who would dare speak out with religious authorities in the room?), Jesus went on to heal a man with a withered hand on the sabbath. Offense was taken, for Jesus didn’t conform to the pre-scribed world-order. He didn’t play by the rules.

“The Pharisees [religious authorities] went out right away and began to plot with the Herodians [political authorities] against Jesus, trying to find a way to destroy him “(Mk. 3:6).

Bearing faithful witness, as the early Christians did when they accurately reported what they had seen and heard of Jesus including what they witnessed during his post-resurrection appearances, is a costly commitment of life as it stands up against the prescribed world-order. Some called the witness subversive and divisive. Others alluded to it as misinformation. What the early Christians testified to did not conform to the pre-scribed world-order and so they had to be put down. Many such witnesses proved the fortitude of their faith in Christ by undergoing a violent death.

“. . . all fortitude has reference to death. All fortitude stands in the presence of death. Fortitude is basically readiness to die or, more accurately, readiness to fall, to die, in battle. . . “man must be ready to let himself be killed rather than to deny Christ or to sin grievously.” Readiness to die is therefore one of the foundations of the Christian life.””

Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues (University of Notre Dame Press, 1966) 117, 118

“Just like the early church, we are being persecuted. When I became bishop years ago, I inherited a persecuted church. I had no intention then to let the church lose steam, and I don’t want that happening now. We must not be afraid or lose confidence, but plow ahead with mission in the midst of persecution. Courage only comes from God. Outside of Jesus, your own courage will fail you. When you see the gospel at work saving lives, you count your suffering for nothing.”

Benjamin Kwashi, Archbishop of the Province of Jos, Nigeria

(From the Greek word martus (a witness) comes the English derivation “martyr”.)

“If the world hates you,” Jesus went on,” know that it hated me before it hated you. If you were from the world, the world would be fond of its own. But the world hates you for this reason: that you’re not from this world. No: I chose you out of this world.”

Jesus, in the gospel according to John 15: 18-19

This world hates and crushes those not in conformity to its prescribed world-order manifestations. It hates any exposure of its diabolical machinations working to conform people to the ruler of this world. And that is what the Christian life does – exposes world-order lies.

One testifies that one is not loyal to the prescribed world-order as one embodies new creation-ordered reality – Christ in you – and lives that reality out in the home, in the church, and in the community of creation. As spirit-filled Christians we live in the new creation-ordered world. And that puts us in opposition to any conformity to a spirit-voided prescribed world-order.

Some will mock and jeer those not conformed to their prescribed world-order. Others, as history has shown, may gun down those who do not conform (Listen to homily below). For, unlike Christians who take new creation life from the True Vine (Jn. 15), those of the world-order take their life from the fallen, dried up, and withered branch of ideology. For them, adhering to the ideological life is everything. And so, their scripture might read . . .

“Do not be shaped by new creation-order but be fundamentally transformed by the renewing of your mind with prescribed conformity. Then you and others will be able to disapprove of and resist God’s authority and accept the authority of the world-order.”

Antichrist’s Letter to the church in Media 12:2

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“If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over. If one part of our body is honored, the whole body will be happy.” -1 COR. 12:26

The Crisis of Christian Persecution in NigeriaDownload

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Mass for Persecuted Christians

Music: Paul Jernberg

Theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven – YouTube

Homilist: Fr. Benedict Kiely (founding director of Nasarean.org)

0:33 – Introit: Look to Your Covenant, O Lord

4:38 – Confiteor / I confess to Almighty God

5:54 – Kyrie / Lord, have mercy

6:37 – Gloria / Glory to God in the Highest

9:39 – Responsorial Psalm: Let the Nations Know

12:45 – Alleluia (traditional Melkite)

14:09 – Homily

31:32 – Universal Prayer / Great Litany (Roman Hurko)

35:15 – Offertory antiphon: You Will Save the Humble People, O Lord

39:51 – Sanctus / Holy, Holy, Holy

41:31 – Pater Noster / Our Father

43:22 – Agnus Dei / Lamb of God

44:32 – Communion antiphon: That Which I Tell You in the Dark

48:15 – The Beatitudes

52:10 – Marian Hymn: We Fly Unto Your Heart of Compassion

53:38 – Closing Hymn: Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven

Nasarean.org | Aid & Advocacy for Persecuted Christians in the Middle East

The Voice of the Martyrs (persecution.com)

VOM Radio – LAOS PASTOR: “God is Real and He Healed Me”

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Josiah Lippincott, a Hillsdale college alum and former page for Devin Nunes, has an essay at American Greatness: Conservatives Lost the Culture War and the Trump Agenda Is the Only Path Forward. Here are a few excerpts:

“COVID-19 made the weakness of American Christianity painfully clear. Protestant and Catholic churches alike overwhelmingly declared themselves nonessential during the spring of 2020. That was, sadly, merely an acknowledgement of a longstanding reality. . .

The vague admonitions to “have faith” and “follow Christ” that pepper the Sunday morning pastoral exhortations from America’s pulpits generally lack any practical core. America’s pastors, with few exceptions, shy away from fighting for the faith they supposedly love. They lack the sternness and fidelity of their forebears. Compare a St. Augustine to a Pope Francis or a Martin Luther to a David French. Our Christian forebears had iron in their souls. The modern pastor is generally soft. . .

America is awash in men’s groups, Bible studies, discipleship training, women’s seminars, and worship conferences. Yet divorce is through the roof, abortion is common, and homosexuality lauded from the very centers of American financial and political power. Whatever utility all this frenetic religious activity has had for the private faith lives of ordinary Americans, it is abundantly clear it has not had any real benefit for the moral and spiritual health of the nation as a whole.”

Josiah makes the point that “Political power doesn’t flow from scoring debate points in the “free marketplace of ideas.” It comes from the willingness to impose one’s beliefs on others and possessing the resources to do so. 

All morality requires enforcement.”

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Subversive podcast with Josiah Lippincott

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Informed Dissent:

“A new pandemic prevention initiative by the World Health Organization will rely on “social listening surveillance systems” to identify “rumors and misinformation,” War Room can reveal.

The initiative – Preparedness and Resilience for Emerging Threats (PRET) – seeks to “guide countries in pandemic planning” while “incorporat[ing] the latest tools and approaches for shared learning and collective action established during the COVID-19 pandemic.””

“Module one of the initiative’s blueprint describes how the spread of content deemed “misinformation” amounts to a new “health threat” called “infodemics.”’

New WHO Pandemic Initiative Uses ‘Listening Surveillance Systems’ To Identify ‘Misinformation & Rumors.’ – Stephen K Bannon’s War Room

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Live from the Darian Gap: Chinese Communists Plan to Take Over the United States Exposed (banned.video)

‘Net Zero is taking the world’s population backwards’ | Neil Oliver issues grave Ulez warning – YouTube

Filed under 2023 current events, Christianity, Persecution, Political Commentary Tagged with , , , , ,

The Land Shall Mourn

April 23, 2023 Leave a comment

“There is no God and we are his prophets.”
― spoken by Ely, an old man the father and son meet on the road in Cormac McCarthy’s The Road

In the process of removing God from this world will we abuse our ecosystem to the point of environmental catastrophe? It would appear so in Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road.

The Road Protagonists: A father and his son. They walk alone through a scorched America. These two and a few other hungry souls are the only things moving in the ravaged landscape save for the ash in the wind. Stones crack in the cold created by sunlight-blocking ash. Snow is gray.

The Road Antagonist: The world and everyone living in it.

“It is implied throughout The Road that the apocalypse that has shrouded the bleakest of all landscapes was brought about by us, by humanity. That we authored this environmental catastrophe through thoughtless pillaging of resources laid before us. We upset the balance of our ecosystem. And that by extension, we have removed God from this world.”

Christopher C. King. “God’s Silence, Humanity’s Deafness: On Cormac McCarthy’s Two New Novels.” Oxford American, Spring 2023, p.102

Do we prophecy of our own destruction and the extinction of the planet when we say there is no God?

Does playing God with science mean the world will be saved? Would creating a ‘perfect race’ through AI and genetic manipulation save the world? That doesn’t appear to be the case in the deep-space terror movie Alien Covenant unless you think a perfect creation is a face-hugging parasitoid. 

Peter Weyland, founder and owner of Weyland Corporation, creates an android. The android chooses the name “David” for himself after observing Michelangelo’s statue.

To find the fountain of youth, Weyland finances a voyage into deep space (Prometheus to LV-223) to search for mankind’s creator. In the process we learn that androids, like the humans that programmed them, can become narcissistic, unhinged and murderous (the most efficient means to a selfish end).

“[Michael] Fassbender plays both the kindly android Walter and his twisted, civilization-ending “brother” David. David can create (and uses that talent to engineer alien life), while Walter cannot — an intentional limitation in his programming. But in a moving and seductive scene that’s been described as possibly homoerotic, David teaches Walter the flute, declaring “you have symphonies in you, brother!” Later, the pair share a kiss, with David telling Walter no one will ever love like he does — before attempting to kill him.”

Couch, Aaron. “’Alien: Covenant’ Screenwriter on the Michael Fassbender Scene That ‘Easily Could Have Gone Wrong.’” The Hollywood Reporter, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Apr. 2023

Long story cut way short: android David does away with the kindly Walter android and becomes pseudo-Walter. He boards the colonization ship Covenant as Walter. He does this to continue his face-hugging parasitoid creation project, begun on LV-223, on Origae-6. David freezes his regurgitated face-hugger embryos, tucks in the last of the crew’s survivors and heads to the helm. On his way, David requests Richard Wagner, Das Rheingold, Act Two, The Entry of the Gods into Valhalla. David, with an inflated sense of self from having dealt with everything that would stop him, views himself as a God-level creator.

There are those around us with a similar God-complex. They are easy to spot in history and they are easy to spot in everyday life. They walk around with an attitude of extreme entitlement and arrogance. They act with grandiosity, bullying, exploitation, gaslighting, and to isolate and destroy their opponents. They build relationships that serve them and refuse to take responsibility for their actions.

Speaking of God complexes and creating face-hugging monsters, the extremely arrogant Anthony Fauci, the former NIH director – the deceptive Francis Collins, and the CCP played God with bio-weapons. And that led to the release of COVID and that led to the wearing of masks.

(Dr. Li-Meng Yan is a courageous whistleblower

Covid is a BIOWEAPON that leaked from Wuhan lab during military ‘Frankenvirus’ tests, claims Chinese whistleblower | The US Sun (the-sun.com)

Chinese whistleblower exposes COVID-19’s origins on ‘Tucker Carlson Today’ | Fox News )

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What do we know this Earth Day? Do we know what mankind is capable of?

If you have lived just 20 years, all you may know are the COVID and “anthropogenic climate crisis!” narratives. Live to seventy and you see mankind longing for and creating weapons of mass destruction and instigating one war after another in a desire to control territories, resources and humans. Live to seventy and you see mankind creating one crisis after another to transfer money and power to the State.

Is mankind creating an environmental catastrophe or is it that the gods of this world are plundering the resources of the earth and humanity with Green Energy policies that in effect transfer money and power to a few whilst doing nothing to affect the climate and drastically affecting to the negative human flourishing?

Is it OK for the gods of this world to create bio-weapon viruses in their conquest of the earth? Is it OK that the gods of this world produce Frankenstein-like creations with gene mutations in their quest to be god-like creators and AI implants to obtain eternal life for the brain? (cf. Alcasan in C.S. Lewis’ The Hideous Strength. His guillotined head becomes the host for, it seems, Satan.)

Would you agree? If man is a godless soulless creature, a mere chemical phenomenon with no moral center, then all kinds of evil and suffering are possible. The scenarios presented in The Road and Alien Covenant indicate that man knows well the outcome of man without God and man as his own god.

If man is made in the image of God, what does that mean?

It means that we look after God’s temple-cosmos creation not as self-appointed gods but as co-workers with God. As such, we do not exploit and ravage the earth or each other but operate with wisdom and love.  These last are not church words that are meaningless in the ‘real’ world.

For us to “Subdue the earth, in the context of the Genesis creation account, means to continue adding form and function to what God has started. For instance, we read in the Genesis account and later in the “Creation Psalm” (104) that God directed “the waters” for the benefit of His creation. Irrigation and water management are examples of humans likewise bringing form and function to creation for the benefit of many.

Psalm 104: 9-13 (Emphasis mine.):

9 You set a boundary that they [the waters] may not pass,
    so that they might not again cover the earth.

10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
    they flow between the hills,
11 giving drink to every wild animal;
    the wild asses quench their thirst.
12 By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation;
    they sing among the branches.
13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
    the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.

Wisdom and love perspective: We are part of God’s creation and yet we are to rule over creation as God rules over creation – with love and care. You may feel that God is an absent landlord, but consider that that our image of God designation confirms that God has assigned us the task to care for the works of His hands with the work of our hands. That we receive the Holy Spirit when we believe and are baptized means that we have communication with God. Wisdom and love are imparted to us so that we may act with wisdom and love in the ‘real’ world. Our eyes are opened to God’s view of the cosmos.

God sees us as one creature among many.

“While I know myself as a creation of God, I am also obligated to realize and remember that everyone else and everything else are also God’s creation.” – Maya Angelou

Science and technology before the late twentieth century had splendidly humanitarian aims, but they also had a dangerously anthropocentric tendency that got us into the way of thinking about nature that has proved so disastrous. By viewing the other creatures as valuable only for our sake, only as resources, we have got to the self-defeating point of wasting, spoiling and exhausting the resources. It just isn’t good enough to see environmental issues as about preserving nature for us to use or enjoy. We need to recover the sense that other creatures have intrinsic value. It’s just good that they exist.

The Community of Creation – a sermon preached at St Edward’s church, Cambridge, 28 April 2012 by Richard Bauckham

Therefore, the land shall mourn. —Hosea 4:3

Creation has been groaning and lamenting the effects of mankind’s evil right up to the present time. In McCarthy’s The Road creation’s redemption never comes. Blame for the devastation, by at least one person, has been passed on to a perception of God’s absence: “There is no God and we are his prophets.”

What does redemption look like? It begins by acknowledging that we live in an interconnected and interdependent world.  When one part of creation suffers, we suffer.  

When we acknowledge that there is a problem that needs to be addressed, we look for ways to address the problem without doing harm to others and the planet. We study the problem without media intervention. We find reliable sources. We don’t make demands. We make positive recommendations and, when possible, take steps to enable ourselves and others to produce a solution.

All of creation – God-imaged men and women and flora and fauna and sea monsters and behemoths and galaxies and planets and weather and insects (not Alien xenomorphs) –is to reflect the “good” form and function given it by the Creator and the loving care God and his co-workers provide. 

Like it or not, all things since the Big Bang have worked together for the glory of God, not the glory of men. We can be in sync with that or with The Road.

Psalm 148

Praise for God’s Universal Glory

1 Praise the Lord!
Praise the Lord from the heavens;
    praise him in the heights!
2 Praise him, all his angels;
    praise him, all his host!

3 Praise him, sun and moon;
    praise him, all you shining stars!
4 Praise him, you highest heavens
    and you waters above the heavens!

5 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for he commanded and they were created.
6 He established them forever and ever;
    he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

7 Praise the Lord from the earth,
    you sea monsters and all deeps,
8 fire and hail, snow and frost,
    stormy wind fulfilling his command!

9 Mountains and all hills,
    fruit trees and all cedars!
10 Wild animals and all cattle,
    creeping things and flying birds!

11 Kings of the earth and all peoples,
    princes and all rulers of the earth!
12 Young men and women alike,
    old and young together!

13 Let them praise the name of the Lord,
    for his name alone is exalted;
    his glory is above earth and heaven.
14 He has raised up a horn for his people,
    praise for all his faithful,
    for the people of Israel who are close to him.
Praise the Lord!

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Challenging Net ZeroDownload

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“Fake and Bake – Earth Day Edition”

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Informed Dissent:

What’s in the Pfizer Documents? | Naomi Wolf – YouTube

Anthony Fauci and the Public Health Establishment | Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. – YouTube

The Deep State’s Last Ditch Efforts To Scare Us – The Tenpenny Report

Study Finds “No Evidence” Face Masks Protect Vulnerable Against COVID – Summit News

Former nurse describes COVID-19 protocols as ‘medical murder’ – Alpha News

The Worst Atrocity in the History of the World has been Confirmed (substack.com)

Face masks may raise risk of stillbirths, testicular issues and cognitive decline, study says | Daily Mail Online

This is a must read >>>>  The Risks of CBDCs | Cato Institute

Central Bank Digital Currencies Are About Control – They Should Be Stopped (forbes.com)

Emmer Introduces Legislation to Prevent Unilateral Fed Control of a U.S. Digital Currency | Press Releases | Congressman Tom Emmer (house.gov)   untitled (house.gov)

Sen. Cruz Introduces Legislation Prohibiting Unilateral Fed Control of a U.S. Digital Currency | Senator Ted Cruz (senate.gov)

Governor Ron DeSantis Announces Legislation to Protect Floridians from a Federally Controlled Central Bank Digital Currency and Surveillance State (flgov.com)

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Joins Ron DeSantis in Railing Against CBDCs – Decrypt

Oklahoma legislators push back against CBDC with cash bill – JDfor2024

“In July, the Fed will officially launch its FedNow Service. According to the press release, this service will “facilitate nationwide reach of instant payment services by financial institutions — regardless of size or geographic location — around the clock, everyday of the year.”

Protect Yourself Against the Fed’s Central Bank Digital Currency (banyanhill.com)

Dr. Robert Redfield: Bird flu will be a greater pandemic than COVID-19 | Just The News

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“At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.” –Flannery O’Connor

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Indiana:

INDIANAPOLIS — A loud boom and bright flash rocked central Indiana on Friday night, and experts believe it was caused by a meteor.

Dr. Brian Murphy, the director of the Holcomb Observatory and Planetarium in Indianapolis, discussed the reports with 13News and said a meteor was the likely source. 

“This sounds like it was a fireball, which is a relatively large object,” he said, like a large rock entering the atmosphere.

Crews and services investigate loud boom near Hamilton County | wthr.com (Video)

Illinois:

Chicago

City told to reinstate employees fired over COVID-19 vaccination requirement – Chicago

TribuneCitizen Free Press on Twitter: “Lori Lightfoot reacts to the violent riots in Chicago this weekend: “It’s wrong to say it’s mayhem.” https://t.co/C3PxSlXWHu” / Twitter

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You must understand, the leading Bolsheviks who took over Russia were not Russians. They hated Russians. They hated Christians. Driven by ethnic hatred they tortured and slaughtered millions of Russians without a shred of human remorse. It cannot be overstated. Bolshevism committed the greatest human slaughter of all time. The fact that most of the world is ignorant and uncaring about this enormous crime is proof that the global media is in the hands of the perpetrators.

-Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

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Filed under 2023 current events, Christianity, creation, creation care, Environment Tagged with , , , , ,

There All Along

April 16, 2023 Leave a comment

“For the first time, people knew with certainty that there was more to the natural world than meets the eye.” [i]

The development of optical devices – telescopes, microscopes, and camera obscuras – enabled the curious in 17th century Europe to see beyond the boundaries of the naked eye. With enhanced vision, natural philosophers and artists were learning to see beyond what one was accustomed to seeing and beyond strongly held beliefs and theories of how things were. Acceptance that the world was very different than it seemed followed.

A patent for the “looker”, an instrument “for seeing things far away as if they were nearby“, was filed by a Dutch master lens grinder and spectacle maker Hans Lippershey in 1608. A backstory goes that children were playing with lenses in his spectacle shop. The kids noticed that a nearby weather vane looked larger when a pair of lenses were stacked. Lippershey’s patent was turned down on the grounds that the device was so simple that anyone could build one. Indeed, three Dutchmen had applied for the patent at the same time.

A year later, Italian natural philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician Galileo adapted his own “looker” to view the heavens. By grinding and polishing lenses and adding aperture stops, he improved the magnification up to about thirty times. With the modified spy glass, Galileo was looking for observational evidence to prove that the earth was going around the sun and not vice versa. He started his observations with the moon and found that it wasn’t a smooth uncorrupted surface as people were led to believe by the Catholic church. The Galilean moon had crater spots and irregular terrain.

“The prevailing astronomical tradition had long taught that the heavens were perfect and unchanging, in contrast to the earth, which seemed in constant upheaval. This claim derived from the simple observation that change was almost never observed in the heavens. Christian theology, inspired by this pagan Greek idea, had interpreted the consistency of the night sky in terms of sin and the fall.”[ii]

Galileo developed the scientific method and in so doing natural philosophy began to change from prevailing tradition accounts to experiment-justified and mathematically explained accounts. His revolutionary telescopic discoveries furthered the acceptance of the Copernican heliocentric system and eventually an unwanted acceptance into the Inquisition process. The crime: seeing what was there all along and not seeing what he was told to see.

Spectacle lens stacking was also behind the invention of the compound microscope about 1590. Three Dutch opticians or spectacle makers—Hans Jansen, his son Zacharias Jansen and Hans Lippershey are credit with credited with the invention. The curious would use the microscope to explore new unseen worlds. One such inquisitor was Dutch civil servant Antonie van Leeuwenhoek.

Leeuwenhoek, grinding and polishing his own lenses, began his pioneering observations of freshwater microorganisms in the 1670s. He effectively launched microbiology in 1674 as the first to observe bacteria and protozoa, thereby laying the foundations for the sciences of bacteriology and protozoology. His researches on lower animals refuted the doctrine of spontaneous generation.

(I find it so interesting that Leeuwenhoek started doing his microbiology work on his own, without grants and schooling in optics and biology. He examined a vast range of specimens -insects, canal water, cow’s eyes and dragonfly’s eyes, human body parts, and much more. He was determined to see beneath the surface and what was there all along. With the help of local drafters who drew the microscopic images, Leeuwenhoek passed his observations on to the Royal Society of London where they caused quite a stir.

The camera obscura optical device had been around for a long time – long before it was named. In his 1611 book Dioptrice, German astronomer Johannes Kepler coined the term camera obscura which means ‘dark chamber’ in Latin.

The instrument, up until the 16th century, typically took the form of a closed room with windows shuttered and a small hole in a blind or door. Light entered the room through the hole and cast an image onto a screen or onto the wall opposite the door. This type of dark room camera obscura was used by astronomers to make solar observations without damaging their eyes.

The ‘pinhole’ was later (mid-16th century) replaced with a convex glass lens, used in spectacles since the 13th century. The updated camera obscura made it possible to accurately draw the camera image by tracing outlines onto a paper screen. Through the lens and a light-controlling aperture diaphragm the projected image, smaller than actual size, was clear and bright with a concentration of color and a noticeable effect on color in deep shadow. Because this device provided a more accurate representation of the likeness of things and things not seen by the naked eye, it was of interest to surveyors, cartographers, topographers and painters, including Johannes Vermeer.

Small world. Born the same week of October 1632 as microscopist Antoine van Leewenhoek, Vermeer lived near Leewenhoek. The two Dutchmen lived on streets across from the small Delft Market Square. They may have known each other, but that is only conjecture as there is no evidence to support their relationship. They lived during the Dutch Golden Age, a time in Holland of economic, cultural, and scientific knowledge expansion. It was time of freedom from intellectual inquisitions.

(I recommend Laura J. Snyder’s Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing for more on the life and times and work of Vermeer and van Leewenhoek and the optical instruments behind the Scientific Revolution that made it possible to see “that there was more to the natural world than meets the eye.”)

Many artists at this time, wanting to depict more realistic images, were experimenting with optical devices such as mirrors and the camera obscuras. It Is not known that Vermeer used the camera obscura. Perhaps, based on the camera’s projected image, Vermeer created a shadowy image outlining the scene before painting. Artists at that time were keen on keeping their methods secret.

We can only guess at the use of a double-convex lens or the camera obscura for The Cavalier and the Young Woman. The scene is a wide-angle lens view. Note that the man is much larger than the woman which reflects an accurate depiction tending toward a photo realistic quality. Many artists at that time would paint both the man and the woman the same size based not on sight but on how things should be perceived.

Many Dutch homes, at the time of Vermeer, were filled with paintings depicting everyday life.  Vermeer both collected and sold such paintings while running an inn that operated in the lower part of the family home. He painted up in the loft. At one point Vermeer and his wife Catherina had eleven children to support.

Vermeer is well-known for his depiction of individual women in quiet domestic scenes, most notably the mysterious Girl with The Pearl Earring. Was this Vermeer’s daughter?

Vermeer also captured the times. Natural philosophers were studying heaven and earth and Vermeer captured this in The Astronomer and The Geographer. Optical devices are required for both disciplines.

Vermeer’s interest in the natural world can be seen in his obsession with maps – depicted in nine of his paintings. See The Cavalier and the Young Woman for one example.

Vermeer began and ended his painting career with paintings of religious iconography: Christ in the House of Mary and Martha (1654-55) and Allegory of Catholic Faith (1670-74).

What were the natural philosophers thinking during this period? A couple of examples might reveal the range of thought.

“I think therefore I am” René Descartes believed that everything he knew, or believed he knew, came from his senses and sensory experience and was therefore suspect. Descartes “espoused an epistemology, or method of knowledge acquisition, that expressed mistrust in the senses, and placed primary value on reasoning from ideas found in the mind rather than from observations of nature.”[iii]

Francis Bacon defended the empirical study of nature and wanted to avoid bringing preconceived notions and prejudices into the findings. He argued for a cooperative and methodical procedure to keep knowledge from being subjected to the four idols of the mind that skewed findings off in a certain direction. He “rejected the claims of those who thought that all knowledge, even knowledge of the physical world, came primarily through human reason and not the senses.”[iv]

Natural philosophers like Descartes and Bacon investigated the natural world with an understanding of God as the Creator. They had views of spiritual reality and wanted views of physical reality. With the new optical devices they were able to see beyond the religious symbolism found in art, architecture, and the simplistic and even disparaging views of nature. Their investigations did not lead them to reject God. Instead, they saw science as a way of learning more about God.

Here’s Francis Bacon’s motivation for aggressively studying both God’s word and God’s world:

To conclude, therefore, let no man upon a weak conceit of sobriety or an ill-applied moderation think or maintain that a man can search too far, or be too well studied in the book of God’s word, or the book of God’s works, divinity or philosophy; but rather let men endeavor an endless progress or proficiency in both; only let men beware that they apply both to charity, and not to swelling; to use, and not to ostentation; and again, that they do not unwisely mingle or confound these learnings together.

Francis Bacon (1824). “The Works of Francis Bacon: Baron of Verulam, Viscount St. Albans, and Lord High Chancellor of England”, p.11

Bacon also said A little science estranges a man from God; a lot of science brings him back. A lot of science took place in the 17th century.

“At the moment, the scientific world was in the midst of a revolution. The so-called Scientific Revolution, today associated with Copernicus, Kepler, Bacon, Harvey, Galileo, and Newton was brought about in part by a new emphasis on empirical methods – making careful observations of the natural world – as opposed to the nonempirical, logical methods preferred by many medieval followers of Aristotle. No longer would the reliance on ancient texts, or armchair philosophizing about the world from a scholar’s study, be considered adequate. The clarion call of natural philosophers (for they were not yet called “scientists”) became “See for yourself”. [v]

With the aid of telescopes, microscopes, and camera obscuras the evidence of things not as yet seen – millions of stars, microbes, the color of shadows and much more of the natural world – came into view for natural philosophers and painters. They dared to see for themselves what was there before ancient texts and religious dogmas came out with authoritative views of the natural world. They saw what was there all along.

*****

Daring to see:

Today we have radio telescopes, infrared telescopes, x-ray telescopes, the Hubble telescope and the James Webb Space Telescope. With the JWST we can see light wavelengths not visible to us. And, we can see back in time towards the beginnings of the universe some 13.7 billion years ago. Check out this podcast to learn more about JWST: 124. Deb Haarsma | James Webb Space Telescope | Language of God (biologos.org)

We have the Large Hadron Collider which “boosts particles, such as protons, which form all the matter we know. Accelerated to a speed close to that of light, they collide with other protons. These collisions

produce massive particles, such as the Higgs boson or the top quark. By measuring their properties, scientists increase our understanding of matter and of the origins of the Universe.”

We have positron emission tomography scan (PET scan), radiographic technique to examine the metabolic activity in various tissues especially in the brain.

We have functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) which measures the small changes in blood flow that occur with brain activity.

There are two microscopes that can zoom in to a resolution of less than an angstrom (one ten-millionth of a millimeter)

X-ray examination: “X-ray use has become a common practice among art authenticators. Not only does it unlock secrets underneath paintings, but it helps to establish authenticity.”

*****

Informed Dissent:

Dr. Robert Malone’s Testimony on COVID-19 Injections and the 5th Generation Warfare Against Humanity (rumble.com)

Merck Partnered with Moderna in 2019 to Vaccinate America’s Farms Using mRNA Technology – YouTube

How Long Have You Been Consuming Gene Therapied Pork? (mercola.com)

SHOCKING UPDATE: FBI Now Admits to 40 Undercover Agents Infiltrated the Crowds on Jan. 6 #Fedsurrection | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

“Chris Wray and Merrick Garland Are Pure Evil.  100% Evil to Their Core.” – Steve Bannon on the Biden Regime’s Unprecedented Attack on Christians | The Gateway Pundit | by Joe Hoft

Pravda propaganda:

Biden Treasury Sec. Janet Yellen Says ‘The United States is Doing Extremely Well, Economically’ (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Mike LaChance

(GALLUP) Top worries: inflation, economy, drug use, healthcare, Social Security | Sharyl Attkisson

The Coming Digital Currency Nightmare:

Brave New Europe: Pay fine and go directly to JAIL if you use more than $1,000 in cash… – Revolver News

Texas May Launch Its Own Gold-backed Digital Currency | OilPrice.com

Disney+ has unveiled a German original about a teenager who falls in love with the devil from the team behind Netflix’s How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast).

Disney+ Original Greenlit From ‘How To Sell Drugs Online (Fast)’ Team – Deadline

7 members of CDC team assessing chemical exposure in East Palestine, Ohio, fell ill | Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

“Any power that government takes from the people, it will never return voluntarily. Every power that government takes, it will ultimately be abused to the maximum extent possible. Nobody ever complied their way out of totalitarianism. The only thing we can do is resist.”
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. at Hillsdale College

*****

The Left destroys whatever it touches:

[i] Laura J. Snyder, Eye of the Beholder: Johannes Vermeer, Antoni van Leeuwenhoek, and the Reinvention of Seeing, New York W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2015, p.319

[ii] Karl W. Giberson, The Wonder of the Universe: Hints of God in Our Fine-Tuned World, InterVarstiy Press, 2012, p. 49

[iii] Snyder, 187

[iv] Ibid, 319

[v] Ibid, 4

Filed under Art, Astronomy, astronomy, Christianity, Science Tagged with , , , , , , , ,

Not DOA

April 9, 2023 Leave a comment

It wasn’t an Easter greeting card . . . or was it?

The other day I received a mailer from a local cremation-burial company. I hadn’t been online looking for a last responder. My profile must have been purchased on the cyberinfo Stock Exchange:  a person of a certain age who lives in a certain area with a certain income.

The letter starts We need your help.

(I haven’t done embalming, but maybe I could help with the flowers.)

We are conducting a survey to determine how members of our community plan for one of the hardest things a family has to face . . . the death of a loved one.

(Who’s this loved one? Let’s find out.)

The end-of-life service wants to assist with sensitive, caring and professional help. . . We need to know the real thoughts and feelings of individuals just like you. Well, there you have it. It’s documented. I have “real thoughts and feelings” just in case you thought of me as plastic and pitiless. I am not penniless, either, and that brings me to their quest for help.

The one-page front and back letter has a survey of nineteen questions and an offer of an ABSOLUTELY FREE! Final Wishes Organizer if I return the completed survey.

The survey, the letter says, is designed to help the service know what I (and not just any member “of our community”) want and need at “this most difficult time”.  Well, at “this most difficult time” I want free stuff. But the survey didn’t go there. The first question is a wink and a nod come-on.

How old are you? Are you Under 25, between 26-40, between 41-65, 66 or older?

This service obviously knows my age range, where I live, and that I am retired which means that during “this most difficult time” I am receiving a portion of my life’s hard-earned income back as a monthly “benefit” from the government. The death service wouldn’t buy information that was a dead end.

O Death where is they sting? With the number of online and mail solicitations for life insurance I receive, I get the idea that everyone wants a piece of me during “this most difficult time”. When I’m dead they’ll have nothing of me and I’ll like it. And I better die in the next ten years.

The government-run program designed to protect, provide, help, and secure ECONOMIC SECURITY for people in the United States and which has been tracking my income whereabouts since birth, will be depleted by 2034. Social Security will bite the dust – but not because of me. And, if the tear-it-all-down Democrats have their way, our republic will bite the dust before 2034. To celebrate, they’ll erect statues of a Smartphone, Dylan Mulvaney, Barack Obama, a Black-gloved fist, Chairman Mao, and Martin Luther Floyd. Give me liberty or give me death.

Which of the following would you choose – burial or cremation? Hmmm. I would like to bury the elemental composition of my body, 23% of which is carbon. This last will serve as my offset for a life well-carboned. And I would like to cremate my past. Star dust to star dust, ashes to ashes, and a tick up on my final social credit score. I want to be known as the Environmental Dead Person of the Year. Who wouldn’t?

The survey continues with a range of “Show me the money” questions such as Are you currently employed? Are you aware of prepaid funeral plans? How much do you expect to pay for a funeral? Do you have life insurance, a will? Who’s the money person we should be talking to? And, to expand the scope, do you have a need for a cemetery plot? That’s the last thing I need.

(Check the boxes and we’ll tell you which box is yours. We have convenient layaway plans. Come in and check out our waiting room!)

The last question asks if I want more information about funeral planning and the types of service available. If so, I am to return the completed survey in the postage paid envelope with my phone number and address. Should I throw the service an old bone and complete the survey?

According to the mailer, the free guide “provides insightful information about planning ahead”. The guide, no doubt, nudges the reader into preparing for a tidy prepaid end. One doesn’t want to leave any loose ends. I’m half Dutch, so I’m half tidy and half-loose ends, as those who know me would confirm.

Final Wishes? To not be fed plant-based food, to not be vaccinated and fed with vaccinated food, and to die in the shire.

Planning ahead? I’d like to make it convenient for everyone like with my birthday.  But every year I pass my death day and have no clue.

A tidy end? I plan on being there when I die. And afterward. That’s been prepared. I will share in the life of God’s new age and his kingdom on earth.

And, though an old hymn says “I can’t feel at home in this world anymore”, this world is my home. I’m not just passing through. I will return with the Lord and continue to walk around on resurrection ground and reign on this earth as a priest to our God.

You purchased a people for God,

From every tribe and tongue,

From every people and nation,

And made them a kingdom and priests to our God

And they will reign on the earth.”

-The Revelation of John 5: 6-10

*****

Mr./Ms. Rep./Sen.,

When you use my income to fund government programs that are earmarked to benefit interest groups, e.g., “$3 million for an LGBTQ museum in New York, more than $3.6 million for a Michelle Obama Trail, and authorization for the creation of a Ukrainian Independence Park”, you are not benefitting Jen Q Public. You are picking winners and losers. And, Jen Q Public is on the losing end.

Taxation means I have less money to take care of myself. With every tax increase I am forced to give less to my neighbor and to those people who need it via organizations that I can monitor and see results. Taking money out of my hands and stuffing it in your coffers is taking away charity, aka love, and replacing it with impersonal bureaucracy.

As spent, every tax dollar benefits your reelection campaign to do more picking of winners and losers. You do not represent Jen Q Public when you spend money like this. You represent yourself.

I want my money back. I do not want your welfare and your public assistance programs and your public health bureaucracy and your earmarks and your wars. I want my money back. I want to take care of myself and my neighbor. Get your hands out of my pocket.

US leads the rest of the world with $196 billion given to Ukraine amid war with Russia | Fox News

*****

Ornithology Project:

By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation;
    they sing among the branches. Psalm 104: 12

A couple of months ago I purchased a Zoom H4n Handy Recorder to record bird song. Below is one of my first attempts to capture local bird song. I am still learning how to use the recorder and the Audacity audio software to filter out distortion, so bear with me.

In this recording, captured this Easter morning about 6 AM in central Indiana, you will hear me walking toward the birds, wind distortion in the middle, more walking and relocating and then a solo bird song against a background chorus of bird song.

Around the 2 min. mark you will start to hear some wind distortion

Around 2:30 I am walking into the wind and relocating

Around 3:20 the wind distortion ends

Around 3:40 a bird solo

230409-000 Easter Morning Central Indiana Bird Song

These birds actively communicate in the early morning. I’m an early bird, so this research is a good fit for me and my Parrolet Henry approves. Next up: refining my recordings and discerning which types of birds these are.

Just this morning I noticed a nest being built on a wreath I hung on a patio door. the birds of the air have their habitation at my place, too. Soon, new life.

Cornell Lab of Ornithology—Home | Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Informed Dissent:

The Evidence for Antidepressants Causing Mass Shootings (substack.com)

How the FDA Buried the Dangers of Antidepressants (substack.com)

Fauci Says the Quiet Part Out Loud: “There Will Absolutely be an Outbreak of Another Pandemic…It May be Next Year…” | The Gateway Pundit | by Brian Lupo

How mobile phones have changed our brains – BBC Future

They are coming for our food . . .

Paging Dr. Malone… US beef and pork lobbyists claim mRNA livestock vaccines will begin this month… – Revolver News

“Martyrdom in Our Lifetime” – Dr. Thomas Williams Warns of the Growing Anti-Christian Assault in America Today (VIDEO) | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

Your brain on COVID-19 vaccines . . .

SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Accumulation in the Skull-Meninges-Brain Axis: Potential Implications for Long-Term Neurological Complications in post-COVID-19 | bioRxiv

America Has An Egg Problem And It’s Creating Weak Men | Evie Magazine

Why Reparations are Wrong – by Robert W Malone MD, MS (substack.com)

American Banana Republic – The American Mind

They’re coming to free speech away:

French woman faces $13,000 fine for Facebook post calling President Macron “fifth” (reclaimthenet.org)

standforhealthfreedom.com-Shining a light on POLIODownload

*****

“We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt.” Christopher Hitchens

*****

The Midwest:

Chicago:

CHICAGO GOES FULL COMMIE: Radical Socialist Brandon Johnson Is Predicted Winner in Mayor’s Race Against Pro-Police Moderate Candidate Paul Vallas | The Gateway Pundit | by Jim Hoft

Chicago’s new mayor wants to start a race war… could be the most dangerous Marxist yet… – Revolver News

Brandon Johnson wins 2023 Chicago mayoral race, defeating Paul Vallas – Chicago Sun-Times (suntimes.com)

Wisconsin:

GOP lawmaker wins Wis. Senate seat, creating supermajority | News | channel3000.com

Liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz Wins Wisconsin Supreme Court Race—Here’s Why It Matters (forbes.com)

Indiana:

In a statement, [Indiana’s Gov.] Holcomb said it is “important that we recognize and understand” that struggles with gender dysphoria are real. But also said that medical transitions should “occur as an adult, not a minor.” . . .

Holcomb signs gender-affirming care ban for trans youth into law (wfyi.org)

Gov. Holcomb – Do not send Indiana money and support to Zelensky. It is not our war!

“In his tweet Gov. Holcomb stated: “We will continue supporting Ukraine’s defense and sovereignty amid Russia’s senseless invasion.”

Indiana’s governor joins other state leaders on video call with Ukraine’s president | News | wdrb.com

The Green Religion:

Your property first, Jamie . . .

Wall Street titan Jamie Dimon says seize private land for wind and solar builds | Recharge (rechargenews.com)

Ending Racism:

*****

“All My Exes CHANGED THEIR SEXES” 😂 | Buddy Brown | Truck Sessions – YouTube

Filed under Christianity, Death, Easter, Easter Tagged with , , , , ,

Suppression

April 8, 2023 Leave a comment

If you had lived in the Roman-occupied Holy Land in 4 BC, you would have known about the Roman general Varus who crushed a Jewish revolt against the Roman authority. The causes of that revolt and later revolts stemmed from several factors: the cruelty and corruption of the Roman leaders, Jewish religious nationalism, the impoverishment of the Jewish peasantry, and the corrupt priesthood class.

Varus sent a part of his army into the country, against those that had been the authors of this commotion, and as they caught great numbers of them, those that appeared to have been the least concerned in these tumults he put into custody, but such as were the most guilty he crucified; these were in number about two thousand. War 2.66-79, Josephus (Emphasis mine.)

Mass crucifixions continued in the first century.

“. . . given that crucifixion was seen as an extremely shameful way to die, Rome tended not to crucify its own citizens. Instead, slaves, disgraced soldiers, Christians, foreigners, and — in particular — political activists often lost their lives in this way.”

Jesus wasn’t the only man to be crucified. Here’s the history behind this brutal practice. | Live Science

4 BC is a time of violent suppression under an unyielding Roman rule. If you said something and acted against that rule, you were crucified to keep order under Roman rule. If you said nothing and lived with the oppression then you were quick to point fingers to keep order for yourselves under Roman rule.

“the citizens received [Jarus] and cleared themselves of having any hand in this revolt, and said that they had raised no commotions, but had only been forced to admit the multitude, because of the festival, and that they were rather besieged together with the Romans, than assisted those that had revolted.”  War 2.73, Josephus

We don’t know the exact year of Jesus’ birth. Most scholars go with 4 BC.

*****

Mark’s gospel account opens with John the Baptist clearing the way for Jesus with baptisms of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. The account immediately turns to Jesus and the start of his ministry. We then read of a growing following and of eye-witnessed accounts about unclean spirts being cast out, the sick being healed, and a dead twelve-year old girl being raised to life. And, we learn of Jesus’ words and their impact on local communities as they were heard in the synagogue.

Jesus’s teaching was met with astonishment (Mk. 1:22): “he wasn’t like the legal teachers; he says things on his own authority”.

Later, when Jesus returned to his home region for a time and on the sabbath taught in the synagogue, his words were again met with astonishment (Mk. 6:2). And also, with consternation.

“Where does he get it all from?” they said. “What’s this wisdom he’s been given? How does he get this kind of power in his hands? Isn’t he the handyman, Mary’s son? Isn’t he the brother of James, Joses, Judah and Simon? And aren’t his sisters here with us?” They took offense at him. (Mk. 6:1-3)

Then we read that Jesus “couldn’t do any remarkable thing there, except he laid hands on a few sick people and cured them. Their unbelief dumbfounded him”. (Mk. 6: 5-6)

Earlier in the gospel account, Jesus’ relatives, hearing about the growing crowds and excitement surrounding Jesus, came to restrain him. “He’s out of his mind,” they said (Mk. 3:21). Experts from Jerusalem also showed up and tried to discredit him, labeling the source of Jesus’ power as demonic. Jesus dealt with them in no uncertain terms (Mk.3: 22-27).

In these accounts we see the attempted suppression of Jesus by his family, his community and by religious authorities. His family dubs him crazy and tries to rein him in from bringing more unwanted attention to them. His hometown community takes offense, perhaps thinking “You are uppity talking like that, saying things on your own authority. You’re one of us. Get with the program. Don’t make waves. Fit in and makes us happy that we can be around you.” The religious authorities started a smear campaign.

Undoubtedly, the locals feared antagonizing Roman authorities which could then lead to arrest and possible crucifixion. And just as undoubtedly, the religious leaders from Jerusalem, mediators between Rome and the Jewish population, wanted to keep the peace and their positions. They feared a newcomer, extraordinary in word and deed, upsetting their apple cart. They began a program of misinformation about Jesus.

The push to silence and discredit Jesus and his astonishing words and deeds led to unbelief that conformed to the world around. And that led to the suppression of the remarkable in Jesus’ local community.

*****

Right after this, in Mark chapter 6, we read that Jesus goes around to villages teaching. Suppression tactics do not stop his kingdom work. Jesus sends out the Twelve in pairs to expand his ministry. The twelve were chosen for this reason (Mk. 3:13-14).

“They went off and announced that people should repent. They cast out several demons; and they anointed many sick people with oil, and cured them.” (Mk. 6:12-13).

And then we read that Jesus’ name became well know and reached the ears of the King (Mk.6: 14).

(This king, Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, was the son and a successor of Herod the Great the Roman client king of Judea until his death in 4 BC. And though Herod the Great had a religion of Second Temple Judaism, he lived with extreme paranoia that resulted in terror:

Herod the Great was a brutal man who killed his father-in-law, several of his ten wives, and two of his sons. He ignored the laws of God to suit himself and chose the favor of Rome over his own people. Herod’s heavy taxes to pay for lavish projects forced an unfair burden on the Jewish citizens.)

When Herod Antipas heard about Jesus he said “It’s John the Baptist, risen from the dead! That’s why these powers are at work in him.” (Mk. 6:14).

Mark goes on to relate what happened to John the Baptist:

“Herod had married Herodias, his brother Philip’s wife. John regularly told Herod it wasn’t right for him to take his brother’s wife; so, Herod gave the word, arrested him, and tied him up in prison.” (Mk.6:17-18).

Herodias, not at all happy with John saying these things, wanted him dead, but Herod wouldn’t let that happen. Herod was afraid of John because he considered John “a just and holy man”. And, Herod would come down to John’s cell and listen to him talk. “What he heard disturbed him greatly, and yet he enjoyed listening to him” (Mk.6: 20).

Now, you know the story of Herod’s birthday and the great party attended by his supporters, military officers and the great and good of Galilee. Herodias’s daughter dances and wows the crowd and the birthday boy. What Herod saw moved him greatly. He enjoyed watching her dance. So, he offers to give the girl a gift to match the wow of her dance.

When Herod hears the girl’s gift request, he becomes panic-stricken, perhaps thinking “This is a holy man. You don’t mess with that. People like him you keep around and under control . . . and there goes the one voice that moved me to distraction.

Herod had made oaths to give her a wow gift in front of his guests. And, “He hadn’t the guts to refuse her” (Mk.6:26). So, John was beheaded.

In this account we read of suppression of John the Baptist on account of what he was saying in public. He was locked up to control the PR surrounding Herod’s immoral marriage to his brother’s wife Herodias. In jail, John didn’t remain silent. And Herod, whose father Herod the Great was into Second Temple Judaism, thought the abrasive John a curious figure to be observed, perhaps like a woman’s sensual dance.

Herod hears about Jesus doing astonishing things and that he’s a just and holy man. He reckons John the Baptist has been resurrected.  (Now what have I done?”)

*****

“Two particular details about Roman crucifixion are of special interest to us in this book. First, it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that Jesus of Nazareth grew up under the shadow of the cross…The Galilee of Jesus’ boyhood, then, all knew about Roman crosses (Antiquities 17.286-98; War 2.66-79)…When he told his followers to pick up their crosses and follow him, they would not have heard this as a metaphor…The second point of special interest for us is the way in which the Romans sometimes used crucifixion as a way of mocking a victim with social or political pretensions. “You want to be high and lifted up?” they said in effect. “All right, we’ll give you ‘high and lifted up.’” Crucifixion thus meant not only killing by slow torture, not only shaming, not only issuing a warning, but also parodying the ambitions of the uppity rebels. They wanted to be move up the social scale?  Let them be lifted up above the common herd…”

-from the chapter The Cross in Its First-Century Setting, N.T. Wright’s The Day the Revolution

*****

Psychology defines suppression as pushing unwanted thoughts, emotions, memories, fantasies, and more out of conscious awareness so that you’re not thinking of these things anymore.

In 4 BC terms, suppression would include dealing with people who are seen as a threat to the system and who annoy and make certain people feel uncomfortable. Such people were mocked, scourged, and put on display for the public’s conscious awareness.

Forms of suppression from 4 BC to the present have included public derision, impalement, death by burning, crucifixion, labeling, canceling, shadow banning, blocking, misinformation campaigns, repeating lies, criminalizing dissent, fines, gag orders, persecution, false charges, arrest, and imprisonment.

What makes the world godless and by what means?

Suppressing the existing facts of reality and the established facts of truth makes the world godless.

In your search for truth . . .

Does your theology suppress science so you don’t have to deal with thinking about science?

Does your science suppress any thought of God so you don’t have to deal with messy, uncomfortable thoughts and emotions?

Does your political view suppress facts as long as there are enough people going along with lies and half-truths?

Is crucifixion the ultimate suppression?

No. See the empty tomb. Unbelief is the ultimate suppression.

*****

*****

*****

This Easter Please Remember The Jan 6ers and Their Families Who Have Been Severely Abused by Federal Judges in Washington DC | The Gateway Pundit | by Joe Hoft

The Easter Please Remember Mathew Perna and All of the Men and Women Persecuted by the Biden DOJ from Jan 6 | The Gateway Pundit | by Joe Hoft

El Salvador’s President . . .

*****

Filed under 2023 current events, Christianity, Easter, Good Friday, History Tagged with , , , , ,

Popular Kingship

April 2, 2023 Leave a comment

A new king, from humble origins, came to exalt the lowly and abase the haughty. This king was not born in a royal palace in Jerusalem. He was born in small town Bethlehem where King David’s line of ordinary people began.

According to Dr. Luke’s genealogy (Lk. 3:23-38) this new king did not come through the line of Solomon and the kings of Judah. This new king descended from David’s little-known ninth son Nathan.

One day this king made a slow assent up to Jerusalem, the city of kings. He’s not riding a majestic steed. He’s riding a beast of burden – a donkey (Zech. 9:9). There are no trumpets and no royal entourage. There’s just a ragtag band of disciples and a lot of everyday folk waving Feast of Tabernacles palm branches with great expectations of a mighty warrior king in their midst.

The large crowd that had come for the festival had heard that this king had come to Jerusalem. They had heard that he had done a wonderous sign: called Lazarus out of the tomb and raised him from the dead. They wanted to see for themselves. They took their palm branches and went out to meet him.

This king had visited the lowly in their districts, in their towns, in their homes, and in their synagogues. The grass roots had been acknowledged and now they respond to the populist king as he heads up the hill. The disciples, still thinking in kingdom overthrow terms, energize the crowd.

“Hosanna!” they shouted. “Welcome in the name of the Lord! Welcome to Israel’s King!”

The Pharisees, who were plotting to kill Lazarus (Jn. 12:10) whereby destroying any evidence of a sign and disheartening his followers, called out to the king to have him rein in his disciples. But the king responded, “If they stayed silent, the stones would be shouting out.” Every bit of the groaning creation, including the lowly stones underfoot, would have a say in the matter. This king would not throttle his followers. But that day, he did throttle their political dreams.

This king did not overthrow the local Roman authority and establish himself on a throne. No. This king, in a matter of days, would overthrow death and establish new creation life with access to his ages old throne room where he sits robed in majesty and strength (Ps. 93:1-2).

*****

God used lowly salvation agents to bring about a reversal of status, not just for the agent but also for Israel and the world.

Hannah, a lowly and alone salvation agent – a barren woman in a society that mocked the barren – is given a child, Samuel. This prophet and judge would one day anoint David, the socially insignificant son of a peasant farmer, to be King. Samuel anointed David in Bethlehem. Jesus, born in Bethlehem, descended from the line of David, as described above. Hannah’s motherhood and reversal of status, as Mary’s later, would lead to the salvation of Israel and of the world.

Hannah prayed (1 Sa. 2) a reversal of status prayer that foreshadows a king (David):

“My heart exults in the Lord;
    my strength is exalted in my God.
My mouth derides my enemies
    because I rejoice in your victory.

 There is no Holy One like the Lord,
    no one besides you;
    there is no Rock like our God.
Talk no more so very proudly;
    let not arrogance come from your mouth,
for the Lord is a God of knowledge,
    and by him actions are weighed.
The bows of the mighty are broken,
    but the feeble gird on strength.
Those who were full have hired themselves out for bread,
    but those who were hungry are fat with spoil.
The barren has borne seven,
    but she who has many children is forlorn.
The Lord kills and brings to life;
    he brings down to Sheol and raises up.
The Lord makes poor and makes rich;
    he brings low; he also exalts.
He raises up the poor from the dust;
    he lifts the needy from the ash heap
to make them sit with princes
    and inherit a seat of honor.
For the pillars of the earth are the Lord’s,
    and on them he has set the world.

 He will guard the feet of his faithful ones,
    but the wicked will perish in darkness,
    for not by might does one prevail.
The Lord! His adversaries will be shattered;
    the Most High will thunder in heaven.
The Lord will judge the ends of the earth;
    he will give strength to his king
    and exalt the power of his anointed.”

Mary, with a similar theme in her song of praise, says this in The Magnificat:

“My soul declares the Lord is great,

My spirit exults in my savior, my God.

He saw his servant-girl in her humility . . .

Down from their thrones he hurled the rulers,

Up from the earth he raised the humble.

The hungry he filled with the fat of the land,

But the rich he sent off with nothing to eat.

He has rescued his servant, Israel his child,

Because he remembered his mercy of old,

Just as he said to our long-ago ancestors-

Abraham and his descendent forever.”

And here’s, David 2 Sam. 2:28:

You deliver a humble people,
    but your eyes are upon the haughty to bring them down.

And in Psalm 18:27

For you deliver a humble people,
    but the haughty eyes you bring down.

As we have just seen, agents of salvation from the lowest ranks of society have their status reversed. This is brought about by God on behalf of the humiliated, oppressed, and the poor. God elevates the lowly – those forgotten and disenfranchised by those in power – and brings down the proud.

Palm Sunday is a reminder that the world sees things one way – as a Game of Thrones – and that our King doesn’t play games.

*****

Prof. Richard Bauckham:

RICHARD BAUCKHAM JESUS AND THE EYEWITNESSES The Gospels as Eyewitness Testimony – YouTube

Could it be that form criticism thinking has morphed into advocacy for a “Living” Theology that, like with advocacy for a “Living Constitution, seeks to add what culture seeks to add, e.g., the normalization of perverse sexual relations.

The Authenticity of the Apostolic Eyewitness in the New Testament with Professor Richard Bauckham – YouTube

Filed under Christianity, Gospels, Palm Sunday Tagged with , ,

The Secret Place

February 26, 2023 Leave a comment

Life is not like a box of chocolates. Life is more like a PEZ dispenser of dopamine and you know what you’re gonna get when you do what you do.

That’s what I gathered reading dopamine nation by Anna, Lembke, MD.

 From her website:

This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.

In her best-selling book, Lembke provides client counseling anecdotes under such chapter titles as “Our Masturbation Machines”, “Running from Pain”, “Dopamine Fasting”, and “Radical Honesty”. As mentioned in the blurb above, the premise of this book is about finding balance. She offers Lessons in Balance:

  1. The relentless pursuit of pleasure (and avoidance of pain) leads to pain.
  2. Recovery begins with abstinence.
  3. Abstinence resets the brain’s reward pathway and with it our capacity to take joy in simpler pleasures.
  4. Self-binding creates literal and metacognitive space between desire and consumption, a modern necessity in our dopamine-overloaded world.
  5. Medications can restore homeostasis, but consider what we lose by medicating away our pain.
  6. Pressing on the pain side resets our balance to the side of pleasure.
  7. Beware of getting addicted to pain.
  8. Radical honesty promotes awareness, enhances intimacy, and fosters a plenty mindset.
  9. Prosocial shame affirms that we belong to the human tribe.
  10. Instead of running away from the world, we can find escape by immersing in it.

Read Download Dopamine Nation PDF – PDF Download (bibleandbookcenter.com)

*****

It is no secret that the world around us promotes seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. But we may not have noticed that pleasure and pain operate like a seesaw, as Lembke illustrates in her book. The consumer of pleasure tips the pleasure side of the seesaw to the ground. The pain side goes up in the air. But, as the familiar saying goes, what goes up must come down.

Pleasure and pain work like a balance. Our systems seek to restore balance or “physiologic equilibrium”. (See Pleasure and Pain Are Co-located, p. 50, dopamine nation).

Looking for balance?  Per Lembke, “Abstinence is necessary to restore homeostasis”. Stopping and standing apart from that which is used to obtain pleasure helps us see the cause and effect of choices.

Does self-promotion, virtue signaling, and even advocacy tip the seesaw to the pleasure side? It would seem so based on the amount of self-aggrandizement that occurs in the media – social and otherwise. Radio personalities, from Howard Stern to Dennis Prager, are in the business of self-promotion for profit (and ego, and dopamine?)

And could it be, based on what we learn about dopamine, that when we give, pray, forgive, and fast in ostentatious ways that we are immediately rewarded with not only someone else knowing our act of devotion but also with dopamine? Could it be that we reward ourselves in the moment at the expense of a future reward secured in our relationship with the Lord?

When you are practicing your piety, mind you don’t do it with an eye on the audience! Otherwise, you won’t have any reward from your father in heaven (Matt. 6:1).

Jesus’ treasure on earth vs. treasure in heaven warning is heard a bit later in his kingdom of God discourse on the mount (Matt. 6:19-21). It follows his cautions about how we go about our devotion to God. We are admonished to let go of the desire to play-act and to promote ourselves and to let God recompense:

When you give . . .

 . . . to the poor, don’t sound a trumpet in front of you. That’s what people do when they are play-acting, in the synagogues and the streets. They do it so people will be impressed by them . .  . they’ve received their reward in full (Matt. 6:2).

When you pray . . .

 . . . you mustn’t be like the play-actors . . . shut the door and pray to your father in secret who is there in secret (Matt 6:5-6).

 . . . don’t pile up a jumbled heap of words reckoning the more you say the more likely you will be heard (Matt. 6:7).

 . . . here’s how you should pray . . . Our father in heaven . . . (Matt. 6:9-13).

If you forgive . . .

 . . . people the wrong they have done, your heavenly father will forgive you as well. (If not, then no forgiveness for you) (Matt. 6:14-15).

Forgiveness is included in these cautions. Forgiveness is a letting go of the wrong and the bitterness born out of it. Forgiveness seeks reconciliation just as God has sought with us with His forgiveness.

An unwillingness to forgive and to hold on to the wrong is the willingness to hold something over another at the cost of that relationship and at the cost of one’s own mental and spiritual health. One may find pleasure in giving another relational pain, but the seesaw will tip the other way.

Forgiveness is not saying “nothing happened”. It is saying that what happened has no power over me. And, more importantly, it admits “I’m in no position not to forgive”.

“If we believe rightly in Jesus Christ who unconditionally embraced us, the godless perpetrators, our hearts will be open to see from their perspective. In Letters and Papers from Prison Dietrich Bonhoeffer suggested that faith enables us to take “distance” from our own immediacy and take into ourselves the tension filled polyphony of life, instead of pressing life into a “single dimension.”

Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation, Miroslav Volf, 1996, Abingdon Press, Nashville, p. 215

When you fast . . .

 . . . don’t be gloomy like the play-actors. They make faces quite unrecognizable, so that everyone can see they’re fasting. I’m telling you the truth: they have received their reward in full. (Matt. 6: 16).

This lent, consider who you are in relationship with. Those in relationship with themselves and the world desire to trumpet their doings. They gain followers on social media and “likes” for the advocacy that promotes them to the world. But the followers are a fickle bunch who need more and more stroking to bring them pleasure.

Those who follow the Lord have given up trumpeting what they do. They live in an intimate relationship with the Lord (Jn. 5:15). They know that the Lord knows what they do (Matt 6:4, Jn. 10:27). And that’s all that matters. Play-acting doesn’t work with God. God is not impressed with outward earnestness or public shows of it, because . . .

“God is in secret, and He sees us from a secret place; He does not see us as other people see us, or as we see ourselves. When we live in the secret place it become impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him of than anything else.” – Oswald Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest

Put another way, Christians are like musicians in a symphony orchestra giving a concert of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9. They follow a maestro – not of this world – and they keep his rhythm in their soul and not with their feet.

LEnT go of play-acting, of self-aggrandizement, of being drama queens, of grudges and bitterness.

The ordinary Christian life remains ordinary by every measure except heaven’s.

LEnT go of that which brings disorder and non-function to your life and to those around you. We were endowed with the imago dei so that we would bring order and function to the world.

“He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.”

― Jim Elliot, one of five people killed during Operation Auca, an attempt to bring the gospel to the Huaorani people of Ecuador.

Note: I write these things not because I have mastered self-denial. On the contrary. I write these things to spur myself to take courage and to have faith to do what is necessary day in and day out. I write to encourage and grow faith for myself and for others.

“. . . without faith it’s impossible to please God; for those who come to worship God must believe that he really does exist, and that he rewards those who seek him. – Hebrews 11:6

Informed Dissent:

Listen to these videos>>>>

“Nobody should be taking anything. That’s my professional opinion.” -Sasha Latypova

“Here we have an implemented model of fascism.”-Sasha Latypova

“What were they doing? They were play-acting.” Sasha Latypova

Listen to the very end . . .

Sasha Latypova – COVID-19 Countermeasures: Evidence of the Intent to Harm (rumble.com)

The WHO is a military arm of the One World Gov’t.

Bring control back to the states!

Next, start @ 6:40 for Katherine Watt:

Katherine Watt presentation (rumble.com) start @ 6:40

kill-box-presentation-1Download

Bailiwick News | Katherine Watt | Substack

Ed Dowd: “Millennial age group, 25 to 44 experienced an 84% increase in excess mortality” (substack.com)

Newsweek Follows National File’s Lead, Reports Fauci Funded Wuhan Coronavirus Research – National File

Three Years Late, the Lancet Recognizes Natural Immunity – WSJ

You think birthrates are low now? One OBGYN says thanks to the jab, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet [VIDEO]… – Revolver News

Ponder this:

The poor of the world cannot be made rich by redistribution of wealth. Poverty can’t be eliminated by punishing people who’ve escaped poverty, taking their money and giving it as a reward to people who have failed to escape. Economic leveling doesn’t work. Whether we call it Marxism, Progressive Reform, or Clintonomics, the result is the same slide into the stygian pit. Communists worship satan; socialists think perdition is a good system run by bad men; and liberals want us to go to hell because it’s warm there in the winter. -P.J. O’Rourke

and this:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1629165213600849920

[VIDEO] El Salvador President tosses 2000 MS-13 and other gang members into his new gigantic state-of-the-art prison… – Revolver News

and this:

*****

Things to give up for always:

-Give up notions that the U.S. government is altruistic and “for the people”. Like with our southern border, our government has been invaded by opportunists who don’t give a damn about our country except for what they can take from it.

-Big Pharma

-WEF, WHO & UN

-CDC

-Dept. of Education

-Masks

-War. The U.S. should NOT be involved in Ukraine and provoking WWIII. NO MORE taxpayer dollars to Ukraine.

and give up Coca-Cola

Defund Democrats:

Filed under Christianity, Lent Tagged with , , ,

World, Do You Know Your Creator?

February 12, 2023 Leave a comment

The natural and the supernatural, separated into categories of science and faith since the times of Enlightenment, were not split apart in the ancient Near East worldview. Ancients believed that the gods were always active in the world in countless and often undetectable ways. The apostle Paul brought this into his dialogue with stoic and Epicurean philosophers at the Areopagus (Acts 17:22-31):

“In him we live and move and have our being,” (from Cretica, Epimenides, Creton poet, ca .600 BC)

“[It is with Zeus that every way has to do,] for we are also his offspring.” (from Phainomena, Aratus, Cilcian poet, 315-240 BC)

Psalm 104, a Hebrew Hymn of Creation with Parallels in Pharaoh Akhenaten’s Hymn, depicts ancient Israel’s cosmology. It may have been written during the times of David and Solomon. Its author is unknown, so let’s call him Naturalist Observer.

Naturalist Observer looked around at the known world at that time and ascribed its ordered functioning to God. He did so, apparently, with background knowledge of Genesis.

Linocut Print by Mark Hearld

The psalm celebrates God’s creative function giving and care taking of the natural world. God is praised for creating a habitable world that continues day after day. Nature has a home to come home to, as God had promised.

As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. Gen. 8:22

Naturalist Observer has taken note of “the waters”, “the deep”, “springs”, “streams”, “the sea”. Water is contained and directed by God to function in support of life.

Water pours from the sky (vs.13) producing sustenance (vs. 14-16) within habitats of forest, valley and mountains (vs. 16-18)

Note: water is mentioned some 700 times in the Bible – from Genesis 1:2 (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) to The Revelation of John 21:1 (no longer any sea, i.e., no more chaos, no more scary deep, no more fear of the unknown)

Verses 19-23 are about time. (For Jews, each 28-day lunar month started with a new moon. Each new day started at 6 o’clock each evening when the sun goes down.)

Naturalist Observer reflects with awe at the breadth of God’s works (vs, 24-26).

Naturalist Observer records (vs. 27-30) God’s involvement in the cycle of life. The breath of every living thing depends on God (vs. 29-30). (Note: death before the Fall.)

Naturalist Observer ends his mediation (vs. 31-35) by recounting some of the means God has used to have humankind focus on the purpose of His creation – a sacred place where God dwells with man.

Earthquakes and volcanoes (vs. 32), speak of God’s awesome power to disrupt things and thereby get people’s attention (Ps. 97:4). And once God has their attention, He gives them his terrifying-but-mediated presence and the means to live in his presence (Ex.19:18).  God, who touches the mountains and they smoke, is petitioned (Ps. 144:5-6) to come down, show His power, and put fear into the enemies of his people.

Consider that several ancient Near East accounts of a devastating flood were understood as a god using force to reset order in the world. See Genesis 6-9 for the theological interpretation of the mythic flood. (See also Genesis and the Flood: Understanding the Biblical Story – Article – BioLogos)

The wicked, as they ignore God and live according to their own ways – exchanging the natural for the unnatural (Rom. 1;18-32), bring disorder to what God called good or functioning as purposed. Naturalist Observer, having taken account of God’s ordered creation and knowing from history the disruption man’s wickedness brings to it, intreats God (vs. 35):

Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
    and let the wicked be no more

Here, Naturalist Observer appears to be thinking of Elijah, the prophets of Baal, and fire from heaven (1 Kings 18).

We would do well, as Naturalist Observer has done, to spend time observing our sacred bio-space and meditating on the work of God’s hands. I do this while walking.

Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Every day, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts. – Søren Kierkegaard

We would do well not to polarize science and faith and make them adversarial, as both function in God’s ordered realm. At certain points, one may view science and faith in conflict. But that’s why study, reflection, and meditation are required – you don’t have all the information. Denying one and accepting the other says that you don’t think God has set up an ordered and functioning cosmos.

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. – Soren Kierkegaard

“I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.”
― Sarah Williams, Twilight Hours: A Legacy Of Verse

*****

Psalm 104

1 Bless the Lord, O my soul.
    O Lord my God, you are very great.
You are clothed with honor and majesty,
2     wrapped in light as with a garment.
You stretch out the heavens like a tent;
3     you set the beams of your chambers on the waters;
you make the clouds your chariot;
    you ride on the wings of the wind;
4 you make the winds your messengers,
    fire and flame your ministers.

5 You set the earth on its foundations,
    so that it shall never be shaken.
6 You cover it with the deep as with a garment;
    the waters stood above the mountains.
7 At your rebuke they flee;
    at the sound of your thunder they take to flight.
8 They rose up to the mountains, ran down to the valleys,
    to the place that you appointed for them.
9 You set a boundary that they may not pass,
    so that they might not again cover the earth.

10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys;
    they flow between the hills,
11 giving drink to every wild animal;
    the wild asses quench their thirst.
12 By the streams the birds of the air have their habitation;
    they sing among the branches.
13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains;
    the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.

14 You cause the grass to grow for the cattle
    and plants for people to cultivate,
to bring forth food from the earth
15     and wine to gladden the human heart,
oil to make the face shine
    and bread to strengthen the human heart.
16 The trees of the field are watered abundantly,
    the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.
17 In them the birds build their nests;
    the stork has its home in the fir trees.
18 The high mountains are for the wild goats;
    the rocks are a refuge for the coneys.
19 You have made the moon to mark the seasons;
    the sun knows its time for setting.
20 You make darkness, and it is night,
    when all the animals of the forest come creeping out.
21 The young lions roar for their prey,
    seeking their food from God.
22 When the sun rises, they withdraw
    and lie down in their dens.
23 People go out to their work
    and to their labor until the evening.

24 O Lord, how manifold are your works!
    In wisdom you have made them all;
    the earth is full of your creatures.
25 There is the sea, great and wide;
    creeping things innumerable are there,
    living things both small and great.
26 There go the ships
    and Leviathan that you formed to sport in it.

27 These all look to you
    to give them their food in due season;
28 when you give to them, they gather it up;
    when you open your hand, they are filled with good things.
29 When you hide your face, they are dismayed;
    when you take away their breath, they die
    and return to their dust.
30 When you send forth your spirit, they are created,
    and you renew the face of the ground.

31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever;
    may the Lord rejoice in his works—
32 who looks on the earth and it trembles,
    who touches the mountains and they smoke.
33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live;
    I will sing praise to my God while I have being.
34 May my meditation be pleasing to him,
    for I rejoice in the Lord.
35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth,
    and let the wicked be no more.
Bless the Lord, O my soul.
Praise the Lord!

*****

Brothers, above the starry canopy
There must dwell a loving father.
Do you fall in worship, you millions?
World, do you know your creator?
Seek Him in the heavens;
Above the stars must he dwell.

–Ode to Joy (1785) by Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, as adapted in the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony

*****

Below are three short videos from a series of Oxford Conversations with Oxford Professor Andy Gosler.

Knowledge of Nature and the Nature of Knowledge- Student natural history knowledge and the significance of birdsDownload

Professor Andrew Gosler | Department of Biology (ox.ac.uk)

Professor Andrew | Mansfield College (ox.ac.uk)

The Ethno-ornithology World Atlas | people • birds • place (ewatlas.net)

*****

Green Energy, Digital Technology = Eco-adverse:

“As rare metals have become ubiquitous in green and digital technologies, the exceedingly toxic sludge they produce has been contaminating water, soil, the atmosphere, and the flames of blast furnaces.”

“Mining requires the extraction of solid ores, often after removing vast amounts of overlying rock. Then the ore must be processed, creating an enormous quantity of waste – about 100 billion tonnes a year, more than any other human-made waste stream.

Purifying a single tonne of rare earths requires using at least 200 cubic meters of water, which then becomes polluted with acids and heavy metals. On top of that, imagine the destruction and energy required to obtain these essential metals:

  • 18,740 pounds of purified rock to produce 2.2 pounds of vanadium
  • 35,275 pounds of ore for 2.2 pounds of cerium
  • 110,230 pounds of rock for 2.2 pounds of gallium
  • 2,645,550 pounds of ore to get 2.2 pounds of lutecium
  • Also staggering amounts of ore are needed for other metals.”

‘Renewables’ Reality Check: Exposing Filthy Truth About Our Wind & Solar Powered ‘Nirvana’ – STOP THESE THINGS

*****

*****

Climate Activism Has a Cult Problem (thefp.com)

*****

This is what digital technology is leading to – for your “safety” (a la COVID digital tracking):

CHILLING: World Economic Forum Showcases Technology That Would Allow The Government To Punish Your Thoughts And Big Business To Spy On Your Brains (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)

*****

We are under attack. You need to read this . . .

Fifth Generation Warfare:

“. . . the war I’m talking about is an even broader war. A war that is taking place everywhere on the globe, even as I write, and that involves virtually everyone on the planet, young and old, male and female, military and civilian. It is the war of every government against its own population and every international institution against free humanity. . ..

We have a choice. Either we continue going into this technological, corporate matrix—which involves even things like buying the next generation of iPhone, which they’re already saying is going to have its own fingerprint scanning technology, and all of these corporate, military, Big Brother elements to it that we’re willingly signing up to every day of our lives, and actually paying money for—or we start to create alternative structures which don’t rely on that system. It’s a choice that we have to make in our lives, I would say more quickly than has been apparent at any other time in human history. . ..”

what I am proposing here: the creation of a parallel society. 

Your Guide to Fifth-Generation Warfare (substack.com)

*****

In sum, we are living in anarchy, as institutions themselves have become nihilistic and weapons of the revolution. The Left, in viral fashion, took over the DNA of America’s institutions, and used them to help destroy their creators.

If we are bewildered why Harvard law-graduate prosecutors let out violent criminals just hours after their arrests; or why hyper-rich, pampered athletes who live in near-apartheid enclaves insult the flag, ignore the National Anthem, and sloganeer woke platitudes, it is because they were taught to undermine the status quo by fundamentally becoming it. 

Anarchy, American-Style › American Greatness (amgreatness.com)

*****

Informed Dissent:

URGENT/BREAKING: UPDATED SUMMATION: The Spike Protein of SARS-CoV-2 is “Delivered” to All Organs via the Endothelium and Induces Systemic Nonsense mRNA Translations Resulting in Hyperaccelerated Aging (substack.com)

Ending the USG COVID-19 Public Health Emergency (substack.com)

*****

The reason Left Behind: Separating Fact from Fiction is being reprinted is because the Left Behind film franchise was renewed in 2023. Kevin Sorbo stars in “Left Behind: Rise of The Antichrist” with the tagline, “What Happens After the Rapture?” “I think it’s perfect for the time we are living in right now. You see the craziness of what governments are doing around the world right now. The fear, the pandemic, the anger, the hate, the cancel-culture and wokeness,” Sorbo stated in an interview. “If the rapture hasn’t already happened, it feels like it’s on the way.” How many times have we heard that the “rapture” is “on the way”? It was the tagline for most of the 20th century. It’s been more than 50 years since Hal Lindsey’s prophecy blockbuster The Late Great Planet Earth was published and intimated that the “rapture” would take place before 1988. A lot has happened since that false prediction has long been forgotten. I suspect that most people who will watch the new Left Behind film have no idea how inaccurate the prophetic speculators of a previous generation were. . . .

The promised false hope is that Christians will miraculously escape this soon coming “Great Tribulation” that the latest reiteration of the Left Behind film franchise depicts. Watch it, the tagline tells us, so you won’t have to experience the horrors of the Great Tribulation and possibly go to hell! But what if the entire Left Behind approach to Bible prophecy is more fiction than fact? That’s what this book is about.

Separating Fact from Fiction – The American Vision

Filed under Christianity, cosmology, Creationism, Culture, Psalms, Science Tagged with , , , , , ,

The Nature of Things

February 5, 2023 Leave a comment

I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?

-Samwise Gamgee to Frodo Baggins, reflecting on their journey

The twelve of us are in fishing boats anchored just offshore. Four of us – me, Andrew, James and John – are fishermen and the rest, landlubbers.

Jesus, the one who called us together to be with him, is standing on one of the fishing boats facing a huge crowd on the shore. He is teaching about the kingdom of God in parables.

At the end of the day Jesus says, “Let’s go over to the other side.”

Our boats leave the crowded shore and head across the sea toward the land of the Gerasenes. On the water, wind in our sails, we have downtime. Jesus is asleep on a cushion in the stern of my boat. I guide the craft with oar and sail and reflections. Where have we been and where are we headed?

I look around. The twelve of us come from small villages in Galilee. Most of us have attended synagogue. The tax collector hadn’t shown his face there until Jesus called him to follow along. We each share some common knowledge about God and our world. Is that why Jesus called us to follow him?

In synagogue we recited Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One. We were taught that our God brought order out of chaos when He formed the world. We were taught that God gave the created order functions and promised As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease. We learned that our God is involved in our world.

We were taught that we are made in the God’s image and that we are to function as God’s image in this world.

We learned the history of our people. The law, the prophets, and psalms were read.And there was talk of someone that would save Israel from her oppressors.

Jesus came along and announced that the kingdom of God has arrived. He began teaching us to understand things in kingdom of God ways. I cast a net into the sea and I catch fish and men. I plant a grain of wheat and wheat grows and the kingdom of God grows.

We’ve heard Jesus say astonishing things in synagogues across Galilee.  We’ve witnessed Jesus casting out demons and healing all kinds of afflictions. Right before our own eyes we saw him restore order and function. It is exciting and daunting to be with Jesus. What’s next in our journey?

Suddenly, the wind starts whipping our sails back and forth. A big storm is upon us. Monster surface waves are beating on the boats. Can we stay afloat? Each boat is quickly taking on water and with it the fear of the destructive power of nature. What are twelve men and a carpenter-teacher against such a storm on open water?

Andrew rouses Jesus.

“We’re going down! Don’t you care?”

Jesus gets up, his garment soaking wet. He scolds the wind and says to the sea “Silence! Shut up!”

At once, the wind died and there was a flat calm. Order was restored. Jesus looks at our terrified faces. “Why are you scared? Don’t you believe yet?”

A great fear washed over us. Believe what? Hair on the back of my neck stood up. We looked at each other trying to comprehend who and what just happened. “Who is this? Even the wind and the sea do what he says!”

After that, thoughts came flooding in. How could they not?

In synagogue we had heard that 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 and that God created great sea monsters. We heard that God brought order and function to the churning, chaotic primordial deeps.

The deep, the wind, the storm, the great sea monsters – everything serves God.

As a fisherman, how could I forget the words of the Psalm I heard in synagogue last Sabbath?

Some went down to the sea in ships,
    doing business on the mighty waters;
they saw the deeds of the Lord,
    his wondrous works in the deep.
For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
    which lifted up the waves of the sea.
They mounted up to heaven; they went down to the depths;
    their courage melted away in their calamity;
they reeled and staggered like drunkards
    and were at their wits’ end.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he brought them out from their distress;
he made the storm be still,
    and the waves of the sea were hushed.
Then they were glad because they had quiet,
    and he brought them to their desired haven.
Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
    for his wonderful works to humankind.
Let them extol him in the congregation of the people
    and praise him in the assembly of the elders.

And the Sabbath before that . . .

You rule the raging of the sea;
    when its waves rise, you still them.

And the Sabbath before that . . .

At your rebuke the waters flee;
    at the sound of your thunder they take to flight.

And the words of Job, the Sabbath before that . . .

The pillars of heaven tremble
    and are astounded at his rebuke.
By his power he stilled the Sea;
    by his understanding he struck down Rahab

Could that mean . . .?! Whoa whoa whoa! I lived to tell this!

Adapted from the gospel according to Mark, chapter four.

Additional Texts: Psalm 89, 104, 107; Job 26

*****

You and I are in a tale of cosmic proportions. It’s a tale of the unseen as more real than the seen and where mysteries are revealed. For God is always active in the world in countless and often undetectable ways.

It’s a tale of learning to practice the presence of God. It’s a tale of life in sacred space. For God is with us. And should we then be presumptive of God and domesticate him with our theology? Or, should we learn to be practitioners of his presence come what may?

*****

Mark Chapter 5: when the boats reached the land of the Gerasenes, Jesus and the group of twelve are met by a man with an unclean spirit. The demoniac, feared by everyone around, brought disorder to God’s creation. People tried to bring about order by restraining him with chains and shackles. But he tore up the chains and snapped the shackles.

Jesus sent the Legion of demons into a herd of pigs. The herd rushed down the steep slope into the recently “ordered” sea and drowned. He restored order in that district.

Only God is able to bring order out of cosmic disorder. (The World Economic Forum cannot no matter how many shackles and chains they apply.)

*****

Order and function in all that is:

As Kingfishers catch fire

By Gerard Manley Hopkins

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell’s
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,
Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.
I say móre: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God’s eye what in God’s eye he is —
Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men’s faces.

“Each of these objects does exactly what its nature dictates, in a kind of (unwilled) self-assertion. More generally, every “mortal thing” might be thought to do the same: to express that essence that dwells inside (“indoors”) of it.”

Hopkins’s Poetry “As Kingfishers Catch Fire, Dragonflies Draw Flame” Summary & Analysis | SparkNotes

*****

John H. Walton (Ph.D. Hebrew Union College) is Professor of Old Testament at Wheaton College and Graduate School where he has taught for almost twenty years

*****

Informed Dissent:

“What of the vaccine damaged and dead”?”

Speaking for the Dead – by Robert W Malone MD, MS (substack.com)

And who is Martha Stewards’ audience?

Whoa! Pfizer’s Latest Ad with Martha Stewart Claims the COVID Booster Shot will Take Out the COVID Virus – A COMPLETE LIE (thegatewaypundit.com)

Bill Gates concludes that mRNA shots aren’t actually useful, warns of ‘next pandemic’ (substack.com)

Project Veritas massive #Pfertility bombshell… going viral online now… – Revolver News

Science vs. religion as Greek priests lead the anti-vax movement – POLITICO

Dr. Naomi Wolf on COVID Vaccine: “A Bioweapon – Manufactured in Concert with the CCP – In a Slow Way to Debilitate If Not Kill Off the Population of North America and Western Europe” (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)

Project Veritas has broken Pfizer’s Gain-of-Function Research Program Wide Open. (substack.com)

The Lancet, which scammed the world by publishing a rigged study against ivermectin, now says climate change is a “medical emergency” – NaturalNews.com

Risk-Benefit-FinalDownload

Prof. Retsef Levi from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) warned about the risks associated with experimental mRNA COVID vaccines.

Renowned MIT Professor and Drug Safety Analytics Specialist Calls for Immediate Suspension of all mRNA COVID Vaccines (thegatewaypundit.com)

Top Insurance Analyst Finds a 7% Increase In Aggregate Mortality for Each C19 Dose Received [VIDEO] (redvoicemedia.com)

THE PLAN – WHO plans for 10 years of pandemics, from 2020 to 2030 (rumble.com)

Pfizer reports $100 billion haul, with vast majority of profits looted from US taxpayers (substack.com)

It is the most expensive “free” product of all time.

Pfizer colluded with the federal government to siphon off $100 billion dollars from the American taxpayer last year, in filings announced Tuesday by the drugmaker. $31 billion of that massive haul amounted to pure profit, which was up 43% from 2021. (Emphasis mine.)

EXCLUSIVE: The Federal Government Is Tracking Unvaccinated People Who Go To The Doctor And To The Hospital Due to CDC-Designed Surveillance Program – National File

Nothing to see here, only Sudden (Slab Jab) Deaths and the culling of the human population to save the planet:

18-Year-Old Freshman Dies Suddenly After Collapsing During Workout (thegatewaypundit.com)

Famed Olympic athlete and rugby player dies suddenly at 35 (wnd.com)

Jessie Lemonier dead at 25: Ex-Detroit Lions and LA Chargers linebacker, news confirmed by team | Daily Mail Online

19-Year-Old WSU Student Found Dead in His Dorm – No Evidence of Foul Play Involved (thegatewaypundit.com)

32-Year-Old Firefighter and Marine Corps Veteran Dies Suddenly (thegatewaypundit.com)

(READ) Autopsy analysis of 2 teen boys who died days after 2d Pfizer Covid-19 shot | Sharyl Attkisson

Former NFL linebacker dies suddenly at 25, no cause of death given – LifeSite (lifesitenews.com)

BREAKING: Beloved Tennis Player Dies Suddenly After Collapse On Summerlin Court – [your]NEWS (yournews.com)

Tragic: 14-Year-Old Israeli American Girl Suffers and Dies from COVID Vaccine – Makes a Video of Her Story Five Days Before Her Death (thegatewaypundit.com)

Search Results from the VAERS Database (medalerts.org)\

Vaccine Caused Excess Deaths?

Do you want to be free from medical tyranny?

Health Freedom Advocacy Center | Stand For Health Freedom

Bills to watch:

  • Representative Andy Harris’ HR118 – No Vaccine Passports Act
  • Representative Andy Biggs’ HR72, which prohibits the use of federal funds to maintain or collect information that can be used to identify any individual to whom a COVID-19 vaccine is administered, as well as for other purposes.
  • Representative Thomas Massie’s HR185, which will terminate the COVID vaccine mandate on foreign travelers flying to the United States.
  • Representative Chip Roy’s HR343 – No Taxpayer Funding for the WHO Act
  • Representative Andy Harris’ HR79 – WHO Withdrawal Act

More wealth transfer:

Filed under Christianity, Gospel of Mark, Short Story Tagged with , , , ,

Masters of the Future, Masters of Faith

January 22, 2023 Leave a comment

Klaus Schwab, the creepy front man for the World Economic Forum, opened the annual confab of the global cabal in Davos, Switzerland with a call to “master the future.”

“We couldn’t meet at a more challenging time. We are confronted with so many crises simultaneously. What does it mean to master the future?”

“I think, to have a platform where all stakeholders of global society are engaged. Governments, businesses, civil society, the young generation—and I could go on. I think is the first step to meet all the challenges.”

Challenges? Stakeholders? Resolutions?

The WEF Declares 2023 the Year of “Polycrisis”:

Regarding the “polycrisis,” the WEF assembled an extensive matrix of threats facing the world. The top five short-term risks were the “cost-of-living crisis, natural disasters and extreme weather, geo-economic confrontation, failure to mitigate climate change, and erosion of social cohesion and societal polarization. . . “the top four most severe risks over the next 10 years are all environmental.”

Note: except for Natural disasters and extreme weather (force majeure) the “unprecedented multiple crises” or “Polycrisis” mentioned above have all been manufactured by stakeholders to produce a certain outcome.

The extensive matrix of threats facing the world are media hyped. Fear mongering using disaster scenarios and the urgency to act – without a second thought – is found in media narratives. If it doesn’t bleed a crisis narrative, it doesn’t lead.

Natural disaster and calamity are given to us to remind mankind of its powerlessness, and to turn us aside from our arrogance. But that doesn’t deter the proud.

Here in America, inflation and the cost-of living crisis is a crisis the Biden regime created with its socialist green new deal along with the ruinous overspending by Congress (see the recent $1.7 trillion Omnibus Bill). Geo-economic confrontation (wars and rumors of wars?) occurs because greedy and pompous leaders see themselves as masters of the future. The climate change catastrophe is a manufactured crisis as was the COVID pandemic. Erosion of social cohesion and societal polarization –Marxists erode social cohesion; the WEF supports race relations antagonism and the fragmentation of society.

The WEF future peddlers and predators view all of the world as one that can be controlled – reset – and mastered. They plan to do all this by 2030.

“Under the theme of ‘Cooperation in a Fragmented World’, we’ll look at how we can tackle the numerous and interlinked challenges the world is facing and find solutions through public-private cooperation.” –Davos 2023 Day 1: What to expect | World Economic Forum (weforum.org).

So, many of the same people who created the havoc and hell on earth with the COVID planned-demic and talked “Build Back Better” will be the same people “cooperating” in a public-private way to “fix’ things for the future.

Here, in three short videos, is International independent journalist Noor Bin Ladin reporting from Davos about the WEF’s “mastering the future” agenda:

“If no one power can enforce order, our world will suffer from a global order deficit.” 

-Klaus Schwab

Davos 2023: Major institutions, corporations, billionaires and governments, along with the media, are actively consolidating forces to produce a “one power” world. To wit, the FBI has been “cooperating” with big tech to purge dissenting Americans the DOJ has labeled “conspiracy theory-driven domestic extremists” from public discourse. The following should scare the heck out of you:

One writer says that we should fear the Globalist American Empire more than the bond-villain-like Klaus Schwab. I agree. The GAE are more manipulative. Another writer says that All NWO Roads Lead to Israel. I also agree. And, this would comport with the what’s written in the Revelation of John. I would have no doubt that many godless and Christ-rejecting Jews are behind “mastering the future” programs. They will chose lesser gods.

If you have listened to or read any of the WEF’s grandiose word-salad propaganda, you never come across a mention of God. The WEF, you see, is a humanist and materialist anti-Christ organization. It is not aligned with “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”. Rather, it is aligned with” My kingdom come, My will be done, on across the earth as it is in my stake holdings.”

The Globalist Lord’s Prayer is a prayer for more wealth transfer. To wit, per Anthony Blinken, Secretary of State “a significant new security assistance package to help Ukraine” is in the works.

This package, which totals $2.5 billion, will bring total U.S. military assistance for Ukraine to an unprecedented approximately $27.5 billion since the beginning of the Administration. (Emphasis mine)

(Ukraine is not a U.S. ally. It’s a money laundering country. Ukraine’s border problem is Europe’s issue. Let Europe pay for guns and supplies. U.S., DO NOT escalate this fight. Nuclear war is on the table!)

“The theme of our meeting in Davos is cooperation in a fragmented world,” Klaus stated. In what the WEF calls the “Year of the Polycrisis,” Klaus declared that “economic, environmental, social, and geopolitical crises are converging and conflating, creating an extremely versatile and uncertain future.

The resolution of uncertainties is a very human concern. For the WEF and its Globalist cabal, resolution of uncertainties entails wealth transfers, complete digitization of life, monitoring every move, purchase, and association. We will eat and live as we are told. This will be our Orwellian future under the “masters of the future” unless we say “NO!” to their every incursion into our lives.

*****

Perspective:

I cannot know individual motives. I can only base my opinion on messaging and methods and the obvious.

Let’s start here. The WEF has an underlying set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe. The WEF has a “global order” moral code to govern the conduct of human affairs. As you will learn, globalist morality will be compulsory.

Any institutionalized system that practices, with ardor and faith, a cause, principle, or system of beliefs and creates disciples is a religion. The WEF has obvious characteristics of a religion. (Even the godless have to believe in and worship something.)

The Global Order religion views the world through a materialist lens. Its practitioners employ a faith in means – the means to an end, as in seizing the means of production. Such is their communistic bent. They will take control of businesses for “the greater good”.

What we are witnessing now, via the WEF, is a “cooperative” takeover of businesses. But once the New World Order is fully established, those who think that they will remain in control of their businesses will find out that another, perhaps a DEI candidate, will be in charge. NWO party commissars will be in charge to teach party principles and party loyalty.

The Global Order religion will use everything in their stakeholder power to force a New World Order in our “hyper partisan, hyper polarized time”.

The Global Order religion is not a new way of thinking about and managing mankind and civilization. “Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains” is the opening sentence of Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s (1712–1778) essay The Social Contract.

Rousseau, like many since, assumed that man by nature is a free and innocent being. Man, he insisted, was born with the potential for goodness but civilization, with its envy, self-consciousness, and competition has made men bad. 

Fellow philosopher Voltaire charged Rousseau with primitivism, accusing him of wanting to make people go back and walk on all fours. One will find similar noble savage myths in the environmental movement’s talk of the Axial Age and the Dark Green religion (see Iain Proven’s Convenient Myths: The Axial Age, Dark Green Religion, and the World That Never Was)

When institutions are fixed, Rousseau believed, mankind will respond in positive social ways.

Today we hear of “systemic racism” and the need for “change we can believe in”,  “fundamental transformation” and a “Great Reset”. As more and more American institutions become aligned with the globalist collective, it will be out with the old and in with the new Global Order religion.

And with each transition we see the perverse irony in the WEF’s “rules-based order” and the consensus implied in The Social Contract of Rousseau:  man who is “born free”, is to take on the “chains” imposed by the institutions of the globalist collective for a better “future”. With each transition we see that globalist utopia means global dystopia.

For the Christian, the materialist view of the world is way too small and incomplete. Christians view the world through a much broader lens. The wide-angle lens includes both the physical world and, by the operation of faith, “the things that can’t be seen. After all, the things you can see are here today and gone tomorrow; but the things you can’t see are everlasting.”  (2 Cor. 4:18).

It is a down-to-earth view that includes man, not as an innocent being, but man as corrupted by sinful choices and yet redeemable because of Christ. It is a view that sees that the whole of creation is groaning as it waits for redemption. It is a elevated view that sees the Kingdom of God and the restoration of the cosmic order.

The Christian views the material world relation to the transcendent. For one example, read the poem God’s Grandeur by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

Faith, as described in Hebrews 1: 1-3, is the means to bolster our confidence about things we can’t see or see as puzzling reflections in glass (1 Cor. 13: 12). Faith is the means to see past, present and future in the hands of the One who is the same yesterday, today and forever.

With confidence bolstered we can move out from a dark cave-dwelling existence of disturbing shadows – the Shadowlands – and look ahead into the broad daylight and Reality. We faith it out as did Abraham:

“Off he went, not knowing where is going.” . . .  “He was looking ahead, you see, “to the city which has its foundations, the city of which God is the designer and builder”. (Heb. 11:8, 10).

Did Abraham really imagine a city such as that? We don’t know. We do know that tent-dweller Abraham who lived under a starry canopy had been promised descendants as many as the stars . . .. “the designer and builder” of all that is above would make sure of it.

Challenges? Stakeholders? Resolutions?

Christians deal with challenges not by making others do want we want as the WEF is proposing. We face challenges head on by faith. Read Hebrews 11. There, we read of people whose faith transcended the threat of pain and death by political mercenaries.

Christians are stakeholders in both the seen and unseen. We seek resolutions to a disordered cosmos. And so, we pray, we faith, we work. We pray, we faith, we work.  We pray, we faith, and we work every day.

Who holds the future? Not those called to “master the future” by the World Economic Forum. Masters of faith know Who holds the future and act accordingly.

Why were you and I born in this space and time? It was to know the grace and love of God in our times and to hold the world, the flesh and devil in check.

“God leads us step by step, from event to event. Only afterward, as we look back over the way we have come and reconsider certain important moments in our lives in the light of all that has followed them, or when we survey the whole progress of our lives, do we experience the feeling of having been led without knowing it, the feeling that God has mysteriously guided us.” -Paul Tournier

And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity; that the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith. – Søren Kierkegaard

*****

The imagination plays an important part in faith. It should be no surprise to a Christian that the media militates against imagination leading to faith. The media images and sounds are from a world moving in the direction of the NWO. The media constantly lies, telling us to deny what know to be true. The media is paid to do so.

Protestants have banished images from their religious practice. And yet they fill their lives with media images. Huh. How can faith take hold without a holy imagination?

More on this in another post.

*****

Wise words from Fr. Chad Ripperger on the State of Evil in the World, Jan. 5th, 2023.

“The demons know their time is coming.” He speaks of a remnant. “God made man for rightly ordered worship.”

*****

The Men Who Made Klaus Schwab and The World Economic Forum – The Expose (expose-news.com)

The WEF Is A Cult Wrapped In A Grift Wrapped In An Enigma – Climate Change Dispatch

Elite Attend Davos In Private Jets, Tout ‘Carbon Footprint’ Trackers For Plebs – Climate Change Dispatch

Former UK Prime Minister Calls for “National Digital Infrastructure” to Track People’s Vaccination Status in the Event of Pandemic (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)

WEF: U.S. Will Soon Make Hate Speech Illegal, Says EU Commissioner (breitbart.com)

*****

The Controlled Opposition: Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, Matt Walsh, Dennis Prager

Has Moody Bible Institute become controlled opposition?

The Disturbing Origins of Ben Shapiro and the Rest of Conservative Incorporated | The Red Elephants (gab.com)

Comedian Tyler Fischer does hilarious impressions of Ben Shapiro, Jordan Petersen, and other “influencers” and their online drama… – Revolver News

*****

Informed Dissent:

Let’s start with fear porn . . .

Hmmmm:

Vax used for population control . . .

EXCLUSIVE: Pfizer’s secret guide for how to make a vaccine “safe and effective” (substack.com)

Even more proof: Masks don’t work (substack.com)

Opinion | How to stop overcounting covid deaths and hospitalizations – The Washington Post (archive.is)

“BBC is the Virus” – At Least 6 BBC Buildings Across UK Covered with Photos of People Who Died from COVID Vaccine (VIDEO) (thegatewaypundit.com)

Sudden “Coincidental” Deaths:

25-Year-Old Doctor of Pharmacy Who Ran Multiple “Vaccine” Clinics Dies Suddenly ⋆ 🔔 The Liberty Daily

Former American Idol Contestant Dies Suddenly at 31 After Suffering ‘Apparent Heart Attack’ (thegatewaypundit.com)

2-Year-Old Child Dies Suddenly One Day After Receiving Both the COVID Vaccine and Annual Flu Vaccine (thegatewaypundit.com)

Dr. Harriet Hall, Staunch Critic of Anti-vaxxers and Alternative Medicine, Dies in Her Sleep (thegatewaypundit.com)

UPitt Pharm Student Lindsay Heck Dies Suddenly At 25 Years Old | Dauphin Daily Voice

MUST SEE: Ultra MAGA Combines Blatant Lies by Fauci and DC Elites with TGP TRUTHS… “No Question – It’s Mass Homicide” -EPIC VIDEO (thegatewaypundit.com)

Our Representatives:

Congressional Democrat Moves to End Free Speech for White People – National File

Indiana’s Todd Young voted for respect for Marriage Act

“gays just want to get married” – Isn’t that what many conservatives have no problem with.

Todd Young, Indiana’s senator, you replied to my message speaking against the “Respect for Marriage” Act saying that you voted for the Act to give married gays “dignity’. I replied that you don’t know the LGBTQ community. Gays discharge dignity to live their lifestyle. You virtue signaling fool!

According to a copy of the 17-count indictment Townhall has obtained, the adoptive dads allegedly performed oral sex on both boys, forced the children to perform oral sex on them, and anally raped their sons. . . .

William admitted to forcing his 11-year-old adopted son to perform an act of sodomy, a.k.a. “oral copulation,” on him “with the intent to satisfy his own…sexual desire,” reads a sworn affidavit filed in support of William’s overnight arrest back on July 27. . . .

An updated criminal affidavit says the child sexual abuse was filmed by William’s husband Zachary, “with whom he routinely engaged in sexually abusive acts” on the boy. Zachary, the household’s breadwinner, confessed to being the cameraman, and authorities allegedly found a folder on his cell phone—labeled “US”—that contained videos of William sexually abusing the child.

UPDATE: Gruesome Details Released in Gay Activist Couple’s Crimes on Their Adopted Sons (Warning on Content) (thegatewaypundit.com)

Investigation Uncovers an LGBTQ Pedo-Ring Using Adopted Kids For Sex and Porn Videos (bitchute.com)

Filed under 2023 current events, Christianity, Communism, cultural Marxism, Culture, Political Commentary, Progressivism, social commentary, social engineering, socialism, totalitarianism Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

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