Articles: China's One Child Policy and the Global Depopulation Bomb

Articles: China's One Child Policy and the Global Depopulation Bomb

China's One Child Policy and the Global Depopulation Bomb

By Nick Arnold

For decades, China has been the 800 pound gorilla (er... panda) in the room. Its fast-growing economy and expanding influence as a regional power have garnered speculation about its future impact on the world stage.
One can hardly discuss China's future, however, without looking at its disastrous one-child policy. Since its induction in 1979, the policy has "prevented" the births of 400 million children through methods such as forced abortion, drawing criticism from both prolife and pro-abortion groups. Recently, China made a small but notable change to the policy by allowing some parents coming from single-child homes to have more children. It's not a complete fix by any means, but it does show that China may have noticed a rising threat the one-child policy causes to its long-term prosperity. Let's call it the depopulation bomb.
It's common knowledge that in order for a country to maintain a stable population, the birthrate needs to be over 2.0 per woman (unless the country has a massive influx of immigrants, which can provide a temporary but unpredictable source of relief). In many countries, however, the growth rate falls far short of that: In Europe, prominent countries such as Germany, Spain and Italy have birthrates below 1.5, and in Japan the problem is even worse, at a mere 1.26. As a result, it is creating an imbalance between young and old populations, an ever-increasing number of retirees are being supported by a shrinking pool of workers. If this decline continues, it will eventually reach the point where economic growth becomes impossible, with countries getting old before they can get rich. China's deliberate pursuit of a one-child policy has made it a poster child for this trend, with a median age expected to hit 49 by 2050.
Unfortunately for China, the problems of the one-child policy don't stop with age. Another problem rising for China is the preference many of its citizens have for male heirs. Given the opportunity for only one child, many families are opting to make sure it's a boy, and the effects are starting to show: Since 1980, the gap between men and women in the country has nearly doubled to over 50 million, and that's before the more evenly-distributed older generations age out. If the trend continues, China will not only have to deal with an expanding (and expensive) retiree population, it will also be facing an increasingly disgruntled generation of males. There may or may not be a historical precedent for this, but such a yawning gender gap can't be good for any country's long-term stability.
While it's easy to criticize China for its one-child policy, it's important to understand that the depopulation bomb is ticking, to a lesser or greater extent, worldwide. The entire "civilized" world has been pushing birth control for decades, and it's starting to catch up with us in the form of increasingly unstable and sexually disparate populations created by the global drive toward small families with fewer children.
Realizing the threat to their long-term prosperity, many nations are trying to put large families back in vogue. Their solutions range from restrictions on abortion in Russia, to truly desperate tactics in Japan like $150/month for each child and, I kid you not, baby robots. In the end, however, they are failing to understand the source of their problems: In each of these nations contraception and abortion are widely accepted by society (indeed, have often been tacitly supported by the governments), and the consequences of the culture so recently lauded are starting to surface.
Even at home in the U.S., where contraception and abortion are more controversial, the birthrate is teetering at a barely sustainable 2.1. By rights it should be lower, but our birthrate is inflated by a wave more pro-family immigrants from Latin America, which has already flattened after a 2007 peak. Even if high immigration levels had continued, however, we wouldn't be able to rely on immigration to solve our population woes forever. We're not immune to the gender gap, either: In studies like this one from the American Economic Journal, it's been found that at least 2000 girls went "missing" between 1991 and 2004, and that survey only covered Asian immigrant communities. The full numbers, especially with the prevalence of products that can predict the sex of your child such as Intelligender, are probably much worse. The world is beginning to see the fruits of decades of population control: in short, the plan backfired. Despite major backpedaling by governments around the globe, it's becoming apparent that the anti-family mentality promoted for so long is difficult to erase from the public mindset. China, like America and every other forward-thinking nation, should give major thought to repealing one-child policies and other procedures that discourage family building. The sooner governments embrace the vital role families play in economic growth and stability, the sooner we can start disarming the world's depopulation bomb.
Nick Arnold is a writer living in Washington, D.C.

Articles: Faith within Science

Articles: Faith within Science

Faith within Science

By Thomas P. Sheahen
 December 15, 2013
 

For quite some time, science has been presented to the public in a distorted way.  Reports of statements by scientists are often stated as absolutely certain truths, never mentioning any doubts or questions.  Seldom do reporters inquire about how they became so certain, why they have such high confidence.

That image simply isn't true.  A major disconnect exists between what really happens and reported science.  Real science is always subject to revision, never "absolutely final."  In everyday conversation, a person might say "I'm absolutely certain about that" but among responsible scientists, even the strongest affirmations always begin with "To the best of our scientific knowledge at this time ..."

Maybe, given the history of corrections in science (which come slowly), it might be wiser to show a little humility and allow for the possibility of a revision.

The 20^th century gives a perfect example of how that process works, in the way Quantum Mechanics superseded Classical Mechanics.  What we term Classical Mechanics was basically invented by Isaac Newton in the late 1600s, and refined by many other scientists over the next two centuries.  By the end of the 19^th century, it appeared to nearly everyone that Classical Mechanics was absolutely true.

Philosophers were making much of the concept of determinism that necessarily followed from the physics-principle that if you knew the exact position and momentum of all bodies at any one time, you could predict everything that would happen in the future.  Among other things, this determinism implied that there are no real choices open to humans, no such thing as free will.  It seemed to be necessary to choose either religion or science, but not both.

Imagine the difficulty of being a clergyman in those days, trying to convince your congregation that it's important to choose between good and evil, when the accepted "sure thing" science of the day said that everything that happens is determined by position and momentum of particles, and humans are merely subject to blind molecular forces. 

That philosophy of determinism also gave credibility to things like Social Darwinism and theories of racial superiority, which had very ugly consequences.

Then along came Quantum Mechanics circa 1925, which replaced Isaac Newton's equations with a more fundamental understanding of how atoms behave.  Classical Mechanics was shown to be just a limiting special case of reality, applicable to big objects.  Baseballs and trains still move as usual, but atoms behave quite differently from what had been believed.  Philosophically, a very significant correction was forced upon Classical Mechanics: It is impossible to know both the position and the momentum of a particle exactly.  That change completely undermined the philosophy of determinism.

As word got around that determinism was out, a lot of spokesmen for morality breathed a sigh of relief.  From a religious point of view, it turned out that God created a pretty flexible universe after all.

Physicists, chemists, biologists and others immediately started using Quantum Mechanics to explore new ideas and invent new devices.  An important change came over science, in that we must trust the testimony of others in order to grasp the experimental basis for the theory.  Centuries ago, you could repeat for yourself all the original experiments of Faraday or Galileo, etc.; but no more - many quantum experiments are too complicated.  You wind up believing what others state they observed.  In that way, faith enters the realm of science.  Today it's routine practice to read a technical journal and believe what another scientist says is valid.  The progress of science has become an interlocking system of faith in other human beings.

One of the foremost physicists of the 20^th century, Richard P.  Feynman, famously said "Nobody understands Quantum Mechanics." That statement is very likely correct.  One counter-quip is "shut up and calculate," meaning that Quantum Mechanics gives correct numerical answers, even if its philosophical interpretation is unclear.  The accomplishments of Quantum Mechanics include transistors, lasers, satellite communications, cell phones and countless aspects of everyday life that we take for granted.

Is Quantum Mechanics the final word?  No.  Over the decades as new sub-atomic particles were discovered, it has been further corrected and advanced to become Quantum Electrodynamics, then Quantum Chromodynamics.  In striving to assemble one theory that covers everything from quarks to galaxies, we have composed the Standard Model, which is certainly very comprehensive, but doesn't quite enable Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity to fit together.

Currently there is great attention given to a branch of theoretical physics called String Theory, which uses very elegant mathematics to form a picture of fundamental particles.  Here the component of faith is even stronger: to get anywhere, you must believe that mathematical symmetry principles are the basis for all reality.  String Theory does not make any predictions that can be tested experimentally; that shifts the balance even further away from the customary practice of physics, where experiments take precedence over hypotheses and theoretical models.  For that reason, a finite fraction of physicists completely reject String Theory.

There are many other possibilities for corrections in the future.  It is generally believed by cosmologists that most of the universe is composed of dark matter and dark energy, which are inaccessible to our observations.  Dark matter is quite plausible: starting from our belief in the law of Conservation of Angular Momentum, we see that galaxies are rotating so fast they would fly apart, unless there is additional unseen (dark) matter present to hold them together.  That is a reasonable conclusion.

On the other hand, dark energy is a bigger stretch! The universe seems to be expanding faster than it should, based on observations from spacecraft of the last two decades.  To account for that, dark energy is postulated, along with a possible "fifth force" that drives the expansion of space.  Again, we're dealing with something that cannot be seen; it is only faith in equations that justify the presumption that dark energy exists.

In the years ahead, further spacecraft will investigate the far reaches of the universe, and the hypothesis of dark energy may be revised.  It's important to keep in mind that those investigations will be guided by theory that rests upon a large dose of faith.  Scientists who understand the limits of their own profession are comfortable with this reality, and won't commit themselves to believing that any scientific theory is absolutely true and final.

Classical Mechanics is a very good theory ... for the range it covers.   Likewise, Quantum Mechanics is very good in its applicable range.  Will it too be superseded one day? Perhaps.  The fact that I'm unable to imagine how doesn't make it impossible.  It's a safe bet to anticipate future corrections.

There is a further lesson here.  Knowing that faith and belief are significant components of science, it is reasonable to discern a similar role for faith and belief in other aspects of our lives.  There is no exclusive single path to knowledge, nor does science have some exalted status with other pathways of learning relegated to second-class status.  The human mind is very resourceful, combining different inputs to advance in understanding.  Prudent scientists are humble enough to respect that.

In today's world, there are plentiful challenges to religious faith, and some of them lay claim to the "mantle of science."  Ignoring the observational evidence from the universe we inhabit, some popularizers of science have invented speculations that the universe created itself, or that there are an infinite number of unobservable universes, etc.  Those speculations are entertaining parlor games, not to be confused with rational science.  None of these need be taken seriously.

What is worthy of serious attention is that the universe greatly exceeds human comprehension.  The elegance and mathematical beauty of the laws that govern it virtually shout "intelligence!" at everyone who thinks about it.  The most reasonable and responsible conclusion to draw is that the universe was created by that supreme intelligence.  It's a fairly short step from there to the inference that God cares about the universe and the rational beings who inhabit it.
Thomas P. Sheahen holds B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is Director of the Institute for Theological Encounter with Science & Technology, based in St. Louis.

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Articles: When Rights Become Political Spoils

Articles: When Rights Become Political Spoils
 

When Rights Become Political Spoils

By Jeffrey T. Brown
 December 13, 2013


The first amendments to the Constitution, contained within a Bill of Rights intended to protect us from the dark side of our rulers' human nature, contain some of our most basic and important freedoms. Without them, we are merely inmates in whatever institution the elected decide to construct around us. At the risk of oversimplification, the Bill of Rights tells the elected that their designs have limits, which we consider sacred as deriving from God and not man.
On their own, those articulated rights are the model of clarity and simplicity. However, because they apply to all, and convey no preference or advantage to classes or sects, they are unacceptable to some. They must be rewritten and ultimately replaced by what is more agreeable to those who resent having their grand designs thwarted by long-dead geniuses. As the left is wont to do, they have set about not to entirely dissolve the protections of the Bill of Rights, but to unilaterally assume the role of arbiter, to constrict the meaning of the language of the Bill of Rights, and to decide to whom those rights will be awarded and from whom they will be taken. To fail to see their belief in the government's ownership of rights, and its entitlement to dispense them only to their faithful adherents, is to entirely miss a significant part of the left's end-game. Rights are prizes for loyal followers.
When the left opines on rights, it is never to preserve those that were specifically to be protected to the benefit of all. They consider those to be defective. Instead, they act to nullify established rights that make all equal, and to impose new ones specifically designed to advance themselves. The left likes and protects only rights that serve the agenda. Similarly, only laws that advance their agenda, or do not actively impede it, are deserving of enforcement. In other words, we are, or will soon be, a nation in which laws only apply against the opposition, or in favor of the faithful. As the left stacks benches and courts with high priests of the faith, what would be called a "Qadi" in Sharia law, the worst is yet to come.
Like a Qadi, the left's judges are thoroughly indoctrinated in the theology of the left. A Catholic can no more be a cleric in Iran than a conservative, or even a purely neutral jurist, can be a federal judge appointed by this president. Those who do not adhere to the tenets of the faith need not apply. By consciously appointing only those who adhere to the radicalism of the ruler, the judicial branch of our government becomes, in effect, merely an extension of the executive branch. It is the enforcement branch of the enforcement branch, where every outcome is guaranteed to contain the necessary leftward bias of the king, who is keeper of the progressive faith. At that point, rights cease being neutral things which benefit all equally, and become goodies to be handed out or snatched from the citizenry, depending on one's politics. When only one outcome advances the agenda, there will be no mystery to the result.
Of course, the left seeks the governmental triumvirate. While they have very effectively neutered the legislative branch by the transformation of the executive into a king, and the courts into his henchmen, they still are taking no chances with Congress, notwithstanding their recent self-inflicted wounds. In order to enable the king and his courts to fully seal the deal, Congressional leftists in both parties, along with their PACs and financiers, partake in a perpetual assault on personal liberties and freedom. The First and Second Amendments are particular targets. The White House has already eradicated the Fourth, courtesy of the NSA. Of course, progressives don't call these efforts "attacks", but "reform."
The taking of rights is always disguised as necessary for a common good. In the name of what we now know to be fraudulent health-care reform, the Democrats willfully violated the First Amendment prohibition on the free exercise of religion. After all, what is religion but a matter of conscience? Because Obamacare criminalizes the exercise of conscience in contradiction to its mandates, it is per se an infringement of the First Amendment. The president believes so strongly in this prohibited infringement that he has forced a case all the way to the Supreme Court, where several Qadi have been waiting. Although the First Amendment, as written, prevents the president from creating new rights as prizes for his followers by divesting others of their right of conscience, he knows that his Qadi will do what he sent them there to do.
Freedom of speech, in the age of new media, is particularly vexatious to this president. Thus, his followers have proposed "media shield" laws that protect only those whom the left defines as acceptable "journalists." That is, only they who are already members of the faith, and who accept the role they are required to play, would receive the king's blessing of free, i.e. non-opposition, speech. All others would be vulnerable to the zeal of the king's enforcers, operating without fear of retribution. Indeed, there already exist other cultures in our modern world within which the state religion and law are fused, where speech against the doctrine is actually punishable by death. Perhaps it is a matter of degree, or maybe just of time.
The right of peaceable assembly, we have seen, is a function of the president's whim and caprice. If he unilaterally decides that those he loathes should not assemble, for instance at the World War II Memorial or in national parks, then they shall not. However, if at the exact same time his beloved followers wish to gather on public land, using public funds, to protest immigration laws that the king and his enforcers find distasteful, they shall be rewarded with rights that have been denied to others.
The right to petition for a redress of grievance has become laughable. Indeed, as the IRS so clearly demonstrated, to hold a differing viewpoint will subject some to mistreatment and damage at the heavy hand of government. However, if the redress sought must be petitioned and obtained from the same people at the root of the grievance, the right is meaningless. Add to that the fact that the decision is likely to be made by a Qadi, and the outcome is assured. Rights are for those who profess and obey the faith.
The holy grail, of course, is the Second Amendment. Of all the amendments after the first, each of which is profoundly important, this one is second for a reason. Without it, the right of the citizens to meaningfully stand against a tyrant and his followers who infringe or falsely rescind the other unalienable rights will disappear. The right of a people to defend itself is the last bulwark of freedom. Thus, to the left it is the most offensive, and the most dangerous of all. As such, that right has been openly under attack for 30 years. If it falls, so do the rest, quickly and without the cover of incrementalism.

Coupled with the realization that our self-appointed king has decided that rights are political gifts, we have recently come to understand that there are military officers whose politics suggest they stand ready to carry out whatever infringement the president may illegally order, particularly as to the Second Amendment. We cannot predict what our nation will look like in three more years, but the risk is that by then we may no longer be able to speak about it, write about it, protest about it, or defend ourselves against those who have much worse in store. The rescission of dissenters' rights is not the end of the process. It is merely the beginning.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/when_rights_become_political_spoils.html#ixzz2nOHwuZNU
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Truth or Tradition? Christians Who Don’t Celebrate Christmas | Christian News Network

Truth or Tradition? Christians Who Don’t Celebrate Christmas | Christian News Network

Truth or Tradition? Christians Who Don’t Celebrate Christmas

December 22, 2012 



 An increasing number of Christians state that they have decided to no longer celebrate Christmas. While they admit that their decision is often severely scorned by friends and family, and is seen as odd to many Christmas enthusiasts, they say that after doing research on its origins, the opposition from Christians throughout history and the general spirit of the popular holiday, they can no longer in good conscience worship God in this manner.
“As I began to dig into where [the holiday] came from, it bothered me,” said Pastor Jim Staley of Passion for Truth Ministries in St. Charles, Missouri. “The more that I began to study, the more that I began to compare Biblical truth versus tradition, the more I realized that none of the disciples celebrated any of the holidays that we have today.”
Richard Rives of Wyatt Archaeological Research in Cornersville, Tennessee told Christian News Network that his experience was similar.
“Basically, I just started researching these things,” he said, noting that he stopped celebrating 25 years ago. “What I found out was that December 25th was something that was in honor of the pagan sun gods and not Jesus Christ.”

“Once I learned these things, I didn’t want anything to do with it, because to take pagan precepts of worship and combine it with the worship of our Creator is in violation of the first four Commandments that teach us how to love the Lord,” Rives stated.
The Early Origins of Christmas

Richard Rives, President of Wyatt Archaeological Research

“Basically, it was associated with the Winter Solstice, and the sun worshipers would have a big festival when the sun would begin rising in the sky,” Rives explained, who operates Wyatt Museum in Tennessee, and is author of the book and DVD series Too Long in the Sun.

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“In the year 273 A.D., there was a Roman emperor by the name of Aurelian. At that time, the Palmyrines had pulled away from the Roman empire, and Aurelian … conquered the Palmyrines and brought the spoils from the temple of Baal back to Rome and established a college of priests — the priests of the sun. And he built a temple to the sun and called the sun god Sol Invictus — ‘The Invincible Sun.’”
“At that time, the Roman empire was quite a vast empire, and so in one part of the empire some would call the sun god Zeus, and another part Apollo and Osiris, and on and on, [but] basically it’s the same old sun god that represents Baal that we read about in the Old Testament,” he said. “Aurelian … called the sun god Sol Invictus — ‘The Invincible Sun’ — so that all the various worshipers of the sun god — no matter what they called him — could come together and have unity in sun worship.”
Rives stated that Aurelian then set a day where everyone could worship the sun god in unison — December 25th.
“In 354, three hundred years after the time of Christ, December 25th was the most important pagan birthday on the entire calendar, and this calendar was drawn up by a Christian living in Rome,” he stated, referring to the Codex Calendar of Valentinus.
Staley concurred. His video Truth or Tradition, which has been viewed by tens of thousands on YouTube, outlines many of the origins of popular traditions observed during the Christmas season.
“The Christmas that have have today was popularized with the Feast of Saturnalia, where the Romans celebrate the birth of the Winter Solstice,” which begins on December 21st, he said. “The birth of the sun was a huge 12-day festival where there was drunkenness, orgies, [and] there was all kinds of promiscuity.”

Saint Nicholas of Turkey

“They would cut down evergreen trees; they would decorate them with silver and gold. They would put candles on the tree to celebrate the Twelve Days of Christmas. They would take another giant log and put it in the fireplace — that’s where the yule log came from,” Staley explained. “They would hang mistletoe, and they believed there were magical berries on them, so they would perform sexual acts underneath these mistletoes to the fertility goddesses, and that’s where we get this ‘kissing under the mistletoe.’ Santa Claus was originally the god Odin, and eventually got connected to Saint Nicholas.”
The men stated that during the Fourth Century the Roman Catholic Church then began to adopt many of the pagan practices while inventing a new holiday in an attempt to convert men to Catholicism.
“I get emails and [have] discussions with Catholic priests, and they say that the [Roman Catholic] Church has the authority to take those pagan activities and Christianize them, in other words, to declare them to be Christian in nature,” Rives advised. “So, they are fully aware of those things that we are talking about, but they say that they can Christianize them.”
“The Protestants are the ones that are in denial,” he continued. “The Protestants say, ‘Oh no, these things were never pagan. It has everything to do with Jesus.’ And that’s simply not true. The Catholic theologians are more honest than the Protestants.”
“The reason that I start going through all of the Catholic symbols [in my video] is to show that this a Catholic holiday,” Staley said. “They coined Christmas the way that it is.”
Opposition Throughout History

The Puritans of England

“Our forefathers knew better than to celebrate this pagan festival called Christmas,” Rives stated. “It was outlawed in New England from 1649 to 1658, and it was condemned for its pagan roots by the Puritans, the Methodists, the Quakers, the Amish, Presbyterians and Baptists. It was later made an illegal holiday in 1856.”
In the 1640’s, the English Parliament discussed enacting a ban on Christmas because they believed that it was directly contrary to Christianity. One of the main reasons that the parliament and the Puritans in the nation believed this was because the holiday was a mixture of “pagan revelry” and Catholic mandates. Being strongly against the ways of Catholicism, many Puritans forbade the attendance of mass in England, from which the name Christmas was derived.
In 1647, parliament not only passed a law banning Christmas, but also Easter, Whitsun and all of the special “saints” days instituted by the Catholic church. When the Puritans came to America, they did the same.
On May 11, 1659, the Massachusetts Bay Colony legislature passed a law banning any observance of Christmas, declaring: “For preventing disorders arising in several places within this jurisdiction, by reason of some still observing such festivals as were superstitiously kept in other countries, to the great dishonor of God & offence of others, it is therefore ordered … that whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by for-bearing of labor, feasting, or any other way, upon any such account as aforesaid, every such person so offending shall pay for every such offence five shillings, as a fine to the county.”
A few years prior to the ban, in 1656, Hezekiah Woodward distributed a pamphlet about Christmas, which stated, “Christ-Mass Day, the old Heathens’ Feasting Day, in honor to Saturn their idol-god, the Papists Massing Day, the Profane Man’s Ranting Day, the Superstitious Man’s Idol Day, The Multitudes Idle Day, Satan’s – that Adversary’s – Working Day. Taking to heart the heathenish customs, Popish superstitions, ranting fashions, fearful provocations, horrible abominations, committed against the Lord, and His Christ, on that day and days following …”

Charles Spurgeon

In addition to the nation’s founders expressing their opposition to the holiday, a number of well-known preachers throughout history have been recorded as preaching against Christmas. They not only pointed to its institution by the Catholic Church rather than Scripture, but also said that its traditions were altogether vain and worldly.
“We have no superstitious regard for times and seasons,” preached Charles Spurgeon in a sermon delivered on December 24th, 1871. “Certainly we do not believe in the present ecclesiastical arrangement called Christmas. First, because we do not believe in the mass at all, but abhor it, whether it be said or sung in Latin or in English; and, secondly, because we find no Scriptural warrant whatever for observing any day as the birthday of the Savior, and, consequently, its observance is a superstition, because not of Divine authority.”
“When it can be proved that the observance of Christmas, Whitsuntide and other Popish festivals was ever instituted by a Divine statute, we also will attend to them, but not till then,” he continued. “It is as much our duty to reject the traditions of men as to observe the ordinances of the Lord.”
“Christmas is coming! Quite so. But, what is ‘Christmas?’ Does not the very term itself denote it’s source – ‘Christ-mass?’” declared English pastor and author A.W. Pink in the pamphlet Christmas. “Thus it is of Roman origin, brought over from paganism. But, says someone, Christmas is the time when we commemorate the Savior’s birth. It is? And who authorized such commemoration?”
“Some will argue for the keeping of Christmas on the ground of ‘giving the kiddies a good time.’ But why do this under the cloak of honoring the Savior’s birth?” he asked. “Why is it necessary to drag in His holy name in connection with what takes place at that season of carnal jollification? Is this taking the little one with you out of Egypt — a type of the world— or is it not plainly a mingling with the present day Egyptians in their ‘pleasures of sin for a season?’”
“By contrary doctrine, we understand whatsoever men, by laws, councils, or constitutions, have imposed upon the consciences of men, without the expressed commandment of God’s word: such as be … keeping of holy days of certain saints commanded by men, such as be all those that the Papists have invented, as the feasts of apostles, martyrs, virgins, of Christmas, circumcision, Epiphany, Purification, and other fond feasts,” wrote Reformation leader John Knox in the First Book of Discipline in 1560, “which things, because in God’s Scriptures they neither have commandment nor assurance, we judge them utterly to be abolished from this realm…”
In more recent years, American-born Pastor G.I. Williamson, who ministered in New Zealand for several decades, preached a message challenging the Body of Christ to not be like the Pharisees and follow man-made traditions.
“[T]here was a day in which Protestants and Roman Catholics disagreed strongly, not concerning what the source of Christmas — and other such holy days — was, but whether or not that source was valid,” he preached in 1962. “Then, as now, the Roman Catholic Church fully defended such man-made traditions, because, to quote its own words, ‘The Catholic Church has received from Jesus Christ the power to make laws for its members.’”
“[T]he truth is that Christmas has no more warrant from Christ than would such a day that were chosen by yourself,” he continued. “The only difference is that tradition through the process of time, raises something of purely human origin to the place that it is highly esteemed of men. But it is still an abomination to God because of its source.”
Christians Today
“The battle that Jesus was constantly engaged in with the Pharisees was the age-long battle of God’s word versus the traditions of men. In the Church, we are engaged in the same battle today,” wrote Zac Poonen, 40-year church planter, author and pastor of Christian Fellowship Church in Bangalore, India, in the essay Christmas and Easter: Christian or Pagan? “Consider Christmas, which is celebrated by many as the birthday of Jesus Christ. Shopkeepers of all religions look forward to Christmas, for it is a time when they can make much profit. It is a commercial festival, not a spiritual one. … Sales of alcoholic drinks go up at this time. … Is this really then the birthday of the Son of God, or of another ‘Jesus’?”
Pastor Malcom McInnis of Scotland is also quoted as stating in the article Christmas Examined: An Appeal to God’s People, “Christ-mass speaks its own message as to its origin, and it is time for Protestants to disassociate themselves from this Roman Catholic tradition. … What has the exchanging of gifts at Christmas time to do with the birthday of Christ? If it was His birthday would He not be the one to whom the gifts would be given? What have the Christmas tree, the nativity play, a Christmas church concert, and other Christmas trimmings to do with the birthday of the Saviour? These are not part of Biblical Christianity.”
Similarly, the Facebook group “Christians Against Christmas,” which has hundreds of members, asks, “Why would I as a Christian not want Christ in Christmas? Because the Christ of the Holy Bible does not command us to worship Him in that fashion. … Christmas in this day and age in America is more about family, gifts and honoring the birth of Christ, but it is all a lie.”

Pastor Jim Staley of Passion for Truth Ministries

Staley agreed with these beliefs, and noted that it can be difficult to break the news to friends and family who may not understand or share these sentiments. However, he and Rives said that it is more important to obey God rather than men.
“This really doesn’t have anything to do with the birth of Jesus. This has everything to do with people getting together as a family over the holidays,” Staley said. “And then there are memories; there are emotions involved, there’s family traditions, so you’re not just telling people, ‘Hey, I personally don’t want to celebrate … anymore.’ What they hear is that you don’t care about the family.”
“From the very first time, it was very, very difficult [to break it to my family],” he admitted. “It’s an ongoing learning process and at the end of it, if people take a position of love in a relationship, there’s work-arounds.”
He explained that his video Truth or Tradition has also challenged many others, including pastors. “One pastor from Minnesota watched Truth or Tradition and he called me up and said, ‘… I just watched Truth or Tradition and it’s turned my whole world upside down,” Staley related. “He said, ‘I’ve got 250 people in my congregation, and now what do I do?’”
“I just stopped doing it,” Rives said. “If God doesn’t like it, why would you want to do it?”
When asked if it is okay to celebrate the holiday as long as it is done for Christ and not paganism, the men pointed back to Scripture.
“That’s exactly what the people thought at Mount Sinai,” Rives said, noting that God was not pleased with the syncretism of the people. “If you remember, they [made] the calf and declared a feast unto the Lord.”
“If you read the first four Commandments, you will see that He is a jealous God, and He does not allow the combination of pagan worship with His worship at all,” he continued. “All through the Old Testament, that’s what the people tried to do.”
“We have no right to worship our God in any way that we choose,” Staley said. “One of the biggest statements that people make is, ‘Well that’s not what Christmas means to me.’ That’s great, but you’re not the one being worshiped. We have to take into consideration, what does it matter to Him, and if He tells us in Deuteronomy and other places that He does not want to be worshiped in the ways that the pagans worshiped their gods, then that’s the end of the story. Either we are serving Him, or He is serving us.”
“How do you think He feels when we celebrate His Son’s birthday on someone else’s birthday that’s His arch enemy? Why would I want to do that?” he asked. “I would never want to use anything that would remind my God of the terrible things that would happen in and around [this] festival.  … Would you have satanic star in your home? Would you have a crest of the pope on your wall? You would never have a pagan symbol in your home. Why do you have this?”
In the end, the men state that they are very compassionate with those who still celebrate because they realize that Christians are on different levels and some have never heard the information.
“The churches are full of good people who just don’t know,” Rives said. “Their leaders have not told them.”
However, “Once we know the truth about it,” he stated, “we’re responsible, and we don’t have any choice but to do what’s right.”

Blog: The ObamaCare lie and the global warming lie

Blog: The ObamaCare lie and the global warming lie

The ObamaCare lie and the global warming lie

Thomas Lifson

November 29, 2013

 

 

Now that Americans have largely caught on that their government will lie to them to support the expansion of state power, America's progressives are in for a rough time ahead, according to Peter Ferrara, writing at Forbes.

The second shoe is preparing to drop to shatter the world view of so-called Progressives.  Coming, global revelations will demonstrate the fraud behind the theory of man-caused, catastrophic, global warming, just like the real world has shattered the falsehoods behind Obamacare.
That is because the underlying reason for both frauds was the same: to expand government power.  Enablers went along with the fraud in both cases for the same underlying reason - political correctness.  In both cases, going along with the cause for the assumed public good without raising questions was considered the politically correct thing to do for all "good" people.  Soon the enablers in both cases will have to pay the price for participating in and perpetuating the fraud.

Drawing on the work of S. Fred Singer and other leading global warming skeptics who have shown that the actual temperature evidence is contradicting the warmist hypothesis, Ferrara makes a fascinating comparison to other scientific frauds perpetrated in the name of enhancing state power. Quoting the eminent MIT atmospheric sciences professor emeritus Richard Lindzen:

"Global climate alarmism has been costly to society, and it has the potential to be vastly more costly.  It also has been damaging to science, as scientists adjust both data and even theory to accommodate politically correct positions.  How can one escape from the Iron Triangle (ambiguous statements from scientists translated into alarmism by advocates and the media, with politicians responding by feeding the scientists taxpayer money) when it produces flawed science that is enormously influential and is forcing catastrophic public policy.

There are past examples.  In the U.S. in the early 20^th century, the eugenics movement had coopted the science of human genetics and was driving a political agenda.  The movement achieved the Immigration Restriction Act of 1923, as well as forced sterilization laws in several states.  The movement became discredited by Nazi atrocities, but the American consequences survived well into the 1960s.

In the Soviet Union, Trofim Denisovich Lysenko (1898-1976) promoted the Lamarckian view of the inheritance of acquired characteristics.  It fit with Stalin's megalomaniacal insistence on the ability of society to remold nature....However, opposition within the Soviet Union remained strong, despite ruthless attempts to suppress dissenters....

Global warming differs from the previous two affairs.  Global warming has become a religion.  A surprisingly large number of people seem to have concluded that all that gives meaning to their lives is the belief that they are saving the planet by paying attention to their carbon footprint.  There may be a growing realization that this may not add that much meaning to one's life, but outside the pages of the Wall Street Journal, this has not been widely promulgated, and people with no other source of meaning will defend their religion with jihadist zeal.

In contrast to Lysenkoism, Global Warming has a global constituency, and has successfully coopted almost all of institutional science.  However, the cracks in the scientific claims for catastrophic warming are, I think, becoming much harder for the supporters to defend."

Lindzen concludes that the previous examples of the eugenics movement and Lysenkoism lasted 20 to 30 years, which is about equal to the run of the global warming movement since its American rollout in 1988.  He suggests that the global warming movement may be just about spent as well.

We shall see. Having witnessed the ability of progressives to believe demonstrable falsehoods for decade after decade, I am not quite so optimistic that the scales will fall from their eyes. On the other hand, the graph below, comparing warmist predictions with actual results shows that the gap is getting bigger and bigger, to the point where laughter is the only sane response.

Menawhile, China, India, and other competitors of the warmist-obsessed Western democracies are forging ahead, unencumbered by carbon taxes. The resulting economic pain is causing a backlash in Britain, Australia, and other countries that have hobbled their industries.

I do think that Ferrara is correct in positing that the realization that statists lie is a gateway to skepticism across the board. ObamaCare may be the gateway drug for skepticism on governmental overreach.

Hat tip: Cliff Thier

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The Miracle of the United States - A warning to future generations

The Miracle of the United States – A warning to future generations

By Bill Bailey On April 7, 2013 · 7 Comments · In Current Events

On February 22, 1832, the 100^th birthday of George Washington, members of Congress and guests from across the union gathered in Washington, D.C., to commemorate the occasion.  Massachusetts Senator Daniel Webster was asked by the Committee of Arrangements to deliver the address.
In the course of that address, The Character of Washington, Senator Webster delivered several stern and sobering warnings to futurity:
“Gentlemen, the spirit of human liberty and of free government, nurtured and grown into strength and beauty in America, has stretched its course into the midst of the nations. Like an emanation from Heaven, it has gone forth, and it will not return void- It must change, it is fast changing, the face of the earth. Our great, our high duty is to show, in our own example, that this spirit is a spirit of health as well as a spirit of power; that its benignity is as great as its strength ; that its efficiency to secure individual rights, social relations, and moral order, is equal to the irresistible force with which it prostrates principalities and powers. The world, at this moment, is regarding us with a willing, but something of a fearful admiration. Its deep and awful anxiety is to learn whether free states may be stable, as well as free; whether popular power may be trusted, as well as feared; in short, whether wise, regular, and virtuous selfgovernment is a vision for the contemplation of theorists, or a truth established, illustrated, and brought into practice in the country of Washington.”[i]

“Gentlemen, for the earth which we inhabit, and the whole circle of the sun, for all the unborn races of mankind, we seem to hold in our hands, for their weal or woe, the fate of this experiment. If we fail, who shall venture the repetition? If our example shall prove to be one, not of encouragement, but of terror, not fit to be imitated, but fit only to be shunned, where else shall the world look for free models? If this great Western Sun be struck out of the firmament, at what other fountain shall the lamp of liberty hereafter be lighted? What other orb shall emit a ray to glimmer, even, on the darkness of the world?”[ii]
“There is no danger of our overrating or overstating the important part which we are now acting in human affairs. It should not flatter our personal self-respect, but it should reanimate our patriotic virtues, and inspire us with a deeper and more solemn sense, both of our privileges and of our duties. We cannot wish better for our country, nor for the world, than that the same spirit which influenced Washington may influence all who succeed him; and that the same blessing from above, which attended his efforts, may also attend theirs.”[iii]
“Among other admonitions, Washington has left us, in his last communication to his country, an exhortation against the excesses of party spirit. A fire not to be quenched, he yet conjures us not to fan and feed the flame. Undoubtedly, Gentlemen, it is the greatest danger of our system and of our time. Undoubtedly, if that system should be overthrown, it will be the work of excessive party spirit, acting on the government, which is dangerous enough, or acting in the government, which is a thousand times more dangerous; for government then becomes nothing but organized party, and, in the strange vicissitudes of human affairs, it may come at last, perhaps, to exhibit the singular paradox of government itself being in opposition to its own powers, at war with the very elements of its own existence. Such cases are hopeless. As men may be protected against murder, but cannot be guarded against suicide, so government may be shielded from the assaults of external foes, but nothing can save it when it chooses to lay violent hands on itself.”[iv]

Did you know Government arrest records are posted online? CLICK BELOW to get detailed information on anyone and everyone you could possibly want!

“From the letter which he signed in behalf of the Convention when the Constitution was sent out to the people, to the moment when he put his hand to that last paper in which he addressed his countrymen, the Union, the Union was the great object of his thoughts. In that first letter he tells them that, to him and his brethren of the Convention, union appears to be the greatest interest of every true American; and in that last paper he conjures them to regard that unity of government which constitutes them one people as the very palladium of their prosperity and safety, and the security of liberty itself. He regarded the union of these States less as one of our blessings, than as the great treasurehouse which contained them all. Here, in his judgment, was the great magazine of all our means of prosperity; here, as he thought, and as every true American still thinks, are deposited all our animating prospects, all our solid hopes for future greatness. He has taught us to maintain this union, not by seeking to enlarge the powers of the government, on the one hand, nor by surrendering them, on the other; but by an administration of them at once firm and moderate, pursuing objects truly national, and carried on in a spirit of justice and equity.”[v]
“The political prosperity which this country has attained, and which it now enjoys, has been acquired mainly through the instrumentality of the present government. While this agent continues, the capacity of attaining to still higher degrees of prosperity exists also. We have, while this lasts, a political life capable of beneficial exertion, with power to resist or overcome misfortunes, to sustain us against the ordinary accidents of human affairs, and to promote, by active efforts, every public interest. But dismemberment strikes at the very being which preserves these faculties. It would lay its rude and ruthless hand on this great agent itself. It would sweep away, not only what we possess, but all power of regaining lost, or acquiring new possessions. It would leave the country, not only bereft of its prosperity and happiness, but without limbs, or organs, or faculties, by which to exert itself hereafter in the pursuit of that prosperity and happiness.”[vi]
“Other misfortunes may be borne, or their effects overcome.  If disastrous war should sweep our commerce from the ocean, another generation may renew it; if it exhaust our treasury, future industry may replenish it; if it desolate and lay waste our fields, still, under a new cultivation, they will grow green again, and ripen to future harvests. It were but a trifle even if the walls of yonder Capitol were to crumble, if its lofty pillars should fall, and its gorgeous decorations be all covered by the dust of the valley. All these might be rebuilt. But who shall reconstruct the fabric of demolished government? Who shall rear again the well-proportioned columns of constitutional liberty? Who shall frame together the skilful architecture which unites national sovereignty with State rights, individual security, and public prosperity? No, if these columns fall, they will be raised not again. Like the Coliseum and the Parthenon, they will be destined to a mournful, a melancholy immortality. Bitterer tears, however, will flow over them, than were ever shed over the monuments of Roman or Grecian art; for they will be the remnants of a more glorious edifice than Greece or Rome ever saw, the edifice of constitutional American liberty.”^[vii]

---

[i] “The Works of Daniel Webster,” Edward Everett, Boston: Little, Brown and company, 1853, Vol. 1, p. 224

[ii] Ibid

[iii] Ibid

[iv] Ibid, p. 229

[v] Ibid, pp. 229-230

[vi] Ibid, pp. 230-231

[vii] Ibid, p. 231

Articles: Gun Control, the Jews, and the Third Reich

Articles: Gun Control, the Jews, and the Third Reich

Gun Control, the Jews, and the Third Reich

By Abraham H. Miller

November 20, 2013

 

 

In 1996, in commemoration of the one hundredth anniversary of the modern Olympics, the German government issued a set of four stamps. One of these celebrates Alfred and Gustav Flatow, cousins, who were gold medalists in the 1896 Olympics. Alfred took the first in the parallel bars and with his cousin also won gold for the German team's overall performance.
In 1932, Alfred Flatow registered three handguns, as decreed by the harsh gun control laws of the Weimar Republic that were drawn amid the violence and chaos of the aftermath of World War I. The Weimar Republican grew out of the ashes of the Great War. Perceived as an institution imposed by Germany's enemies, Weimar lacked political legitimacy and was vulnerable to insurrection.
The first assault on the Republic, however, came not from the right but from the communist left. Under the leadership of Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebknecht, the German Communists attempted to overthrow the government by armed struggle. The fragile government mobilized the Freikorps, undisciplined militias composed largely of veterans. The Freikorps brutally put down the communist insurrection and murdered its leaders. The Communists had also seized the government in Bavaria and the Freikorps succeeded in vanquishing them.
Hoping to stem further attacks on the state, the liberal Weimar Republic imposed Draconian gun control laws that made it punishable by death to carry a gun. The brutal and undisciplined Freikorps were given the task of enforcing these laws and did so with alacrity, even murdering nurses who carried firearms for protection against rape amid the post-war chaos.
The Weimar Ministry of the Interior made gun registration mandatory. The overall intention of the gun control laws was to disarm those who were making war against the state and each other. Inspired by gangster violence in Chicago, the Nazis and the Communists loaded up cars with thugs armed with Tommy guns and invaded each other's neighborhoods.
Like most attempts at gun control, the policy failed. Neither the Nazis nor the Communists gave up their guns, but law-abiding citizens like Alfred Flatow did and bore the consequences. Although the Weimar Ministry of the Interior worked to assure registrants that their information would remain safe, this proved to be an empty promise. When the Nazis took over in 1933, the information was culled for registrants who were deemed "enemies of the state," a euphemism for Jews, communists, and other political opponents.
Gestapo legal adviser Werner Best proposed to execute Jews who were found in possession of firearms. He had both ample precedent and experience to draw upon from the harsh gun laws and their brutal enforcement in the Weimar Republic.
In 1938, in preparation for Kristallnacht (November 9-10, 1938), the Gestapo used the Weimar gun registration records to disarm Jews and focused on Jewish gun owners for deportation to concentration camps. Alfred Flatow fled Germany for the Netherlands, but when the Nazis invaded the Netherlands, in May 1940, Flatow was on the Gestapo's list.
Flatow was arrested and sent to Theresienstadt Concentration Camp, where he died from starvation on December 28, 1942. His cousin Gustav died in the same camp three years later.
Throughout their conquest of Europe, the Nazis encountered armed resistance by those who refused to accept defeat. Even the pitifully armed Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto put up meaningful resistance, as did the Jewish Bielski partisans in the forests of Byelorussia and Poland. Among the conquered people of Europe, where there were arms and munitions there were partisans who continued to fight.
Only in Germany was there no armed resistance, other than what came from the military. Would armed resistance on German soil have made a difference? No one can answer that with any certainty, but clearly it was a formidable concern for Werner Best and his Gestapo henchmen. Without arms there was no hope of meaningful resistance.
The issue of an armed populace resisting tyranny is why the Second Amendment exists. It was not written to promote hunting or target shooting. It was written to keep a check on tyrants both foreign and domestic.
A new book, Gun Control in the Third Reich, analyzes the manner in which the Nazis capitalized on the strict gun control policies of the Weimar Republic and used those policies to consolidate power and render the political opposition defenseless and the Jews hopeless.
It is far too facile to dismiss any comparison between the rise of Hitler and a threat from analogous policies in a viable democracy. As scholar Stephen P. Halbrook notes, historians have failed to see gun-control policies as the prelude to the rise of tyranny, even in Nazi Germany.
The Weimar Republic, despite problems in legitimacy and economic strangulation by the victors of World War I, was a struggling democracy with liberal principles. Its leaders thought that their policies of gun control would end the street violence between radical groups and promote political stability. The Weimar ministers did not comprehend that their gun control policies would pave the way for tyrants to direct and remove the political opposition.
Hitler came to power without ever winning a majority vote. His own electoral results paled in comparison to those garnered by President Paul von Hindenburg, and the Nazi party itself never received more than 37% of the vote. In the last free and fair German parliamentary elections of November, 1932, the Nazis actually lost 34 seats. Through orchestrated chaos and the incompetence of others, Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany. He stayed in power by eliminating future elections and preventing armed struggle against the regime. The fragile democracy of the Weimar Republic had created a tyrant, who now abused the pledge Weimar had made on the secrecy of gun registration.
Any real analysis of the rise of the Third Reich should contribute to our own debate over gun control, but of course, that is a pipe dream. When it comes to guns, the lines are tightly drawn. If you are among those who believe that you do not need a gun and no one else should have one, then there really is no room for debate. In this country, John Lott, Jr., through decades of exhausting empirical research, has shown that guns save lives. Yet, Lott's work hardly gets mentioned in the policy debate.
Jews, who should look at the Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto and understand the value of resistance for the sake of preserving the dignity of the human spirit, are all too prone to utter the fatalistic Yiddish adage that translates as -- if it comes to this, nothing will help. In other words, when I will need a gun it will not do any good.
Such sentiments, in the light of Jewish history, are appalling, as are the attitudes that liberal Jews generally bring to the gun control debate. I am reminded of my great aunt Sifra, who stood nearly six feet tall and fought with the Bielski partisans. She died fighting; it was a noble death. She died a warrior's death, not an anonymous death as a nameless, faceless victim. That is what separates a hero from a victim. That is the difference a gun makes. 

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/11/gun_control_the_jews_and_the_third_reich.html#ixzz2lDjRkZ00
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Why So Many Christians Are Relaxing Over Alcoholic Drinks - Trending Christian Blog

Why So Many Christians Are Relaxing Over Alcoholic Drinks - Trending Christian Blog

Why So Many Christians Are Relaxing Over Alcoholic Drink 

Debbie Holloway

November 19, 2013 

Moody Bible Institute has relaxed a rule for its employees, reports Kevin P. Emmert at Christianity Today. Full-time employees of MBI are no longer required to totally abstain from tobacco and alcohol. A spokesperson from Moody writes that the change in rules,
"came out of a desire in Moody's leadership to reflect a high-trust environment that emphasizes values, not rules,"
and that the Institute wants to,
"require no more and no less than what God's Word requires.
We are giving employees the freedom that God gives them… We trust that they have the wisdom and spiritual maturity to make appropriate choices for their lives and the communities in which they are a part."
Which begs the question (drawn from the article’s title) why are so many Christian insitutions (like Moody and others) relaxing over alcohol drinks?
Or perhaps the question should be, should American Christians have ever made such stringent rules about drinking in the first place?
If you grew up in mainstream evangelical Christianity in this country, especially in the south, there’s a good chance you grew up hearing about the evils of alcohol. And not without good reason. As Paige Patterson of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminar points out,
"There is no industry in America that causes as much sorrow and heartache [as the alcohol industry].”
Most, if not all, people could easily name at least one family member or acquaintance broken irreparably by alcohol abuse.
But according to many pastors and leaders, there’s so much more to this issue. First, it’s important for Christians to recognize that total abstinence from alcohol is not something widely practiced by the global church. There have always been monastic sects, but, in much of Europe for example, the legal drinking age is far lower and many families share wine together without giving it a second thought.
Emmert reports Jennifer Tait’s perspective, that,
"It's not that groups of people throughout history didn't practice complete abstinence. The Nazarites in the Bible didn't drink alcohol. But in the 19th century, a whole segment of the church said it's not just an ascetic practice that some people might choose; they said this is for everybody—all Christians must stop drinking or they're not Christians."
Pastor Eric Raymond on Crosswalk.com also recognizes that total abstinence from alcohol is certainly not something Jesus himself practiced.
“Even if you say [the wine was] diluted, there’s still some alcoholic content and there’s no way to get around that.”
Indeed, any probing into cultural norms of the biblical eras will show that wine and other fermented drinks were the go-to beverages for most cultures, owing largely to the fact that grapes grow in abundance in Mediterranean climates, and the water was often unsanitary and unsafe to consume.
According to Raymond, Proverbs speaks of the dangers of OVER indulging in alcohol, not of simply partaking responsibly.
“Alcoholic beverages…point to the joy that we’ll have in the Kingdom.” 
He says that “Kingdom images” in the Bible often utilize wine-related metaphors to help people understand the joy that will take place in Paradise.
“To say no one should ever do it would be to say something different than what Scripture is saying.”
The She Seeks devotional at Christianity.com tackles this issue in “Bottom’s Up?” – insisting that every young person must be honest with themselves about whether alcohol consumption is a good or bad idea. Jim Liebelt on Crosswalk.com reports that, according to at least one study, many families believe that letting younger children taste alcohol (rather than making it a “forbidden fruit”) decreases the likelihood of adolescent alcohol abuse. Whitney Hopler examines the talking points in the book God Gave Wine: What the Bible Says About Alcohol in her Crosswalk article “Should Christians Drink Alcohol?” - writing,
“Remember that alcohol is part of God's creation, and as such, it can either be used well or abused. Just as people have abused the gifts of food, sex, and money, people have also abused alcohol, causing great destruction in the process. Alcohol itself is not intrinsically bad; the way in which it is often used is bad. Approach alcohol with an attitude of wise stewardship.”
So, what do you think? Did the Puritans have it right? Or is alcohol just one in a long list of things Christians must learn to properly steward?
Debbie Holloway is the Family Life Editor for Crosswalk.com
Publication date: November 19, 2013