A Christian’s Heart 7 31 2012

Episodes

7 31 2012 update

Sometimes I see something so remarkable I get the chills. Check out this video of the landing of a new Rover on Mars this weekend. It’ll blow your minds.

 http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/astropix.html

This is the Astronomy Picture of the Day webpage. If what comes up is not dated July 12, 2012 at the top of the screen, scroll to the bottom of the screen and select the archive and select the July 12 version.

The ability of the human mind to create things is truly extraordinary, and this leads to a lot of mistaken pride. We must realize first of all that it is God Himself who has blessed us with our creative ability. While man can create marvelously complex machines and processes like the one you see on the video, we  will never be able to create matter and energy themselves. I doubt we will ever be able to create a DNA molecule, much less a  living organism, from the base elements of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen and the other elements that compose a living cell. These mysteries are the province of God alone. And though we explore the cosmos for a million years, we will never even scratch the surface of what there is to know about the Universe our God has created.

There will be a video coming out in a few weeks (hopefully) about the majesty of God verses the vastness of the universe. I will let you know when that happens.

Episodes

7 25 2012 update

As one might expect, the Aurora Colorado incident has been analyzed by hundreds if not thousands of talking heads from the left and the right of the political spectrum.  What I’ve seen so far is that people are blaming the violence in the movies and in the media for this episode.  As I said below, and I believe with all my heart, the Dark Knight Rises was not the cause of James Homes’ murderous rampage. Both the movie and the shooting were a symptom of the creeping evil that has taken hold of our society; they are merely an expression of the spirit of murder that has gripped this country and it as more completely expressed in the existence of such horrific evils as Planned Parenthood and abortion on demand.

One note, there was a young black women on the street today asking if I supported Planned Parenthood. She had some type of petition in her hands. I silently shook my head and walked on. I should have asked her how she thought Planned Parenthood got started. It was promoted by the early feminist movement, among other Progressive movements of the early 20th century, as a way to abort the babies of people of color who were considered undesirable by those Progressives of the early 2oth century.  How ironic: a black person soliciting support for an institution that was designed to kill her in the womb.

Episodes

Things I see and Hear

      It’s hard watching your country die. As I write this America is certainly dying; that is the America we knew and loved has been and is being transformed into an unrecognizably dark thing that would have horrified the signers of the Declaration of Independence, over 50 of which were born-again Christians. The unspeakable incident that occurred in Aurora Colorado a few days ago is but a symptom of the larger spiritual disease that is killing (has almost completely killed) the America that I knew and loved.

I learned in an art class some years ago how the media can reflect the darkness devouring a society.  During the plague years in Europe in the 14^th century, one could see how the art of that period took on a dark and gloomy aspect. The spiritual plague sweeping America is also being reflected in the dark and gloomy offerings coming out of Hollywood and by the lies and propaganda spewed out by the left-controlled news and other popular media.

The Dark Knight Rises movie is a portrait of what American society has become and what awaits it at the bottom of the abyss in which it is sinking. It was no accident, I think, that James Holmes decided to shoot up a theater in which this movie was playing. For in the movie unspeakable evil has risen in Gothom City and begins killing people by the hundreds and thousands. So, unspeakable evil arose in Aurora Colorado and murdered a dozen people and wounded fifty or so more.

Is it surprising that this should occur in a society that glorifies murder of the innocents through abortion and all kinds of sexual perversions? Is it surprising that this occurred in a society where murderers and violent criminals of all kinds never pay for their crimes against society; where the death penalty is actually considered uncivilized by the self-anointed elites? Is it surprising this occurred in a society where the national media, and our politicians and cultural leaders throw truth to the wind and support every destructive policy the political left serves up to them?  And do we think for one minute that the victims of James Eagen Jones will get the justice they deserve: that this man will be executed for his unspeakable crimes?

If any of you on the Progressive Right (erroneously called “conservative”: I don’t call myself a Conservative, for I personally am not politically “conservative” by any stretch of the imagination) want to gain an understanding of what’s happened to America from a purely secular point of view, I would recommend reading the following books by Thomas Sowell:

• Black Rednecks and White Liberals
• Intellectuals and Society
• The Vision of the Anointed (self congratulation as a basis for social policy)

all of which can be found by title or author on Amazon.com. Another book that you might find interesting that explains why our education system is failing (and is therefore really depressing) is No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning by two Harvard professors, Abigail and Stephen Thurnstrom.

We who worship the LORD of the universe, already know what’s happened in America: we’ve rejected God and His value system, and we are murdering ourselves and our country is dying as a result.

How I grieve!

 Episodes

Things I See and Hear (July 9, 2012)

Social Justice: we hear that term every day. On the surface it seems like a wonderful concept. The idea is to engineer society so that there will be no income or wealth inequities, which its proponents consider evil. It is taken as a matter of self-evident truth that if society can realize this it will reach a plain of Righteousness and Justice that has never been realized in all the thousands of years of human history; it will be called Utopia. (Incidentally, Utopia was a word created by Thomas Moore from two Greek words ou-topos meaning “no-place”.) Too bad the concept has morphed in America into a destructive and self-defeating theology.

America, as originally conceived, was a land where a person would be free to develop his own skills and abilities to pursue life, liberty and happiness.  It was hoped that if a person could do that, he would live a productive, happy and contented life. And for millions of people this has been their experience.

But Social Justice as perceived by its high priests, has gone way beyond this principle. It is about their distorted concept of “fairness” which means that every one gets equal amounts of wealth and income no matter how hard they work. As put into practice by today’s politicians, people who produce wealth must have ever larger portions of their income and wealth confiscated and handed out to whomever SJ’s high priests (and politicians) favor politically.  (In America today, the top 1% of income earners pay over 38% of income taxes.) It is the underlying principle of our President’s and his party’s politics. And not of theirs only, but of many in the evangelical community, unfortunately. Again, Social Justice requires that all groups have equal outcomes in terms of wealth received and income generated rather than equal opportunities to produce wealth and receive income for individuals.

For reasons to be explained below, there is no way to eliminate income and wealth inequalities in society. Many governments have tried. The most extreme of these social engineering experiments was carried out in the old Soviet Union, China, Cambodia, and North Korea. What they ended up with was a vast majority of poor people and a thin veneer of wealthy murderous overlords.

It is clear to me, on the other hand, that America, before it became a devouring welfare state, had a system that would minimize the degree of such difference as much as humanly possible, while keeping the wealth generating machine intact. For example, while the “poor” in this country don’t have as much as the “rich”, the average “poor” person in this country has more material wealth than the average non-poor European.

(Note that I am not advocating that society should not help the poor, or those who are disabled or disadvantaged in some other way. Nor am I advocating that we stop working to eliminate all the effects of racism and other forms of discrimination which hinder certain people from having equal opportunity to generate wealth and income.)

The problem is that there will always be “rich” and “poor” no matter what SJ’s high priests do.           Here are some reasons why (not taking into account arbitrary means of limiting wealth generation such as racism or other forms of discrimination):

1. God has created human beings with different skills and aptitudes: “Rich and poor have this in common: The LORD is the Maker of them all.” (Proverbs 22:2)  The “rich” have been given the ability to generate wealth by God Himself, as Moses said to Israel: “But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth …” (Deuteronomy 8:18a). The producers of wealth are generally persons of exceptional intellect and skill such as brilliant scientists, engineers, doctors, entrepreneurs; while others can do wonderful things working with their hands like carpenters, artists, etc. But there are others who have not been so gifted. It’s the way of Creation, the natural order of things. I would put it to you that since God is good and just and fair, this inequality, in and of itself, cannot be an unfair situation as far as He is concerned. (Again, I’m not talking about inequalities in wealth and income generated by arbitrary forms of discrimination, such as racial discrimination.)
2. Even if every citizen of a country, at every given year of their adult life, earned exactly the same income and had exactly the same behavior patterns with regard to how much of that income they saved, older citizens would have more wealth and generally higher income because they would have advanced in income earning power as they got more experience and would have generated more income and thereby would have acquired more wealth through saving.
3. Different cultural groups show different behavior patterns and value systems which affect their ability to generate wealth and income. Some tend to value education and hard work (Asian Americans are a good example) and will therefore earn more and accumulate more wealth than those who tend to value education and hard work less. (This is a trap many in the black community have fallen into. See Thomas Sowell’s book, Black Rednecks and White Liberals, Encounter Books, NY, NY, 2006. See also Abigail and Stephen Thernstrom, No Excuses: Closing the Racial Gap in Learning, Simon & Schuster, NY, NY, 2003 ).

Since SJ theology fights against this “natural order of things” it can only produce bad outcomes.

1. For example, the only way inequalities in income and wealth can be addressed to the point of achieving the SJ’s high priest’s goal is through coercive means, namely through increasingly confiscatory taxes and oppressive laws that will eventually lead to a police state. (See Jean-Fançois Revel’s book, Last Exit to Utopia: the Survival of Socialism in a Post-Soviet Era, Translated by Diarmid V.C. Cammell, Encounter Books, NY, NY, 2009.)
2. Another bad outcome is that those who produce little or nothing are brainwashed by SJ’s high priests to believe that they are entitled to the product of other people’s work. As Huey P. Long was quoted as saying, “If you aren’t getting something for nothing you aren’t getting your fair share.” (I cannot find the source of this quote, though it exists on many web sites.) The detestable entitlement mindset robs the “poor” of the incentive to develop their own wealth producing skills. If everything is handed to you because you fall below some arbitrary level of income, or if you are the member of some favored “minority” group, then you will think you are entitled to these handouts. And because this has trapped you in poverty, you will feel victimized. (Rightly so!)

And who are your oppressors according the high priests? Why everyone who has more ability to produce wealth than you e.g. “the rich”, as well as the big corporations, banks, and those who do not buy into the SJ theology. These are the demons of this theology. But there are also angels: the intellectuals and politicians who adhere to it, who worship it, and who implement it through confiscatory and tyrannical policies.

It is clear that the pervasiveness of the SJ theology in our politics has caused increased strife in American society. There is resentment from those who work hard to produce wealth when the product of their labor is arbitrarily taken from them and handed to an able-bodied person who produces little or nothing. (I’m not including the “lame, halt and blind” that George McGovern always referred to. Society should help them; although I believe leaving it to the Feds to do this is the worst possible alternative.) And those who have been convinced that they are entitled to these handouts will react violently when they don’t get what they want: what they think they are entitled to. See, for example, the violent and destructive Occupy Wall Street movement.

I don’t believe that the concept of Social Justice is pleasing to God. It sounds great, but it has unleashed a destructive evil on American society that is helping to rip America apart. I believe that Jesus was referring to men and women like the high priests of Social Justice as “false prophets” when He said, “ ‘ Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. By their fruit you will recognize them.’ ” Their fruit will be the destruction of American society as we know it and the spread of poverty throughout the land.

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