Maybe Obama is still on drugs…

30 07 2009

One of the saddest things about the Obama administration is his appointment of people with ideologies that are far off in left field. Some of the ideologies are so absurd that you’d expect them to be in some futuristic novel that satires our current culture. For instance, Brave New World had the “orgy porgy” that, at the time, was unthinkable and a satire. In the modern day, however, it’s done. Think of the “rainbow parties” that are thrown to initiate girls in high school.

Unfortunately, the ideas of Obama’s appointees are not satire or fiction – these are real people, with real ideas, who are in positions of authority. Take, for instance, John Holdren who believes that animals and trees (or any organic life for that matter) has the right to sue in court. In other words, that tree in your front yard can sue you if you do anything to harm it. Granted, trees are non-rational objects and animals lack the higher intelligence to actually bring you to court, but apparently they should hold that right.

It would be funny if it weren’t for this one simple fact – these same people argue that a fetus in the womb, a human life, has no rights whatsoever. These same people argue that the elderly and humans who are “past their prime” and putting a drain on society should be put to death in a “humane” way.

So, the tree in the front yard, or those weeds that keep growing up in your garden have more rights – in the eyes of the Obama administration – than the human in the womb or the human in the last years of his life. This is truly the dumbest, idiotic, and morally bankrupt administration the United States has ever seen.





A further reply to a Muslim

28 07 2009

Paasurrey was kind enough to respond to my last post at his own website. In his reply, he states:

Hi fried Joel

Please quote from Jesus; not from what the sinful and unfaithful scribes, who deserted ‎Jesus when he most needed them.Later they sided with Paul who was an enemy of Jesus ‎and his friends. ‎

Jesus never could utter such words that he was a god. You say the Pharisees noticed it; I ‎don’t agree with you. The Pharisees were Jews; had they noticed it, it should have been ‎written also in the book of the Jews? Please quote from Jewish source that the Pharisees ‎noticed it.‎

Jesus denies of this claim as rightly quoted by Quran from Jesus:‎

My reply:

As I pointed out in my initial response to you, simply saying, “Oh, Paul was sinful and the Jews were sinful, therefore you can’t trust anything written about Jesus” is nothing more than a cop out. In fact, the passages I chose I did so specifically – these are passages that even the most anti-Christian scholars accept as actually occurring. That is, they believe these to be the actual sayings and happenings of Jesus. They may deny most of the New Testament, but they believe these specific passages I pointed out to be historically accurate. It is up to you to demonstrate how they were corrupted. Quoting the Qur’an, an interesting but ultimately fallible book, is not sufficient. You must provide actual evidence (changes in the manuscripts, older manuscripts compared to newer manuscripts, changes in language and vernacular within the same text, etc) before laying down such a big claim.

The reason for this is you simply can’t sweep aside what I quote by just declaring it fallible. You need to actually present some evidence as to why these specific passages are fallible and corrupt.

Likewise, as I pointed out in my initial reply, by claiming they are corrupt, you make God look utterly inept:

Now, there are far more proofs, but I wanted to use the most obvious ones that cannot be questioned historically. We cannot say these proofs are corrupted because almost all true historians – even those who are agnostic or believe that Jesus was merely a good man – accept these are historical truths. To say, “The Christians added to the text” might be convenient in order to throw out the argument, but it lacks the historical validation necessary to be an adequate argument.

Likewise, Muslims run into quite a few problems when they use that excuse. We hear that the Jews corrupted the Old Testament, thus God gave us the New Testament, but the Christians turned around and corrupted it as well. Thus, we end up with the Qur’an. But this poses a problem – how do we know that the early Arabs or even the Persians didn’t corrupt the Qur’an? We can say, “God protected it,” but if He protects the Qur’an, why was He so inept at protecting the Old and New Testaments?

Thus, the Muslim apologist is thrown into a quandary – if God had Gabriel recite the Qur’an to the Prophet due to the corruption of the Old and New Testaments, what promise do we have that the Qur’an is not likewise corrupted? Alternatively, if God has preserved the Qur’an, why wouldn’t He preserve the Old and New Testaments? Finally, if He did preserve the Old and New Testaments (an argument I’m not sure you would make as both the Qur’an and Hadith claim the Testaments are corrupted), why the need for the Qur’an? So before you use the argument of corruption, I think you would need to deal with these issues.

So I must ask the question; which is it? Is your god weak? Does he not see the future? Could he not prevent the corruption of the words of Christ? Why worship such a weak and inept god? I’d much rather worship the God who preserved His Word through the ages, who was in perfect Trinitarian fellowship prior to creation, who created out of love, who sent His only Son to die on our account, and who had the power to raise His Son from the dead. That is a God who is worthy of worship. A god that can’t get it right the first two times, a god that relies on the “third time is a charm” rule, isn’t a god worthy of worship.





Follow up on the cruelty of God

25 07 2009

Paarsurrey was kind enough to reply to what I wrote. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, his comments aren’t showing up on my site. I have no idea as to why, but since they aren’t showing up, I’ll provide his comments here:

Hi friend Joel

I ask you a little question; I think you don’t mind. Are you married and have sons and ‎daughter?

I suppose you are married and have a beautiful little baby girl. If she says; papa I am ‎willing, just kill me. Will you kill her? If you kill her; won’t it be a cruel act? I think, it ‎will be a cruel act; so even your own Catholic church will declare it to be cruel.

You will need a very cruel heart to perform this act.

Sorry, it is as simple as that. I think even the Catholics/Protestants/JWs/Mormon viewers ‎of your blog will agree with me on this point.

I love Jesus and Mary

Thanks

I am an Ahmadi peaceful Muslim

I understand that from human terms and perspectives it can seem cruel. However, God is not to be judged in the same manner humans are to be judged. For instance, if God kills someone we can rest assured that He has done so justly. We understand that the person deserved it, because God is just. If I arbitrarily kill someone, no matter what, there will always be doubt as to why I killed the person. Why? Because I am not just. I can act justly, but being just is not part of my nature as it is with God.

So we come to the cross and we see the Father sacrificing the Son. Is this cruel? Is this evil? To understand, we must first look to why we were created, secondly to our fallen nature, and third to God’s solution.

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A reply to a Muslim – the Deity and Death of Jesus

22 07 2009

A while back, a Muslim (Paasurrey) posted a comment on my site addressing some of the problems He saw with the Christian belief concerning Jesus. Unfortunately, I didn’t notice the comment until yesterday. For whatever reason, it slipped through the cracks.

To make up for this, I am posting my response here and posting a link of my response on Paasurrey’s own site so he knows that I have responded to him. Though this is meant for him, I am making it public so anyone who has questions about Christ can hopefully find answers.

Paasurrey,

Assalamu alaikum. I hope this response finds you well.

I apologize for not responding sooner (over a year) as I never saw your comment until the other day. I have done my best to offer a concise reply to your objections. Please let me know what you think. I look forward to friendly dialogue with you on this issue. I have put what you said in quotes so you know what I am responding to when I write.

“I respect your religion; but I have my own free opinion. I think it to be too cruel for a father (God) to sacrifice/kill his beloved one (son) for others imaginary sins.”

If this were done against the will of Christ, then I would agree that it would be cruel. However, Jesus is part of the Godhead (we’ll get to that), thus as being God He planned on sacrificing Himself from before He even created the world, and as being a person in the Godhead, He willingly went to the cross.

Though He did ask for an alternative measure the night of His capture, He also said, “Not my will, but Your will be done.” Thus, Christ went willingly to the cross, which makes the claim of God’s “cruelty” a bit suspect.

Furthermore, sins are not imaginary. They are offenses to God. God, being infinitely good, takes our offenses against His will seriously. Any violation of His goodness is likewise infinite – how can temporal beings possibly pay off a debt that is infinite? This is why Christ died – only an eternal being can settle an eternal debt (amongst other things; this is not the only reason Christ died, but one of the biggest reasons).

The philosopher Abu Nasr al-Farabi wrote in his book al-Madinah al Fadilah (Virtuous City) that the “First Being” (God: al-Awwal) is perfect. So it is common between Christians and Muslims to agree that God is a perfect being and eternal (the “most ancient” as al-Farabi describes Him). He is likewise a person, meaning He can have offenses against Him. Any offense against Him would subsequently be eternal as God is eternal. The remedy for such a thing would also have to be eternal.

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“If you just act like them, it’ll be okay!”

21 07 2009

Conservatives – both in politics and in Christianity – have upheld absolute morality for quite some time. Unfortunately, as of late, they’ve been slowly acting postmodern. The political conservatives are bending to public opinion polls, saying, “Well if we don’t do these certain things, people won’t vote for us.” Thus, they caved in, started supporting liberal ideology…and aside from failing to live up to their promise to true conservatives for ten years, lost the election last cycle.

Conservative Christians are starting to say that they need to tone down certain messages in Christianity because if they don’t, people won’t come to church. They’ve begun to water these messages down and all we’ve seen is an increase of immorality, emptiness, and pointlessness in the Church…all the while the numbers have been declining.

This is because they have forgotten one simple rule: Truth is immortal. If what you are supporting is truthful, if it is virtuous, then all the opinion polls, the demographics, and pressure have nothing to do with determining how you should act on the truth. If it is truthful, if it is good, then it is to be followed no matter what.





More Random Thoughts for the Day

19 07 2009

- Liberal ethics: everyone is the victim…except the victim

- “I”m raising awareness.” So what? If I am aware that my neighbor’s house is on fire and he is trapped inside, I can still go to jail if I don’t take action on that awareness.

- Pop culture is full of emptiness because it has forsaken God. It is not that God has cursed them with being empty; it is more that such a culture has, in forsaking God, forsaken their purpose in life, thus all other pursuits are done in vain, which leads to emptiness.

- Postmodern ethics: everything is subjective, except tolerance…and traditionalist beliefs are always wrong

- One can have all the money in the world and the latest technological devices, but still feel incomplete. Happiness is found in the simple things in life; love of God, love of family, and love of virtue are what make a man happy.

- Congress has an oversight committee. They are called the American people. Americans have forgotten that they are the final “check” and the final “balance” in the check and balance system.

- Wearing a t-shirt or putting a bumper sticker on your car to bring about “awareness” is the greatest form of narcissism. It lets everyone know that you care, that you are aware, that you understand human rights, and gives you the self-satisfaction of doing something good without actually doing anything. Everyone wants to appear to be Mother Theresa without doing any of the things she did.

- Prosecuting people in the Bush administration at this point in the new administration is not an accident. It is Obama’s “Wag the Dog.” The health care initiative is becoming more and more unpopular – if he can focus the attention back to Bush, he knows he can get support for his plan. It is a dishonest way to pass a bill.





Random thoughts of the day.

18 07 2009

- Are economic hardships always bad? So long as a person is able to feed his family, clothe his family, and provide adequate shelter for his family (even if it’s a temporary apartment), isn’t he living a good life?

- The abortion issue isn’t about women and their rights. It is about if the fetus growing in her is a human being. If it were about what right she has to do with her own body, why aren’t there “pro-plain nail” groups? Why aren’t there groups protesting women who get piercing, tattoos, or adorn make up? If those who are pro-life actually hate women and don’t want women to control their bodies, why aren’t these other issues…issues? Rather, the entirety of the issue is about the life of the fetus; if the fetus is human, then he has rights from the moment of his conception. If he isn’t human, then he can be removed from his mother for the same reason his mother can remove her nail polish.

- We live in a materialistic pagan society, not a secular society. We still worship gods and goddesses, just in a different way. We call them celebrities, sports players, and musicians. They lead us in our sexual orgies, debauchery, child sacrifice (via abortion or the neglect of those born), and many other vices.

- I figured it would take six months for the public to begin turning against Obama. Unfortunately, I forgot how powerful delusion is. Granted, his approval rating is dropping daily, but many natural skeptics are still blaming everyone except Obama. It would seem narcissism and the desire to be right and not admit that one was wrong is greater than one’s own skepticism.

- In a materialistic society an economic depression is the worst thing that can happen – due to financial constraints, we cannot define who we are because we cannot purchase the material items we want. In a virtuous society an economic depression is, at most, a nuisance (so long as basic necessities are still available).

- If people support those in the “LGBT” society so long as they’re in a monogamous relationship, what do they do with the “B” (bi-sexual) part of that society?

- American Christians have become apathetic to the direction of their culture because they’ve become apathetic to their Savior. He is no more than the man they talk about in Sunday School and hear about from the pulpit, but no less than what they read in the Bible. He is safe and knowable. But the words “safe” and “knowable” are not the terms the contemporaries of Jesus would have used to describe Him; after all, they didn’t crucify Him because He handed out hugs and kisses.

- The pagans of old were far more astute than the modern pagans; the ancient pagans at least recognized there was a supernatural element to the world. The neo-pagans are too blind to see even that.

- The average modern American; skeptical about everything – except himself.





What?

17 07 2009

After looking through the news this week, I came across this comment from a casual observer that the media decided to interview.

“[Universal Health Care is] about human rights. It’s about morality. And denying people health care ranks right up there with genocide.”

This is one of those quotes that you read and start laughing, then blurt out, “What the heck,” and then get a very sick feeling in your stomach because the person believes this tripe without ever thinking about it.

Genocide is the act of intentionally killing off a people group because of that group’s race. It is the government (or para-military) sanctioned eradication of an ethnicity. Denying universal health care is the government saying, “Individuals have the right to choose their own health care” and/or “We don’t have the money to pay for it.” There’s a night and day difference. So that last sentence is just plain stupidity and underscores how many on the Left don’t know the first thing about moral equivalency.

Is it immoral for the government to refuse to pay for a person’s health care? It does depend on the situation. If the person put his life in harm’s way for the service of his country, or was injured while defending his country or doing a service for his country, then it is highly immoral for the government to refuse free health care (or even the best health care available). If, however, the person blew his hand up while holding onto a firework to see what would happen, it is actually immoral for the government to take other people’s money to pay for this man’s mistake.

But what about neutral parties? What about a person who has cancer, but can’t afford health insurance? It still isn’t moral for the government to use other people’s money to pay for this one person’s ailment. The reason is that by doing so (because there is always more than one person suffering), others are inevitably harmed. Thus, instead of a few people suffering, multiple people suffer. Rather, the moral thing to do is for the government to offer incentives to individuals who willingly give their money to funds and charities that help those who don’t have health care.

Either way, aside from being stupid, is just sick. The government refusing to have a universal health care system is very different from what Hitler did to the Jews or what the Hutu did to the Tutsi.





Excellent observastion…

17 07 2009

I’m currently reading The Foundations of Christian Bioethics by H. Tristram Engelhardt (Eastern Orthodox), and he made an observation about mainline denominations concerning their stances on bioethics. It links in to what I posted earlier. He points out:

“The mainline Protestant religions, along with many Roman Catholics, have drunk deeply of the passion of aggiornamento [nb - the act of bringing theology "up to the times"]. Rather than finding themselves at home in the emerging global liberal cosmopolitan culture as they expected, they are marked by a double alienation. On the one hand, they are estranged from the moral framework within which the authors of the New Testament and the Fathers of the Church lives and breathed. That world is for them too sexist and unconcerned with political liberation to be anything but deeply politically incorrect, if not profoundly embarrassing. Imagine a culture in which wives submit respectfully to their husbands and slaves recognize that the tyrant from which they should free themselves is first and foremost their own passions. On the other hand, when religions accommodate to the pretensions of the secular culture, they become irrelevant. They have nothing of their own to offer. The choice is an unappealing one: Christianity and its bioethics are either in their traditional form a secular scandal or in their secularly reformed versions largely beside the point. After all, if one wanted accounts of social justice, secular philosophy should do at least as well as, if not beter than, Christian moral theology…”





Oh Tony Jones, you’re so witty! (a rant)

17 07 2009

Tony Jones, former figurehead of the Uppity-Middle-White-Class-Spoiled-Rotten-Brat Association Emergent Village has a recent post about the Episcopal church declaring that all members can be ordained pastors regardless of sexual orientation. What struck me was the last paragraph of his post:

But I implore them to look beyond the gay issue. The bigger issue is that they employ amedieval form of church polity strange hybrid of medieval (bishops, dioceses, sextons) and modern (legislation, amendments, committees) polities, which will inevitably fail in this postmodern, wiki-world.

What I find so interesting is that he believes the greatest issue isn’t the homosexual one, but rather that the church government isn’t modernized. Is he being serious?

I certainly hope not, because that makes little to no sense. How in the world does church government trump the issue of sexual immorality? There’s simply no escaping the fact that the Bible is very clear on homosexuality; it is a sin to participate in the act of homosexuality. So church government aside, the bigger issue would seemingly be the one that deals with sexual immorality.

But of course Tony just can’t leave it at, “We disagree on this issue.” Rather, he has to compare all opponents to homosexual marriage to Fred Phelps (Westboro Baptist Pastor, infamous for protesting at funerals with his “God hates fags” signs). Tony says:

So Evangelicals have turned their gaze on a new shibboleth — gay marriage — and the correlations are clear: replace the oversized placards of aborted fetuses with Westboro Baptist’s “God Hates Fags” signs at military funerals; swap out Operation Rescue for the National Organization for Marriage; exchange James Dobson for, um, James Dobson.

So it’s not just that we strongly disagree with Tony on what is and isn’t important, it’s also that we’re hate mongers who have no compassion for homosexuals, don’t understand their struggle, and believe God hates them. What arrogance!

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