Monthly Archives: May 2011

Christian worldview

Not mmmmm . . . Frog Soup

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When I was in Taipei, Taiwan on business years ago, we were served Frog Fat Soup (among several other things that I still suspect were part of an elaborate practical joke, but that’s another topic).  Apparently it is a delicacy made with the fat of frogs from a cold climate.  I’m a somewhat picky eater, but when traveling internationally I try to be a good sport and sample the local cuisine.  Let’s just say that one spoonful was plenty for me.

That reminds me of a different kind of Frog Soup: A metaphor a friend and I use to describe our culture.  It is based on the popular example about how frogs will jump out of hot water if you toss them in it, but if you put them in cold water and slowly turn it up they’ll stay in it until they die.  Just like with the frogs, our culture has slowly deteriorated to where it accepts all kinds of things that would have landed people in jail just a few decades ago.

Hence, this culture is a massive bowl of Frog Soup.  We’re drowning in it.  I’m not referring to the random freaks we see but the mainstreaming of perversions.

We permit the legal destruction of 3,000+ unwanted human beings each day because they get in the way of the myth of sex-without-consequences.

As I predicted earlier in the last decade, schools are beginning to teach kids as young as 5 how “normal” homosexual, bisexual and transgender behaviors are.  Too many people fail to ask why the government has a mandate to teach such things.  They’ll try to say that parents may not teach it at home (good for those parents!), but they can’t explain why anyone should teach it.

If you oppose the oxymoron that is “same-sex marriage,” you are considered a hater.

We do nothing about the massive amounts of pornography in our culture.

We not only tolerate but fund organizations like Planned Parenthood that, in addition to being the top destroyer of human life in the country, systematically hide statutory rape and sex trafficking (when not teaching your kids to ignore the perspectives on human sexuality that you and your religion hold).

Planned Parenthood even has their tentacles in the Girl Scouts organization.  (Hat tip: An Un-civil War)

Check out Glenn’s Sanity in an Upside Down World for many more examples, or add your own in the comments section.

Frog Soup is disgusting.  Throw it out.  Vote your values.  Prepare yourself, then stand up for the truth.  Stop fearing man and the future.  We can’t just blame non-Christians, they are just (generally) doing and permitting what is in their job description.  We need to be the light to the world and agents of change.  There is a better way, and it starts with God.

Proverbs 14:34 Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.

Media, Politics

Why you can’t trust PolitiFact

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Via “What liberal media?” (Texas edition) — The math was clear: Texas could rightly make this claim:

“In the last five years, we’ve created more jobs than all other states combined.”

It was based on the right data: Net jobs added.  But instead of acknowledging what an amazing accomplishment it was, PolitiFact tried to spin it as some sort of half-truth.  Shouldn’t the energy be put into assessing what Texas has done right rather than making a lame attempt to discredit its accomplishments?  It isn’t like there aren’t tens of millions of people on food stamps and/or unemployed.

This is, in fact, objectively true, and you may verify it yourself at the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data page. (We posted the graph and numbers here.) Suffice it to say that when the commercial was filmed, the latest confirmed BLS employment data was January 2011’s. Going back five years through January 2006 revealed that only ten states saw a net increase in jobs in that period — Texas, Louisiana, North Dakota, Alaska, Wyoming, Utah, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Montana. Texas’s total was 545,900 new jobs. The other nine states combined came to 183,700 new jobs. Call this what you will — we call it a resounding vindication of the Texas model of low taxes and small government — but don’t call it inaccurate.

Let’s review something for a moment. To use “created more jobs,” or any of its variants — “job creation,” “created jobs,” et al. — to signify a net increase in jobs is a de facto universal rhetorical standard. It’s so common as to be assumed, and no reasonable person reads or hears otherwise. To pick just a few examples: Here’s President Barack Obama doing it. Here’s Gallup doing it. Here’s Michael Powell of the New York Times doing it. Here’s Dennis Cauchon of USA Today doing it. Here’s Pietro Garibaldi and Paolo Mauro of the International Monetary Fund doing it. Here’s Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke doing it. Here’s Peter Cohan of Forbes doing it. Here’s Reuters and CNBC doing it. Here’s Peter Boyer of Newsweek doing it.

The idea that Brooke Rollins would mean anything but net jobs created in her quote defies credulity. News-savvy readers may recall the White House’s own rhetorical dodge on this count from late 2009, when the chairman of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors invoked the phrase “jobs saved or created” to concoct a net-positive figure on employment resulting from the federal stimulus. The widely derided lexical formulation was swiftly discarded, and with good reason: touting job creation in the absence of net job creation is rightly regarded as insulting or deceptive.

If you trust the liberal media you aren’t using good critical thinking skills.

Miscellaneous

“Stars and Stripes Honor Flight” film project

“Honor Flight” tells the story of The Honor Flight Network and “Operation Resolve,” a mission to fly as many WWII vets to Washington D.C. to see their memorial as possible — at no cost to them. It’s an urgent cause: 1,000 WWII veterans die every day. Both my grandfather and my great uncle fought in WWII. My grandpa was never able to make it to the memorial — but my great uncle just made the “Honor Flight.”

via Video: Nearly 4 million views for “Honor Flight” film project « Hot Air.

 

Christian worldview

Why don’t they preach about the dangers of over-taxation?

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False teachers* like to preach about how often the Bible speaks about money.  That is technically true, but they miss the larger points.

The main thing they get wrong is that the Bible speaks of giving away your money, not asking Caesar to take from neighbor A by force to give to neighbor B.  You could try to argue those transactions based on public policy, but not on the Bible.  They love to quote from Matthew 25 but ignore that Jesus said that whatever you did unto the least of these, you did unto him.  He didn’t say that whatever you asked the government to do, you did unto him.

They also love to say how budgets are moral documents.  Again, this is true in a sense, but they ignore that it is immoral to tax those who can’t vote or haven’t even been born to allegedly help people today.

Also notice how they never preach on topics like Solomon and his son over-taxing the people and the drastic consequences that resulted.

2 Chronicles 10 (ESV) Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. And as soon as Jeroboam the son of Nebat heard of it (for he was in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), then Jeroboam returned from Egypt. And they sent and called him. And Jeroboam and all Israel came and said to Rehoboam, “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke on us, and we will serve you.” He said to them, “Come to me again in three days.” So the people went away.

Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the old men, who had stood before Solomon his father while he was yet alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” And they said to him, “If you will be good to this people and please them and speak good words to them, then they will be your servants forever.” But he abandoned the counsel that the old men gave him, and took counsel with the young men who had grown up with him and stood before him. And he said to them, “What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’?” And the young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus shall you speak to the people who said to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you lighten it for us’; thus shall you say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s thighs. And now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’ ”

So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king said, “Come to me again the third day.” And the king answered them harshly; and forsaking the counsel of the old men, King Rehoboam spoke to them according to the counsel of the young men, saying, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to it. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.” So the king did not listen to the people, for it was a turn of affairs brought about by God that the LORD might fulfill his word, which he spoke by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam the son of Nebat.

And when all Israel saw that the king did not listen to them, the people answered the king, “What portion have we in David? We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse. Each of you to your tents, O Israel! Look now to your own house, David.” So all Israel went to their tents. But Rehoboam reigned over the people of Israel who lived in the cities of Judah. Then King Rehoboam sent Hadoram, who was taskmaster over the forced labor, and the people of Israel stoned him to death with stones. And King Rehoboam quickly mounted his chariot to flee to Jerusalem. So Israel has been in rebellion against the house of David to this day.

Christians should give generously, in a 2 Corinthians 9 model (Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.).  That is the opposite of what false teachers will tell you.

*False teachers include people like Jim “the Gospel is all about wealth redistribution” Wallis and race-baiting Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie

Bible, Christian worldview

The original Bible texts turned out exactly as God and the writers desired

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The arguments about biblical inerrancy, infallibility and inspiration can get very detailed, so I like to summarize the basic Christian — and biblical — claim as I did in the title.

Many Christians (the confused kind) and “Christians” (the fake kind) think the Bible is partly inspired — that is, that some of what God wanted ended up there but at least some of it was man-made and contrary to what God wanted.  Consider the claims that Paul was a misogynistic “homophobe,” for example, and that he was wrong about women and homosexual behavior.

But think about who is making the bigger claim.  It may appear that those claiming complete inspiration for the Bible have a greater burden.  But when you carefully consider the theologically Liberal claims, it becomes clear that their view is much more difficult to support.  They need to show which of the 31,173 verses are inspired and which are not.  That requires a verse-by-verse case for what does and does not belong.  That is a wildly bold claim, much more so than mine.

And it is no small matter when it comes to theology.  After all, if Paul was so wrong about basic human sexuality, how can you be sure he got the saved-by-grace part right?

Obviously, the original texts contained what the writers wanted to write, but those who don’t think they all turned out as God desired have to demonstrate how they know what God “really” wanted and where.  But they have no standard but their worldly views.  They make themselves god in trying to adapt what He said to fit their belief system.  Bad idea.

Those who don’t believe the title display some form of Dalmatian Theology, where they claim that the Bible is only inspired in spots and that they are inspired to spot the spots, or Advanced Dalmatian Theology, where God is also changing spots and adding/removing spots, and, oddly enough, He is only telling theological liberals and progressives.

Again, the original texts of the Bible turned out exactly as God and the writers desired.  Now go read and enjoy the timeless truths God gave to you in his word!

P.S. The claim is for the original writings and not the translations.  The translation process was very robust and defensible, but not inerrant.  Also note that the case for Christianity does not rest on the inerrancy of scripture.  Even if the Gospels had minor errors from the witnesses (they don’t, but work with me here), it wouldn’t mean Jesus didn’t rise from the dead.  The evidence strongly points to that truth.  We can defend inerrancy, but I don’t think we have to do that before sharing the Gospel.

Intelligent Design

Noviewers, not reviewers

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Uncommon Descent has a contest where they ask, “Why do people refuse to read books they are attacking?”  It is about critics of Intelligent Design who don’t even read books before trashing them.  (To PZ Myers’ sort-of credit, he threatened to read one of the books — so take that!)

Here are the questions and my suggestions, which already concede that the ID-critic community not only permits such behavior but seems to encourage it (all in the name of science, eh?):

1. Why would a scientist or scholar actually volunteer to do it?

Assuming original sin is too broad, I’ll go with one of these:

A. He loves his worldview more than his integrity.

B. He hasn’t evolved enough to have intellectual honesty.

2. What do you call a guy who reviews/trashes a book without reading it?

The review is a noview and the reviewer is a noviewer.

Education

Outrageous and unsustainable educational costs per pupil

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I don’t know the precise figure for what the target per-pupil cost should be for public education, but I know what it isn’t: $17,800.  Yet that is what is costs in New Jersey today.  See New Jersey per-pupil cost is $17,800 « Wintery Knight.

Think about the average wage in America and how unsustainable that per-pupil cost is.  That is equal to the gross annual wages of a $9 / hour job.  Of course, that person would have to pay taxes, buy groceries, food, transportation, housing, etc. for themselves and the child, so the wages required to fund basic living costs and the student’s education would be much higher.

Something is horribly wrong when costs are that high.  Getting rid of teachers’ unions and dramatically cutting back administration costs would be a start.  Get the Feds out of education completely and you could significantly reduce education costs.

And of course, promote school choice.  You could give incentives to attend private school or home school and save many millions.  Or benchmark the private schools and see what they are doing right.

Compare that with the average tuition with higher-performing private or parochial schools.

Excerpt:

AVERAGE PRIVATE SCHOOL TUITION: $8,549

Elementary: $6,733

Secondary: $10,549

Combined: $10,045

(Digest 2009, Chapter 2, Table 59)

AVERAGE CATHOLIC SCHOOL TUITION: $6,018

Elementary: $4,944

Secondary: $7,826

Combined: $9,066

(Digest 2009, Chapter 2, Table 59)

I’m updating this with a comment from Glenn, which is dead on.

If you want to educate the youth, it doesn’t cost much. If you want to indoctrinate them in liberal ideology, it cost’s big money. That’s the difference between private schools and government schools.

Politics

Massive vandalism and threats from unions. How much attention from the mainstream media?

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The Leftist media pretends to care about tolerance, civility and non-violence but turns a blind eye to the thuggery of unions.  See In Spite of Vandalism & Shooting, Union Wants Replacement Workers’ Addresses for just one example.  Then ask yourself how much you hear about these things in the mainstream media.

In this case, however, with reports of vandalism and more than 100 flattened tires, the employer is raising concerns about turning those names and addresses over to the union.

. . .

“There is a vast amount of evidence of replacement workers being subjected to property damage, assault, intrusions into their homes and personal property, damage to their tires, projectiles around their property,” Radelet said, noting there is tangible evidence of the incidents.

“This past weekend, bullets were shot into the residence of a replacement worker … and residue poured onto his truck, damaging the truck,” he continued.

Intelligent Design

Clairvoyant Darwinists don’t even need to read Intelligent Design books to “review” them

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See ID critics do not read ID books before reviewing them « Wintery Knight.  Those are book “no-views,” not book reviews.  This reminds me of how the Darwin fans will rush to Amazon to give one star to books like Stephen Meyers’ Signature in the Cell when they obviously haven’t read it.  You’d think their transparent dishonesty would embarrass them, but apparently they haven’t evolved to hold that sort of morality.  I was very disappointed that someone from Forbes would be so sloppy.  Their editorial content is usually held to much higher standards.

My guess is that they know if they actually read the books they’d have to respond to the arguments, and not their straw-man versions of what Intelligent Design is.

“As a friend of ours puts it, Jonathan Wells’s The Myth of Junk DNA is in the process of being “Ayala’ed.” To “Ayala” a book is to attack it in review without having bothered to read or even read much about it, simply on the basis of what you think it probably says given your uninformed preconceptions about the author. The term comes from the wonderful instance where distinguished biologist Francisco Ayala pompously “reviewed” Stephen Meyer’s Signature in the Cell for the Biologos Foundation website while giving clear evidence of not having cracked the book open or even looked at the table of contents.

Thus we have several posts from University of Toronto biochemist Larry Moran, criticizing Myth while being totally open about not having read it first. Moran wrote no fewer than four posts on the book in this fashion, claiming as an excuse that Myth would not be published in Canada until May 31. (In fact, the book was available for purchase from Amazon since early May.) And now, as Casey already noted, we have Forbes science writer John Farrell, citing Moran as his source — a “double Ayala,” so to speak, where you attack a book without reading it citing as justification a review by someone else who also hasn’t read it.

Farrell thinks the myth of junk DNA is itself a myth — that “scientists never dismissed junk DNA in the literature.” In other words, Wells has set up a straw man. Of course, not having looked at the book, Farrell can’t have consulted Dr. Wells’s fifty pages of notes documenting his argument. The notes may be downloaded for free here. (Also available in Canada.)”

So this is what criticism of intelligent design amounts to… denouncing a book before reading it.

Read the whole post.

False teachers, Politics

Arizona update and the danger of false teachers

Not surprisingly, we got this update today: Judge: Ariz. shooting suspect mentally incompetent.  The guy was in no way influenced by Sarah Palin or any right-wing “extremists.”  He was a psycho that should have been institutionalized.  He loved the anti-Christian Zeitgeist movie.

But do you remember the reactions of the ghouls on the Left?  The bodies weren’t even cold but they read from the “we hate and fear Sarah Palin so she must be destroyed” playbook and blamed her.  They were completely unrepentant.  And ever since they have ignored countless examples of hate and violence from the Left.  Such consistency from the love and tolerance crowd!  Even when it was obvious that this guy wasn’t conservative, CNN and others still debated the issue as if Palin had some impact.

I wrote this at the time:

Waiting on retraction from false teacher on Giffords shooting . . .

Yeah, I know I’ll be waiting a long time, but technically it could happen.  Will false teacher Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie retract his attacks on Sarah Palin in light of the facts that the shooter was most decidedly not a TEA partier?   See U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords Shot In Arizona; Supporter Of Health Care Reform (UPDATED) for the original ghoulish political opportunism, where the bodies weren’t even cold before the “reverend” used the deaths as a hit piece on Palin.

It turns out that the shooter was a liberal who doesn’t believe Jesus is the only way to salvation.  Hey, he’s got the same worldview as Chuck!

P.S. Will Chuck point out how the Daily Kos had a “target” piece on Giffords as well?  Of course not, as that wouldn’t fit in with his “we all need to be nicer — but mainly the Republicans” theme.

The shooter was a liberal whose fixation on Giffords appears to pre-date Palin’s arrival on the national scene.  Chuck must be so disappointed.

Still waiting . . .