Monthly Archives: October 2012

Christian worldview

Roundup

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Government spends $61,194 on welfare for each household below the poverty line — the government is wildly inefficient and ineffective in solving problems like this.

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Whistleblower Cases Show Planned Parenthood Engages in Massive Fraud — Don’t expect to hear about this in the mainstream media.  This is why Planned Parenthood’s CEO campaigned full-time for Obama for a while and why they “donated” millions of the tax dollars they received to the Obama campaign.

Planned Parenthood insists it is a necessary and trusted healthcare provider that must be supported by taxpayer dollars. Recently unsealed “whistleblower” lawsuits[i] tell a starkly different story. Former Planned Parenthood employees allege improper and illegal corporate policies were implemented by Planned Parenthood to increase profits, to the detriment of both the taxpayers and the women and families government programs seek to serve.

In the most recently unsealed suit, Thayer v. Planned Parenthood of the Heartland,[ii] Sue Thayer, former manager for Planned Parenthood of the Heartland (PPH), alleges that PPH filed nearly one-half million false claims with Medicaid. According to Ms. Thayer’s complaint, PPH fraudulently received and retained nearly $28 million in taxpayer funding through abusive billing practices.

Ms. Thayer alleges that to enhance revenues, PPH implemented a “C-Mail” program that effectively mailed thousands of unrequested birth control pills to women, and then billed the government for these pills. According to her complaint, PPH also solicited funds from patients for services fully covered by government programs while continuing to bill the government program for full reimbursement.

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But wait, there’s more: Planned Parenthood caught lying about its botched abortions.  Apparently and organization that kills unwanted human beings and perverts the minds of kids for a living doesn’t mind lying to help their business.

Our investigation exposes not only how unsafe Planned Parenthood clinics can be for women, but also how dishonest and untrustworthy Planned Parenthood is to the very women it claims to defend,” says Rose. “How shameful that two months after their clinic botched an abortion that took the life of 24-year old Tonya Reaves and her pre-born baby, Planned Parenthood lies to the public and pretends nothing happened. When it comes to the lethal dangers of its billion-dollar abortion business, no lie is too audacious for Planned Parenthood.

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And one more on PP — they are using $12m of your tax dollars to ask for more tax dollars. Their CEO is taking a break from running the abortion machine to campaign full-time for Obama.  She knows where her money comes from!  One more reason to vote Romney.

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Obama administration will pay companies to violate law governing layoff notices — shouldn’t this be front page news?  They are borrowing even more money from China for your kids to pay back, and just to further their personal political goals.

The Obama Administration’s disregard for the law has struck again—and this time, it’s encouraging others to violate the law at taxpayer expense.

That’s worth saying again: The Obama Administration is encouraging people to violate a law, and promising that it will use taxpayer money to cover fines incurred from this action.

The law: The law in question is called the WARN Act, and it requires that federal contractors send employees layoff notices 60 days before a plant closing or mass layoff.

The inconvenience: Massive defense spending cuts under sequestration are scheduled to hit on January 2, 2013. Defense contractors affected by the budget cuts would have to issue notice letters to employees by November 2 (four days before the election) to meet the January 2 start date for the spending cuts.

The penalty taxpayers would pay: Employers who violate the WARN Act are liable to their former employees for “back pay for each day of a violation” and “benefits under an employee benefit plan,” as well as a penalty of $500 for each day that notice has not been sent to the local government where the layoffs will occur.

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Obama Campaign Illegally Rakes in Foreign Donations — again.  And the media ignores it.

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From the “I am not making this up category” — Democrat of the Year Steals From Partially Blind, Developmentally Disabled Wheelchair-Bound Old Lady

The woman named “Democrat of The Year” this year by the Jefferson County Democratic Party has been convicted of felony theft by a Jefferson County jury for stealing from a developmentally disabled 71-year-old woman. …

On Thursday, a jury convicted 66-year-old Estelle Carson of felony identify theft and felony theft from an at risk adult for stealing checks from the woman and using them to pay her own cable, cell phone and internet bills.

The victim is partially blind, developmentally disabled, has cerebral palsy and is confined to a wheelchair. She is on a fixed income of $596 per month according to the Jefferson County District Attorney’s Office.

Nearly as bothersome as the theft itself … is the fact the Jefferson County Democratic Party was made aware of the ongoing criminal investigation and honored Carson anyway.

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The most important fact of history ever: Jesus really rose from the dead.  And we have lots of evidence for our belief!  Don’t leave this life without carefully examining the evidence yourself.

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Yes, Benghazi is worse than Watergate. Sadly, the media is covering up the cover-up.  From John McCain:

You know, this administration is very good at touting and giving all the details like when they got Bin Laden. But now, we know that there were tapes, recordings inside the consulate during this fight, and they’ve gotten—they came—the F.B.I. finally got in and took those, and now they’re classified as “top secret.” Why would they be top secret? So the president went on various shows, despite what he said he said in the Rose Garden, about terrorist acts, he went on several programs, including “The View” including “Letterman” including before the U.N., where he continued to refer, days later, many days later, to this as a spontaneous demonstration because of a hateful video. We know that is patently false. What did the president know? When did he know it? And what did he do about it?

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Like Alfred Kinsey, Obama HHS “Grooming” Children for Sex — these people should be in jail.

Kinsey, though married to a woman who took part in his many filmed “scientific” orgies, was a promiscuous homosexual and sadomasochist. He managed to completely upend and twist the world’s perception of human sexuality in the 1950s and ’60s with his world famous “Kinsey Reports.”

Even today, most are completely unaware that during his tenure at Indiana University, Kinsey facilitated, with stopwatches and ledgers, the systematic sexual abuse of hundreds, if not thousands, of children and infants – all in the name of science.

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According to the FBI, child molesters:

  • Demonstrate sex acts to children. Offenders commonly use pornography to teach or give instructions to naïve children about how to masturbate, perform oral sex and/or engage in sexual intercourse.
  • Lower the sexual inhibitions of children. Some children naturally fear sexual activities. Some offenders show pictures of other children engaging in sexual activities to overcome these fears, indicating to their intended victims that it is all right to have sex with an adult because lots of other boys and girls do the same thing.
  • Desensitize children to sex. Offenders commonly show child pornography to their intended victims to expose them to sexual acts before they are naturally curious about such activities.
  • Sexually arouse children. Offenders commonly use pornographic images of other children to arouse victims, particularly those in adolescence.

During her lecture, Dr. Reisman shocked the 50-plus in attendance by illustrating that today’s Kinseyan-based sex education – as promoted by Obama’s HHS – does much of what the FBI describes above.

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Stay classy, pro-aborts:

As I alluded to in response to a comment made on my post reporting on the recent pro-life rally in Melbourne, there are a couple of things that I felt would have been beneficial to exclude from the event. I mention what those are in the below paragraphs.

One of the more interesting points I noted with regards to the pro-abortion protesters in my previous article was the tactical angle of their messages:

  1. Shame, bigots, shame! Shame, bigots, shame!
  2. We won, you lost! We won, you lost!
  3. God raped Mary. She should have aborted
  4. Black, white, queer, straight! Women will control our fate!
  5. F*ck off, bigots, f*ck off! F*ck off, bigots, f*ck off!
  6. Jesus was a gay sheila who was pro-choice!
  7. You have 99 problems. They are all misogyny
  8. I had an abortion because I chose life
  9. Pro-choice is pro-life
  10. Not every ejaculation needs a name
  11. If the foetus you save is gay, will you still fight for it’s rights?
  12. My vagina has nothing to do with your God
  13. Jesus was not a fascist like these clowns

Contrast the above with these pro-life slogans espoused at the same event:

  1. Its easy to be ‘pro-choice’ when you’re not the one being killed
  2. Cruelty to animals is called ‘evil’. Torture to babies is called ‘choice’
  3. Lots of people want to adopt [but there’s] no babies!
  4. We kill an AFL Grand Final crowd each year
  5. Everyone deserves a birth-day
  6. Mums need support, not pressure to abort
  7. Every life is valuable
  8. Change the law. Save the babies. Help the mothers
  9. aDoPtion not aBoRtion
  10. Each life is unique from conception
  11. Pretend I’m a tree and save me
  12. Take my hand, not my life
  13. Pray to end abortion*

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Throwing more money at education will not fix it.  More commentary here.  They should take a tiny portion of the budget and visit one-on-one with parents and caregivers and let them know that they are the key to the child’s success.  No amount of spending or government bureaucracy will overcome slacker parents.

I’m not getting it. If we’re spending so very much on education, why aren’t we the top? Why aren’t we the best educated people on the planet? Why do we keep trying to throw more money at it as if that will fix it? If throwing more money at it has not improved education, why do we continue to think that’s the answer? Or is that a learning problem, too?

U.S. Education versus the World via Master of Arts in Teaching at USC

Apologetics, Bible, False teachers, Favorites

Leopard Theology: Not as fun as it sounds

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Leopard on tree stump
Image via Wikipedia

Many Christians teach Leopard Theology*, because they believe that the Bible is only inspired in spots and that they are inspired to spot the spots.   They don’t call it that, but that is exactly what their theology is founded upon.  And, like the leopard, they camouflage themselves and they are dangerous predators.  They take on church leadership roles even though they teach the opposite of the Bible.

Saying the Bible isn’t fully inspired by God may seem like a humble premise, but it actually makes several strong and unfounded claims.

It implies that God couldn’t or wouldn’t deliver His word to us in a reliable way, and that despite God’s alleged failings flawed humans are able to discern which parts were inspired and which parts were not.  Are we to believe that humans are to correct for God’s errors?

Why is this a serious problem?  It is hard enough to follow the teachings of the Bible without having “Christians” choose what “really” came from God.  Worse yet, they ignore some parts of scripture so they can teach that the opposite is not only acceptable but desirable.  Some may do it accidentally or out of laziness but others are just blatant false teachers.  They have made up their own god and their own religion.

If someone claims the Bible is only partly inspired, ask a few questions:

  • How did they come to this conclusion?
  • Do they think their favorite verses are inspired?  If so,  how do they know?  How about John 3:16?  How about “love your neighbor?”  Whenever “Judge not, lest ye be judged” is quoted, I never hear the liberal theologians question whether Jesus really said that.
  • If the Bible is only partly inspired, how can they be sure that their preferred verses aren’t the ones that are uninspired and the ones they don’t like are the “real” verses?
  • Why is it that God couldn’t inspire the original writings of forty writers, but He can inspire billions of people to properly determine which parts are right and which aren’t?
  • If He couldn’t get Paul, Luke, Matthew, John, etc.  to record his word accurately, how can He get you to do it?
  • Why should I trust your “inspiration” over those who penned the Bible, or over my “inspiration?”

Then there is Advanced Leopard Theology.  It is just like basic Leopard Theology, except God is also changing spots and adding or removing spots, and, oddly enough, He is only telling theological liberals and progressives.   They use phrases such as “God is still speaking,” but they don’t mean He still speaks through his Word (that would be a true statement).  They think He is still revealing new truths to the church and changing doctrines taught in the Bible.  They may also say things like, “The Holy Spirit is moving in a new direction.”  Indeed.

Here’s an example: A Methodist pastor named Laurie Hays Coffman did a pro-gay theology piece that made the argument that she wants to “unfurl our corporate sails to catch today’s winds as the Spirit blows afresh.”  She said she was challenged by the vision God gave to Peter in Acts 10-11 where God makes it clear that the Gospel is for the Gentiles, too, and that the Israelites’ ceremonial dietary laws are no longer in force.  Her reasoning is that in the same way that God overturned those laws that He is now overturning the prohibitions against homosexual behavior.  If that looks like a non sequitur to you then you are correct.  The problem is her poor Biblical analysis.  There are at least nine things wrong with this view:

  1. The person with the revelation was Peter, one of Jesus’ inner circle and a key leader in the early church.  It wasn’t made to you, me or someone like Ms. Coffman.  That doesn’t mean God couldn’t reveal something important like this to us, just that it is highly unlikely.
  2. The visions were clear and emphatic.  Peter was given the vision three times and the incident is mentioned twice.
  3. Peter was inclined to reject the meaning of the vision, whereas these Advanced Leopard Theologians have views on human sexuality that are virtually indistinguishable from the prevailing culture and they are glad to accept this allegedly new revelation.
  4. There was external validation for Peter from the Roman centurion, which also included a supernatural intervention.
  5. This lesson showed up in the Bible, not outside it.  I’m not saying miracles don’t happen outside the Bible.  It is just that things appear in the Bible for a reason.  God communicating that the ceremonial laws had been fulfilled was one of those “big deals.”
  6. This vision overturned a ceremonial law, not a moral law.  There are zero examples in the Bible of God reversing his moral laws.  In fact, the more Jesus talked the stricter the laws seemed to get, because He emphasized the spirit of the law and not just the letter (i.e., lust was akin to committing adultery, anger was akin to murder, etc.).  The dietary laws never applied to Gentiles.
  7. The “God has changed his mind view” is primarily being “revealed” to theologically liberal Christians in the U.S. . . . the very ones who often deny the authority of his Word to begin with!  So we can’t trust the accurate transmission of the original writings but we can trust their new revelations?  I’m skeptical.
  8. If God is revealing a change, why is it necessarily more liberal?  Why couldn’t God make his laws more stringent?
  9. The Bible gives strong warnings not to add or take away from its teachings.

But the orthodox can fall prey to this in a more subtle way by claiming full inspiration but conveniently ignoring passages we don’t like.  Consider this passage on church leadership, where some exaggerate “not given to drunkenness” to mean no alcohol whatsoever but ignore the “must manage his own family well . . .” part.

1 Timothy 3:2-4 Now the overseer must be above reproach, the husband of but one wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable, able to teach, not given to drunkenness, not violent but gentle, not quarrelsome, not a lover of money. He must manage his own family well and see that his children obey him with proper respect.

Another example is correctly teaching about the sin of homosexual behavior while neglecting to give proper emphasis to Biblical admonitions against divorce, adultery and fornication.  We need to teach all of scripture with balance.  Grandstanding on sins that aren’t temptations to us and soft-pedaling those that are are not attractive or Christian things to do.

There are plenty of reasons and resources to defend the accuracy and integrity of all of the original scriptures.  We don’t need to get sloppy and just follow the parts we like.  And we truly miss out when we cast doubts on every passage and question if it is really the word of God.

I’ll close with some friendly advice: Don’t mess with God’s Word.

Deuteronomy 4:2 You shall not add to the word that I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of the Lord your God that I command you.

Proverbs 30:5–6 Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

Revelation 22:18–19 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

*Also known as Dalmatian Theology.

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Tone-deaf hypocrisy on the election

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Race-baiting Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie does a self-parody in Romney Puts Politics Before Country During Hurricane Sandy #Sandy.

As we keep all those impacted by the storm in our prayers today, let’s  set aside the usual partisan politics and figure out how we can help.

Uh, sure, Chuck, just like you are doing here when you try to use a tragedy to score cheap points against Romney.

Obama and his Leftist media are the ones politicizing the tragedy.  Obama didn’t stop his campaign, he sent Bill Clinton instead — who is more popular, btw.

You can really sense their desperation.

Politics, Pro-life reasoning

Government & bedrooms

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A common pro-choice sound bite is that “Government should stay out of our bedrooms.”  It is an emotional play on the theme of privacy, but the logic is poor for several reasons.

I don’t know of any abortions that occur in bedrooms.  I’m pretty sure that most take place at abortion clinics.  Rape, incest, pedophilia, murders, thefts and a host of other crimes can occur in bedrooms, but I don’t hear anyone suggesting that the government ignore those.

I realize those items were taking the claim literally, but the pro-choice reasoning also fails in a figurative sense.  Groups that claim to want the government out of bedrooms sure have cashed a lot of government checks for “educating” our youth on sexually related matters.  Planned Parenthood and the like appear to have a great deal of interest in your bedroom activities and those of your children, and they crave and receive massive government funding and do their best to destroy anyone who gets in their way — even breast cancer charities like the Komen Foundation.

If by “government out of our bedrooms” they mean “government out of our sex lives,” then Planned Parenthood supporters should ask that they refund all the money they have received (Over $4 billion since 1987) and get out of our schools.

As with most pro-choice arguments, this claim ignores the primary issue of abortion: Whether or not an innocent human being is killed.  If abortion doesn’t kill an innocent human being, then of course the government shouldn’t be involved in determining whether the procedure is legal.  However, if it does kill an innocent human being, then it really doesn’t matter where the life of the unborn started.   And of course, the scientific fact is that the unborn are unique, living human beings from fertilization.

The government does not get involved in “bedrooms” in the sense that they dictate with whom consent adults can have sex.  But is should get involved when people want to destroy the unwanted human being created in those bedroom activities.

The Democrats want to intrude in the bedroom.  From their 2012 Platform:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

The greater irony and hypocrisy of the Left is that they now want government to be explicitly involved in the bedroom by forcing taxpayers to pay for birth control and abortions.  They don’t mind if that tramples religious freedom.  Pro-lifers are being consistent here: Keep the government out of the bedroom but protect innocent human beings, and respect the First Amendment.

In addition, as Glenn noted in the comments, they also want the government to get involved in the bedrooms of gays and lesbians.  By nature and design those relationships don’t produce children and can never provide a mother and a father to child, so why would they need government involvement?

If you vote for the Democrats, you are voting for taxpayer-funded abortions, less religious freedom and government intrusion into the bedroom.

Roundup

Roundup

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Voter fraud?  What voter fraud?  Nothing to see here, folks.  If you advocate for photo ID for voters then you are obviously a racist.

Ask yourself why the mainstream media isn’t all over this — or doing it themselves!

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I am actually a fan of congressional gridlock.  Less cooperation = less new laws to strangle the country and make our lives more complicated.  But sometimes bipartisanship can be good.  What is fascinating is how Obama ran his 2008 campaign pretending to want to unite people, when his career and his presidency showed the opposite.  Yet his supporters don’t seem to notice or care.

Hopefully the independents will notice that Romney has an actual track record of working with people on the other side.  Here’s a thorough analysis of how much better Clinton was at this than Obama.  The potentially good news is that Clinton’s ability to work across the aisle got him re-elected, and Obama’s hypocritical failure to do so may result in his loss.

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All these Obama fans at a political rally didn’t have a clue about Benghazi.  But they will totally vote for Obama.

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While Obama is trying to milk some ill-advised comments about rape and abortion made by a couple Republicans, what is lost is the pro-abortion extremism of him and his wife.  She actually sent a fund-raising letterbased on her support for infanticide (though they call it “partial-birth abortion.”).  Also see Obama supports late-term abortions, born-alive abortions and sex-selection abortions.  That is extremism.  Even most pro-choicers disagree with those positions.

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The media is still playing the race card.  Ann Coulter does a good job of refuting their arguments.  Ever wonder why the media doesn’t report how much higher the black unemployment rate is under Obama?

It’s hard to evaluate Matthews’ slander inasmuch as it contains no facts. But if it’s conservatives and “the white working class in the South” who are burning with racial hatred, why don’t white liberals ever vote for black representatives in their own congressional districts?

Black Democrats apparently can get elected to Congress only from majority black districts, whereas black Republicans are always elected from majority white districts: Gary Franks, J.C. Watts, Tim Scott, Allen West and (we hope!) Mia Love.

How come white liberals won’t vote for a black representative? Why can’t a black person represent Nita Lowey’s district?

Democrats do nothing for black Americans except mine them for votes, ginning them up with tall tales about racist Republicans.

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Free Contraception Reduces Pregnancy? An Adventure In Bogus Science — This is a good link to keep, as you’ll be hearing this bit a lot from the gullible.

A recent study published in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology is creating a collective orgasm in the Sandra Fluke wing of the Democrat party. This study purports to show that free contraception reduces not only pregnancies but abortions. This study is a prime example of the politically motivated crap that appears in low impact scientific journals. It is research by press release and agitprop masquerading as science.

The study is a monument to tautology. We often hear that 30 percent of medical costs occur in the last year of life and that most traffic accidents occur within a mile of home. The reasons for this is obvious. Most people don’t receive expensive medical care unless they are near death and about 100% of your driving is done with a mile or so of home. The results of the study are hardly surprising. Women using contraception tend to have a lower rate of pregnancies and because they aren’t pregnant there is no need to have an abortion. I think most of us knew, or at least suspected, that to be the case.

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Public School Teacher Assaults Child During Islamic Indoctrination — Why no mainstream media coverage, even though she was charged with assault?  Oh, because it is about Islam and a pro-Obama teacher forcing her religious and political views on her students.

 [teacher Tara] Harris has a disturbing trend of “indoctrinating” students with Islamic teachings. She also said the teacher openly campaigns for President Barack Obama in the classroom.

When Bennett’s daughter couldn’t do the Islamic hand sign for “power and strength” properly after two straight days of instruction in place of reading and math class, Harris lost her patience.

“When she didn’t get it right, [Harris] went over and yanked her hand out of her desk and my daughter’s hand got hung up on the metal wire on her file folder and the skin got caught on it,” the mother explained, her voice cracking with emotion. “The other children saw my daughter’s hand dripping with blood after the teacher had gotten so mad that she went to twist my daughter’s hand into an Islamic sign.” …

The mother said her daughter told her that Harris “prays to Allah in Arabic” around five times a day in front of students and teaches them about Islam and how it is superior to other religions. …

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Super freaks: When government runs health care: NHS offers sex tips to children as young as 13.  In the U.S. we have Planned Parenthood fulfilling this role.

Teenagers as young as 13 are being given explicit sexual advice and tips on how to lose their virginity from a taxpayer-funded website and iPhone app.

The respectyourself.info website contains graphic detail about various sexual acts – including those that involve a man physically abusing his partner during sex.

On the website, which is targeted at those as young as 13, teens can take an ‘Are you ready quiz’ and answer a series of multiple-choice questions to assess whether they are prepared to lose their virginity.

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Porn-Free Church: Sex, God, and the Gospel —

This begins with exposing the lie of porn. We sin because we have “exchanged the truth of God for a lie” (Rom. 1:23-25). Porn is no different. Porn makes false promises. . . . We need to expose these lies. Then we need to show how God promises more.

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California Official Who Misreported Unemployment Is Obama Donor — Shocking.

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The top 5 myths of Intelligent Design — A key to any productive conversation is ensuring you define your terms.  One of the ways that evolution / creation / Intelligent Design conversations get off track is by misstating definitions (whether deliberately or not).  The link has a great list.  My favorite:

MYTH #4: ID uses a disguised form of the “God of the gaps” fallacy.

The true story: ID does not say “We don’t yet know how life emerged from non-life, therefore an intelligence must have done it.” Rather, it makes a two-fold argument: 1) Neo-Darwinian explanations for the emergence and divergence of life are sorely insufficient in their explanatory power and 2) there are features of nature, such as the specified complexity of the digital information in DNA, that are best explained by intelligent agency. We already know from direct experience how to detect intelligence in other branches of science, so inferring intelligence based on the same type of observed effects is completely reasonable. In scientific practice, we infer the existing cause that is KNOWN to produce the effect in question. Since biochemistry contains information, ID theorists infer that there must be an informer, because there are no other sources of information. Ironically, whenever a materialist says, “We don’t yet know how life emerged from non-life, but one day science will explain it,” they are actually using the Science of the Gaps fallacy.

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Great video supporting natural marriage.

Bible

About all those “I went to Heaven and came back” books . . .

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I know these books are popular and have brought comfort to some people, but I encourage discernment in reading anything, and especially popular Christian books.  Here’s a good overview by Phil Johnson about this genre.

Blogger Tim Challies has labeled the genre “Heaven Tourism,” candidly dismissing one bestseller in the category as “pure junk, fiction in the guise of biography, paganism in the guise of Christianity.”  This is not a totally new phenomenon. Various survivors of near-death experiences have been publishing gnostic insights about the afterlife for at least two decades. Betty Eadie’s Embraced by the Light was number one on the New York Times Bestseller List exactly 20 years ago. The success of that book unleashed an onslaught of similar tales, nearly all of them with strong New Age and occult overtones. So psychics and new-agers have been making hay with stories like these for at least two decades.

What’s different about the current crop of afterlife testimonies is that they are being eagerly sought and relentlessly cranked out by evangelical publishers. They are bought and devoured by millions who would describe themselves as born-again Bible-believing Christians. Every book I have named in the above list comes from an ostensibly evangelical source.  . . .

These books are coming out with such frequency that it is virtually impossible to read and review them all. But that shouldn’t even be necessary. No true evangelical ought to be tempted to give such tales any credence whatsoever, no matter how popular they become.

Don’t miss this next point.

One major, obvious problem is that these books don’t even agree with one another. They give contradictory descriptions of heaven and thus cannot possibly have any cumulative long-term effect other than the sowing of confusion and doubt.

But the larger issue is one no authentic believer should miss: the whole premise behind every one of these books is contrary to everything Scripture teaches about heaven.

In an upcoming book dealing with this subject, John MacArthur says,

For anyone who truly believes the biblical record, it is impossible to resist the conclusion that these modern testimonies—with their relentless self-focus and the relatively scant attention they pay to the glory of God—are simply untrue. They are either figments of the human imagination (dreams, hallucinations, false memories, fantasies, and in the worst cases, deliberate lies), or else they are products of demonic deception.

We know this with absolute certainty, because Scripture definitively says that people do not go to heaven and come back: “Who has ascended to heaven and come down?” (Proverbs 30:4). . . .

All three biblical writers who saw heaven and described their visions give comparatively sparse details, but they agree perfectly (Isaiah 6:1-4; Ezekiel 1 and 10; Revelation 4-6). They don’t agree with the Burpo-Malarkey version of heaven. Both their intonation and the details they highlight are markedly different. The biblical authors are all fixated on God’s glory, which defines heaven and illuminates everything there. They are overwhelmed, chagrined, petrified, and put to silence by the sheer majesty of God’s holiness. Notably missing from all the biblical accounts are the frivolous features and juvenile attractions that seem to dominate every account of heaven currently on the bestseller lists.

. . .

Evangelical readers’ discernment skills are at an all-time low, and that is why books like these proliferate. Despite the high profile, high sales figures, and high dollar amounts Christian publishers can milk from a trend such as this, it doesn’t bode well for the future of Christian publishing—or for the future of the evangelical movement.

. . .

Some good news:

Spoiler alert: Heaven’s a lot more glorious than any of these current bestsellers suggest.

If you want an outstanding book on Heaven, read In Light of Eternity: Perspectives on Heaven by Randy Alcorn.  It is fairly short and easy to read but thoroughly biblical.

Oh, and the Bible is a good book to read as well.

Hat tip: Sola Sisters

Christian worldview

“Entitled to every single solitary operation”

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If you vote for Obama/Biden you are voting pro-abortion and anti-religious freedom.  Not pro-choice, but pro-abortion — more abortions, funded by all taxpayers. From the Democrats’ 2012 platform:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v. Wade and a woman’s right to make decisions regarding her pregnancy, including a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay. We oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.

That means they favor:

  • 2nd trimester, 3rd trimester and “partial-birth” (aka infanticide) abortions
  • Taxpayer-funded abortions.  That means that pro-lifers will be forced to pay to have innocent but unwanted human beings killed.  That’s not pro-choice, that’s pro-abortion.
  • Increased abortions — They think that there aren’t enough abortions today, so society as a whole will improve if we make them “free” to the mothers.  Giving abortions away seems like a peculiar way to make them rare.
  • More dead black babies relative to whites — Abortions in the black community are already three times that of whites, and they know that figure will increase with taxpayer-funded abortions.  It is the ultimate racism.
  • Restrictions on religious freedoms — It is inevitable, and already evident with Obamacare, that they want to force religious groups to fund abortifacient drugs and abortions.

Now Joe Biden expands on this, saying:

Maybe where Romney is most sketchy is on women’s rights. I got a daughter and lost a daughter. I’ve got four granddaughters and Barack has two daughters. And this is to our core. Our daughters and our granddaughters are entitled to every single solitary operation, every single solitary opportunity!

Click the audio to see how pro-abortion he and his supporters are.  You see, abortion is an opportunity and an entitlement to them.  And if they are entitled to abortions then that means you are obligated to provide abortions.  (Side note: Joe misses the morbid irony that those daughters and granddaughters wouldn’t exist if the mothers had opted for the abortions they were “entitled” to.)

Note that these “pro-women” pro-aborts oppose a ban on gender-selection abortions, nearly all of which kill females for the sole reason that they are unwanted females.

Note what extremists these people are.  Even the majority of self-identified pro-choicers oppose what the Democrats’ platform pushes.  Never let them get away with labeling pro-lifers as extremists.

It is un-Christian and un-American to not only permit the killing of innocent but unwanted human beings in the womb but to force others to participate.  Destroying religious freedom is also un-Christian and un-American.  No Christian should vote for the Democrats.

Roundup

Roundup

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Bitter much?  Some good thoughts on dealing with resentment.

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Great piece by Randy Alcorn highlighting the many false beliefs of Mormons (and why they aren’t part of the Christian church) and why he will vote for Romney over Obama.

Yes, their doctrines really do teach these things, even if many of their newer members don’t realize it:

  • God was once a man like us.
  • God has a tangible body of flesh and bone.
  • God lives on a planet near the star Kolob… The sun receives its light from the star Kolob.
  • God the “Heavenly Father” has at least one wife, our “Mother in Heaven,” but she is so holy that we are not to discuss her.
  • Jesus was married.
  • There are many gods, ruling over their own worlds.
  • We can become like God and one day rule over our own universes.
  • Jesus and Satan (“Lucifer”) are spirit brothers, and they are our brothers—we are all spirit children of Heavenly Father
  • Jesus Christ was conceived by God the Father by having sex with Mary, who was temporarily his wife.
  • Before coming to this earth we lived as spirits in a “pre-existence”, during which we were tested; our position in this life (whether born to Mormons or savages, or in America or Africa) is our reward or punishment for our obedience in that life.
  • The Garden of Eden was in Missouri. All humanity before the Great Flood lived in the western hemisphere. The Ark transported Noah and the other survivors to the eastern hemisphere.
  • If a Gentile becomes Mormon, the Holy Ghost actually purges his Gentile blood and replaces it with Israelite blood.
  • A righteous Mormon will actually see the face of God in the Mormon temple.

But as Alcorn notes, you should still vote for Romney.  Obama displays no fruit of Christianity and he is a pro-abortion zealot, incompetent with economics, appoints bad judges, is trampling religious freedoms and is a lousy leader.

I’m with Randy, and Martin Luther:

Christians are not needed for secular authority. Thus it is not necessary for the emperor to be a saint. It is not necessary for him to be a Christian to rule. It is sufficient for the emperor to possess reason.

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Death panels are real: Rationing Takes Its Toll Under British Socialized Medicine — As It Will Here — Too bad Romney isn’t hitting harder on this topic.  It is the inevitable result of socialized medicine.

It isn’t much consolation, but in a sense Olive Goom didn’t die alone. Bureaucrats have told general practitioners to cut expenses by putting 1% of patients on the “death list.” Yes I’m serious:

GPs have been asked to select one in every 100 of their patients to go on a list of those likely to die over the next 12 months.

The patients will be singled out for ‘end-of-life care’, potentially saving the NHS more than £1billion a year.

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Parents support abstinence education — Almost 60% of Democrats and more than 70% of Republicans oppose President Obama’s efforts to eliminate all funding for Sexual Risk Avoidance Abstinence Education.

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Yes, Obama was taught to destroy the middle class.  If you have never heard of Saul Alinsky then you probably don’t know about Obama’s worldview.  This is one of those “so bizarre that people wouldn’t believe it” things, but the data is all there.  The media just isn’t telling people about it.

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Have you heard anything in the liberal media about all the threats to assassinate Romney?  Yeah, me neither.

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Let’s see, it is really bad that Romney is wealthy via his hard work and business skills, but it wasn’t bad that John Kerry was really rich because he married someone who inherited wealth from someone who worked hard.  No class warfare here, folks.  Just move along.

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It was bizarre how Obama said that gas prices were low under Bush because the economy was bad and are high now because the economy is supposedly good.  How can his followers believe that?

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Despite what the President said, Planned Parenthood still doesn’t do mammograms.  But he’ll repeat what he knows to be a lie to advance the “war on womyn” meme and the media will talk about Romney’s shoes or something. Romney and his supporters should continually remind people that Obama & Co. are forcing pro-lifers to pay for abortions.  That isn’t pro-choice, that’s pro-abortion, and even most pro-choicers oppose that.

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Weight loss through real food — I recommend skipping any food claiming to be “diet.”  Just eat more natural things.

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Friendly reminder: The government makes more from gasoline than the oil companies do.

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Global warming ended . . . 16 years ago — it is sad how many people still believe the Leftist meme about how it is real and how humans are causing it, and how the only solution is for us to redistribute wealth and take a major reduction in our standard of living (but oddly enough, the leaders get to keep all their stuff).

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Tar pit shows complete absence of evolutionary change — false predictions from Darwinism.  Again.  Ask yourself if the media gave equal time to this compared to recent fossil finds that allegedly supported evolution (then quietly went off to obscurity).

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And that's why I sneer

Our Little Secret

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Tone deaf bias in action

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 Race-baiting Chuck “Jesus is not the only way” Currie sought to portray Mitt Romney as a political flip-flopper in his latest piece — Mitt Romney’s Political Conversion on Display at Debate.

Mitt Romney’s debate performance last night showed Americans one thing: It’s politics that shapes his inner core and not, it would appear, religious values. A man willing to shift his opinions on so many major issues is defined much less by religion than ambition.

Chuck forgot to mention how Obama has gone from pro-“same-sex marriage” to pro-real marriage and back to pro-“same-sex marriage” whenever it benefited him most politically.  And false teacher Chuck is fully supportive of Obama’s pro-abortion views, where pro-life taxpayers are forced to pay for abortions.

Christian worldview, Exercise

Yoga risks: Spiritual and physical

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There are some “yoga” moves that are natural and beneficial.  Just because they fall under the yoga umbrella doesn’t mean they are spiritually related and must be avoided.  Hey, my dog insists that he invented the Upward Dog and Downward Dog moves even though he never went to a yoga class.  They are just good ways to stretch that one could discover with or without yoga classes.

But the spiritual side of yoga should be avoided.  My former church actually held yoga classes.  Ugh.  It would be great to have exercise classes for members, because if you really love your family and friends you’ll try to take reasonable care of yourself as to not be an unnecessary burden to them.  But any educated Hindu will tell you that yoga training is explicitly spiritual — and not in the biblical Christianity sort of way.

But even the physical benefits should be reconsidered.  Many of the moves aren’t necessarily good for you physically.  This article goes into a lot of detail about the risks.

[Glenn] Black [a yoga teacher of nearly four decades, whose devoted clientele includes a number of celebrities and prominent gurus] has come to believe that “the vast majority of people” should give up yoga altogether. It’s simply too likely to cause harm.  Not just students but celebrated teachers too, Black said, injure themselves in droves because most have underlying physical weaknesses or problems that make serious injury all but inevitable. Instead of doing yoga, “they need to be doing a specific range of motions for articulation, for organ condition,” he said, to strengthen weak parts of the body. “Yoga is for people in good physical condition. Or it can be used therapeutically. It’s controversial to say, but it really shouldn’t be used for a general class.”

Hat tip: Yoga Can Be Hazardous To Your Health by the Sola Sisters