Tag Archives: election

Bible

Picking a lane on election and predestination

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Note: While I’m unapologetic about holding to Reformed theology, I’m not evangelical about it. I share the gospel without mentioning it, and gladly fellowship with authentic Christians who hold other views. However, I don’t appreciate the ignorance and arrogance of those who condemn those who believe Reformed theology.

If God didn’t choose to save some particular sinners destined for Hell, then it is because He couldn’t save them, or He wouldn’t save them.

Reconciling God’s sovereignty with man’s responsibility is important to think through for orthodox Christians – whether Reformed, Arminian, Molinist, or whatever you like to call yourself (i.e., anyone who agrees that God knew before creation began who would ultimately choose to repent and believe, and that open theism is false because God is omniscient and not learning as He goes). But I see too many people making the task unnecessarily difficult because they forget that our default destination is Hell. They unwittingly create a straw-man situation where God owes an opportunity for salvation to everyone. But then it wouldn’t be mercy and grace; it would be justice.

In other words, aside from Adam and Eve, who could have chosen otherwise but ultimately needed a Savior because of their choices, everyone else was initially destined for Hell. (For simplicity, I’m leaving out any miscarriage and age of accountability scenarios, however one fleshes those out).

So absent God’s mercy and grace, everyone would end up in Hell. People overcomplicate this to try to get God off the hook for eternal damnation. But it is they who put him on the hook. Everyone deserves to go there, but by God’s mercy and grace, He elects and predestines to save some. So humans are always the cause of them not being saved, not God.

I’ve yet to see someone with orthodox Christian beliefs come up with any alternative besides these reasons for why people end up in Hell:

  1. God didn’t elect them (Reformed)
  2. God couldn’t persuade them (Arminian or Molinism)
  3. God wouldn’t persuade them (Arminian or Molinism)

Even if you hold the view that God “looked down the corridor of time” and elected and predestined those who would choose him of their own “free will,” you are still left with those choices for the remainder.

Option 2 means that nothing God could have done would have convinced you to repent and believe.  It wouldn’t have mattered if He sovereignly put a stellar apologist next door to you and gave you lots of encounters with solid Christians (i.e., good experiences with Christianity and complete access to the facts and logic behind the faith). That sounds like Reformed theology to me, as it means that God created these people knowing that nothing would persuade them to believe. In his foreknowledge, He elected not to make them spiritually alive (a la John 3:8 “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”). They allegedly could choose him freely, but He was powerless to convince them.

Option 3 means that God could have persuaded them but elected not to. Again, that sounds Reformed to me.

I’ve heard of people trying to use Molinism (the concept of middle knowledge, where God knows every possible scenario that could have happened) to get around this, saying that God picked the universe where the most people would choose him. But that means that some would go to Hell in this universe but wouldn’t have in another universe, so God chose them to go to Hell. So they unwittingly end up with the same (false) scenario they are trying to explain away.

It is more biblical and logical to say that people have “free will” within their given nature. But as you can’t choose to fly like a bird because it isn’t in your nature, you can’t choose Jesus when it isn’t in your spiritually dead nature. But if God makes you spiritually alive (again, John 3:8) then you can and will choose Jesus because it is now in your nature to be able to do so.

If God didn’t choose to save some particular sinners destined for Hell, then it is because He couldn’t save them, or He wouldn’t save them.

Bonus thought: Why would Paul anticipate this argument if he was presenting anything but the Reformed view? Romans 9:19–20 You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?”

Politics

Random post-election thoughts: Generally positive

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Somehow the Republicans (or someone posing as them) got my mobile number and sent a dozen or more texts for donations.  Before blocking them permanently, I’d usually reply as follows: “Try again after you start the wall and defund Planned Parenthood.”  I’ve been thrilled with much of what Trump has done, but the Congress has no excuse for not starting the wall and for not continuing to let Planned Parenthood and Democrat politicians take turns giving each other my money.

That Senate majority is huge.  They can get lots done and more quickly now that people like Murkowski are superfluous.

Make no mistake: As painful as the Kavanuagh nonsense was to go through, if the Democrats hadn’t done such unethical things with it they would have won the Senate.  And their stunts will harm them for years.

Trump is already epically trolling the Dems by supporting Pelosi.  They will make people afraid to support her and/or undermine her if she wins.

Prediction: The House Dems will overplay their hand and push independents to the right, or they will underplay it and de-motivate the Leftist extremists (which is pretty much the entire party these days).  Either way, Trump will probably be better off than if the House had barely stayed in Republican hands.

Keith Ellison and other Dems accused of sexual misconduct won, which will give the Republicans fodder for pointing out the Leftist #MeToo (“PoundMeToo”) hypocrisy.  After all, he had a credible and much more recent allegation of harming women that the Democrats and the Leftist media deliberately ignored.

People say gridlock like it is a bad thing.  I think some gridlock is good.

Stunts like demanding Trump’s tax returns will distract the Leftists from realizing their leaders are accomplishing nothing.  There is nothing in the returns which would harm Trump, or the IRS would have done something already and probably leaked it.  The economically illiterate Leftists couldn’t understand the financial and tax concepts anyway, and they’ll be the only ones fooled if the Dems try to distort what is in the returns.

Maxine Waters gets more power!  Great move, Dems.  If you created a fictional character like Maxine, it would be considered extreme racism.

Beto was a perfect example of Leftist deception. While not fleeing the scene of accidents he caused while under the influence, he pushed eminent domain abuses to help his billionaire father-in-law. Yeah, he’s a real man of the people. And looser borders? Insanity. But of course the Left bought into his cult of personality bit (“Oooh, he skateboards!!  And uses the F-bomb in concession speeches!!”). So glad they wasted their money.  Sure, run him for President and we can watch more videos of him getting blasted by the Hispanics whose property he was trying to steal.

It was sweet, sweet schadenfreude to know that people like Racist Held Evans, who bragged about giving lots of her money to the Beto campaign (even though she lives in Tennessee), lost so badly.  Bonus: Marsha Blackburn won big even though Evans and Taylor Swift came out in favor of Bredesen.  Love it!

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 : 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.

Politics

Election stuff — hopefully the Republicans learned some good lessons!

There were lots of important lessons from election night.  Despite the spin of Democrats and Obama pretending not to care about the results, they stumped heavily for losing candidates.  Obama could not get them re-elected.  That should tell the Blue-dog Democrats not to cave in when standing up for life and against the health care bill.  Obama can’t save them from losing their next elections.  The magic is gone.

In New York, the Hoffman story is powerful — even though he lost a close race.  But will the Republicans learn?  They wasted ~ $1m on a RINO (Republican In Name Only) who endorsed the Democrat after she dropped out.  Remember Arlen Specter?  In one of Bush’s biggest mistakes he campaigned for Specter’s re-election, only to have Specter switch parties when it was convenient for him.  We all knew he was a RINO to begin with. 

Doug Hoffman, the Conservative Party outsider, annihilated the liberal Republican — despite the fact that the RINO was propped up with huge quantities of GOP cash. Then, after the turncoat Republican dropped out, Hoffman delivered a strong showing against the Blue Dog Democrat, who enjoyed the full support of the White House.

. . .

Conservatives know they need the GOP, and the GOP is surely beginning to understand how much it needs conservatives. So there can be no more million-dollar campaigns for ACORN-backed, tax-and-spend, secret-ballot-bashing turncoat RINOs who are to the left of Obama on social issues.
Liberty is the only alternative to tyranny, and conservatives will always fight for liberty. That fact needs to sink in with the GOP…pronto.

Republicans need to vote on principles and get real, live conservatives in office.  They can win! 

Be sure to read Michelle Malkin’s analysis. 

Update from a pro-life perspective:

What do Dede Scozzafava, Creigh Deeds and Gov. Jon Corzine have in common? All were endorsed by abortion mammoth Planned Parenthood. All 3 candidates were virulent supporters of abortion rights and opponents of human personhood…. 

The humiliating loss by Scozzafava was a particularly hard blow for PP as she was clearly the “poster child” of PP political candidates. The long-time PP supporter, board member, and Sanger Award winner had such a poor showing she was forced to resign from the campaign the week before the election

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Maine voters latest to turn down gay marriage — nice to see that even Liberal states know an oxymoron when they see one.  Real marriage won despite being outspent two-to-one.  Be sure to book mark Mass Resistance to keep up on the unethical antics of the pro-gay lobby and the Liberal freaks who think that there is nothing wrong with homework assignments requiring 11 yr. olds to draw an ejaculating penis.

Remember that the losers’ “lies and fear” rhetoric is just that: Rhetoric.  No one is denying the right for gays to have relationships.  It is simply a matter of noting that the word “marriage” does not apply to same-sex unions.

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Also see The Love Affair is Over: In 2008 Independents Proved They Weren’t Racist by Voting Obama. In 2009, Independents Vote GOP to Prove They Aren’t Socialist.

Politics, Pro-life

Barack Obama: Pro-partial birth abortion, among other things

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Also see The scariest part about Obama

McCain is significantly better than Obama in every key area:

  • Pro-life – McCain has a track record of supporting good judges, while Obama is one of the the most extreme pro-abortion advocates I’ve heard of (and that is not an exaggeration – just keep reading).  Consider his bizarre standards for judges: Instead of picking people who can interpret the law honestly, he wants this: “We need somebody who’s got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it’s like to be a young teenage mom. The empathy to understand what it’s like to be poor, or African-American, or gay, or disabled, or old. And that’s the criteria by which I’m going to be selecting my judges.”
  • McCain has much better fiscal policies.  Obama wants to take your money to give to his pet projects, but donates a pittance himself.  Giving other people’s money at the point of a gun is not charity.  “Spreading the wealth around” is socialism, and it doesn’t work.
  • We’ll be far, far safer with McCain.  Obama is relatively clueless about foreign affairs, would have us surrender in Iraq and set the Middle East progress back 50 years, and is so naive as to think we could or should eliminate nuclear weapons.
  • His energy policies will keep the cost of fuel up for decades.  McCain knows we need to drill now and get nuclear plants started asap.  This will provide jobs, reduce greenhouse emissions and reduce energy costs for us all.
  • Obama is anti-free speech.  Watch how they try to annihilate anyone who dares to even question him, such as Joe the Plumber.  He and the Democrats will want to impose the deceptively named Fairness Doctrine, so they can try to silence conservative radio while leaving the grossly biased mainstream media untouched.
  • “McCain pays his female staffers more, on the average, than his male staffers; Obama, however, pays women $0.83 for every dollar earned by men.”
  • Obama is not about change at all.  He is about the same old liberal politics.  McCain is the poster boy for real change – whether you agree with the change or not – and for reaching across the aisle. 
  • Obama lies when saying he’ll reduce taxes for 95% of the people.  Nearly half don’t pay taxes, so it is impossible to lower theirs.  He is just talking about more welfare.
  • He will be pro-gay marriage.  Just wait.

Barack Obama, hero and “savior” of the left, isn’t just pro-abortion, he’s pro-partial birth abortion.   80% of the population disagrees with this stance, so be sure to tell others.  Just Google “obama partial birth abortion letter” or something similar if you want more sources. He is against informed consent and parental notification.  In his world, your junior high daughter needs your permission to take an aspirin but not to have an abortion.

He reveals his deceptiveness and/or ignorance with his latest ads trying to say that McCain will make abortion illegal. But overturning Roe doesn’t make abortion illegal. It returns the power to the states – to the people – and lets them decide. California, Massachusetts, NY, etc. can keep killing the unborn all they like.

He also defended the rights of hospitals in Illinois to let children die outside the womb by repeatedly opposing the Born Alive Infant Protection Act against infanticide and he is against parental notification laws.

He lies over and over on his views.  He is as radically pro-abortion as one can be.  Read this thorough analysisby Randy Alcorn to see what I mean.

In his July 17, 2007 speech to the Planned Parenthood Action Fund he said,

“We know that a woman’s right to make a decision about how many children she wants to have and when— without government interference—is one of the most fundamental freedoms we have in this country. . . . I have worked on this issue for decades now. I put Roe at the center of my lesson plan on reproductive freedom when I taught constitutional law. . . So, you know where I stand. . . The first thing I’d do as president is sign the Freedom of Choice Act. That’s the first thing that I’d do.”

If you don’t know about the Freedom of Choice Act, it was written by the most radical proabortion activists because they saw informed consent and parental consent laws being passed at the state level. They wanted something powerful that would dismantle anything that could serve to reduce abortions through requiring that people be told the truth before an abortion or before their sixteen year old, who can’t be given an aspirin without their permission, can have an abortion.

Here’s a piece on the audacity of being an abortion survivor.  Remember, Obama doesn’t just see the right of unrestricted abortions in the Constitution, he sees the right to a corpse. If the abortion fails, then that shouldn’t be a barrier to a dead human.

Obama is lying about others lying– will the MSM check the facts and let voters know his real stand on abortion, partial birth abortion (aka infanticide) and his opposition to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act?

Obama wants change . . . except when it comes to abortion as birth control, inside the womb or outside it.

Obama wants you . . .

  • to pay for abortion!
  • to sanction the killing of infants born alive!
  • to believe that pregnancy is a “punishment”!
  • to accept partial birth abortion!
  • to forget his close association with radical abortion groups like NARAL and PP!
  • to endorse liberal activist Supreme Court Judges that support abortion in the 9th month!
  • to embrace a culture of death!

Listen to his own words, plus his silly comment about the question of when life begins being above his pay grade:

He couldn’t be more clear about his plans:

See The Infanticide Shibboleth for more.  Simply put, Obama is super-duper pro-abortion, and pro-infanticide as well.

He doesn’t even hide his hostility towards preborn human beings.  Consider this quote (emphasis added):

“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.”

News flash: Sex has consequences – emotional, physical and spiritual.  Destroying – and I do mean destroying – the evidence doesn’t take the consequences away.   

Despite being portrayed as a moderate, he is also against traditional marriage, including the Defense of Marriage Act. 

He has bad theology, thinking that other religions will get you to Heaven (of course, our current President is guilty of saying this nonsense as well). 

More hypocrisy: He wants to take lots of your money for his pet liberal causes, but donates a pittance himself.  Once again, folks, charity is when you give your own money, not when you force others at gunpoint to support your causes.

I can’t believe he threw his grandmother under the bus.  If anyone uttered “typical black person,” their political career would be over.  Yet he gets a pass for saying, “typical white person.”

Updates: Click here for a long list of reasons why he would make a bad President.