The Slippery Slope was Real After All

Fay Voshell has an article up at American Thinker on March 1, 2012 entitled Infanticide on Demand that expresses the many fears pro-life people have had about the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision.

Click to read more at Free Liberty Writers.

Recently, advocates for the parental right to kill unwanted newborns have appeared in the forms of Drs. Alberto Giubilini and Francesca Minerva, whose paper for the Australian Journal of Medical Ethics advocates "after birth abortion."

This of course, is laying the foundation for the re-emergence of Eugenics, a so-called science that takes the prejudices and fears of the Left, and gives them quasi scientific sanction to kill anyone who is "undesirable" for whatever reason.  But, of course, who decides who is undesirable? Who decides that someone's life is not worth living? Who has the effrontery to claim to play God?  If you are living in a Fascist State, the State does. 

An enthusiastic proponent of the "science" of Eugenics, Margaret Sanger was the founder of Planned Parenthood and a godmother to the modern feminist movement that sees abortion as a sacred rite. Some biographical details of Sanger's life can be found at Creation Ministries. A few quotes may get your blood boiling:

Sanger believed she was ‘working in accord with the universal law of evolution’. She maintained that the brains of Australian Aborigines were only one step more evolved than chimpanzees and just under blacks, Jews and Italians. When arguing for eugenics, Sanger quoted Darwin as an authority when discussing ‘natural checks’ of the population, such as war, which helped to reduce the population. Her magazine even argued for ‘state-sponsored sterilization programs’, forcibly sterilizing the ‘less capable’. She won many academics and scientists to her cause, including Harvard University sociologists E. M. East, University of Michigan President Clarence C. Little and Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Alfred Meyer.

Sanger also made her eugenic views clear in her many publications, such as The Pivot of Civilization and Woman Rebel, stressing that birth control was not only ‘important with respect to controlling the numbers of unfit in the population’, but was the ‘only viable means to improve the human race’. For example, she wrote: ‘Birth control itself … is nothing more or less than the facilitation of the process of weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.’ She boldly proclaimed that birth control was the only viable way to improve the human race. And while in her later years Sanger redefined what she meant by the unfit, ‘she increasingly saw feeblemindedness, the bogey of all hereditarians, as antecedent to poverty and social organization in the genesis of social problems.’

Sanger believed the ‘Negro district’ was the ‘headquarters for the criminal element’ and concluded that, as the title of a book by a member of her board proclaimed, The Rising Tide of Color Against White World Supremacy, was a rise that had to be stemmed. To deal with the problem of resistance among the black population, Sanger recruited black doctors, nurses, ministers and social workers ‘in order to gain black patients’ trust’ in order ‘to limit or even erase the black presence in America’.

Sanger was perhaps too successful, as she exported her ideas to a number of European States including Nazi Germany. But the horrors of the Nazi eugenics program were so repugnant to the average person, that eugenics went underground. But it didn't disappear. I remember a self proclaimed atheist saying once of someone that "He is too stupid to live." But this person had lot of people who, for one reason or another, didn't deserve to live.

Ms. Voshell goes on:

Both doctors go on to write that the newborn and the fetus are morally equivalent. Both are human beings and "potential persons," but since neither is in the position of attributing any value to his or her existence or able to articulate any aims in life, neither is a person. It follows that "[m]erely being human is not in itself a reason for ascribing someone a right to life."

Huh? This is playing semantic games. The dictionary defines a "person" as a "human being." To be a human being is to be a person. All the mumbo jumbo about having aims and appreciating life is little more than window dressing. This is not a serious paper on ethics, though I take it very seriously, but is laying the ground work for infanticide, euthanasia, and eventually, a resurgence of eugenics.

Larry Grathwhol, an FBI informant in the Weather Underground recounting a meeting of the upper eschelons of the organization says they would have to kill 25 million people after their revolution. Of course, they already had a solid blue print to go by. The Communist regimes killed an estimated 120 million of their own people during the 20th century. Before that, there was the Reign of Terror of the French revolution. The Left hates everyone, and everything. They hate creation. They are the ultimate death cult. They do not see people as individuals, pursuing their own hopes and aspirations, but as cogs in a machine, doing their bidding.  And if you don't want to?  Well, there are the "re-education camps."

From the moment that a fetus begins growing in the mother's womb, it will, if unimpeded, become a person.  It is already a human being; it can be nothing else. Although it can not at this point articulate the an aim in life or an appreciation of life, it none the less has a right to life by virtue of the fact that it will eventually become a person, and by virtue of the fact that it is a human being.  The person who chooses to stop that process, by aborting the fetus, or by killing the born child, commits homicide. There may be extenuating circumstances that might justify the decision, but those circumstances should be explained, preferrably in a court of law.

The Regime Offers a No Compromise Compromise

The President, after indicating he would not back down the other day, yesterday offered what he called a "compromise" to the Catholic Church and other Christians. His so-called "compromise" took this form, as reported at Fox News:

"Under the rule, women will still have access to free preventive care that includes contraceptive services, no matter where they work -- that core principle remains," Obama said. But he added, "Religious organizations won't have to pay for these services, and no religious institution will have to provide these services directly."


The change would allow religious organizations to refuse to cover contraceptive care. It would also require insurers to offer a plan that does not include contraceptive care in their contracts with nonprofit religious groups. But the insurers would be required to make contraception available free of charge to women anyway.

So, Obama violates Christians' right to freely practice religion as acknowledge in the First Amendment, then he offers a so-called "compromise" that leaves Catholics paying for contraceptives and abortificients anyway. Of course, he has no legal authority to do that either. By doing so, the President is asserting a right, totally foreign to American political thought, but familiar to Europe not only to tell private companies which services to offer, but also how much they will charge for those services. This is Fascism at its purest.  Fellow Christians, do not be fooled by this man. Glenn Beck has called this a "Niemoller moment," referring to German pastor Martin Niemoller, who after World War II penned the famous poem "First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew."  The poem describes the way that the regime steals your liberties by dividing and intimidating you.  We must stand together.

Let us learn from history.  We must speak out, and we must resist. If you wanted to know where my line in the sand is, I draw it here. Here is where I turn and fight. "Here I stand.  I can do no otherwise." (Martin Luther at the Diet of Worms.)  In Jesus name, I pray oh Lord, that I will have the strength. I know that I have not been a good man, or a good Christian, but I pray for the strength to carry the fight to your enemies, and to defeat them, Amen.

Still contemplating the above, I found Fay Voshell had an interesting think piece over at the American Thinker yesterday entitled The Church, the Military, and the Descent into Tyranny. I recommend you read it all. A couple of quotes to whet your appetite:

In a republic committed to freedom, the church and the military, two of the country's most powerful organizations, must be allowed to construct and to follow the ethical guidelines, codes of conduct, internal rules, and hallowed rituals they themselves create without interference from the federal and state governments.

In other words, the military --with self-limiting exceptions its specific duties and focus may require -- and the Church must have the freedom to define themselves, and must have the rights guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights without qualification to all Americans.

I am most familiar with Navy, and the Marine Corp, as an outside observer looking into these institutions. The Marine "culture," if you will, was not developed and promulgated by politicians, but grew organically out of the practical need to turn callow boys into hardened young men with the courage to take the fight to the enemies of this country, many times facing overwhelming odds. Every Marine from the Commandant on down carries a rifle. The Marines never leave a man behind. The uniform, the symbol, The Eagle, Anchor and Globe the motto, "Semper Fidelis, the Marine Corp Hymn, all work to that end. The goal is to make of these people, not killers, but warriors, a distinction that Hollywood and the media often do not get.

One of the things that used to be taught to Marine recruits was the distinction between a legal order, which of course he was obligated to obey, and an illegal order, which he was equally duty bound not to execute. Each man is understood to have a conscience of his own, and must consult that conscience at every point in his life. Saying "I was just following orders" is no defense when the order is illegal. Ms. Voshell again:

The mentors of the spiritual ethos of the individual soldier are its commanding officers and, perhaps more especially, its chaplains. Chaplains in particular are the spiritual guides of the soldier's individual conscience. They are the ones who share the soldier's hardships, providing spiritual strength and comfort in times of duress, whether it is on the beaches of Normandy, in the jungles of Vietnam, in the deserts of Iraq, or in the mountainous terrain of Afghanistan. Chaplains are with America's warriors in life and in death...

But the conscience of people of faith, including military chaplains and members of our military, is increasingly threatened by the anti-religious sentiment of our current administration, which is seeking effectively to silence chaplains who are speaking out about the overreach of the government's health care mandates concerning birth control and sterilization.

I have been calling this administration a Fascist one for three years. Let us recall that Fascism is a secular religion in which the people worship the State and its Leader. Like most religions, Fascism makes a claim of exclusivity on its adherents. "You shall have no other god before me." That is what this naked attack on the Roman Catholic Church in particular, and on the small 'c' catholic church is all about.  Our Fascist regime thinks it is a jealous god, and must bend people of faith to its will.  Think I am being alarmist here?  Read on, as Voshell explains:

The attack on Catholic chaplains, and by implication on every other chaplain who dares resist government directives against conscience, is especially ominous when viewed in combination with the recent National Defense Authorization Act. As Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi points out, the law allows "seditious" Americans to be detained indefinitely if they fit the fungible and vague definition of "terrorist" as outlined by that law.

No American can walk free when "terrorism" and "sedition" are so broadly defined that to call a measure "unjust" is viewed as seditious and as an incitement to insurrection. No citizen dare speak out against the current administration, including matters of faith and religious practice, without fear of repercussions that include condemnation without trial and incarceration without an end.

The noose is tightening around the necks of Americans. Our liberties are being stolen by a thousand cuts. Now you begin to see what the loss of even just one of your liberties entails. Accept it no more. Speak out, and resist.

I am convinced that the regime can find me any time it wants to, but I'll make it easy for them,

Wade Jensen
Raleigh, NC
aka "PolyKahr"

Molon Labe

Update: Mercer Tyson has a piece in the Sunday edition of the American Thinker that parallels what I said Saturday. The article, entitled The Contraception Commandment and the Progressive Religion is written by a self admitted agnostic and social liberal. None the less, he sees the same issues, namely that the State is trying to make of itself a secular religion, and thus able to countermand the commandments of other religions.  His solution?  Force Progressives to register as a religion, putting them legally on the same footing as ever other religion.  Interesting.

First they came for the Jews...On Speaking Out and Sticking Together

The First Amendment to the Constitution states:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

One of the things implied in the wording of the First Amendment is that the State can not intrude into the religiously held beliefs of the people.   Thus, anything the State does must make room for a "conscience clause."  But as Francis Porretto points out at Eternity Road in a piece entitled Freedom of Religion, that wall has already been breached by the Supreme Court:

The expansion of federal power past the explicit bonds of the Constitution was the cleavage point. A federal court case of great importance for this proposition was U.S. v. Valentine Y. Byler.

Go read the whole piece, and the links in the piece as well.  Apparently, when taxes are involved, our Constitutionally protected rights go out the window.

Michelle Malkin, writing in yesterday's Townhall.com, in an article entitled First They Came for the Catholics sounds a call to arms for all Christians to come to the aide of our Catholic brothers and sisters in their fight with the regime. The title itself alludes to a German pastor, Martin Neimoller, who survived Nazi Germany.  He is said to have formulated the famous saying "First they came for the Jews, and I said nothing, because I wasn't a Jew..."  It is a fact that either we all hang together, or we will surely be torn apart.  Now is not the time for divisions.

As you may know, it is Catholic doctrine that contraception violates God's command to be fruitful and multiply, and that abortion is the equivalent of murdering your own child. I am not a Catholic, but I agree with both doctrines. To quote Ms. Malkin:

President Obama and his radical feminist enforcers have had it in for Catholic medical providers from the get-go. It's about time all people of faith fought back against this unprecedented encroachment on religious liberty. First, they came for the Catholics. Who's next?

Of course, with the constant focus on Fast and Furious, the lawless gun running scheme run by the ATF, and the Presidential nomination, this seemingly came out of the blue, but as Malkin makes clear, it has been in the works for some time.

Fay Voshell, always a thoughtful writer, also has a piece in yesterday's American Thinker entitled The State Ruling the Church which notes that if the regime gets away with this intrusion into the consciences of Catholics, they will take even more bold steps. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but as noted above, the government has already breached that wall; this is the next bolder step. But Voshell is right to fear the State none the less. The picture in Voshell's article is that of priests and bishops giving the Fascist salute in Nazi Germany. It will get uglier as the State presses to ensure that every individual bows at the alter of its power. In Fascism, the State is the religion, the Leader is its god, and the State must eventually crush any competition for loyalty under its heal. If you recognize a higher power, you will be crushed as well.

Francis Porretto again:

Now that a "compelling government interest" can be asserted to override any claim of rights, it becomes quite clear that freedom -- of any variety, not just religious freedom -- no longer exists in these United States. We have no rights as such are properly understood; we only have permissions, or perhaps the temporary forbearance of a Leviathan that hasn't gotten around to shackling us yet.

We still have our rights, of course. They exist independently of the government, having been granted to us by a power higher than government.  Our rights are neither granted by the government, nor can they be taken away by the simple expedient of claiming a "compelling government interest."  There are no "compelling government interests" which can override our fundamental rights, especially our right to freedom of religion.  Our problem at the moment is getting our government to acknowledge and respect our rights.

Francis asks "what can we do?"  I would advise the first thing is to pray, ask for guidance.  We all must be on the side that God is on, mustn't we?  Then, follow your own conscience as to how much, and in what ways you can resist, but resist.  We are in the midst of a cultural cold war, in which at the moment the other side holds all the cards.  But we can still resist.  We can make it so expensive to enforce their so-called "laws" merely deemed to have passed by a body that did not pay any attention to us, that they are forced to give them up, or at least to make concessions with us.  But the moment they do, they have lost.

Update: Hugh Hewitt, interviewing Rick Santorum, seems to have come to the same conclusions: this is a cultural cold war, and we must resist using civil disobedience. See his article at Townhall.com today entitled Memo to the Catholic Bishops.

Liberty and Virtue, Rights and Responsibities

Two excellent think pieces from the American Thinker today are both on the relationship between freedom and liberty on the one hand, and the need to exercise virtue on the other. Liberty without virtue becomes in short order licentiousness. Licentiousness leads inevitably to authoritarian regimes to impose at least the outward appearance of virtue.  Stated another way, our rights have corresponding responsibilities.

The first is an article entitled Timshel, America by Cindy Simpson. Simpson points out that the English translations of the Bible have translated Genesis 4:7 wrongly. The English translation of the verb "timshel" has been "shall" which would indicate that God ordered Cain to overcome his sinful thoughts. But the actual Hebrew text is that Cain "may" overcome his sinful thoughts, or he may not. It is up to Cain.

In point of fact, it is up to each of us, every day. We have free will, as God indicates in this passage. But to exercise our liberty, we must learn to govern ourselves. Indeed, that used to be the main point in raising children; to take barbarians who display all the attributes of a sociopath, and train them up to govern themselves in civil society. Simpson:

Dr. Patrick Deneen, in his presentation "Community AND Liberty OR Individualism AND Statism" for the I.S.I. conference on "The Language of Liberty," explained that in earlier times, liberty was considered "the cultivated ability to exercise self-governance, to limit ourselves in accordance with our nature and the natural world. The various practices by which we exercise self-limitation and self-governance is comprehensively called virtue...the inability or unwillingness to exercise virtue was tantamount to the absence of liberty...Thus, for the ancients, law was not an unnatural imposition of humanity's natural freedom; rather, law (ideally, a self-imposed law) was the necessary and enabling condition for liberty."

The breakdown in the system of virtues which had previously obtained began in the early part of the 20th century. The "flapper" was an open and visible sign of that breakdown. While certainly most of the supposed flappers were merely trying to look like the in-crowd, the in-crowd youth became more licentious, using drugs and having casual sex out of wedlock. The great depression put an end to the age of the flapper. It was the hippie generation that truly overturned the old virtues that they considered outmoded. Too bad they had not studied a little more history. Any time that it is perceived that the people can not, or will not exercise virtue on their own, then the State is eventually called upon to impose these virtues by force, and of course the State is all to happy to oblige. But by imposing virtues by force, the State takes away the very essence being virtuous, and infantilizes the population. Simpson again:

While our personal New Year's resolutions are still fresh on our minds, another kind of resolve for "We the People" must also be contemplated: the vital need to halt the loss of individual freedom -- an eroding movement that has gained in momentum and threatens to ultimately transform our nation into a tyranny that commands of its people, "do thou." We must strive to assert the responsibility found in "thou mayest."

The second article at the American Thinker, on the same theme, is America: The Living Portrait of Dorian Gray by John Griffing. After going through a litany of liberties lost, and Constitutionally protected rights ignored, Griffing writes this:

At the root of all these changes is not merely one political deviant, or even some organized conspiracy to overthrow freedom and decency in America. It is the collective abandonment of God and associated moral virtue by a once-God-fearing people.

He goes on to sound the alarm, not unlike an Old Testament Prophet:

More recently, a gang of about fifty teenage girls is reported to have camped outside a classmate's home with guns and knives, shouting death threats at the intended victim. Two police who intervened were beaten within inches of their lives by this lawless teenage mob. Teenagers no longer fit the Americana Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello mold.

Few can deny that a substantial shift in community instincts has occurred. Remember when the injury of a fellow citizen would bring the help of others, and maybe the police? Now it brings phone-cameras and crowds of entertained observers. Something is terribly wrong in America.

Yes, something is terribly wrong in America. What is wrong is that we no longer value or practice traditional virtues. Please understand that true religious faith is not required to practice virtue, but it does help if more people trust in Divine Providence. How else can we hope to change a generation of people who seem to have embarked on a nihilistic path without a firm reliance on God.

Freedom itself is the result of a nation with laws. And nations with laws are the product of cultures grounded in religious morality. The two items are inseparable. Legal boundaries are based on moral boundaries. For example, why is it wrong to kill if there is no God, or alternatively, no universal source of morality?

In the same way, what is done in private cannot be separated from what is done in public. At some point, worlds collide, and lawlessness is unleashed. Warped minds in private will always yield warped behavior in public. This claim is substantiated in numerous psychological studies.

We are often at pains to assert our natural rights, but those rights have corresponding responsibilities. Our right to bear arms presupposes that we will not use those arms to murder our fellow man. The right to a free press presupposes that we will not commit libel. Once we no longer recognize our responsibilities, our rights disappear as well.

A Missed Christmas Gift

Christmas was quite busy for me. The grand kids were anxious to open their presents, so I didn't spend much time on the reading list. As a result, I missed a great gift of my own, this powerful Rumination from Francis Porretto of Eternity Road.

I have had similar discussions with various people. Indeed, the question "How could a loving god allow children to suffer so?" is a familiar refrain. My answer is usually briefer than Mr. Porretto's, and suffers by comparison. Go and read the whole thing, as it is worth it to anyone who contemplates the Great Questions of the Universe. But a quote may get your juices flowing:

The heart of the thing is the nature of free will under the veil of Time. We are temporal creatures. Alone among the living species, we experience the passage of time, in which we sequence the events of our lives and concoct theories about why this happened instead of that. Because our wills are free, we are capable of taking many paths forward from any point in time and circumstance. The scope of our decision making is limited only by our nature.

Our nature is defined by the laws of the universe that gave rise to us. God decreed those laws and made them self-enforcing. But they don't constrain our wills. We are free to choose what ends we will pursue: pleasure or pain; profit or loss; stasis or dynamism; good or evil. Freedom of the will is God's original gift to Mankind: the one that distinguishes us from all the lower orders...and perhaps from some of the higher ones, as well.

He goes on to point out that if you think about God, as opposed to relating to him, you are not thinking big enough. The fact of God's omniscience and our free will can only be understood by acknowledging that God stand outside of time and space. Thus God must know how we will use the great gift he has given us, and yet it is up to us to choose.  We alone can not alleviate all the evil in the world, but wouldn't it be great if more of us worked harder at it?  Choose wisely,

And may God bless and keep you, Francis Porretto. 

What Courage Looks Like

Please go check out a new blog called Liberated Now. Pamela Geller of the blog Atlas Shrugs pointed me to this site. It is a very powerful read, though to date there are only 3 postings. It is the story of a person born Muslim who discovers that Islam is a hoax, and that the Koran preaches hatred and murder.

We in America talk frequently of a culture war on Christianity. Every year at this time, Nativity scenes seemingly become the targets of atheists and ACLU lawyers who want to take them down to prevent one of these thin skinned atheists from being offended. Christmas trees become holiday trees, and many store clerks wish you "Happy Holidays" instead of saying "Merry Christmas." But all of that is small potatoes, not worth getting excited about. The trees are a hangover from pagan holidays celebrating the winter solstice, and while I think Nativity scenes should be allowed to be displayed, so far the courts have only prevented them on public property. To be sure, we need to push back often, and hard, but none of us are going to lose our lives, or even be put in prison over these things.

On the other hand, our converted Muslim friend faces death if anyone around him finds out. This is serious, and yet he has done it anyway. If you want to know what courage looks like, go to the site and read.

Merry Christmas!

"For unto you is born this day, in the City of David, a Savior, which is Christ the Lord" Luke 2:11.

As the Savior, Jesus frees us from the evil that man had brought into the world. Being now free, he expects us to use our freedom to free others. Let us ponder on this, and see if we can not make everday a Christmas in the coming year.

May God bless and keep each of you,

PolyKahr

The Shroud of Turin Likely Authentic

I am taking a break today from the all bad news all the time format that this blog has become to report something interesting. The Huffington Puffington Post is reporting that the Shroud of Turin is likely authentic according to a team of scientists based on their most recent findings.  Go and read.

As a Christian, I don't really know how I feel about the Shroud.  On the one hand, if it is indeed the Shroud that Jesus wore when he was buried, and the image was somehow burned into the cloth at the moment of his rising, I am awed again by the power of God to perform such miracles.  On the other hand, if the the Shroud is not the cloth worn by Jesus when he was buried, and the image, presumably of someone else, was made by still unexplained means, there remain the Gospels and the Letters.  One either has faith, or one does not.

I saw a piece, I think it was on the History channel, but I could be wrong, where Peter M. Schumacher was demonstrating his discovery of a thee dimensional image in the cloth, and his supposition that it was because the shroud was wrapped around the body.  Schumacher's paper can be found here at www.shroud.com. Interestingly, what we see today is a flat image that was once three dimensional. When that is taken into account, one can see the actual image of the person buried in the Shroud. But again, the question of just who was buried in the Shroud remains a matter of faith. You either believe it was Jesus, or you don't.

So here is the great mystery.  If knowing that the Shroud is special, different, and likely the result of a great miracle helps you believe and strengthens your faith, then that is a good thing.  But even if the Shroud is eventually shown not to be the cloth Jesus was buried in, that doesn't falsify the Gospels or the Letters.  In the end, you must have faith to believe.  There will never be enough positive proof if you do not.  It has been so for 2011 years.

Merry Christmas!

Update: Meanwhile it appears that Frankincense may be endangered according to a report at USA Today. Frankincense was one of the three gifts of the Magi to the child Jesus. The tree, from which frankincense is harvested grows in small pockets, and the tree doesn't reproduce itself prolifically.

Obedience to God May Mean Disobedience to Government

Anthony Martin has an excellent post today at the Martin Christian Ministries entitled Obedience to God May Mean Disobedience to Government. Go read. This is truly important.

The Evil that Men Do

Fellow North Carolina blogger Randy Dye has more on the outrage perpetrated by Governor Bev Perdue this last week over at Randy's Right. In turn, Randy points to a Canada Free Press article entitled "Warning: The Threat of Suspended Elections is Real" in which the author makes the same point that I did, namely that Perdue put up a trial balloon for the Administration. Randy has a segment from the Rush Limbaugh show that claims that if the election were held today, Obama would lose in a landslide.

I had a brief time to talk to an elderly gentleman Friday, to see what he thought. He is a retired practicing attorney, so has some familiarity with the Constitution. His first thoughts were that it was impossible. But I pointed out that if you had an administration that did not care about the law, that might even be considered lawless, was it really inconceivable? He pondered that a while, then said that he didn't like that our politics had become so polarized that both sides see the other as evil. I asked if he believed Obama was a socialist? He agreed that Obama was a Marxist of some stripe, but said the theory behind socialism was not evil. I pointed out that in the twentieth century Marxists of various stripes had killed an estimated 100 million of their own people. Wasn't that evil? We both agreed that Socialist theory ignored human nature, and that was its fatal flaw.  I pointed out that even if the theory is not in and of itself evil, that those who lust for power over all eventually rise to the top in these countries, and great evil is done in Socialism's name.  We ended up agreeing that this will be the case until Christ comes again.

Judi McLeod, in her Canada Free Press article, makes a point that unless patriots act now to stop the administration by all legal means, the President will likely ensure his re-election by suspending elections.  I had a post on 25 October 2008 in which I highlighted Laura Hollis' article in Townhall.com that outlined the very situation we are now facing. A catastrophe is conjured up, doesn't matter what as long as it can get the people panicked, and so for the good of the nation, the President is suspending elections.  But what do we do to stop it?  First of all, this is not the time to hand the administration a ready made emergency, although that is exactly what the Left is trying to accomplish with things like it's Days of Rage.  But you can be prepared.  Have your food and water stored.  Have ammunition for defense of yourself and family, and your neighbors.  If you can afford it, have some of your cash in the form of gold or silver in small enough denominations to be readily tradeable should our economy turn in that direction.  Unplug as much as you can.  If you have a law degree, consider joining with others to find a way to harass the administration in the courts.  There may be other things we can do.  But, as Mike Vanderboegh has said, "No Fort Sumter's."

May God bring us safely through the mess we have created.

Curiosity

I finally watched "Curiosity" last night.  I had recorded the show out of...well...curiosity.  The hype leading up to the show said they were going to tell us whether or not God created the universe.  I knew, of course, that the likely outcome would be that He did not.  My suspicions grew when I noticed how many different channels had the same show at the same time.  Gracious, they really wanted to get the message out.

The program was hosted by eminent Professor Stephen Hawking. I had read his history of time, and generally followed along his physics career in a dilettante way. With Stephen Hawking on board, I expected to be challenged to think about my positions, and to have to justify myself. Unfortunately, the thinking and reasoning put forward could be easily knocked down by any high school advanced placement physics student.

Hawking uses significant time during his hour to either assert theories as proven fact, or to reiterate old canards. For example, he posits the existence of something called negative energy. To my knowledge, nobody has proven the existence of negative energy, though its existence is a necessary condition if wormholes actually exist. But then, wormholes are not a proven theory either.  Fine, but what does that really have to do with the question at hand?

Hawking also reiterates the idea that the Luddite "church" stands against brave scientists like Hawking, citing the story of Galileo to prove his point.  But Galileo wasn't imprisoned for discovering that earth revolved around the sun, or that Jupiter has moons. Rather, what the church could not abide is that Galileo insisted on telling students not only what is, but what it means. In other words, Galileo was invading the church's turf. Galileo was only reluctantly made to recant after he became so outspoken that the church had to do something or risk losing all credibility.  He was imprisoned in rather lavish surroundings where he was allowed to continue his work until his death.  Not the work of an angry church on the run from science, is it?  But Hawking is a physics professor, not a historian, so one can easily let this little slip up pass.

Getting to the heart of the matter, Hawkings basic argument is that at the very beginning of the universe, matter and energy were condensed to an infinitely small point, a black hole of infinite mass compressed into an infinitely small point.  You could say that the universe was packed into nothing.  You will recall that as something gets closer and closer to a black hole, time slows down, and if the black hole is sufficiently massive, time eventually stops all together.  So, at the moment of the big bang, there was no time, and no space (because the two are inextricably linked.)  Now, because there was no time, and no space, therefore there could not be a first cause, because God would have no time in which to initiate the first cause.  The universe must have created itself.

I kid you not.  That is the argument.  Nowhere does Hawking see fit to address objections.

This betrays an extremely juvenile notion of what and who God is.  It is hard for us to imagine anything outside our universe.  For instance, into what did the universe expand?  What did God do "before" creating the universe?  Both questions are meaningless because they assume that space expanded into space, and that time actually existed.  But that does show the difficulty since what we can know is bounded by our known physical laws.  Everything else is speculation.  Then there is the idea that the universe created itself.  How?  If you are going to live entirely with the physical laws of the known universe, you will die with them too.  By what physical law does the universe suddenly decide to start inflating?  Because one of the things we first learn is that a body at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force.  Something had to initiate that force.  I am betting it was God.  Hawking makes a statement at the beginning of his show that he will prove that there is no God who created us and controls our fate.  Of course, I don't believe God controls our fate.  We do that, through free will.  But God knows what we will do, while at the same time allowing us to choose.  Since God can stand outside of time and space, he knows our fate, and what we will choose to do.  He doesn't sentence people to hell, but he doesn't force them to choose rightly either.  Ultimately, I believe God wants a relationship with each of us, but allows each of us to choose.  Why?  I have no idea.  It is grace beyond all understanding, beyond human reason...I am left speechless.

Professor Hawking could be right, of course.  It may be that the universe is a completely random affair, and that our existence here is entirely a matter of luck.  If so, it represents one of the cruelest of "jokes,"  because such a random collection of matter and energy can not actually have the intelligence to make a joke.  But you understand.  Going from the smallest of particles that make up all matter, to the largest galaxies, the order of the universe becomes less random, more ordered.  If one could get "outside" the universe, and see the whole, it would be, I think, unimaginably beautiful.  How cruel for Professor Hawking to come this far and think there is nowhere else to go.

It is unfortunate that Professor Hawking has chosen as he has, though there is time to change his mind.  I hope you, dear readers, will choose differently.     

The Murder of the Innocents

Is it appropriate, with the holiday weekend, to bring this up? I think I will anyway. Fay Voshell has a piece in the American Thinker today entitled A Right to Kill which brings up the moral issue of having an absolute right to abort babies on the say so of the mother alone. Please go read the entire piece, though it will sicken you.

A quote:

A great lesson is to be gained from the revolting examples given above; namely that there is a strict adherence to a pro-abortion ideology which demands the absolute "moral" principles of abortion on demand must be adhered to, no matter what. Rush Limbaugh has been much vilified for describing abortion as a sacrament of the deeply religious cult of the Left, but he is not far from the mark. The fact of the matter is that no horrors, no matter how often they are uncovered and documented, appear to be too great for the pro-abortion crowd to give up their core belief that a woman is entitled to abort her baby at any stage of pregnancy.

After citing the cruel, and inhuman way in which the murdered fetuses are treated by abortion doctors, as garbage to be cleaned up and put in trash bags, Voshell goes on to cite the "unintended" consequences to the living:

-That females would be aborted in greater numbers than males,

-That cases of incest would be swept under the rug by getting rid of the evidence,

-That the father-to-be would be kicked out of the decision loop because only the mothers would have a say.

Interestingly, Voshell makes a case that even the execution of capital murderers may be immoral, something that I am open to, but have not seen a convincing argument for yet. But many of the same people who argue for abortion on demand at the same time argue for elimination of the death penalty. How can this logically be?

The Meaning of Inerrancy

One of the shows I enjoy is a program called The Naked Archaeologist. The show presents topics on Biblical Archeology to a general audience. Many of the things presented in greater detail in the magazine Biblical Archeology Review show up on the show. Simcha Yacabovich is the documentarian and the host of the show. He presents some ideas that are strange, as well as archeology that supports various Biblical stories.

The Exodus is the central story of the Jewish people.  In it, God led his people out of slavery and into freedom.  Of course, slavery means more than just having to work for another without pay.  Slavery means you are not free either to do good or evil.  Slavery means you can not move, and must submit to whatever your master demands.  In short, God led his people out of darkness and into the light.  So, it is not surprising that many of the Naked Archaeologist programs deal with some aspect of the Exodus.  A couple days ago, one of these interesting programs dealt with the Tribe of Dan.

The Tribe of Dan was one of the 12 tribes of Israel that marched out of Egypt under Moses's leadership.  When God gave the order to build the Ark of the Covenant, the task was given to the Danites, as they were expert craftsmen of gold.  Dan settled in the North of the Promised Land, and there built a place of worship that the Judean's contended was not legitimate, or at least, that the Judean priests contended was not legitimate.  Recent archeology has uncovered the fact that there are a number of similarities between the Tribe of Dan, the Danoi of the island of Mycenae, and the "sea people," one group of whom were known as Danu.  Of interest is the gold trinket found in a grave on Mycenae that appears to depict the Ark of the Covenant as seen from the point of view of the Priests.  How would a Mycenaean have that knowledge?  Did some of the Danites not go with Moses, but went instead by sea?  All interesting questions.  Also of interest is a grave found in Israel that is exactly like those found on Mycenae, and unlike those typical of  Israel at the time.  In the grave were artifacts from both Israel and Mycenae.  They know this because the clay used in the Mycenaean pottery has been tested and it came from Mycenae.  Also suggestive is that fact that buildings with corbelled domes have been found both in Mycenae and in Danite excavations.  Excavations have revealed the high place where the Danites built a temple, and where sacrifices were offered to God.  In form it is very much like the one built by Solomon in Jerusalem, and it is possible to see how the temple functioned.

Intriguing no?  All very interesting, and I look forward to following this story as events unfold.

I mentioned that my church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) seems to style itself now days as a "social justice" church.  Of course the church says that if Jesus were here today, he would be the leader of the social justice movement.  But would he?  Did Jesus advocate the taking of what the wealthy had earned by the State and the State redistributing it to the poor?  Well, we have numerous stories where Jesus advocated helping the poor and the oppressed by voluntary acts of charity.  But not one in which he advocated that the wealthy should be taxed so that the poor could get even with them.  Indeed, didn't he advocate forgiveness?  Perhaps Progressives are reading a different Bible.  So, in my opinion, in addition to being a meaningless term, "social justice" is anti Biblical.  Paul does not speak of collective salvation, but the salvation of each individual, according to his own acceptance of Jesus as Lord.  Unlike the Islamic notion of God, who insists that every knee WILL bow to him, our God whispers in a small voice "If you want to have a relationship with me, I am here."  I do believe the church is following this path not out of malice as the Left does, but because it has been misled in most cases by high minded and noble language.  At least I hope so.  But the church is none the less losing its soul.  It is beginning to worship the creation, and not the creator.  As a result, I have begun looking for another congregation to join, in a different church body.

One of the church bodies I am looking at is the Lutheran Church, Missouri Synod, or LCMS.  The LCMS proudly posts its conservative bona fides on its web site, one of which is "The Bible is the inerrant word of God."  Can I confess to that?  You see, as an engineer, and one who takes an interest in such things, I "know" that God created the universe some 15 billion years ago, and our little planet came into being some 5 billion years ago.  At some point early on, God caused life to come forth, and eventually a man evolved who could appreciate the Great Work God had done.  But the Bible doesn't say that.  We know that the story of Noah was a myth, and while it may have some basis in fact, it happened thousands of years before the story of Noah takes place, and doesn't really flood the entire earth.  Similarly, while Sodom and Gomorrah (if that is the names of the places) did burn as a result of the explosion over Europe of a massive meteor, this event too occurred before the story written in the Bible, and we don't really know if Lot was there or not, and in all probability, his wife did not turn into a pillar of salt.  Finally, in one of the central stories of the Hebrews, the story of the Exodus, we find that Moses (whose name may not have been Moses, and who may represent several actual people) led a mixed host out of Egypt, part of which may have been a group of Mycenaean Greeks known as the Danoi.

Could it be that the Bible is wrong, and about details that seem important to the story?  Is the Bible indeed, inerrant?

The Bible is certainly not literally true, nor even the literal word of God.  God did not dictate the first five books of the Bible to Moses, and have him faithfully copy them down, no doubt doing a spell check along the way.  Indeed, Moses didn't write the books attributed to him.  For that matter, none of the Gospels were written by those to whom they were attributed either!  Then there are the stories themselves.  A great many of the stories told in Genesis are rehashing of older myths that were first written down in Sumerian cuneiform a thousand of years before the Bible was first written down.  So what goes on here?  Is the Bible just a collection of bedtime stories to put the children to sleep?  Sort of the Hansel and Gretel of their day, interesting, but useful only for showing us how far man has advanced?  Is the Bible a fraud?

Note, though, the subtle shift in language here.  I have equated inerrant and literal.  In a broad sense, they are similar words, but have subtly nuanced differences in meaning.

Literal implies that the work in question is factual in all details.  Take the age attributed to the Methuselah as an example.  The Bible states that Methuselah lived to the age of 969 years.  Literalists believe that Methuselah did indeed live to the age of 969 solar years.  But that seems, if not impossible, at least unlikely.  Some believe that the 969 years was misinterpreted, and that he actually lived to the age of 80 years, using months instead of solar years.  Still others believe that after the fall of man from grace, God steadily shortened mans life as the world became more and more filled with sin.  Of course, such a view would have us now living to perhaps only 20 years.  In the past, some literalists have taken the generations listed in the Bible and made calculations of the age of the earth from creation until now.  Of course, such calculations spawn counter calculations, and arguments over the age of the earth, as if the age of the earth was a matter of supreme importance to the God of creation.

Unlike literal and factual, inerrant implies fitness for a purpose.  The two terms are very close, but not entirely the same.  Let us say that I call up GM and say that my Cadillac Seville was designed in error.  I point out that it will not plow my field.  The tires bog down in the dirt, and the machine will not pull the plow.  A customer service representative at the company might point out that the Seville does indeed serve the purpose for which it was designed, but that purpose was not plowing.  What it does do, taking a person and his passengers from place to place in comfort and luxury, it does very well indeed.  The Seville then is not designed in error, but I have found it so because I tried to use it for something other than it was intended.

It is the same with the Bible.  The Bible has been billed as a book to solve specific problems in our everyday lives.  Just open the pages, and there you will find the solution to your problem today.  Such advise, well meaning as it might be, credits the Bible with both more and less than it actually delivers.  In effect, the Bible has become a stumbling block to the modern man searching for wisdom and salvation.  And pastors often don't help.  Very few discuss these things, although everyone of them knows this.  The Bible does indeed give meaning to our lives, and shows our place in the universe, but what meaning does it convey?  What does the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, Noah and the Flood, the Tower of Babel, and the age of Methuselah all have in common?  They show us who God is, and a loving God's grace.  I think that the age attributed to Methuselah was a way for the authors to indicate that Methuselah was a good man who found favor with God, and that therefore God granted him a long life.  If you read the Bible looking for grace in everything, you will find it.  That is the central fact, and nothing else matters.    

He is Risen!

He is risen indeed!

There is an article over at the American Thinker today, entitled Testimony Wrought in Blood. It is not a new argument, but if one is not familiar with Christian Apologetics, he will perhaps not have run across it yet.

Besides the Gospels themselves, and the writings of Paul, several books may interest you:

The Case for Christ by Lee Strobel presents a journalists investigation into the truth of Christianity.

and

What's So Great About Christianity by Dinesh D'Souza.

My take?  As a fallen men and women, we can not look God in the eye (speaking figuratively.  God is not a man after all.)  He will turn his head away from us in shame, not want to see us.  But because his son took our sins upon himself, God now looks through the filter of the Christ, and sees us as his children.  We can look God in the eye, as a child would.  We can become a child of God!  As a first step, all we need to do is confess our belief.

How could anyone not take this great gift of grace?

Happy Easter!

Mordor has Awakened

Thanks to Kevin of the Smallest Minority for point me to the Forbes piece by Jerry Bowyer entitled American Nomeklatura. The whole article is good, and you should read all. I wanted to highlight this though:

“The new order articulated in [the Pentateuch] stands in contrast to a primary socioeconomic structure prevalent … throughout … the ancient Near East: the divide between the dominant tribute-imposing class and the dominated tribute-bearing class… These two groups, the exploiters and the exploited, are opposite sides of the same coin. The dominant tribute-imposing class consists, in short, of the political elite…This class includes not only the nobility but all who benefited by association with it: administrators, military and religious retainers, merchants, and landowners who directly or indirectly benefited from state power. What all of these have in common is that they all participated in the extraction of produce, or surplus, from the dominated tribute-bearing class: agrarian and pastoral producers, slaves, unskilled workers … Their production was drawn as surplus in the form of taxation, slave labor, rent, or debt service…”

Reading about dominant tribute-imposing tribes and their exploitation of dominated tribute-bearing classes by means of debt, tax and mandated labor, seemed strangely similar to modern times. It seems that Washington is not as far removed from Ur, Nineveh, Cairo or Babylon as we would hope. It seems also that our emerging system of central control is not what its advocates claim: It is not new; it is ancient.

There is a point that I have been making as well: that far from being new and improved, original, fresh, innovative, the latest thing! and whatever other buzzwords you want to use, Marxism is just the same old dusty politics of the past dressed up in class envy clothing.  Tribal chiefs, kings, emperors, tyrants, dictators, and whatever title they ascribe to themselves have been around since man first walked the earth.  It is the strong man theory.  The strong man, no matter his initial intentions, always ends up taking your wealth and your freedom, but doesn't fulfil his end of the bargain, which is to protect the freedom of those under him.  Even the ancient tribes of Israel living under the Judges, did not achieve freedom and liberty for the people, though I suspect they had more of it than when they petitioned Samuel for a King.

The first "new thing" under the sun in terms of a system of governance was the Constitution of the United States.  It was the practical working out of nearly 1800 years of Christian philosophy.  For the first time in history, and apparently the last, the philosophical roots of the Constitution set the individual above the collective, and made the government the servant of the citizen.  But what we have going on today, and for almost a century now, is a reversion to older ideas.  Boyer points out that there is little difference between Socialism and Crony Capitalism in practice.  I would also note that there is little difference between these two systems and the old idea of the King's friends getting the Royal franchise, and everyone else gets out of the business.  These are not new ideas.

People are impressed by the Roman Empire.  My high school Latin teacher was mightily impressed, but should have known better.  People are impressed with the roads, the aqua ducts, the stadiums, the imposition of Roman culture, and the Pax Romana.  But if I were to pinpoint the time that the Roman Empire began to crumble, it would be when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon.  All of the wealth of Rome, you see, was stolen wealth.  When the Empire could no longer extract enough tribute, the Roman Empire began to die.  The truly remarkable thing about Rome wasn't the Empire, but the Republic that preceded it.

A somewhat longer, and I think somewhat angrier argument can be found at the American Thinker yesterday entitled Obama, Islam, and the Forcible Virginity Test by James Lewis. In the opening paragraphs, Lewis gives us some insight into the Egyptian revolution by noting that some of the unmarried women protesting were arrested, and then forced to undergo a "virginity test," without anything being said by various womyn's groups. There should be outrage, but there is not. Then comes this part:

The United States Constitution is still by far the most successful political outcome of the Enlightenment. Nothing else comes close. Constitutionalism is the only successful political tradition that has ever been designed to deal with the disease of abuse of power. If you want an image of raw abuse of power, think Tahrir Square and the forcible virginity test.

Apparently the White House and every liberal looneytunes airhead in the West is stunned, just stunned, m'dear, by the Muslim reactionaries who are grabbing power all over the Arab world. Who coulda thunk? Obama meant so well. All the good libs are eager to vote for him again in 2012, 'cause of all the good intentions and lovely words he has brought to our foreign policy. Liberal delusions are always stronger than reality. If reality had anything to do with it, they would have dumped their dysfunctional beliefs fifty years ago.

Conservatives have known about the threat of Islamic fascism for 30 years, ever since Jimmy Carter let "some kind of saint" Ayatollah Khomeini assume absolute power in Tehran in 1979. When Carter stopped Iran's military from supporting the Shah, Khomeini promptly had assassinated, imprisoned, and tortured the Shah's supporters, plus any democratic opposition groups, plus the Communist faction of the Mujahhedin Khalq, plus anybody else who stood in this way -- including those American diplomats he kept locked up at the US Embassy for a year until Ronald Reagan got elected.

Lewis is angry because time, after time, after time the Left attempts to put its schemes into place, and time after time, after time, they fail. But the Left never sees the failures as a reason to rethink their position. No, instead they begin working on the next moonbattery. They always think the last one didn't work because they didn't have the right people in power.  Hitler, Mussolini, Lenin and Stalin, Castro, Pol Pot, Mao-they all just weren't the right people, but this time we'll get it right.

No kidding. Really?  It is just the strong man theory wrapped up in appealing language.

Another thing Conservatives have known, and are constantly telling Leftists is there are no "the right people." Give a person power, and he will inevitably be corrupted by it. Give a person absolute power, and he becomes a tyrant, a "President for Life," a Dictator, or whatever he wants to call himself.

The New York Times reports that the Egyptian Bros and the military are now allied to take over. Right at the start the Bros called for war with Israel, because it was their enemy Mubarak who kept the Egyptian-Israeli Peace treaty going for three decades. The Bros also brought back from exile their own Ayatollah Khomeini, Al Qaradawi, and celebrated with their own Million Muslim March in Tahrir Square. They also threw out the Google twitter mobster who helped make the revolt happen.

Which brings us full circle. Let me ask this, have you ever wondered why a so called "Abrahamic Religion" which is founded on the same Pentateuch that Christians also use as the Old Testament, hates Jews? Not just hates them, but wants to savagely exterminate them? Are not the Jews God's chosen people to be a light to the nations? Note the word, Light. Christians are also called to be a Light? Islam? Not so much:

Islam came straight from the Arabian desert of the 7th century. It reflects the lives of desert pirates, robbers, rapists and genociders, which was perfectly suited to nomadic life in the desert. That's how tribes conquered each other, as Lawrence of Arabia found out again in World War I. Desert Arabs literally took no prisoners -- except for women and children, who became slaves. Lawrence was a British romantic who hero-worshipped the desert Arabs, and then, after putting King Faisal into power, he decided to disappear forever, in deep disgust with his own romance with murderous primitives.

Wherever reactionary Islam takes over it re-creates the 7th century desert. Since the breakdown of the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I, the Muslim world has been zig-zagging between modern values, like equality for women, and medieval desert values. Iran was a great victory for the reactionary throwbacks, and Obama has just tipped the balance in that direction again.

Something ancient is stalking the land again. Mordor has awakened.

Is Islam a Cult?

I took this from a blog, tbirdnow.mee.nu, run by a journalist who occasionally writes for the American Thinker, Timothy Birdnow. It is the tale of a young black man who went off to college to acquire a degree in Business Administration. While there, he met up with some Muslims, who turned him against his family, his friends, his culture. He became radicalized, became a jihadi, and wound up in Yemen. You can read the story from his parents' perspective here.  Parents everywhere should view this as a cautionary tale.

If someone were to describe what happened to this young man, and didn't include the name of the so-called "religion," you would say that he had been brainwashed by a cult. So where is the outrage? If this had been done by any other group than Islam, thousands of people would be demanding that the fraudulent cult be put out of business, that its leaders be jailed, its meeting places be destroyed, its "cultural centers" be torn down and razed to the ground. Some might even suggest salting the ground, for those Biblically inclined.  But the cult would be hounded out of existence, or at least far underground.  This is what the British did to the Thuggee in the 1830s.

Now, I know at this point that some people who follow this blog will ask what they think is a telling question:  "But Poly, couldn't the same be said of Christianity?"  My answer may surprise you, but if certain interpretations of the Bible and the sayings of Jesus are emphasized, Christianity could indeed be a cult.  Certain denominations certainly seem to border on cult status.  But you don't see Christians killing and torturing their fellow countrymen.  You do see adherents of Allah killing and torturing their fellow countrymen, and others.  There is a huge difference between witnessing and proselytizing for your beliefs, and killing someone because he does not agree with you.  As a Christian, I know in my heart that God is Great, and I want to tell the world.  But God does not give me sanction to kill anyone who disagrees.  God will deal with those who do not agree at a time, and in a manner of His choosing, not mine.  On the other hand, Allah does apparently give these people sanction to kill the infidel.  Something is very wrong and twisted with Islam, and the sooner we wake up to it, the sooner we can do something about it.

The Mind of a Jihadist

With the Rep. Peter King hearings going on, it makes a certain amount of sense that Islam would be in the news, so here I am blogging about it today. I had planned a post on the 2nd Amendment, but then I read Mind of a Jihadist by Stephen Simpson over at the American Thinker and realized that it may be more important for the long term than another post on the 2A, important as that is.

The Mind of a Jihadist is a report on a new book by M. A. Khan, Islamic Jihad: A Legacy of Forced Conversion, Imperialism, and Slavery. The book can be ordered from Amazon here. I plan to order the book soon myself.  M. A. Khan is an editor for the website Islam Watch, which is a group of apostate former Muslims who came to the realization that Islam is not a true religion.

Mr. Khan describes the concept of Jihad as "the foundational creed of Islam." And the author should know. Born a Muslim in India, Mr. Khan grew up in a conservative background, while still considering himself a liberal Muslim. The events of 9/11 changed him dramatically and led him on an odyssey as to question how his religion -- and co-religionists -- sanctioned, and even reveled in this atrocity. The author himself candidly admits that he too believed that America had justifiably gotten a bloody nose, though he felt that the victims died unjustifiable deaths. As much of a paradox as these views seem, many Muslims felt the same way. The difference is that Mr. Khan looked in the mirror, asked penetrating questions, and had the intellectual honesty to answer these questions.

In the ensuing years after 9/11, Mr. Khan did extensive research on Islam, Islamic theology, and the history of Jihad which is the driving force behind all of Islam's conquests. The results of his findings led him to the conclusion to leave Islam completely, and to write this most masterful and educational book on a controversial aspect of a most controversial religion.

and

It is a devastating indictment of a religion that is generally grouped with Judaism and Christianity. However, the commands of Jihad entail total war, are eternal, and cannot be revoked as they are enforced with absolute legitimacy by and through Sharia. The author leaves us with the question as to whether or not Jihad will return in the 21st century with a force comparable to previous centures. Islamic Jihad is a riveting book that will leave the reader armed with a knowledge he or she may never have had, and will also leave the reader with the disturbing question as to whether the religion of Islam can ever come to terms in a peaceful way with non-Islamic religions. Given the history of Jihad and the slaughter of 9/11, the reader can only come away with a pessimistic viewpoint.

Khan's book joins a growing list of people who have "come in from the cold" and reported on the horrors being perpetrated on them by Islam.  Like the Communists before, who would report occasionally to the West that life under the Soviets was a hell hole, you are being told not to believe these people.  CAIR spokesmen come out to say, in essence, that these are exaggerating sore heads, and that reasonably considered, Islam is a virtual paradise on earth.  Consider that in the 7th century, the West and Arab cultures were on a par.  But Arab culture has produced very little since, and indeed, must use our own technology against us.  In the The Victory of Reason Rodney Stark argues convincingly that Christianity was the spur for the West's great leap forward.  I believe God wants us to be prosperous, so that we can use our prosperity to help others.  Is it enough?  Well, no, it is never enough, though Americans have done more of it than any other country, as you would expect from her great prosperity.

I believe that Islam will only be stopped by a fight, God versus Allah.  Which side will you be on?

Submit or Die

It has been a while now since I risked a fatwa against me, so I guess it is time I did so again. Today in the American Thinker, Amil Imani has an article entitled Dear Rep. King: Forget 'Radical'-Islam is the Culprit. A quote:

The pundits, the analysts and the politicians are doing a great disservice to the public, each segment for its own expedient reasons, by parroting the mantra regarding the peaceful nature of Islam. As a matter of fact, the so-called small band of Islamic extremists is the true face of Islam. Admittedly, from time to time and place to place, Muslims have shown a degree of tolerance for non-Muslims. This tolerance dates back to the very early years of Muhammad himself. Early on Muhammad was meek and proclaimed, "For you, your religion, and for me, my religion." This assertion lasted but a few years until Muhammad's movement gathered strength and Islam became the only alternative to death or heavy taxation. The imposition of 'jizya' was a clever ploy for filling the Islamic coffer to support its armies and to finance its further conquests.

The liberal media and pundits engage in willful misinformation and deception when it suits them. Terms such as "Political Islam," or "Radical Islam," for instance, are contributions of this group. These terms do not even exist in the native parlance of Islam, simply because they are redundant. Islam, by its very nature and according to its charter -- the Quran -- is a radical political movement. It is the liberal media and politicians who sanitize Islam and misguide the populace by saying that "real Islam" constitutes the main body of the religion; and, that this main body is non-political and moderate.

Today, the Constitution has two enemies, whose goal is the same. The Left, meaning Marxism in all its faces, whether Communist, Fascist, or Socialist, and Islam. While the Left continues to be a threat, I think we have finally awakened enough people to, if not the evil, at least the impracticality of Leftist policies. Islam, on the other hand, is gaining strength in this country.  Both religions have a blood soaked history, and if they gain the upper hand, this country will be no different. 

I have wondered for some time about why Islam seems to be given a pass that Christianity never gets. It seems as if the news media, the schools, and Government bureaucrats and the Courts all have reached a secret agreement that Allah is the true god. Or, perhaps the Left recognizes in Islam the same hollow imitation of life that marks the existence of the Left. So, it was with interest that I read Anthony Martin's Conservative Examiner article today. Martin has an exclusive interview with an ex-CIA agent who warns us that various Islamic groups have penetrated our institutions and are feeding us a politically correct pablum about the true nature of Islam. Sounds like the Left's "long march through the institutions." And that maybe where they learned the strategy. In any case, read the article, and read the follow up whenever Anthony can get it posted. It is sobering.

I have read Revelations on several occasions. I never really understood all the symbolism. Some have said it is really about the dangers faced by the early church. Even if that is true, I think it has relevance today, or the early Fathers would not have been inspired to put it in our canon. In many ways it does seem to be coming true. Armageddon may be fought in the streets of this country.  I can only have faith that my God, the one whose ineffable name nobody can know, will see his will done. I pray I am on the right side, His.

Sikhs Allowed to Wear the Dagger

Why doesn't this decision amount to establishing a religion?

We have a report today, courtesy of Theo Sparks, of a Sikh student who is allowed to wear a religious dagger to school here. It does seem as if the school district is imposing double standards. Christian children have been suspended for praying, holding Bible readings, and wearing crosses to school. The courts have generally found that when Christian children do these things with the schools indulgence, it amounts to an establishment of a religion.  Children have also been suspended for bringing tiny plastic soldiers with tiny plastic guns to school. You know the kind, the little green plastic soldiers we used to play war with.

Now, keep in mind that I do not object to a Sikh wearing a dagger anywhere.  It is his right, and a practice of the Sikh religion. I just want to see the same standard applied to other students.  In other words, Christian students should be allowed to pray and hold bible readings, on their own.  They should be allowed to wear crosses if they so choose.  On the other hand, if the courts want to continue the inanity, then nobody should be allowed to express or practice any religion.    Half measures where the schools allow this, but not that, strike everyone as being unfair, and un-American.

Large Hadron Collider Creates Mini Big Bangs

I am a Christian, and as such, believe that God created the universe, which includes the Earth and the beings on it, including mankind. However, I am also an engineer, and have studied mathematics and science. As such, I believe that God used the natural world, and laws of nature to accomplish his goal. So, this excites me.   I realize that many atheists think I should be afraid of this research, but frankly it can only confirm what I believe to be true.

Most atheists who study a little bit of science seem to believe that science refutes the Bible and points to our existence as a random event.  I look at it and am constantly amazed at the unbelievable genius of the Lord, to make the world so perfectly. If anything, it only confirms the Bible, and points to an unimaginably brilliant Creator.  It is, perhaps, one reason I can not believe in the "fragile environment" which seems to always be on a knife edge, ready to collapse and send us to our doom.  I can also not believe in the pontifications of the neo-malthusians for the same reason.  We will not run out of resources.

Hat tip to Theo Sparks for pointing me to the article.