Catch This

Relativism and pseudo tolerance

2007-12-16T11:57:00.000-08:00

The relativist has his feet firmly planted in mid air, which is to say his view is so foundationless and out there air-headed, and yet we live in a culture today that has not been challenged enough in its post modern mindset. Relativism has run rampant in our society nowadays to the point where, I once heard about a lady who was asked “would it be ok to torture babies for fun,” and she replied, “well, I wouldn’t want that to happen to my baby.” Huh! But that wasn’t the question she was asked. The question is not about your preferences, likes and dislikes, but the action and its related moral or immoral status. I don’t LIKE being served burned food, but that doesn’t make it immoral to be served it. These moral matters we are discussing are not contingent upon what historical time period, or culture it is we live in. She then said “I think people should be allowed to decide for themselves.” Well no kidding, people should, can, and do decide for themselves, but that is still an attempt to run from the question. The question is, should that person, upon deciding to do that act, be punished or rewarded for the moral or immoral nature of the act? I think the answer is pretty clear, don’t you? Now, when someone says “don’t push your morality on me,” I gotta ask, what is motivating a statement like that? It would have to be that they think it is illegitimate to push morality. They think there is no objective universal set of moral principles that apply to all people. They think it is up to the individual. Different strokes for different folks basically. But this is like comparing ice cream and insulin though, which you can’t do. You may choose your flavor of ice cream and it’s not a moral issue when you differ in preference from the next person, but you may not preferentially treat insulin that way. To the moral relativist, a statement like “rape is wrong, or abortion is wrong” is the same thing as saying “i like butter pecan ice cream.” If I say “I like vanilla ice cream,” I am not saying that vanilla is morally better than chocolate, I am simply saying I prefer it. It would be kind of silly for someone to come up to me and say “you’re wrong about chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream,” because this is a preferential statement. People have turned moral prescriptions into personal taste descriptions. This has been the case with the abortion debate. People have said “if you don’t LIKE abortion, then don’t have one.” If I say it is wrong to kill people unjustly, I am not at all concerned with whether or not you like to kill people or not, it is whether it is right or wrong. People who object to abortion don’t do so simply because they don’t like it. It may be the case that they don’t like it, but that is not the reason they are against it. If I say “you ought not to torture people,” and you say “but I like to torture people,” I would respond that your liking it has no bearing on the matter. The fact that you like it just reveals that you are more deeply immoral than we perhaps suspected, but that doesn’t speak to the issue of the action being acceptable. When I say “homosexuality is immoral,” I am not simply saying that I don’t prefer it. It turns out that I don’t prefer it, but I am saying more than that. It may be that the thing in question I do prefer, for example, some forms of pornography are appealing to my sinful nature and are preferential to my immoral tastes. Pornography is immorally wrong objectively, just as much as homosexuality, and it matters not if I or anyone else likes or prefers the thing in question. When people say “that is your truth,” they make a huge error in thinking. First, the idea that truth is subjective as displayed in that statement, must itself also only be a subjective truth, and thus carrying no weight. And anyway, the definition of truth is that it just is, truth is fixed. Truth does not deviate from what the truth IS, or it becomes non-truth. Objectivity indicates something (some object) to be found out, not something to be made up, as with subjectivity. Subjectivity however, is up to the subject. If I say hagan daaz ice cream is delicious, it sounds like I’m talking about the ice cream (object) doesn’t it? But with that statement, I’m really talking about the subject (persons likes). Mathematical truth for instance, is not subjective. Imagine a student trying this out on his professor who teaches a relative truth position and says “my mathematics are true to me, so you need to change my grade from a 60 to 100,” or if the teacher taught relative morals, and the student cheated and said “I was just taking to heart what you said was so, and I think it is perfectly ok to “borrow answers.” When looking at truth, think about it this way: would such and such a thing be true if I were dead or did not exist? The thing would not even have to be publicly proven. For example, would a black diamond that I buried in the ground still be in the ground after I died, even though nobody else knows about it? Of course we know that the objective truth of its reality and position in the ground is still the same. Feelings and perceptions are ours subjectively, but objective truth is true apart from my believing in it or not, or whether I exist or not. I suspect that a lot of this sort of thinking is connected to our society’s overly “politically correct” standpoint and an inflated fear of stepping on someone’s toes. I explained in a previous post that “political correctness” may be political, but it is certainly not correct. It impedes communication and separates people. People end up just being surfacy (small talk) with each other, and then talk behind each others backs. It sacrifices any common moral ground so that you can gain understanding about someone and their views, because it is now taboo to discuss such matters. This view of “PC” actually perpetuates racism and parochialism. I think one motivation for relativism people have, is that people just want to get along by means of not touching on any “hot” topics, but, if you think about it, they are kidding themselves, because the relativist can’t get along with the objectivist anyway, and now they show that they are just as exclusive and “narrow” and dogmatic as the people they don’t like. It is helpful to see that you won’t and can’t get along with everyone, even within relativism. This noble motive to “get along” with everyone, concerning viewpoints is unattainable. Secondly, the relativist doesn’t realize that his noble motive presupposes a number of moral doctrines which he can’t do within his own worldview, for instance, assuming that it is good to get along with other people in the first place, and then that people should like or conform to things that are labeled “good,” as a morally objective norm to be adopted. As it turns out, the relativist accepts relativism on a non-relativist basis. Their whole grounding for embracing relativism and being tolerant is taking to objective moral norms, which they supposedly oppose. This being the case, they might as well abandon relativism. Why be a relativist is my question, when you can’t pull it off? They are going to have to bite the bullet on many moral issues if they want to maintain their professed faith. They will have to say that there really are no grounds for moral discourse on any level, because ultimately, any morally related term is meaningless. They cannot say someone is wrong, but only that such and such didn’t comport with their personal tastes. The relativists commitment to tolerance only works in my objective worldview, not theirs, and if they value tolerance so much, then they need to change worldviews. They are bound to the fate of being walking contradictions, because they don’t want to give up their worldview, and they don’t want to give up other common moral ideas we all take for granted.

Perhaps a deeper rooted reason people want to be morally relativistic in their thinking is that they want to engage in a certain lifestyle and behavior that objective morality would condemn. Promiscuous people who don’t have good moral arguments for their behavior, say to themselves “let’s just get rid of morality all together so that I can live more consistently with my beliefs and still be a nasty sinner.” They are in a bind and can find no other way to reconcile wanting to live for darkness and self, and still be associated with goodness, and so they want to throw the baby out with the bathwater in the end.
I also suspect that the reason some people act this way concerning not talking about life’s issues is because they have come to the conclusion (just like we were told in our nursing class) that ”you won’t change anyone’s mind.” Well, I think this is a rather pessimistic way to view the world. It’s also very inaccurate because I have helped influence and change many people’s minds on different topics. I had my mind changed a little over 6 years ago concerning Christ and the Truth. I used to be a humanist. Our clay is not as hardened as we think, or else how did they expect us to change our view on not being able to change peoples views. What’s the point in training us to fit a certain mold if it’s not going to take. Certainly they wouldn’t have pressed that idea so much if they thought we already took that for granted and accepted that notion. I suspect further that it is the people who think this way who won’t change anyone’s mind, because they are too apathetic to care and change themselves first to make a difference. They think no minds can be changed and will therefore seal that fate for themselves by having little influence. Next, I want to ask what is it that holds culture together? It’s law, right? And what is law standing on, but the necessary foundation of morality. You hear people these days say “you can’t legislate morality.” But that is faulty thinking because morality is the ONLY thing you can legislate. If you don’t have the moral justification for your use of force, or not using the powers of government for the common good, but rather use it for your own arbitrary preference and pleasure, then that’s despotism and fascism. When someone says “who are you to say,” I simply say back “who are you to question,” or “who are you to say about saying.” It goes both ways. When someone says “who are you to say,” they are not asking a question, but rather saying something more like “who died and made you boss.” But it is not as if when I make a truth claim, I am saying I am some sort of authority and saying I make the rules and you gotta listen to me. No, I am attempting to rationally discuss matters. And another thing, when people say “who are you to judge,” I just say I am perfectly qualified to judge. I am a rational adult who is aware of certain moral principles. Who else do you want to judge, cats and dogs? If humans can’t be the ones to make moral judgments, who is left? To say we can’t judge, is basically to say you don’t want to pick up the baton and be a moral agent.
Or, like people who say “you shouldn’t be judgmental.” Ok Mr. anti judgments, is that your judgment? Any ought’s, ought not’s, should’s, shouldn’ts, etc. require judgments. One tactic to expose relativists inconsistencies, is to press their “hot buttons” by challenging their moral pet peeves. They will have to surrender their pet peeve positions or surrender relativism, but they don’t want to do either. You know, someone can wax eloquent about moral relativism in an intellectual conversation, and later that afternoon complain about all sorts of injustices. Just keep your ears open for those “shoulds” and “oughts” and that will be the hot button in which to push. Concerning judging, it seems that the most quoted and known bible verse out there today is in Matthew 7:1, where it is said “judge not, least you be judged.” Mostly it is non Christians or ignorant Christians who quote it in efforts to get someone else to stop giving their assessment or voice on a particular matter. However, " Judge not, least ye be judged," in context, is speaking of a person who is living as a hypocrite. For example, if someone was living in adultery, he should not judge, (in the sense of condemning) another person doing the same exact thing. The original Greek language reveals that word to mean “a harsh condemnation.” So one person who has just committed adultery could go and advise another person not to commit adultery and tell him of the horrible consequences if he did. It’s a warning so to speak, not a condemnation. So next time a person is about to jump into a shark infested water and another dude says “Don’t jump in dude, you’re going to get ate up stupid!” Why don’t you just say “Don’t judge him, you don’t know him!” But that’s ridiculous to say the man is judging him! However, if a dude who just committed adultery yesterday and sees a guy commit it today and says “you evil man, you’re going to hell, I can’t believe you did that to your wife.” Then that guy is wrong. Do you see the difference? You know, if we cannot judge, then how could we ever say that Hitler was wrong in killing 6 million Jews? We would have no standard, no morals. God also said not to throw pearls before swine (or pigs) only 5 verses down from this judge not verse in Matthew 7:6! Which basically means don’t try to give the jewels of the life giving words of the gospel to pigs who will just trample all over them and dirty them in the mud and then attack and maybe trample the person trying to give it. Well, why would God tell us this if we were not allowed to judge. How then would we ever know who not to throw the pearls to. You’d have to judge in order to know who the piggies are. A few verses down in Matt 7:15, God says to beware of false prophets. We have to judge who is a false prophet and who is not if we are going to heed this warning. Check Luke 7:43 “and the Lord Jesus said unto him: “Thou hast rightly judged."
Luke 12:57 "Why do you not of yourselves judge what is right?"
John 7:24 "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."
1Cor.2: 15-16 "But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."
Anyway, there are many other passages that show that judging is not the issue, but whether the judgment is correct or not. This is known by whether it is in line with scripture. Look, moral neutrality is a flat out myth. To say that the state is neutral on the abortion issue because it is not forcing women to have abortions, nor is it forcing them to not have abortions, is a naïve statement. The state is not neutral because when you identify why a pro-lifer is against abortion, you find that it is because they believe the fetus is a live human being, and you can then understand, on that basis, why pro-lifers want abortion outlawed. But the state permits abortion, and so isn’t the state then saying that the fetus is not a human person with membership to the human community? If the state believes that they are members of the human community like pro-lifers do, then ought they be doing something to protect these individuals? You see, the state is not neutral after all. Since they don’t protect these citizens from harms way, they are saying the fetus IS NOT a part of the human community, thus taking a position (not neutral). You see how simple this is. Just stop and think for a second and you’ll see that the state cannot be neutral, not even on the same sex issue. Saying all sexual unions are equal, is not a neutral position. That is making an assertion about the nature of human sexuality. As it turns out, nobody is a relativist because they are made in the image of God. They can’t pull it off. They can talk it, but not walk it. Faye Waddleton is a good example of the neutrality myth in action. Faye Waddleton, the former president of planned parenthood. Wrote a letter that was incredibly hypocritical. She said things like “we should trust others to think and judge for themselves,” and “fundamental respect for others is morality in the highest order,” etc. Don’t you love it when people say with such passion, things like “Don’t let the system or anyone tell you what to think.” Ok, so am I supposed to let you tell me what to think right now with that statement? Am I being oppressed because I am being a “freethinker” like you TOLD me to be? Again, we see the lack of logical analysis that people keep as companion, and we see that there is no island of moral neutrality. It doesn’t exist. If there were such an “island,” everyone would just keep their moral code to themselves, except for maybe in a biographical manner, and report what they believe to someone else. Faye W. says she wants to continue to defend the rights of all people of their own beliefs and then says those who disagree with her beliefs are “unfair, un-american and are tyranist’s.” Hello, those are all moral labels and moral judgments. If you disagree with her points on tolerance, she will not tolerate your view. Not only that, she will use the law to impose her morality on you. She said she has devoted her career to ensure her daughter inherits the legacy of her vision. She is a lobbyist who is on capitol hill, hoping to have influence on men of power to pass legislation which will force people to live according to her sense of morality. By the way, that’s fine and dandy that she wants to lobby and enforce things and all that (nothing wrong with that), but she doesn’t like it when other people do the same thing, and calls them “tyranists” simply for living like an American. You see, ALL laws force a viewpoint, that’s the nature of law. The truth is, is that moral relativism is not neutral, or even tolerant for that fact, but rather misleading and fallacious. The passive aggressive tolerance trick is a shell game. It goes like this: Let’s say i simply just make a claim about the world and then the relativist says I’m a jerk and intolerant for my view. They think they are being passive (by not taking a stance), but are on the contrary, rather aggressive and jerky and they in fact are taking a stance, the stance of relativism. They usually engage in personal attacks and name calling at some point, which slams not only the view, but the person as well (that’s intolerance). Note to readers: one should accept or reject arguments due to the content being strong or weak in argumentation, not the tone of the presenter or other variables. Some people reject a message because the messenger is a tad harsh or blunt. Don’t have a problem with a person who throws an occasional slam (ad hominem) out there, by in turn throwing one yourself and then rejecting it on the basis of it. Can you imagine if I went to my doctor and the doc said I have cancer and I said “you’re mean, I’m going to go to another doc who is nicer.” This is ridiculous. Maybe you’re mean for calling him mean, Mr. cancer patient. Name calling is weak, especially if it is not combined with a decent point or argument. I have been called a homophobe before, and I must say that it is odd to say I’m homophobic because I oppose the homosexual lifestyle, and that opposing it somehow makes me afraid of homosexuals. It may very well be that I am afraid of homosexuals (which I’m not), but it doesn’t follow that even if I were, that my arguments are invalid because of my fear. I might have very good points for my view. What if an anti-war protestor is hemo-phobic, or fearful of blood shed, would that mean that any of his arguments against warfare should be dismissed because he has a fear of blood? No, it has no bearing whatsoever. In addition to that, it is highly politically incorrect by their definition, to make fun of someone or slam on someone for having a phobia. If I suffer from a phobia, I am handicapped in a certain mental capacity, and you would then be making fun or slamming on the handicapped. Hardly “PC”!

Many people are hypocritical by saying things like “we should engage in civil discourse and be tolerant, and then say “unlike those self righteous Christians.” They decry name-calling and then engage in name calling, and most of the time get away with it. What they really mean by civility is that everyone ought to agree with them and anyone who doesn’t, needs to shut up. I heard a story of a girl who was in a class and the teacher said “you ought to be open minded to other people’s points of view, because nobody has the truth on morality and religion.” I thought her question that she asked back to the teacher was perfect. She said “if nobody has the truth on morality and religion, isn’t that a good reason not to listen to anybody? After all, the only reason I’d listen to somebody is if I could learn something from them, and I can only learn something from someone if in fact that person could have the truth. So in order to justify open mindedness, one has to in fact believe there is such a thing worth being open about in the first place.” I thought that response was perfect, and it took some guts to say that in class. A person who says you are close minded for being objective is basically saying that since you don’t agree with them, you are not open minded. Gee, that sounds pretty close minded if you ask me. Have they not considered that you may have meticulously weighed the evidence across the board for different views? And also, being open minded means that you are open to the possibility of learning the truth. But if you say there is no truth, then why waste MY time having me listen to YOUR truth. It is only by the basis of truth existing that open mindedness makes any sense at all. Epistemological relativism makes for the most close minded person you could ever encounter. I heard a story about a guy who had his kid in the public school system, and they were doing what they called “values clarification,” and they gave the scenario of a wife in desperate pain and suffering and the husband who killed his wife out of an act of mercy. The students were told that it was up to them to decide if the husband should be tried in court. The father of the boy complained to the school, and they told him “look, we are not telling them what to do, or giving them the answers, we are morally neutral and leaving it up to them, so what’s the problem.” The guy’s response was very insightful. He said “when you give my children the most difficult moral dilemma people could face and then tell them, there are no rules to guide them, there is no morality to give insight to the circumstances, but instead that it is up to them, that is NOT neutral, that is a moral point of view called relativism.” Again, I reinforce the fact that everyone must take a position. Now, when someone says I’m intolerant, I just ask them “what do you mean by that.” They usually respond that “you think you are right and have the corner on all truth, you’re right and everyone else is wrong.” I say, “yes, of course I believe I’m right. I could be wrong, but I’m not making any of this up. I have good reasons for believing what I believe. I once heard a caller on a radio show call in and rip on the host for publically correcting some theologians errors of theology. He was up in arms about the “audacity” of the host in correcting this guy on national radio, but what the heck was he doing right then and there. He was correcting the host himself on national radio. C’mon, we can do better than that in our thinking. Let’s shift gears here a bit. Now, if I say to someone else “the things that you believe contrary to me, since we disagree, are those differing things you believe right or wrong?” What do you think he’ll say, “No, everything I believe is false, please don’t listen to me.” No, of course they won’t say that. They’ll say they are right, but if they say “I am right for me,” I say “If you are only right for you, why are you talking to me? It seems very much like you’re trying to correct me. Why is it when I think I’m right, I’m labeled intolerant, but when you think you’re right, you’re just right. What am I missing here? To believe something, is to hold that it is true. If you didn’t hold it to be true, you wouldn’t believe it. You’d believe something else you thought was true. People have told me “You think you’re so smart, don’t you, you know it all!” Well, first of all, I don’t think i know it all. I realize that I lack knowledge in many areas, but what bit I do know about, of course I think I’m right, and that anyone who says contrary to what I say is wrong. We believe things because we think they are right, not because they are wrong, or only probably right. If I am only half sure of something, I let people know. E.G. I am about half sure of what is going on with all this conspiracy hoopla with our government. The propaganda spinsters have a way of making both sides look very convincing. Now, if a person can show me evidence or give reasons why I am wrong, then maybe I’ll be convinced and change my viewpoint, but until then, of course I will think I am right about everything that I contend for. If I didn’t think I knew about it, I wouldn’t contend for it, but rather listen in on the conversation and collect data. This is not arrogance or pride. People have said : “Oh, so every religion is wrong except yours, huh. Pretty bold of you.” But this is exactly what they do and everyone else. Atheists claim they are right and as a result, if they are right and anyone disagrees with them, then that other person is wrong in their view. If people believed what they thought to be wrong or lies, then they wouldn’t really believe it would they? This is because they’d know it’s a lie, which would then be a part of a new belief that they hold to be true (the truth about the lie). Don’t be surprised or think people are arrogant for denying thousands of other gods and that only theirs is correct, because if my belief is real, all the other ones have to be wrong by its own standard. Jesus was not a pluralist. He said that He is the Way, Truth, and Life, and that no man can be redeemed, but by Him. So why is it then, when someone disagrees with another, they take the liberty to call them names, like bigot, or intolerant jerk? This is the “tolerance trick” I was talking about, and it is just a way of silencing opinions that people don’t want to hear. Look, if you don’t want to hear my opinion, just tell me. I don’t want to blab at you if you don’t want to listen. Walk away, change the subject, tell me to shut up, that’s fine. There is no gun placed to the head or fence to trap a person into a discussion. I’m not going to continue to talk to you if you don’t want. But you see, these people aren’t walking away, they are doing some pushing of their own, and usually its a lot more angry and hostile than anything I’ve offered. I really think it is lame when people say “quit trying to force your religion down my throat.” Well, first of all, if you speak contrary to me, then you are “pushing” your religion on me. This “Don’t shove your religion down my throat” stuff is something that people like to say b/c other people have said it, not realizing that it makes no sense. If someone says you shouldn’t push your morality, I simply ask “Why not?” He’s going to have a hard time answering that question without doing what he says I shouldn’t. It’s like saying, there are no moral rules, but here’s one.
It should also be noted that the motive of the evangelist is for another persons own good of whom they are talking to. Would you say “quit forcing your medical beliefs on me” to a doctor who is trying to give you a cure b/c he sees the west nile symptoms on your skin and if you wait too long the disease will be irreversible and he has a cure in his pocket or back at the lab? That is absolutely absurd, but yet that is how Christians are treated despite their concern. If the non Christian is honest and believes that “religion” shouldn’t be discussed b/c its considered as cramming religion down a throat, then they need to uphold their end it by not cramming their religion which restricts the practice of mine, down our throat. Quit preaching your sermon of humanism that says I need to stop preaching about Christ. Evangelism is a command, not a suggestion, and therefore, to have equal rights according to their thinking, the non Christian needs to just endure the witness encounter and pretend like he’s listening or something. It is a severe hypocrisy when our whole society is not just suggesting religious ideologies, but enforcing them, and the party that is enforcing their religious views says not to suggest yours b/c your cramming stuff down their throat. For example, seat belts are mandated by law and you may receive a ticket if you don’t wear one. They say its for your own good and welfare just like the Christian says its for others own good that we preach, but preachers don’t fine you for not taking his message to heart, but the cop will fine you. Where’s the outcry in that. This sounds very similar to shirea law in the Islamic state where you can be taxed or killed for not being a servant of Allah. Also there is the classroom with its preaching of the religion of evolution, and how about the magazines at the grocery store being all sexually lusty. Sexual impurity is against my religion and you’re not respecting my religious right to not have that kind of thing shoved in my face all the time. I could only imagine the stink that would be raised if we started posting big posters of the ten commandments and posters saying “Repent” at the grocery store and the mall and just say to the people who are offended “well, you don’t have to look at it.” That would never fly, and yet they can plaster huge posters of ¾ nude ladies in the window of victoria’s secret. If you want to talk about a verbal/visual distinction here, a picture is worth a thousand words, so they say. So now, via visual injection, the world is preaching an aweful lot of words these days. Witchcraft on some levels is practiced in schools on halloween, and to try and abolish prayer in school is the trading for the practice of atheism, yet there is no complaint there. The bible says that people will call light, darkness and darkness, light. They consider the gospel annoying or something that pisses them off. But that is like saying “Quit forcing awesome news on us. Quit telling us that death has been defeated and that we can have everlasting life.” Did anyone ever care to think that when they blaspheme my LORD’S name in public that they might be offending me, and should be considered hate speech (at least by their new definition). I would rather people say “damn stupid Christians,” or “Christian damn it.” Better to me that they slam the practitioner, than the founder of the religion, but once again they don’t hesitate to use their religious bias. The point is, is that you cannot avoid “shoving” ideas down someone’s throat. And who the heck came up with that phrase anyway. What ever happened to the term “civilized or engaging conversation or rational discourse.” Has intellectualism left the scene completely. There is no “shoving” going on in most conversations I’ve seen. Everywhere I go, I have the world subliminally telling me how to live and this is due to and in response to a set of beliefs. For example, the idea of guys saying “lets go to the bar and pick up on some chicks.” This wouldn’t be so common and the norm if somebody wasn’t shaping society with their morals and judgments. See the movie Time Changer and you’ll see what I mean, where a man goes forward in time and is horrified at how things have turned out. Bottom line is, action and behavior are determined by belief and you can’t help but to influence people, so really, without you knowing it, you are spreading your religion. The fact that you disagree with my religion, doesn’t mean I am shoving it down your throat, it merely means that you are intolerant for your attitude towards me doing so. You know, there is no way to avoid offending people by speaking against their religion in this view because someone could make a religion from anything. I could believe that God equals sound waves and so therefore you are showing disrespect when you don’t take your shoes off in front of an audio speaker as a sign of respect. The idea to correct all of this “tolerance” mess, is to be tolerant despite the differing views without getting offended. That is the very essence of what the word tolerant means. If everyone agrees, then there is no need to be tolerant, b/c everyone is on the same team. To be tolerant, there must be a disagreement, by definition it necessitates a disagreement. If tolerance is the view that all views are equally valid (as it is presented), then what if I say that Jesus is the Messiah and all the Jews are wrong. The relativist would say “you can’t say that,” and maybe continue “how would you like it if someone told you, you were wrong.” Well, in all honesty, it wouldn’t bother me a bit (why should it). I’m getting the feeling that the reason it bothers most people is because of the brainwashing of this post modern mindset that gets them amped up to the point where they act like asses to each other. Do you see what this understanding of tolerance is producing? People feel they have the right to get angry and nasty with others simply because they hold a viewpoint that is different. This definition of tolerance is not causing people to be more open minded, and charitable and kind and warm to people of opposing views, but the opposite. This definition is not advancing us towards maturity, but is pushing us back to childhood. How would I like it if someone said my God is not real, or Christianity is bunk? It wouldn’t and doesn’t bother me a bit, because I’m a GROWN UP ADULT.

This post modern ideology is the root of all the “hate crime” whiney crap you hear about. As adults we understand that not everyone is going to think like we do, and we don’t have to cause a ruckus when they don’t. People put down my beliefs all the time, water off a duck to me. You know, if all views are equally valid (according to their definition), and one of the views is that all the Jews are wrong because Jesus is the Messiah, then that view must also be equally valid. The view that not all views are equally valid would have to be considered equally valid as well. This is equally and not equally valid at the same time. This definition cannot be lived out in real life. We have a self contradictory worldview that destroys itself. The real definition of tolerance is not that all views are equally valid, but that all human beings are equally valid. All human beings should get equal respect, even when we don’t agree with certain people. Tolerance REQUIRES a disagreement, or we are all in the same boat. You only tolerate that which you disagree with. What you agree with doesn’t require tolerance. Relativists who use the term tolerance, really mean relativism. They really mean “if you think anyone is objectively right, you’re intolerant.” To translate that, they really mean “if you think relativism is not the right view, you’re wrong.” I tolerate other Islamic people, and I think they ought to be able to practice their religion with freedom. I don’t affirm their beliefs obviously because I’m a Christian. Affirming and tolerating are 2 different things. This new version of the word tolerance is basically coerced affirmation, in that you have to accept a viewpoint that you don’t agree with. That is severe dogmatism and downright tyrannical oppression. On many campuses across America, they force students to hold the social liberal view, as evidenced by the fact that you can get expelled for writing a paper on why homosexuality is wrong, etc. That’s is forceful and oppressive. So anyway, while all people have equal value, the truth is, is that not all views have equal value: some are good, some are bad, some are smart, some are dumb, some are true, some are false, some are foolish, and some are dangerous. True tolerance holds that some ideas are false, even some cherished ideas, and that we can be charitable enough to discuss it and come to conclusions. People today seem to be largely closed off to meaningful and intelligent discussion on matters that matter the most. People think they are being open minded, but actually they are the opposite. They are only tolerant to people who think like they do. You know, intolerance should be considered fine if they truly believed what they say about tolerance. On a different note, built into our rational intuition, we have the kind of things that you know, but you don’t know how you know it, and if you didn’t know these intuitive things, you wouldn’t know anything else. It’s like coming to the conclusion that Socrates is mortal when we only gave the information that Socrates is a man and that all men are mortal. We were not specifically taught the conclusion of Socrates being mortal, but we have the intuition of reason built in, mirroring God, being made in His image, the divine Logos, or Logic. These rational intuitions are just there and if they are not there at a certain young age, then we would think something is wrong with the child’s development. There are not only rational intuitions, but moral intuitions as well. A built in moral code or conscience. We know that certain things are wrong, like slavery, raping, genocide, stealing, torturing babies for fun, etc. And if you think these things aren’t wrong, then I’m not going to say “oh, that’s an interesting alternate morality you have there,” I’m going to say “Get help man, you’re sick.” We are not just built up from a baby, molded purely by physical factors, with pure autonomy to make truth be what we think it to be. We do not create our own universe, because it was already created, and we have come prepackaged a certain way that we were not in control of. When people argue in favor of logic, aren’t they assuming the laws of logic when arguing them? Or to argue that logic doesn’t exist, while having to utilize logic to do so. Do you think people who try to demonstrate the reliability of the human eye, do that with their eyes closed? No, they use their eyes even when demonstrating the usefulness of them. I equate these examples to lend to the presupposed programming of our world and minds. Of course nobody would try to dispute logic, or try to prove that eyes don’t work while using visual charts and graphs, but that is essentially what the relativist does. The relativist contradicts himself and can’t consistently live with his view, even simply by using the words “intolerant,” or “bad.” Excuse me, did you say the word “Intolerant” and “bad.” How did you find a way to work those words into your vocabulary seeing that you are a relativist. You can never say should, shouldn’t, or that’s evil, etc. You can’t break the rules in a game that has no rules. There is no such thing as evil, or wickedness in this mindset. In fact, without God, there can be no guage of objective goodness or badness. The relativist cannot promote the obligation of justice, fairness, or even tolerance. There is no obligation to treat equals equally, to punish the guilty and let the innocent go free, to treat people with respect, in fact, with relativism, there are no moral obligations what so ever. Relativist can’t ask “why does god allow so much evil,” b/c no evil can exist in their view. The only thing they can say is “I don’t believe in God b/c of things I don’t like. If He made brussel sprouts, I don’t believe in him,” or something to that effect. A mother snugly secures the seat belts around her children before she drives the car into a lake so that she can resume a romantic relationship with a man who doesn’t want children (true story). This story or another true story of the Canaanite people’s sacrifices to their false god of Molech cannot produce any sort of anger over such wickedness, because on the relativist platform, wickedness is an illusion. The Canaanites would heat up with fire, the large hands of the iron statue of Molech to a bright orange, and then place the babies into the searing hot hands to sizzle. Pretty sick, huh. A modern day version of that may include micro-waving infants, but all of this can mean nothing worth real response to a relativist.
People think relativism promotes tolerance, but it makes the idea and reality of tolerance impossible. Why ought I tolerate people when you relativists told me that is up to me? This is the price that it costs to deny objective morality. I think you know better though. Someone could be at the bank talking to his neighbor about how morals are relative, and then someone cuts him in line and the relativist wants to take issue with the other guy going to the back of the line. He is not just saying “this is my own moral opinion, you can ignore it if you like.” No, he wants him to get to the back of the line. Do you see how this view slits it’s own throat and essentially commits suicide? Basically, if this view is correct, then it cannot be correct. This is not a word game, it is just that moral relativism is WRONG. Plain and simple. You can’t find a way in which it sounds right, because it is not right. Sometimes when I talk to people about this and they get a little frustrated because they are seeing their stance crumble before them, and they say “now you got me all confused.” I think about saying, well actually, you were confused before we started talking, I just helped you realize it, but now you are getting frustrated because you don’t want to let go of your pet humanist doctrines, and you are starting to see that they don’t work in the real world. Now, just for mind jogging fun, I’ll lay down some of the common self contradictory statements being parroted around out there these days.
1. “All knowledge is limited to observation.” Oh really, did you observe that generalization about all knowledge. That is very interesting since that statement is not observable itself. 2. “There are no absolutes.” This statement is an absolute.
3. “Everything is relative.” This statement is meant to be taken as an absolute.
4. “We can’t know anything for certain.” Yet, we are supposed to know this statement with certainty.
5. “There is no truth.” Except. Of course, the one just given.
6. “What you believe is determined by psychological, environmental, chemical or class conditioning.” Then this belief also is the result of such conditioning as well, and is equally worthless.
7. “No one can know anything about God, for He is unknowable.” This statement requires a great deal of knowledge about God.
8. “seeing is believing.” If this is true, then you do not have a foundation for saying seeing is believing. If what you’re saying is true, then you could never know that it is true, because the very thing you’re saying excludes the possibility of you knowing that. You have not visually “seen” the idea of seeing being believing. Blind people must not believe in anything. The wind, and radio and tv waves must not be real either.
9. “Trust nobody,”(except them), or “question everything”(except that statement they just uttered).
10. If I say I have a brother who is an only child, that would be a silly self refuting statement.

Here is a weak relativist argument: “because there are different societies who have come to different conclusions about what is moral and what is not, we can say that therefore no one is correct and morals are relative to whatever society you live in.” First of all, this argument commits suicide because they are claiming that their particular cultural/societal relativism is correct and therefore the multiple cultures that would vehemently disagree with them, would have to be wrong about their absolutistic ideas. Also, it doesn’t logically follow that because there are differing conclusions, that no one is right and morals are relative. It also doesn’t follow that since one time in our history we thought that the earth was flat and another time we thought it was round, and there were differences of opinions there in between, that the earth was suddenly formless because of the disagreement. NO, the earth has always been a CERTAIN way irrespective of our perceptions. Hopefully we can align our perceptions to the CERTAIN truth of life and things. So, for that argument, we can see that no moral conclusion can be drawn. It is simply an observation of different points of view, that’s all. People disagree on all sorts of things, that’s great, nice observation, but nothing follows from that. People disagree about the nature of the atom, but the atom remains to be a particular way.
Here’s another weak relativist argument: That we ought to do what our individual society prescribes and that, that is what is right. This is called conventionalism. They isolate themselves and say that they create their morality and we ought not interfere with another culture’s morality. If society says what is right and wrong, then everything that the society determines turns our to be moral just by definition. This reduces morality to law, or moral statements to power. This idea however would condemn people like Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Corrie Ten Boom, because moral reformers are ones who stand up in society and say “what everyone else is doing is wrong.” They are opposing the “moral” society, and by definition now, must be viewed as being immoral. Rescuing Jews would have been immoral during that time and that place for Corrie Ten Boom because she violated the ruling dictates of that culture. Discussions about morality in the first place are incoherent are pointless if the relativist were right, so why are they discussing it. Why complain about the unjust legal system? That kind of presumes that the legal systems ought to be just, or that you can even know what “just” is, right? There is no way to morally improve with a relativist (depressing), only change or shift in morals.

Next, I want to take the time to say that there is something that I know about everyone on the planet, and you don’t know that I know it. You know it, but you don’t want other people to know about it. That thing is that you have a bad self image. It is a darkness that you try to hide and you can’t get rid of it. It is the universal human condition. We see something inside ourselves that we do not like, that is twisted and broken. Something evil down there lurks. We try to deny it and not to show it to others, but we know something is wrong. And that has a feeling and that feeling has a name, and the name of the feeling of our own moral brokenness is guilt. We all feel guilty. The only people who don’t feel guilty are sociopaths. And so why do you suppose we feel guilty? Some say it is culture that programs us to feel it, but that doesn’t make sense because where did the society get it from, and why is it assumed that the societal teachings are that powerful. Last time I checked everyone was telling me I’m ok and a good person. This has been my whole life, and that being the case, I should not feel the way I do, nor anyone else, who was brought up in this culture and society. Could it possibly be that the reason you feel guilty is because…. you are guilty? Have you ever thought about that? You could say that you were raised a certain way, but parental figures are not the only influence in society. Friends are often more potent of an influence than parents. The culture, which is diverse is also a major influence. So, there you see that, “how you were raised” is filled with variety, and so how you came to certain conclusions is the same and contains the same conditions as how most everyone else came to theirs. I guess the only thing left to do is to weigh evidences for who is right and who is wrong. Someone once told me “that is Westernized thinking to say that Jesus is the only way and other such absolutistic things.” Oh ok, that’s mighty Eastern of you to say so. Why don’t you just say that you don’t like my “programming” and that your “programming” is better. That is more academically sound and honest.
Some people suppress their guilt however, and pretend that they are “good” people, but I gotta ask, what exactly makes someone good or evil? Most people say they are a good person, because they do good things? Well, then doesn’t doing evil make someone evil? You can’t have it one way, if you aren’t willing to say it the other way around with this being the standard. Any time someone says that people are basically good at heart, I just pull out my keys and jingle them in front of their face. If people are basically good, we would not need keys at all. Evidence is all around us that we are tainted to the core. Everyone most assuredly has a huge rap sheet of crimes against God. If you are 20 years old and sinned only 3 sins a day (which is far less than we actually do sin each day), that is 20,000 crimes over 20 years. The police would be all over you if you had committed even 20 crimes, let alone 20K. Truth be told, the more I am transformed by God to righteousness, the more I have the clarity to see how utterly depraved a person I am. This doesn’t mean I get all depressed about it like our mental health book talks about, but rather it gives me hope, because I know God is doing a work in me, because I could never see the truth about myself on my own. The smart way to deal with the guilt I mentioned earlier, is not through denial, but through forgiveness, and that is where Jesus comes in. Christianity speaks TRUTHfully. What it teaches resonates with our deepest intuitions about the world. #1 The universe is a moral universe with laws that apply to human beings, and #2 we have broken some of those laws many times, and are guilty of moral crimes against our Sovereign. This is a dual message of justice and love. We already know that those who commit moral crimes ought to be punished. That’s the bad news. But amnesty and mercy is offered to those who abandon their rebellion and seek forgiveness, and this is the good news, and its news that is worth thinking about. Some people complain about the way God chooses to deal with the world. You see, God created us from the start as perfect, but not immutable, for example, a vase can be perfect, but can also be shattered, with no fault to the manufacturer of the vase. Perfect, but not without the possibility of that being changed. Well, our perfect-ness got changed, and just as the U.S. represents us in many ways, Adam and Eve are our representative heads so to speak. If our country's representatives screw up, we all feel the heat. The heat from humanity's head is a sinful nature. Nobody ever complains when we receive good things we don't deserve from our representative heads. Nobody complains about others going to heaven when they don’t deserve that reward in the least. Don’t think you have a better sense of justice than your creator. Think of it this way: How could the sheriff send anyone to jail if he didn't offer him a pardon first? The answer is simple. If he's guilty, the sheriff is justified in throwing him in jail. There is no obligation to offer a pardon to a guilty man. The same is true of God. He can justly convict a man who has broken His law even though the sinner has heard nothing about God's pardon in Jesus. God owes no one salvation. He can offer it to whomever He wishes. That's why it's called grace.
Some say that the Holocaust was evil and ask why God would allow such depravity? Later, when the tables turn and their own behavior is in question, they argue that morality is merely a matter of opinion. What if God disallowed you from doing all the evil in your own life. What if every time you were about to say something in anger, He took away your vocal cords, or every time you are about to sexually lust after someone other than your spouse, He blurred your vision. I bet that person would then have a problem with good, and not with evil, because it is his own evil. This reduces their earlier objection to: "How could a good God allow things that are contrary to my opinion?" or, to put it more bluntly, "I can't believe in the existence of a God who would disagree with me." YOU CANNOT SAY MORALS ARE RELATIVE AND THEN HAVE A PROBLEM WITH “EVIL.” And anyway, evil existing in the world is compelling evidence for the existence of God, not evidence against the existence of God. I can demonstrate that by asking you to give me a definition of evil. Don’t give me examples of evil things, but a definition. My definition is that evil is a departure from good or the way things ought to be. Notice that evil is discussed as it being a real feature of the world, and not just a difference of opinion, but a REAL problem. If you raise objection to God existing because of evil, realize that there must be a transcendent standard of good in the world from which evil is a departure. I don’t know what crooked is unless I know what straight is, and determining the extent of the departure from straight, will show us how crooked something is. This knowledge cannot exist without God. The problem of evil question depends upon the existence of God, to even be a coherent problem. If morality were a result of random chance mutations in evolution, then it would be of accidental nature and not worth obeying or listening to. If scrabble letters fell on the table and by chance part of it in the middle formed the statement “don’t stand up,” I would think that is interesting and cool that that happened, but I wouldn’t take the command seriously, and wouldn’t be inclined to listen to it and stay seated. Or if there were software issues at the legislators office and it jumbled up laws, making new and different laws, no one would take them seriously. We wouldn’t take it seriously because it has no mind behind it and therefore no justification and force. People have postulated that morality comes from evolutionary processes. They show how they observed monkey’s giving bananas to each other or with holding bananas, etc. But, reality cannot be merely reduced to behavior. All evolution can do (if it were true) is describe why we behaved a certain way in the past, but evoking evolution as an explanation needs to do more than report observations. It needs to not just report on the PAST behavior, but tell us why we ought to behave a certain way in the FUTURE. It needs to be able to prescribe behavior and not just describe behavior. Morality is all about what we ought to do and not what we have done. And anyway, morals are not scientific principles to begin with. Chemical relationships within the genes of chance random mutations and natural selection cannot explain and account for love and hate, kindness, etc. Morals can’t come from a finite mind either, because you’d have to do an infinite regress to find out where that mind got it from to question the validity. There are only 3 views as to where morals come from: #1 that they are imaginations (relativism, which I already dismantled), #2 that they happened by accident and we have just discovered them as a kind of furniture of the universe with nothing behind them (evolutionary thinking, which I’ve dismantled), or #3 that they happened on purpose, which means they must have a mind behind them and had a purposer. Commands always have a commander, and laws a law giver. If we have illusionary or accidental commands, then why listen to them. Why do we get feelings of guilt and have a sense of and expectation of punishment. Why do small children already understand fairness, by complaining about what is not fair, when they were not taught such things.

Now, in the case of some of the more ambiguous examples of situational ethics, we need to look at the details. Some math you can do in your head, some moral decision making you can do in your head. Some math is really hard and requires taking out the pencil and paper with the details, as with certain moral questions that are harder. When Paul addresses the people who are not to judge their brother for something the brother deemed ok, it is not because he was promoting relativism, but because they were engaging in an area of Christian liberty. If you go against your conscience, when your conscience is improperly informed and the act would be ok to do, then the principle of violating your conscience is the disobedience to God and not the act itself, over which your conscience was hurting. For example, alcohol drinking is ok in moderation, but some think it is sinful to even drink a sip. Drunken-ness is what is sin, not drinking. However, if you think drinking even a sip is sin for whatever reason, then don’t do it, because then for you, it is sin. Do you see the distinction and how that is not an advocation of relativism. God laid down the rules pretty plainly, and if you know how to use a few hermeneutical principles, you’ll have no problem exegeting scripture. Next to address, is the minimalist ethic that is out there. But you know, the minimalist ethic is too minimal. It states that you can do whatever you want, so long as you don’t hurt anyone. First off, that’s wrong because that’s not what God said, but also I want to ask, what about peeping toms, or dentists who want to fondle patients while they are out cold from meds. They didn’t hurt anybody. What they don’t know can’t hurt them. This should be viewed as morally acceptable according to this minimalist ethic framework, right? Swinging your fists so long as you don’t connect with someone’s jaw is a real poor moral structure to start with, besides which, it is really hard to know all the in’s and out’s of whether or not you are doing damage to someone else. Consenting to some act does not in itself make it ok either. If Matthew Sheppard consented to having his skull crushed in and hung on a wooden fence in 30 degree weather, would that have made the act ok? NO, human value is not ok to destroy, even if the one involved is consenting. Prostitution is an example of this. A baby not understanding what murder is, does not mean that abortion is ok. A 6 year old consenting to marrying a 40 year old is not ok. Why can’t a whole family get married in a big incestuous bond, or me and my pet. What, are you a narrow minded species-ist. Funny huh. There was an actual case where a man consented to be eaten alive by a cannibal. The cannibal consented as well. This sick thing happened in Germany. I don’t know if the guy used anesthetics or not, but that really creeps me out either way. Anyway, the next argument goes, that all humans are trained their morality, therefore it is not inherent in us. Ok, so what! What bearing does the fact that we are taught things have? Does a baby know the square root of 4? Nope. And does that mean that the square root of 4 is not 2? Of course not. You still TEACH them that, and it is still CORRECT. If you say it depends on the language, I say “we are both using English tokens and you understand English, right? Enough said on the whole language game people play, because if linguistic construct means whatever you want, then their whole point is moot and they can’t even talk. They might as well just never open their mouth again. You can’t say that the square root is 2 BECAUSE you were taught that, and you cannot do this with morals either. This epistemological rabbit hole is going to swallow a person who thinks like this. Being taught something does not make it untrue or make you unable to know if it is true. If you go that route, then you were also taught by yourself or others that you were simply taught things from a social construct, and that idea becomes equally useless as holding any truth value. Teaching things doesn’t mean we invented the things. Everything is not known by the five senses. Any memory of things are not known by the five senses. History is outside of ourselves and senses as well. Even our thoughts are outside our physical body. What I ate last night is not known by my five senses. Last night it was known by my five senses, but not now. People talk about objectivity only relating to the five senses to determine the truth of things, but we know that there are OBJECTIVE moral codes, which are not detectable by the five senses. The thing is, is that there are other faculties that we must have before we can even use and utilize the five senses. There are many immaterial things. Truth is, is that you can’t prove anything without God. He is the precondition for science and the senses and all things un-seen. You can’t pick my brain, but you can pick my mind, which is immaterial. The only way I’ll let you pick my brain is if I need surgery and you’re a surgeon. As we have seen, moral relativism doesn’t really address morality at all. One way you can tell how nice a system is, is by looking for that system in action. Is there a relativism moral champion or hero. NO. A sociopathic view is what is produced by relativism, one where a person does whatever they want. This type of person is a homicide detective’s worse nightmare, and if a person actually marches most consistently with the relativist moral drumbeat, you will find a dangerous individual. A sociopath is the hero of the relativist view, the one who represents its best expression and accurate representation. Any deviation from this model is most likely an inconsistent blended relativist, who adopts some Christian morals or other objective moral rules. Wrapping up, I want to say that the gospel is useless unless relativism is stomped because there is no need to repent and turn to God, and that is why I see it as necessary to address this not only as an intellectual concern here, but a moral one. One in which will determine everyone’s eternal condition. Thanks for reading. I hope my thoroughness on this topic will allow you to spot these errors in thinking a mile away, and prevent you from falling prey to the lie of relativism, that is why I gave so many examples. I could probably write a 100 pg book on this topic alone, but I believe this will do for now. This Christmas, be thankful that there is a God who is TRUTH and that if you are in the TRUTH as God revealed Himself in scriptures, then you have reason to rejoice, as the weak objections of the world in all its false religions, inevitably fall short of the bar of reason, as you’d expect. And if you are not in Christ, I pray that this New Year, God may grant you repentance so that you may be saved from intellectual and spiritual death here and now, and the wrath that is to come and also to know the richness that is found in the one true God.
Tom

Evolution, circular arguments and the believing unbeliever

2007-08-04T21:38:00.000-07:00

Evolutionists are evangelistic, using the classroom as their pulpit, where they even screen out arguments against it, to protect their sacred cow. You need to be suspicious of people who say “I don’t want to hear the contrary evidence.” The slur out there is that those who have religious faith are the ones acting this way about not wanting the other side speaking. Some humanists say “I won’t send my kid to a Christian school because I want them to hear both sides of the issue.” Ya right, they’ll never hear the Christian side when they go to a secular school. But in Christian schools they study both sides because truth has nothing to fear from exposure to alternate views. So why is it that the evolutionists are acting like the fundamentalists supposedly did back in the days with the scopes trial. You see, keeping religion out of the classroom is not a possibility, since it is already in the classroom with evolution. It is just a trading of one religious ideology for another, since creation and evolution both deal with origins, a religious topic. If you don’t like the word religious, then whatever word you want to use for creation, know that evolution is that also. Origins are theoretical and philosophical from both camps. What is sauce for the goose is the sauce for the gander. Evolution is not even a scientific theory, it’s just a theory, and a very retarded one at that. This lie has been a part of the cultural air we breathe for so long that people think it is fact. It is pervasively labeled as such. Sure, it is a theory, but not a scientific theory. It doesn’t have the scientific credentials. It is a philosophy. Darwin offered nothing new. He just offered a thin and inadequate scientific veneer to the old ideas of creature worship. People have thought these things for a long time before Darwin and as a result worshipped the creature rather than the creator, just as the bible talks about. Imagine that. Evolution has no evidence and doesn’t even have the traits of a scientific theory. Sometimes you have to shoot a bear with the same argument (gun) several times, so don’t think you need to switch arguments because people seem unaffected by a decent argument. People have a tendency to let things go in one ear and out the other sometimes. Repeat the challenge and maybe they’ll get it. “Mathematical challenges to the Neo-darwinian interpretation of evolution” is a book not published by a religious house, or written by Christians or creationists. The editors are Morehead and Caplan. The author is Edin Murray. This is not some sectarian, bias, emotional, prejudicial thing. He says “If the word random is interpreted according to probability theory, then the randomness postulate is highly implausible and that an adequate scientific theory of evolution must await the discovery and illucidation of new natural laws. The mathematical problem for evolution to getting one cell by chance would require at least 100 functional proteins to assemble simultaneously in the same place. Mathematically, the probability of one of those hundred developing by chance is 10 to the minus 23rd power. So just what is fueling the belief in such non probability, the sterling credentials? I don’t think so. I don’t have that much faith, I’m sorry. The fossil record with organisms of complexity is all you have, but not non-complex “beginning stage” forms, and so you see, assumption corner is rounded once again. All the “fossil record” is, is a bunch of bones found in the dirt. They can’t and don’t prove anything about origins or what evolutionary thinking would like to say they do. Stephen Jay Gould understands that the fossil record is an embarrassment to evolution and that is why he came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium. This is basically him adjusting the evidence to his preconceived ideas. He is essentially saying that the evidence for evolution is that there can’t be any evidence for evolution. He’s saying that evolution happened in such a way that it couldn’t leave evidences in the fossil traces. Is that scientific, or does someone have there mind made up before coming to the table? The time tables evolutionists give is 15-25 billion years. Wow, that’s a nice margin for error! According to evolution, a living organism part is preserved according to its favorable interaction with the organism, that is, it must provide some advantage for life. The principles of "evolution" wouldn't support the idea of making something that for most of the time its being produced, it is inoperable. That would be counterintuitive for the evolution model because that body part is dead weight and will only hurt and not help the survival of the organism. It will use up needed blood supply that could be used elsewhere (it needs blood or it will go necrotic and die), or it will give another possible portal of entry for infection (as with the eye), etc. The way the eye is wired is counterintuitive to favorable condition format in evolutionary thinking. Next, we see that little amoebas and carrots don’t copulate, but rather reproduce by cell division. Why did the change over happen to intercourse, and how did it happen gradually, and what would be the purpose of a partial genital. This is stupid. These evolutionists ass heads believe that we went from order to disorder, and from inorganic to organic. I ask why? Can you please explain that to me? This is contrary to every pattern of reasoning that you’ll see in the scientific process and in logic. You can’t get more in your product than what you had in the cause. Life cannot be just be a complex version of non life. “You know, bricks are non-living, but if you put them in the right complex order, they come to life.” Idiots! Next, the evolutionist must take the jump on the evidence he sees in the diversity of life, and presuppose that after the soup stage of identical life form, it then started to become diverse, for whatever reason, we’ll never know. What caused all the life forms to go from non-intelligent to intelligent, from inarticulate to articulate, from amoral to moral, etc. It really is true that the best refutation of the theory of evolution is just simply repeating it. Just say what it is and you refute it. This is true, when it comes down to it, but often you’re only given a small slice of what evolution is from the mouth of the evolutionists, and they love to cheat on you by changing the subject and then equivocate on the word, so beware of that. When you ask for evidence, they may give you evidence of change within a life form, so look for that. No rational person could believe in evolution. Stephen Jay Gould says: “ The general preference that so many of us hold for gradualism is a metaphysical (philosophical) stance embedded into the history of western cultures. It is not a high ordered empirical observation induced from the objective study of nature.” He admits it is philosophical and not scientific, essentially saying that they never meant it to be taken as an empirical theory, but yet people today talk about it as fact. Louis Bounoure was the president of the Biological Society of Strausberg, the director of the Strausberg Zoological Meuseum, and the director of research at the French Center of Scientific Research said “Evolution is a fairy tale for grown-ups. This theory has helped nothing in the progress of science. It is useless.” Darwin’s bulldog (Huxley) said “When we come up against Moses telling us we can go no further by order of the creator, we need to break down the sign and proceed on. The value of evolution theory is that it allows us to dispute the biblical views of mans origins.” Darwin held that the way in which evolution worked is through survival of the fittest. The problem with this is that survival of the fittest is not falsifiable. There is no way you could disprove the survival of the fittest. The reason this is, is there is no way to separately identify those organisms that are fit for survival and those that actually survive. To test the theory you’d have to say “ok, we know that these organisms are the ones most fit to survive, and wait and see, and low and behold these are the organisms that happen to survive. All you can find out is that certain organisms survived period, for whatever reason, you’ll not know. It may or may not have anything to do with their fit-ness. They could have just been the most lucky. Besides which, natural selection is only a selecting process of existing information. It is not evolutionary as an idea at all. Evolution is a sign of our culture and time’s intellectual starvation.

THE UNBELIEVER IS A BELIEVER:

I’m blocking the doors, Mr. Humanist. You boarded this plane called human autonomy and you’re staying on until we ride all the way with this one. There’s a difference between believing something and justifying something. Just because you can’t justify something doesn’t necessarily mean that thing is false, e.g. I may believe all sorts of medical facts based on the word of my doctor, though I myself cannot justify those beliefs. I can also believe in false things. What is knowledge then? Knowledge is justified true belief.
Ask a person what they believe concerning a certain subject and you’ll find that people think they are infallible about knowing the things they hold to be true and false. Not the beliefs themselves per se as being definitely true, but the fact that they know they believe them. If you ask them “are you sure you believe that,” they may get offended. For example, a racial equality promoter guy who goes out, gets liquered up and makes racial slur type of jokes throughout the night. What are his real feelings on the issue. Or, a mother who defends “innocent” Johnny (her son) for years, despite everyone elses report. She refuses to believe their reports and thinks everyone is just out to get her and her son (delusions of persecution), but yet she won’t leave her purse alone in the same room with Johnny. There is a simple contradiction here. They really believe both things. She believes her son is to some degree immoral. Now did she admit that or verbalize that. No, but actions speak louder than words. Actions are a better indicator many times, even when one says they don’t believe a certain thing. We have beliefs about our own beliefs. This is just a general truth about human nature. Sometimes, through high stress situations or pressure, we are prone to being proven wrong about what we thought we believed. We’ve been told that the really progressive or pc thing to believe is the following “….” but yet in our heart of hearts we don’t believe it. We put on shows sometimes. This is pretty common with people. We act on beliefs every day. We don’t usually wait or act only after we are absolutely sure of everything or have justification for it. If that were the case, we’d be very limited in what we did. Now, I don’t ask or doubt whether a person believes certain things, for that is apparent. What I do ask is if they can justify it. When you can’t justify your belief, you are being arbitrary. Professors are known for using the red herring of saying they don’t need to answer the philosophic questions in order to do science. This is to distract attention to what he does, not what he can justify. It’s obvious from their actions that they believe in moral absolutes, etc, but I want to know the justification, plain and simple. I’ve heard someone once say that “Every reading is a misreading.” This is the deconstructionists literary criticism conclusion. Basically saying that it is impossible to get back to the original intent of the author. All he did was follow through with his belief of no absolutes, but I hope you see the glaring error, in that, he expects you to get the original intent of his message that we can never get to an authors original intent. Sometimes people would rather take the plane of irrationality all the way to its destination, than to submit to the only alternative, Christ Himself.
Shift gears to the hari krishna’s and take the roof off (expose it’s end result) of their philosophy and say “let me see if I got this straight, the reason I’m not in nirvana is because I’m not realizing the oneness of the universe and instead I’m seeing things in distinctions, and not the oneness of monism. So, I’m not in nirvana now? I wanna get this straight. But if there are no distinctions in your worldview, then there can’t be any distinction between where I am and nirvana either. Therefore I don’t need the yoga, meditation, or to worry about getting off this wheel of life that you talk about. I am already in nirvana. “no you’re not, your in maya,” they say. But when you say that, you’re assuming that there is a distinction between maya and nirvana, and if there is this distinction, then you are wrong about ultimate reality not having any distinctions, thus this problem is extinguished. If they say they reject logic because logic is from western thinking and he is east side, then he doesn’t reject logic after all. Meditate on that one, Mr. meditation. A man who says “I reject logic” has no right to demand logical consistency. The minute he rejects logic, he can’t argue anymore with me, and I can say whatever I want, and I can say he doesn’t reject logic. Also, he’ll most likely employ logical argumentation to prove that he rejects logic or how logic is bad. So if you do reject it, then you don’t.

CIRCULAR ARGUMENTS:

When someone says it is impossible to know anything about the supernatural, and that all that we can know is restricted to our senses or natural experience, they are guilty of one of the biggest philosophical prejudices. This is also a philosophical contradiction. Please tell me when you claim “you can’t know anything unless by observation,” tell me how you know that, because you haven’t observed that premise. You can’t see the limits of knowledge through observation, furthermore, you don’t have all knowledge, so you can’t make that universal claim. On your own presupposition, you couldn’t even know what your own presupposition is stating.
People have said “I can’t believe what Christianity is all about because it is accepted on faith, you have to accept it on its own say so.” Ok, what’s the alternative? What makes a word from God, a word from God? Basically, what people do, is they find things in a religion that they like and attribute that to why they think it is true. E.G. 70 virgins when you die, or the fact that this particular God or book of God says its ok to sleep around, or to meet God on my own terms and in what I think religion should be like. This is a judging of these revelations based purely on what a person likes and what they dislike. Try this one: I believe this is the zucchini word of God.” Why do you think that? Because its got the best zucchini recipes in the world. “But I don’t like zucchini, so I think it is bunk.” You see, whatever a person says for why they accept a book as the word of God, whether, “I think its logical, or I think it has nice rules, etc, is their pre-conceived idea for what they think religion should be like, or what God would say.” Every human proposal is subject to the same criticism no matter what. Should the alternative be to accept the word of something less than God, and part of the created order that would have sufficient authority or universality to verify what God has said. From intellectual to moral reasons of their choosing, they are saying they know in advance what to expect from God, and since this book tells you what you like, you accept it as divine, whether you take the sexual license approach, or the logical coherence approach, or the zucchini approach. Look, either God authorizes his Word or we are left with the differing non-authority of man. If God is God, whose authority could be higher than His. The answer is none. When someone says that they don’t accept the bible on its own ultimate authority, basically they are saying that they won’t ever accept a revelation from God of any sort. God, if He is God could ONLY reveal Himself with final authority. All they are saying at this point is that they have a different ultimate authority or worldview than you. They are deceived into thinking they don’t accept authorities on its own authority or say so, but they do. They are just as circular as we are. If they say that their ultimate authority is verifiable by other things, then that verifiable thing is really the ultimate authority because it is the verifiable lynch pin, i.e. their proposed ultimate authority is not ultimate, but rather the thing or things that vindicate the ultimate authority are really the ultimate authority, and you’ll have to stop somewhere at the point of ultimate authority, otherwise there is an infinite regress of verification. They contradict themselves by accepting this supposed authority that speaks against other ultimate authorities. Anthony Flew talked about how the Christian is so tenacious in defending the faith, that it is as if he denies any possibility of any contrary evidence no matter what it is, to be considered weighty enough to disprove his God. And as a result Flew says that this makes the whole argument non-sensical and indistinguishable. He is basically saying that since the Christian doesn’t allow for the possibility of falsification to his view, he is really not making any claims at all. He uses a story of 2 men going through the forest who come across a patch of flowers and the believer says there is a gardener who produced it, while the skeptic says there is no gardener. They decide to pitch a tent for the night to see if he shows up, but he doesn’t, so the believer says “give it more time,” so they wait a week and he still does not show up. The believer then says “well, he comes at night while we are sleeping,” so they set up barbed wire around them and have hound dogs guard it, but they hear no dogs barking or man screaming in pain. Finally, the believer says “ the gardener must be invisible and intangiable.” Flew says this is the same as the Christian talking about the existence of a God. Just because we Christians don’t allow anything to falsify our claims by defending and defending and defending, doesn’t mean it is not rationally distinguishable or true. Sure, if I just arbitrarily said there is an invisible, elusive, intangiable sock that floats through the air and follows me everywhere and there is no evidence you can give to show that to be wrong, then I’m really not making a claim with any substance, and we might as well not talk about it, but there is a difference between the nature of the person defending a belief and the nature of the belief itself. The truth is, is that I am falsifiable and my arguments as well. Paul said “if Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, then we believe in vain.” Gods truth cannot be falsified though. All Flew admitted and proved by saying all this was that Christians are tenacious and tend to be real tough about giving up their ultimate presuppositions and commitments. But that is what you’d expect about something that is ultimate in someones life. That’s why it’s called ultimate. Its impossible for them not to be tenacious about it. Unbelievers are just the same though. If tenacity makes something meaningless, then Flew destroyed the possibility of anyone knowing anything, because everyone holds tightly to their ultimate authority, which would render everything meaningless, according to this view. Jesus said I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life. If you reject Jesus, you reject truth, and its no wonder they all don’t make sense or are contradictory. I’ve also heard some unbelievers say “why Christians relate everything to God somehow.” I would answer that question with a question, “why, mr. “freethinker” do you relate everything in life back to your god (self)?” Whatever your ultimate is, that is what every aspect of your life revolves around. As for reason, Christians view reason as a tool just like our hands are tools, while unbelievers view reason as the ultimate authority and that it stands on its own and that all men are subject to the god of reason. When I look down the tracks and see a train coming at me at 120 mph, and knowing trains, weighing as they do, and at that speed, would make a person of my size and density, a puddle. I’m not interested in being a puddle today, so I better move. This is an example of a use of reason. Reason is subordinate to the authority of God. It is not that faith takes over where reason leaves off, it is that without faith, you can’t reason at all, because either you’ll have faith in God who gives reason, or have faith in reason as your god or ultimate unverifiable authority. Faith does not begin after reason, or where reason takes you no further, faith is the beginning of the use of any reason. Our faith is an order to use reason. The application of the “4 checkpoints” of proper thinking is a reflection of the Christian worldview and not some “king reason” or independent authority outside of the bible, or separate from the Christian worldview. This is not an attempt to vindicate the bible by outside things. They are things from within the Christian worldview, to defend the Christian worldview. We can say that people can’t be arbitrary because they aren’t God, there is one truth and one God. A consistent unbeliever should defend the right to be arbitrary because there is no God or absolute authority, but as soon as he defends arbitrariness, he refutes himself. Consequences of beliefs are biblical concepts. Judge a tree by its fruit. The unbeliever talks about chance and randomness and so there cannot be consequences as in an effect from a cause. Inconsistencies are not biblical because God cannot lie. He is consistent and logical, and so we challenge people to be consistent. Lastly, the preconditions of intelligibility. Of course we assume God is the precondition of intelligibility in every area, including when talking about the precondition of intelligibility. Reasoning in a circle? When you’re talking about ultimate authorities, what’s the alternative? You either assume your ultimate authority is ultimate, or it’s not your ultimate authority. Of course we reason in a circle, and so do you. When people argue in favor of logic, aren’t they assuming the laws of logic when arguing them. Do you think people who try to demonstrate the reliability of the human eye, do that with their eyes closed. They use their eyes even when demonstrating the usefulness of them. This is just to say, they assume the thing that is in question, that is all. God doesn’t appeal to anything to vindicate Himself. Nothing! He says you accept it because I said it, and says if you do not, your reasoning will be reduced to foolishness. 1Corinthians 1:20 says “Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?” Bring the most academically competent scholar who is an unbeliever, and God makes foolish his “wisdom.” Why, because we have the preconditions for intelligibility for things like logic, science, morals, etc. Sure, I beg the question, but what’s the alternative. If there is no precondition necessary for intelligibility, then what he is saying is that he can be unreasonable. Bertrand Russell had 4 reasons for why he is not a Christian: #1 Catholics say they can prove God with unaided reason, #2 Jesus was not that wise and not as morally superior as Buddha and others, #3 People accept religion on emotional grounds, namely fear, which is not worthy of human beings and #4 Christianity is the principle enemy of moral advancement and progress. As you can see, all these points are arbitrary. How does he know what is worthy, as if there is a fixed criterion for what is worthy. How did he come to the conclusion that we should not be enemies of moral progress. We’d obviously need a set standard to measure progress or regress as well. Is it good to be an enemy of child molestation? Whats your standard for superiority of inferiority mentioned in #2? What is the basis for your moral evaluation and your judgement Mr. Russell? In terms of what view of reality and knowledge did you assume that there was something like an objective criterion that you could bag on Christianity with. If all values are created by our intelligence, then he has no right to use what he creates as a judgment against Jesus and Christians. He says laws are just statistics, but how does he then expect science to project things into the future on this view. If reason is not aided by supernatural revelation, then can we use the laws of science to project into the future, or assume the abstract laws of logic being absolute and universal. The point is, you can’t prove ANYTHING by unaided reason. Maybe he should be a little more critical of his own worldview. When Russell argues against the supposed psychological genesis or origin of our beliefs as emotion and fear that leads us this way, he is arguing ad hominem. Don’t criticize believers only, but the beliefs as well. The personal defects of Christians is not the issue. He assumed to know the motivation of people who become Christians. How did he know that? Does he have some sort of psychological occult power to see into their hearts to tell us their motives. He generalizes for 19 centuries of believers, of which he has not known even 1% of 1% and of those personally, let alone read their hearts. Isn’t that amazing how he rejects Christianity based on how he thinks he knows what is going on inside our heads. He doesn’t know our psychological motives, he can’t even show how he knows anything about the universe. Next, he uses a double standard, as seen in his emotional feelings of his anti-christian commitment. He openly appealed to emotional feelings of courage, pride, freedom, and self worth as the basis for his audience to refrain from being Christians. He said, “here’s why I hate you Christians, you all believe in God out of fear,” and then tells the audience to be courageous and not fearful. Well, if one appeal to emotion is wrong, so is another, Mr. hypocrite. He also talks about Christians being wicked, as though there could be wickedness in his beliefs. Why doesn’t he talk about Gengis Kahn, De Sade, or Vlad the impaler, or a cast of other butchers who were not known in history for their Christian profession. What about the atheists in history whose actions far surpass in violence and cruelty. All this is conveniently swept under the carpet in his hypocritical disdain for the Christian religion. If he wanted to be honest and not engage in special pleading or double standards, he shouldn’t reject Christianity anymore than he rejects non-christianity b/c of the moral faults of their adherents. Let us not forget to hold people accountable to their claims. They make them all the time, and it seems that most Christians are unaware of the invalid nature of said claims. Below is a picture of the idiot/hypocrite Bertrand Russell.

Empty Atheism and the Nature of Arbitrary Arguments

2007-07-15T21:52:00.000-07:00

A CRITIQUE OF ATHEISM:

One of the main things you look for when examining a worldview, is arbitrary-ness and inconsistency.
From a philosophic standpoint, atheism has no credibility whatsoever, and I’ll explain why. Unless monotheism is true, you can’t prove anything at all. And I would go so far as to say that the Christian worldview is the transcendental precondition of intelligibility, as only Christianity, after examination, is the only monotheistic form that has any support and real authority to base itself. Christianity is what must be the case in order for intelligibility to be possible. When the atheist says there is no God, no soul, no after-life, there is just matter, that’s all there is, I’ve got to say that if this is the case, then you couldn’t know it was the case and couldn’t prove it or anything else for that matter. All science rests upon inductive inference. This is basically just a taking of things we have experienced in the past and projecting it into the future. If you stub your toe in the dark, you assume that if you stub your toe again, it will hurt again like it did the first time. All science rests upon the uniformity of nature. All science experiments would be a waste of time if this were not true, because you could learn all you want about chemical reactions on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, that information would be useless to you. As a teacher I say to the class “What will happen if I drop this marker. You have never seen this experiment before. Don’t try to generalize your answer based on apples you have seen fall from trees.” The good philosopher would say, we don’t know what will happen, but the bad philosopher assumes it will fall. Even if you drop the marker under the same conditions, it is still an assumption of the uniformity of nature to expect the same response in a second dropping of the marker. As a Christian, I have a reason to go to the science lab today, but I want to ask you atheist, why are you going to the science lab today? You see, the atheist has no basis in his worldview for the uniformity of nature, or causality, because he believes in a random universe. He may try to come back by saying “very probably the marker will do the same thing.” But, all probability arguments are a trying to smuggle uniformity back into their position. In a random universe, all bets are off. When he says “probably” he’s begging the question, because that is the whole question. How do you know the future will be like the past, even in a probable sense. You don’t even know very probability unless there is uniformity in the universe. But you can’t import that as an assumption, for that is what we are debating.
You know, if I were a materialistic atheist, I wouldn’t even worry about stubbing my toe tonight, because for all I know, that could be a thrill of a lifetime, or I’d be extremely worried that I may get my head blown off at the lab, even though I’ve done the same experiment 40 times and had no problem. But they don’t act like this in real life, but given their worldview, they should. You see, atheists are basically not good atheists. They cannot live what they believe or believe what they live.
Now I want to talk about deductive inference. Deductive inference relies upon the laws of logic and truths that we know. If we only relied on one time isolated experiences, we’d never be able to advance knowledge, or the relationship between classes of things and propositions. All we’d have is momentary personal experiences. But if logic is true, then we can develop knowledge on things we haven’t ourselves experienced. I don’t need to wait to see if Michael Jordan will die, because I know he is a man, and that all men are mortal.
Is everything physical in this universe? What about the concepts of classes of things in logic. No, logic is not physical, therefore logic cannot exist in a materialistic world. Atheist may say 2+3=5. What I say in return though is, “is this 2, and is this 5” (by pointing to them on a chalk board). Now, I will erase the 2, and reply that if that was 2, I’ve just destroyed 2, there is no more 2-ness in the universe. But you see, that was the numeral, or concept or representation of 2, which is non-material. A material 2 doesn’t exist. “I’m going to pull 2 out of the fridge.” 2 of what is my question. You obviously can’t pull 2 out, and you can’t pull “humanity” out of the fridge either, for it also is a concept, as are many other things.
Next question is, are laws physical things. “Go to the cafeteria and see if they are serving up the laws of logic.” These things are not physical either. The point of saying this is that there can be no class concepts, or deduction for the materialist. Which is to say he cannot even reason. What about the concept of “mind.” Your oatmeal above the eyebrows is physical, but is it even possible to say that if a surgeon opened my cranium and did a complex surgical procedure, that he’d in the end be able to say “oh, you were thinking of the star spangled banner weren’t you.” It is not only not possible, but not even theoretically possible. Synapses have nothing to do with the conceptual content of the mind. Mind can’t be reduced to brain, and is not simply an electrical chemical response in the gray matter upstairs. But if this were true that mind is only brain and simply electrical chemical response, then you don’t even have control over what you think. If it is true there is no mind, then what you think about, you didn’t really choose to think and you can’t prove what you’re thinking to be true, because you can’t help what electrical chemical responses that will occur in the brain. If this no mind theory is true, then you have no reason for believing it to be true. This worldview undermines any confidence the atheist could possibly have in their own worldview. They slit their own throat. Their beliefs end up destroying their own beliefs when lived out consistently. Because on your worldview, Mr. atheist, all of your talking about atheism is just the result of electrical chemical responses in your brain. For all we know, the machinery in your head just went wacko. We won’t hold you accountable though because its not your fault, you had no options, your brain just cranked out the things that it does and sent the stimulus down to your tongue and made you say the words that you did. Basically, if atheism is true, then there is no reason to believe atheism is true because my brain just does what it does and yours does what it does. If there is no mind, then there is no reason trying to convince me that there is. If the atheist is right, then we don’t even need to debate it, because after-all there can be no rules of logic, there are no laws of science, and we don’t even have any minds in which to debate in the first place. Any atheist showing up to an atheist debate, proves my position before the debate even starts.
Now, concerning moral absolutes, if there are no moral absolutes, I should be able to try to win a formal debate by shooting the atheist with my 357 magnum, thus eliminating my debate opponent, not just his thoughts, but his body and everything. What would be wrong with doing debates like this? But if you say that it is wrong to do this, then you have to appeal to the fact that there is more than just matter in motion to account for in the universe. Every atheist is on the horns of this dilemma. They are constantly borrowing from the Christian worldview and not owning up to this fact. It’s like they are halfway closet Christians. It’s like the great Philosopher Van Til said “the unbeliever must sit on the lap of God in order to smack Him in the face (because their arms are only so long). You first have to believe in the Christian worldview before you can reason against the Christian view of the world. Assumptions are not in themselves bad, but its that the unbeliever uses the Christian assumptions to refute Christianity on the basis of them. Quit using Christian evidence! I want to know how an atheist can tell a person that he ought to be reasonable. Everyone should be able to do anything he/she wants in an atheist universe. You want to know something interesting. Many reports are starting to sprout up for falsified claims of successful experiments in laboratories, basically because someone wants to be known as the first one to discover some certain thing, so what they’ll do is adjust reports so that they match their hypothesis. And the university system department assumes the honesty of the researcher, as presenting accurate results. But, who is going to come along and do all the months and months of research to show the person was lying. The institutions are highly embarrassed by this trend. The university is starting to come against this embarrassing situation finally, but according to the atheistic worldview, why should they, its just different strokes for different folks. If a person wants to make his money and fame that way (through dishonesty), who are you to have beef with that. If you have a teacher who promotes the idea of moral relativism as her soapbox in class, and then has a problem when you cheat on her tests, then she will have to be quiet or contradict herself. This is the hypocricy that you’ll see everywhere, once you get your brainwashed mind debugged from the atheist/humanist retardedness. On the one hand, you have atheist people who will say that shacking up with his girlfriend is perfectly ok and it makes him happy, so you shouldn’t give him flack for that, but on the other hand, he complains about the unrighteous nature and wrongness of the war in Iraq or this problem or that. You can’t have it both ways. The atheist has essentially boarded a plane for Boston, but then wants to get out at Chicago. But, you see, I am not that stupid, I’m going to make sure nobody gets off this plane so they can see where their views take them.
The atheist may say that what I have said here, all looks good on paper theoretically, but it just isn’t true in life. They say things to me like “atheists do science and use logic, so I have to reject your philosophical analysis because I see that atheists are not that way.” But the truth is, that since you do, do science and have knowledge and logic, and do use moral absolutes, then what that proves is that you do know God in your heart of hearts. What you say with your mouth doesn’t reflect what you believe in your heart, otherwise you wouldn’t live on borrowed capital as I have explained, using God’s reality and world of reason in order to deny His reality. This is called self deception. Paul talks about how the unbeliever suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. Perhaps the atheist should wake up and at least consider this as being in the running of possibilities. But they usually don’t.

ARBITRARY ARGUMENTS:

We can decimate arguments by forcing people to live consistently with their worldviews. Unbelievers will always assume the Christian worldview in order to argue against it, because they live in God’s universe, and they can’t help but do otherwise. Now, it is far more important to know the method of apologetical defense instead of memorizing all the arguments for every counter attack because we can’t know about every religion, cult, etc. It’s far more effective to learn how to disarm the opponent, or to get the gun out of their hand instead of trying to dodge all the bullets. The bullets are not dangerous by themselves. What can they do, throw the bullets at you! The offensive strikes (bullets) against the Christian are only “effective” and used because of the gun (starting point presuppositions) behind them. Take the gun away! There are 4 points on the checklist that need to be remembered, and if done so, you can take the gun out of any man’s hand no matter what kind of bullets he’s putting in there. These 4 are the intellectual “sins” on this checklist.
#1. Is this argument arbitrary,? #2 is it inconsistent,? #3 what is its logical end (judging a tree by its fruit),? and #4 asking about the pre-conditions of the argument.
#1. People are arbitrary by offering mere opinions. Why go to school if we are going to hold to arbitrary truths. The whole reason schools were established and maintained was, and is to provide people with a base to learn, reason, and use critical thinking, to make educated judgments about things and not be just flying off the handle with “well, i believe this, and others believe this, etc.” When someone says “well you’ve got all those arguments, but my opinion is this, they have conceded the case, they have lost, its over. If I was doing a debate I’d say “speak up, say that directly in the mic for the audience that this is your opinion.” Your opinion has just been sliced and diced by what I said. It doesn’t matter that it’s your opinion, it’s WRONG. On the converse, they can’t just say “well that’s your opinion, you have yours and I have mine.” They have to defeat my opinion with solid evidence/argumentation. First off, I don’t give just mere opinions, and secondly, a counter opinion cannot silence the former opinion on that basis alone. Why do Christians put up with this as though it were a stumping argument. I expect Christians let these slide because this is the way they act at bible studies. They go around the room asking everyone “What do you think this verse means, etc.” Who cares what they think, what does the verse or passage mean, period. People do not operate with this sort of arbitrariness when discussing their medical status with their doctor, so why is it that with something even more important (eternal life and death) that we think it is ok to do this. Saying “that it my opinion,” has no intellectual weight. Opinions are a dime a dozen, well actually, they aren’t even a dime a dozen, because they don’t cost anything, and they aren’t worth anything either. The question is WHY, why, why, is that your opinion. A 2nd form of arbitrariness is relativism. People say “that’s true for you, but not for me.” There was this multi-religion conference where people were being all flaky, saying things like “we’re all brothers and we all respect each other.” But the truth is, is that we don’t all respect each other and we aren’t all brothers. People don’t respect teachers that botch up doctrine. They will never be able to sit under them, because they can’t respect them. Basically, people only respect those who agree with them, and if you run across those who say they do respect others, they really are just saying that they only respect those who agree with them when it comes to a relativistic mindset of viewing all religions as a uniting brotherhood. If a Christian said Jesus is the only way, then that “all inclusive” person will not respect that christian person, because they are not all inclusivists like them. They are also not respecting or loving them by their not showing this person the absurdity of their current view so that they may find truth and eternal life. They are doing a dis-service to them by being PC. A person will say “Using the term "retarded" as a slur to refer to someone who doesn't hold the same position as you is not only ignorant but highly unchristian.” Well, aren’t you accepting to someone who doesn’t hold the same views as you by using slurs like “ignorant,” and “unchristian.” Religious freedom and liberty cannot be mixed with relativism, because Hitler’s religious freedom conflicted with the Jew’s religious freedom. If you say that everyone creates their own reality, and if everyone is right, then nobody is wrong, including Hitler. This sort of thinking leads to the Mr. Potato head approach to theology, which is man’s attempt to make God into anything they want Him to be. “True for you” as an idea and statement is plain stupid. Truth is not subjective. “Let me help you out of your Sunday school superstition,” is what the people say sometimes. They say “you’ll find out that there are other realities to explore, and other universes to explore.” Oh barf, I want to deal with the one I live in, you know, the real reality. This kind of mentality is to have your feet firmly planted in mid air. I find that people are often arbitrary because when there is a clash of ideas, they can just flee to relativism. Isn’t that more comfortable? Then you can go to cocktail parties and everyone is welcome. Jesus would be welcome as long as He didn’t say He was the only way. It’s this bull crap political “correctness” of non confrontationalism, and then gossip behind each others backs that we see. The truth is, is that this may be political in nature, but it is not correct, so let’s drop the C in PC. This is academically low to deal with people this way. When someone says “true for me” they are basically saying “I believe it,” and so if it is only your opinion that God doesn’t exist, then you’re in a lot of trouble. If something is true for me, then I am purposefully believing in something I know is not actually true and is a myth, because if my belief is that God is God over everyone, no matter what they believe, then either it is not just true for me, or I knowingly believe in something that is false, which would mean I don’t really believe in it, but that is what people claim when they say “true for me” They are saying that they believe it.
Another form of arbitrariness is ignorant conjecture. People can make a lot of arguments that sound pretty elaborate and convincing, but when pressed for their foundation for that, you usually find that they really don’t know much of what they are talking about. They will be found to be another parrot. An example of this is that people seem to assume that the bible we have in our hands today can’t be true to the original text. There is all sorts of skepticism about authorship, and the phone game parallel, etc. At this point we need to say that what they are relying on here is ignorant conjecture. This assumption is based not on evidence, but prejudice. When they say we need to look at the bible like any other ordinary document, and that we can’t assume it has a supernatural origin, they forget something. The bible is not like just any other book. The issue is not one of circularity or begging the question, because both sides have presuppositions. We just need to see which presupposition comports with reality and which does not. When they say “For all you know some monk in the 9th century wrote this bible,” I say “Ok, what literary evidence do you have for that.” You can’t refute me by “a possibility” or conjecture, or “for all you know’s.” I could say with equal arbitrariness, if you want to play the arbitrary game, that the words of Paul were actually written by Isaiah, and Paul signed them, which would make them written before Paul’s time and not after his time, as the wild assertion goes. I don’t have any evidence for this, nor do I believe the bit about Isaiah, but if you can say it was developed after him, I can say it developed before. If the opponent says “you’re just playing games with me.” I say in return, “I learned this game from you.” If we don’t need evidence, why don’t we make up our own reality. When people play this arbitrary game, it is usually a sign they haven’t read about the subject, say, textual criticism, when they say things like that.
The book in the Barnes and Noble that has the compiled writings of Plato, were not actually written by him, as I’m sure you know (it was transcribed). Now did Plato actually write such and such a line in “The Republic”? Check the originals. Oh, but we don’t have the originals. The earliest manuscripts are of 900 A.D. Plato was around in 350 B.C. The math on these writings is 1250 years after his earth’s visit! Professors will hardly blink an eye about the reliability of its accuracy though. It is taken for granted. They say “of course we know what Plato wrote.” Now, the gaps in the New Testament documents and the actual events are only about 50 years. The New testament is the best attested manuscript from ancient history. Unbelievers will tell you that. That doesn’t mean they believe it is true or trust in what it says, but they know we are on far better ground in knowing what Paul taught verses what Plato taught. The O.T. reliability was demonstrated by the dead sea scrolls. People do this same sort of ignorant conjecture based on prejudice thing when they say things like “We don’t even know if Jesus ever lived.” Give me a break! I don’t even think I need to address these morons. They discredit themselves right off the bat by even stating that. “I imagine the text must have been changed,” some say. Well, I’m sorry, but your imagination has no authority. I hope it is now plain how fallacious it is to be arbitrary.

Is Alcohol "Devil's Brew?'

2007-06-30T15:27:00.000-07:00

One of the unique aspects of American Christianity is the doctrine of total abstinence from all alcoholic beverages. This doctrine was never part of the history of the Christian Church in the East or in the West. It was unheard of in Europe, the Middle East, the Orient, and Latin America until American missionaries arrived.
Historically, it arose during the beginning of the twentieth century in sympathy with Carry Nation's movement to add an 18th Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting alcoholic beverages. Dr. Machen and many other fundamental Christian leaders condemned prohibition and the 18th Amendment on the grounds that such things were in conflict with Scripture and would result in more drunkenness than ever before. Their dire warnings came true, and the 18th Amendment was eventually repealed because of all the pain, suffering, alcoholism and crime it produced.

The following Bible facts should be taken into account when dealing with this issue:
1. "Wine" is mentioned 230 times in the Bible and "strong drink" is mentioned 21 times. In the Hebrew and in the Greek, "wine" refers to fermented grape juice and "strong drink" refers to the alcohol fermented from fruits and grains, and is called "beer" or "hard liquor" today.
2. The drinking of alcohol was universal except for certain priests. Abraham and Melchizedek (Gen. 14:18), Isaac (Gen. 27:25), Jacob (Gen. 27:28), Boaz (Ruth 3:7), a Levite (Jud. 19:19), Paul and Timothy (I Tim. 5:23), and even Jesus (Lk. 7:33-34) drank wine.
3. Both wine and strong drink were used in the worship of God (Gen. 14:28; Exo. 29:39-40; Deut. 14:26; Num. 28:7). If they were "the devil's brew" or "demon rum," God would have never commanded them to be part of worship.
4. They are viewed as the blessing of God in the Bible (Gen. 27:28; Psa. 104:15; Pro. 3:9-10; Isa. 55:1-2; Ecc. 10:19; Zech. 10:7).
5. Jesus not only drank wine but He even made it for others (John 2:1-11 cf. 4:46).
6. A little wine with your meal is viewed as good for your health (I Tim. 5:23).
7. Both strong drink and wine were used for mental health (Pro. 31:6-7).
8. The wise woman prepares wine for a meal (Pro. 9:1-5).
9. The Bible clearly condemns drunkenness and addiction to alcohol (Pro. 20:1; 23:29-35; I Tim. 3:3, 8; Tit. 1:7; 2:3; Eph. 5:18).
10. Paul tells believers not to let anyone judge them about what they eat or drink (Col. 2:16). In other words, if a weaker brother tries to lord it over your conscience, don't let him to do it.
11. In Rom. 14, the "strong brother" is the one whose conscience has been educated by the Word of God so that he may eat and drink what he wants. The "weak brother" has an uneducated conscience so he feels guilty about a lot things which God never condemned in His Word.
12. Paul tells the strong in the faith to bear with the foolishness of the weaker brethren. (Rom. 15:1).
13. The strong must never force the weak in the faith to violate their conscience. Thus if a weaker brother feels that eating meat, drinking wine, going to the movies, etc., violates his conscience, tell him to follow his conscience. (Rom. 14).
14. This does not give the weak the right to lord it over the strong. Paul forbids anyone to judge others on such issues as food and drink (Col. 2:16).
15. When in the presence of the weak, the strong should not do those things which would tempt the weak to violate their conscience. (Rom. 14).
16. But when the strong are not in the presence of the weak, they are free to do as their conscience dictates. Thus the strong may eat and drink what he wants in his own home or in the presence of the strong.
17. "There is no direct or absolute prohibition of the use of wine in the N.T. The moderate and appropriate use of wine is recommended to Timothy by Paul." (Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, Vol. 5, p. 936).

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The article above the dashed lines was written by Dr. Robert Morey of faithdefenders.com. I have added my own remarks below.
Another instance where it would be wrong to drink alcohol is if you are a woman who is sexually active (better be with spouse) and if the woman is not on her period because then you place another in harms way. Even small amounts of alcohol can affect the health of a developing zygote, embryo, fetus (it doesn't matter the stage).
I did a word study in Hebrew and Greek lexicons on the word “wine,” and here is what I found:

The word wine appears in the bible a total of 230 times. In the O.T. all the appearances of the word wine are 3196 or “yayin,” which appears 135 times, and it refers to fully fermented wine and on a few accounts it is “strong drink” given the context. 7431 also refers to a strong fermented drink. In the N.T. 3631 or “oinos” appears 32 times and it refers to fully fermented wine. 2562 or 2561 show up 8 times and refer to wine that is in the process of being fermented, but not all the way, a wine cooler if you will. There are 9 miscellaneous verses that refer to bearing fruit or wine mixed with spices, or a winepress, of an overflow or surplus of wine. Anyone running across these verses would not use them to support either view. There are only 45 total possible grape juice verses (out of 230) in reference to “new wine” or freshly squeezed grapes, but you know, fermented wine has to start somewhere. 40 of these 45 is the reference 8492 or “tiyrosh.” There are a total of 168 verses out of 230 that flat out mean fully fermented wine. Add to that, the other 8 “wine cooler” verses, and you have 176 out of 230 that refer to alcoholic beverages. 9 are miscellaneous, which refer to neither, and 45 new wine. All the main texts people use to make a case are the fermented wine verses. Think of how quick wine would have fermented without refrigeration and other technology that we have today. There was most assuredly a lot of grapes and grape juice being wasted in those times or a lot of wine circulating. I think we know the latter conclusion is the correct one.
Tom M. Contact if you have any questions at powerof33ad2004@yahoo.com

Brian Sap-head and Kelly Bundy of "Rational" Response Squad (a dumb sack of rocks!)

2007-06-30T14:04:00.000-07:00

Concerning the debate conducted on abc, I'd like to applaud both sides for making attempts to present their position as best they could, but I'd like to say that Ray and Kirk failed in answering many questions. Over all, they did a decent job, but I can think of at least 10 apologists for Christianity that could have done a much better job at presenting a case for the existence of the one true God and for the stupidity of atheism, but then again, I can think of better atheistic apologists than the RRS leaders. Perhaps if Ray and Kirk were taking more notes on what RRS was saying they could have rebutted more thoroughly, because there is no way they could remember and thus address all the errors without writing them down. They took a different approach. I think they were more interested in evangelizing than cross examining, as the power of life is the gospel unto salvation. But again, the few methodological errors didn't sink their boat, for the opposition was much weaker not only in its positional arguments, but its methodology as well, plus Ray and Kirk held their own and made many valid and challenging points.
In the beginning of the debate, they said they could prove scientifically the existence of God, which I believe is false and that you can't scientifically prove or disprove either side. Both positions are faiths, but the scientific evidence as well as other forms of evidence lean in favor of the existence of the God as described in the bible. Science supplements, but it does not prove. What is interesting is that most atheists rely on "science" as the source of all knowledge, but yet this idea that all true knowledge needs to be scientifically verifiable, is in itself not scientifically verifiable. They also said they would debate without the use of the bible as the basis. This is dumb though, for the basis of the debate should not be limited to certain proofs that can be given. The simple title was "Does God Exist?" The bible itself is not in essence disqualified from debate as a source for true knowledge, for that is our authority for reason and understanding. If this disqualification were the case, then the atheists "reason" should also be disqualified, because that is their authority. But of course no one buys that. I think the issue is more of which authority comports with reality and which does not, because obviously one persons worldview is not really in line with reality. To tote "rationalism" really means nothing unless it really is true. Biblical truth is true rationality understood rightly. They (at RRS) are a squad and they sure like to respond a whole lot, but they are far from rational. I'd like to define the term "fundamental," for it seems they mean it in a derogatory way, as in some sort of whacky narrow minded bigot who is for taking away others inalienable rights. I take the title as a compliment though. All fundamental means is that we hold to the fundamentals of that particular world and life view. They too are fundamentals to atheism/agnosticism (perhaps they are nominal, who knows). So, when you call me a "fundie," i say thanks for labeling me as orthodox, and recognizing that i have a higher authority above myself. With that said I'm going to attempt to show the flaws in the RRS's logic and thinking. I had to pause about every other sentence they spoke literally, because there were so many errors and fallacies of logic. I am not interested in pointing out the flaws in some of Ray's and Kirk's arguments as there were a few, but much much fewer than the RRS. Since I am a Christian, I will address the atheists. Those clips in the beginning with the evangelists getting attacked were taken out of context. If you see the whole clip, that one guy got smacked because he said that the long blond haired guy didn't have an extra Y chromosome. That man was out of control, plain and simple. As for the blasphemy challenge retardedness, it is apparent that these atheists have not read the bible as they claim they have (in its entirety that is), because they are wasting their time not even blaspheming the Holy Spirit. It's pretty sad really. They don't even know what it means to blaspheme the Holy Spirit. Anyway, the first thing Brian said that I will respond to is concerning his response to Ray about watches and watchmakers, paintings and painters. He said "we can go and call the painters and watchmakers, but we can't call God." To this I say, ok, but we can't call dead painters and authors from hundreds, perhaps thousands of years ago. He gave a weak response that just boomerangs back on him. He accepts many, many things by faith, like the existence of certain historical figures. Besides all this, the point is that if he saw a painting, he wouldn't even need to call the painter to verify anything, the painting is evidence enough, in fact the painting itself is better evidence than calling a painter. By the way, this argument should be refined by saying "time, space, and matter = time, space, and matter maker, and not to say "creation," as it seems to beg the question symantically about what a "creation" is exactly. Next he brings up Hitler and talks about how he, being as horrible a murderer that he was can go to heaven if he simply believes that Jesus is the Messiah and God. But, he would know this was not true if he actually read his bible. The bible says that faith without deeds is dead, and that the devil's (fallen angels) believe, but they tremble because they are damned and they know it. What is needed to be found a child of God when one dies, is to be made spiritually alive or "born from above," which is something that only God can do to you, when you repent and believe, upon which you will do good works because your nature is changed and you desire is to please God. All these examples of hypocrites in the church only verify the truthfulness of the bible, for it says there will always be weeds among the wheat, or unconverted spiritually dead people right along side the true Christians who have been supernaturally transformed. > If you are professing to be a Christian, keep in mind that hypocrites will not enter the kingdom of heaven. In 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul says to "examine yourselves," "to make sure you are in the faith," because there are many false converts out there. Matthew 7: 19- 23 leaves some very sobering words for church goers, because the people in this passage are calling him Lord and doing things in his name and yet they are cast into hell. These people were only thinking they were Christians. I can call myself Wolverine all day long, but that doesn't make it so. The problem is, is that many have been given a false gospel and a false Jesus and a false Christianity and ultimately a false hope and a false conversion. You see, the thing is, is that there is no such thing as a good person. The same God that would forgive Hitler, is the same God that would forgive you of your multitudes of sins. Everyone most assuredly has a huge rap sheet of crimes against God. If you are 20 years old and sinned only 3 sins a day, that is 20,000 crimes. The police would be all over you if you had committed even 20 crimes. Now, the "nice" little grandma atheist who bakes sugar cookies for people will go to hell if she doesn't turn in repentance to Jesus as her only hope, but Hitler will go to a worse hell. The bible does mention degrees of punishment in hell, just as there are differing rewards in heaven for the way one lived as a true child of God. Sure, there are schisters out there scamming money and having affairs and what not, but hypocrites are warned in the bible as I've said. The church is not immune from such negative infiltration. It also should be pointed out that Christians, though regenerated, still have to battle the flesh. You will not find halo's of perfect-ness around any Christian, nor should you expect them.

Next Brian says "How can you walk a mile not taking one step at a time," in reference to evolution. –

But this is assuming there is a mile that has been traveled. His little parallel didn't work the analogous lines. And another thing, is that analogies are only meant to clarify something you are talking about. They are not offered as proofs themselves, and he seemed to present the pseudo analogy as the proof and pudding. They were just listing assertions of different branches of science as supporting them and it meant nothing. Anybody can start naming different branches of science and say they are on their side. Let's deal with SPECIFIC arguments, not rhetorical sidestepping.
Next was the bit on the historicity involved with similar "savior gods."

Much of these Greek "gods" only have hyroglyphics and other such small writings to tell about them. They are truly mythological with their crazy 10,000 eyes and ears type of stuff. People use the existence of such "deities" that sound similar in description to Christianity and say "see, Christianity is not original, they stole their ideas off other religions." Let us remember that Christianity is the flower of the bud of Judaism and Judaism goes back to the beginning of human history. The assumption more easily goes the other way around, that other religions got their ideas from Judaism and Christianity and that is why they sound like them. Even if they didn't copy Christianity or Judaism, it is a logical fallacy to say that this alone means that The "non-original" religion is not true simply because its not new or because other pre dating religions seem to have similar stories. Please read a respectable history book!

Next on the chopping block is the bit on atheist communism. If its not christianity, then don't tell me about the atrocities, because that would help my position, because anything that is not the religion God established (one and true), is irrelevant (law of non-contradiction). You do not judge christianity based on its practitioners, but on the founder of the religion and the authoritorial text the religion mirrors. I would not judge colombine highschool as being a lousy or dangerous school because a couple students went ballistic. The bible has a name for these people that smear the name of christianity. They are called pretenders or hypocrites, and romanists, who were responsible for some of the crusades are not even christian. Also, for the record, some of the inquisition activities performed by the catholics were out of self defense as they were being attacked by muslims. By the way, Islam, if you have at all studied the Quaran and the Hadith's, you'll quickly see not only the warrant, but the mandate to do such things for Allah, as commanded by his prophet Mohammed. Such things as murder innocent people simply for not believing as they do. You judge a religion based on its founder and its orthodox teachings as supported by the founder. When muslims kill others, it is in OBEDIENCE to their creedo and in accordance with their founder. When christians kill in the name of God, they prove to not be christians at all (or confused rebellious ones), for they do it in DISOBEDIENCE to the founder's teachings. Those examples listed as well as others are God's divine judgment exercised through the use of men. It was not because they refused to become converts, but because they were wicked. Let's not forget that God executed judgement on His own followers just as much throughout history when they rebelled against Him. God eventually executes every human being through death, some sooner than later, some through heart attacks, some through other means. Koukl comments:
The problem is not religious dogmatics, but religious error. The problem with Muslim terrorists is not fundamentalism, but that their fundamental beliefs are simply false. Many "religious" crimes have been misconstrued or greatly exaggerated. Many conflicts that appear at first glance to be religious in nature are actually political or cultural wars that divide along religious lines. The strife in Northern Ireland is not a theological dispute about Catholicism vs. Protestantism per se, but rather a cultural power struggle between two groups of people. In like manner, much of the conflict in Eastern Europe and the Middle East is the result of ethnic hostilities, not genuine religious differences.

The Crusades, the Inquisition, some of the religious wars of the Reformation, and the Salem witch trials, on the other hand, were more theological. Even so, the record is not as grim as many make it.
Thousands of witches were not burned at the stake. The Salem witch trials resulted in only nineteen executions before it was stopped by Christians. The Spanish Inquisition involved thousands and the Crusades tens of thousands, not millions.
Of course, it's tragic when even a handful of innocent lives are taken. Injustice isn't justified because the numbers diminish. But an accurate accounting does serve to put things in perspective, especially when one considers the alternative: Has atheism fared better?
The simple fact of history is that the greatest evil has always resulted from denial of God, not pursuit of Him. Dennis Prager has noted, "In this [20th] century alone, more innocent people have been murdered, tortured, and enslaved by secular ideologies, and communism than by all religions in history."
Grab an older copy of the Guinness Book of World Records and turn to the category "Judicial," sub-heading "Crimes: Mass Killings." You'll find that carnage of unimaginable proportions resulted not from religion, but from institutionalized atheism.
Guinness reports, "The greatest massacre ever imputed by the government of one sovereign against another is the 26.3 million Chinese killed during the regime of Mao Zedong between 1949 and May 1965. The Walker Report published by the U.S. Senate Committee of the Judiciary in July 1971 placed...the total death toll in China since 1949 between 32.25 and 61.7 million."
In the USSR, Nobel Prize winner Alexander Solzhenitsyn estimated that state repression and terrorism took over 66 million lives from 1917 to 1959 under Lenin, Stalin and Khrushchev.
The worst per capita genocide happened in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. According to Guinness, "More than one third of the eight million Khmers were killed between April 17, 1975 and January 1979."
The greatest evil does not result from people zealous for God. It results when people are convinced there is no God to whom they must answer.
The third problem, one often overlooked is captured in a question: Is oppression and bloodshed either a religious duty of Christianity or a logical application of the teachings of Christ? If not, then violence done in the name of Christ cannot be laid at His door.
Imagine yourself a builder who sent out crews with detailed, written instructions for their work. Instead of building, though, they destroyed. Would you be responsible? That would depend on one thing: the written instructions.
One can't hold Christianity responsible when so-called Christians violate the written instructions. The fault is not with Christ, but with people who disobey Him.
Jesus was quite clear on this: "If you love Me, you will keep My commandments" (John 14:15). His command to love extended even to one's enemy (Luke 10:29-37).
The Apostle John reflects the same view: "By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: Anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother" (1 John 3:10).
Nothing in Christian teaching itself mandates forcible conversion to the faith or coerced adherence to Biblical doctrines. The teachings of Christ do not lead logically to wanton bloodshed.
The actual track record for genuine disciples of Jesus Christ, those who follow the written instructions is much different. Two Biblical teachings have made Christianity the greatest force for good in the history of the world.
First is the teaching that God reigns over a moral universe He created. He requires virtuous behavior from His subjects and will one day judge each person's conduct with perfect justice.
Second, Christian morality is informed by the notion that human beings are made in the image of God and therefore have transcendent value. This has been the foundation for Christian ethics for 2,000 years.
Love for Christ and a desire to obey Him has transformed the world in four areas: education, human rights, acts of mercy, and general moral transformation of culture.

Next thing, I want to respond concerning that irate lady asking the question about cancer. She was not communicating her question too well and that is why Ray thought she was concerned about the "problem" of pain. I knew what she was asking though. To answer, I would say that apart from the potential problems the eye could have, it is still marvelously complex and designed. Her contention was if the body was so greatly designed then how come it is susceptible to disease and breaking down. This is a very poor argument though. A porche 911 is obviously well designed, but it can have flaws and break down. "Evolution" cannot produce complexity from randomness. An eyeball doesn't lose its awesome design just because it sees 20/40 instead of 20/20 or because it is cancer ridden. Her a- priori assumption is that things need to be to her liking or standard of perfection in order for them to be well designed. This list could go on and on. "I don't have unbreakable bones made of atamantium (like Wolverine), therefore my skeletal design is not intelligent." Give me a break (no pun intended). The comic books and the imagination are just another testimony to our complexly designed brains. Brian talked about evolution contributing for the advances in science. Excuse me but, evolution has not helped one shred in the advancement of science. A surgeon doing a heart transplant doesn't care about evolution (or creation for that matter) when he's working. A lab tech working on research and development for antibiotics could really care less about how he thinks or others think we came to "evolve." When Christians say "God did it," they are saying the "who" part, not the "how" part. This is not intellectual laziness, it is praise. When I look at the sky, and say "God did it, its so big and beautiful and amazing," it is true, just as an atheist might look at the sky and say "what a beautiful day and pretty sky." An atheist or a theist who is not an inquiring type or a meteorologist may not care to find out the composition of our sky or the reasons for its color, etc. But, when either a theist or an atheist researcher or scientist does care to find out, neither address the who or what (as in origin), they address the how. Scientific inquiry is the same for both sides, but only the conclusions for the ultimate "how" reflection differ, which are both based on presuppositions, and not science.

One last point for this post because its already long (I'll make a part 2, and 3 or how ever many I need to rebut all the errors of the "rational" response squad. Brian made the point that "everyone is born an atheist," or that Christians are atheist towards all the other "gods." He, and many other atheists have not thought this line of reasoning out too well though. To this I respond: I am not an atheist, I am just not a polytheist, by not believing in other gods. I am not an atheist by not believing in the tea pot in outer space or the flying spaghetti monster (although I did touch his noodly appendage in my dream). Atheist, monotheist, polytheist. (none, one, multiple). Atheism is indeed a very organized religion, with a headquarters and all. Now the term atheist as far as i understand means "a" no "theo" god (no god), so with an ism on the end, and it becomes the belief that there is no god. It is also not simply just that there is not enough evidence you have seen to prove God's existence. Atheism makes the positive affirmation that no God exists. Babies don't muse on such things because they have no knowledge concerning it. To be ignorant concerning something doesn't mean you have a positive case against that something (like atheists do), so no, babies are not atheists. The same goes for theism, no baby is a theist either. No positive case for the existence of God will be, until the child gets the ability and the information to assess. It is not that atheists just lack belief, they have the belief that God doesn't exist. I think the reason atheists have a problem accepting this fact of belief in their lives and the fact that they are religious is because they have coaxed themselves into thinking its bad to "believe" things, or to have "faith" in things, or to be "religious." These things do not mean one does not have reason or evidence for believing or having faith by default. The biblical definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." If you want to use the word "religion" as if it is in another category to be looked down upon, fine, then I can just as easily say I follow Christian philosophy. They are all religious and all philosophic, but only one is correct, and the rest are false. Again, of course falsity produces bloodshed and mayhem, while only truth sets free.
Until the next time….

--Part 2 of RRS refutation:
Using the 10 commandments are a way of displaying the fact that morals show the absurdity of the atheistic point of view. They rejected the use of the 10 commandments, but they were useful for the debate topic, even if they didn't think so.
God, by definition is uncreated. Brian made the dumb point about "who created God? Was it Gods, god, and god's gods' god." If God was created He wouldn't be God, in the same way that you cannot draw a square triangle. By definition, if you have a 4 sided triangle, it is no longer a triangle, and if God is created, He is not God. We know about the created order of our universe according to the 1st law of thermodynamics. The self existant God in relation to the created universe is an answer Brian may not like, but makes plenty of sense.
Sapient shows how ignorant he is when he talks of snake biology and that snakes have the remnant legs of long ago. These "legs" are actually claws that help stabilize the snake during mating. That is their use and function. I bet he's one of those idiots that would claim that whales once walked on land as well. As far as his comments on the reverse reflection of the lens in our eye, I would say that the fact that our brain is advanced enough to flip the image around so that we see right side up, first of all erases any possibility of objecting to poor design because the simple fact is, that we don't have to consciously fight to see right side up. It happens automatically. It still works beautifully. We don't need to go to the doctor to get that corrected. Secondly, I think it shows even more complexity of design in our brains as I have said, that we flip the visual image without even thinking about it. His objection to men having nipples is useless because even if they are just ornaments, they aren't hurting anything. Who are you Brian, to say what should be on the body and what shouldn't. If you want to talk evolutionary mythology, why the heck do we have any organs? "(atheist) Well, we need the stomach to help digest food ingested." Ok, but why did that happen according to evolutionary thinking. Shouldn't the organism stayed as simple and self efficient as possible? If we came from the cosmic stew, why not stay put, since we were doing just fine there. Why develop lungs, when our gills were doing just fine in our underwater habitat. Even though there are way more problems with "evolution," this is one. Next, Brian said that religion has contributed nothing to scientific advancement which is rediculous. First of all, the Christian worldview provides the preconditions for logic, learning, science etc. Atheism provides no reason for accepting what all of our reasoning takes for granted initially. Atheism offers no basis for the uniformity of nature and deductive reasoning. Probability based on the past successes doesn't work for proving any uniformity for the future according to random chance mutations. Which worldview lays the proper foundation for experience as counting for any proof in regards to unexamined future cases. Certainly not the chance model of impersonal matter. "Molecules in motion" provides no philosophical starting point for accepting learning as even a possibility, let alone the supposed things that are "learned," and certainly things such as "laws" or "rules" of science cannot be accepted because no such things can truly exist as having any true truth. The naturalist will claim only material proofs as acceptable, and not supernatural, but then will mock the idea of a book (natural item) as proof of God, written by people (natural). Then when they say if God would point His big finger through the clouds and pull the roof off of the building, then they'd believe, they will on the flip side say that you can't empirically prove the supernatural, because science deals only with the natural. "Provisional truth" in science as they call it sometimes, is dumb, as they pride themselves in this on-going changing process called "science." That's just what Kelly did, is pride herself in the fact that scientific conclusions are continually proven wrong and revamped. Surely we know, that as people, we are going to make mistakes in scientific inquiry, but that is nothing to brag about. If they must brag, it should be in the things we have found out for sure. Scientific inquiry is the same for the theist and the atheist as I explained in the last post. She downplayed the bible because it is "dogmatic," but yet she is dogmatic about how we shouldn't be dogmatic. You see, the problem is not dogmatism, but rather is your dogmatism correct. It appears that they try to rouse the emotions of some nobility in their "progress" of thought and create some sort of antithesis that doesn't exist so you will look down on the person who accepts a diety who defines certain things in black and white. The fallacy of equivocation and that of the strawman form have been exercised here. Additionally, to say I have to empirically prove the bible to be true in every point in order for you to accept its truth is contradictory because you accept your lame theories when you know that they are faulty. Empirically prove the "big bang." Ya, that's what I thought. Secondly, concerning the bit Brian said about religion not offering things to scientific knowledge, is that it is not necessarily supposed to, so quit supposing that religion is lacking value because it doesn't address your concerns on physics. The bible is not a science textbook for one. Nothing from the religious ideation of atheism has provided anything for the advancement of scientific knowledge either, nor would I expect it to. For the record though, even though the bible is not a science textbook, it does have many scientific claims that, because of its wisdom, has advanced our understanding of the universe that otherwise would perhaps still be undiscovered. For example: • Psalm 8:8: "And the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the seas." What does the Bible mean by "paths" of the seas? The sea is just a huge mass of water, how then could it have "paths?" Man discovered the existence of ocean currents in the 1850's, but the Bible declared the science of oceanography 2,800 years ago. Matthew Maury (1806- 1873) is considered to be the father of oceanography. He was bedridden during a serious illness and asked his son to read a portion of the Bible to him. While listening, he noticed the expression "paths of the sea." Upon his recovery, Maury took God at His word and went looking for these paths. His book on oceanography is still considered a basic text on the subject and is still used in universities.
There are many more examples like this on www.livingwaters.com/various/science/
Christianity laid the seedbed for much of modern science. Archaeology, etc. verifies and vindicates it. Let's see: Boyle, Copernicus, Johann Kepler, Renee' Descartes, Pascal, Archimides, Tycho, Galileo, Huygens, Newton, Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren, Faraday, Maxwell, Kelvin, Dalton, Ramsay, Linnaeus, Mendel, Pasteur, Steno, Herschel, and on and on. These guys are true champions of science who were all young earth christian creationists. All the branches of science were historically founded and advanced by creationists, namely christians. We don't fill a void in our understanding by giving up and not trying to figure out the details of our universe. Its just that evolution is not part of science, never has been, never will be. I can debate any evolutionist without the use of the bible. Our origins cannot be proven by science, point blank, plain and simple. I don't know why it is so hard for these people to see the distinction between the discussion of origins from that of science. Epistemology is fairly simple to understand if you study it just a bit. Next, Brian talks about this idea that "science" is contributing things to society and "religion" has not done so. First off, it is people who contribute things. Science is basically "knowledge," by definition. Now, if your talking about the scientific method, then I'd say that it has helped us to come to truth on some issues through experimentation. Scientists (the people most likely advancing knowledge in certain areas) are encouraged in the biblical worldview to do their work of research and learning, so I don't know what Sapient even means to say. Whether a scientist is a Christian or an atheist or a hindu has nothing to do with the matter at hand. Brain also talks about all the wonderful things that atheists have done or do, and that's great if they are (though I call the bluff since I've never seen an outreach program for starving people started by them, or an atheist hospital, etc.). Like i said, I encourage their humanitarian efforts, if in fact they are engaged, but what I want to know is, on what basis do they think they, or anyone else should do those "nice" things, based on their worldview. Brian talked about being a good person, yet he has no basis to speak of what is good or not good. That is just his subjective way of looking at it, given his stance. He again claimed to "just lack faith," basically calling himself an agnostic, and then has a problem with Ray saying that he doesn't exist as an atheist.

At this point Brian turned it over to Kelly, who was supposed to be the "scientific" one, but she didn't give any scientific evidence for anything. She sounded like a complete ditz with her little turn on the light switch magic bit. She doesn't seem to understand that her presuppositions are what makes her think that any supernatural involvement in a natural world is magic, but by her own method of looking at this, she would have to put herself in the "magic" boat. Let me explain just one reason why:
Cosmology, not to be mistaken for cosmetology, is the study of the cosmos, or the universe and how it came to be. There's a question i must ask at the outset: Is it possible for us to count to infinity? 1,2, 100, a quintillion 1, a quintillion 20, etc. Will i live for "an" eternity, or will i live for eternity. The
distinction there is to show that eternity is not a
unit, so there is no "an." It (eternity) is
inexhaustible, so the answer is, i'll never be able to
complete that count to an eternity no matter how many
numbers i stack on top of one another. Moving from
this point in time (now) forward into the future, we
can't get to an actual infinite of events by adding
one to another to another.... If we cannot reach
forward into eternity and accomplish an actual end of
infinity, then we can't do it backwards in time
either, because if the universe is infinitely old,
then this particular point in time that we're at right
now, would be the completion of an infinite count of
past events. But you can't complete an infinite count
of events, therefore, the history of the universe
cannot contain an infinite number of events. The
universe MUST have had a cause and a beginning. The
past cannot be infinitely long if we are in the
present moment. If the universe had a cause, there must have
been a "causer" or one to cause it, thus God. Or if
there was a big bang (which there wasn't) there must
have been a "big banger," or else what caused it or
what was before it. And we go back and back and back,
but we know we have to stop somewhere because there
has to be a first cause.
Kelly said that Ray must take her to God's universe factory in order for it to be scientific information concerning the universes origin. Well, Ms. Kelly, please take me to your big-bang factory. Surely there must be perhaps some smaller bangs of less dense matter going on somewhere. True science teaches that life cannot come from non-life. This is called the law of bio-genesis. Big bang theory shows the atheist is much more mystical than the theist ever was. Everything we know is not observational, testable, etc. We cannot test emotions except through the person experiencing them. These are subjective truths. The internalized truth is still true and real however. We know things through historical record, which obviously we are not able to test and see and observe. The existence of thoughts cannot be proven scientifically, nor the existence of morals. Don't say that we can see brainwaves on a machine as seeing thoughts, for that is just a mechanism or medium and not a thought itself. All brainwaves show are communication from brain to the rest of the body. The specific nature or whether it is intelligible communication or not, cannot be shown. There are many things that we derive knowledge from that are not the "empirical" type of data. There are many things in this world that are immaterial. We know that thoughts and morals and emotions and souls exist, even though we can't put them into a test tube. Are you only 60% yourself, or 60% of a human person because you got your arms and legs blown off by a land mine in a war? No, you are still 100% you with just a smaller body. Your soul is the hand inside the glove, animating the biological construction we have to live in. Here's a question: What is the most important thing in life? People will say things like, happiness, faithfulness, love, education, etc. But all these things are immaterial. Interesting, isn't it. So I say that the most important things in life indeed are immaterial, how we live now and the resultant afterlife.
Her next argument has to do with the conscience, and why we should teach our kids if they would already know, seeing that the conscience is "built in." The answer is simply that while we all have a conscience that tells us right from wrong, it can become calloused after much negative influence and ignoring of the conscience. Pretend your conscience were a fire detector. Through repeated ignoring of the alarm, the battery goes dead and no longer goes off. The analogy is a bit weak, but I think you get the point. The thing is, is that I know something about every person alive, and you know what that is? They all feel bad about themselves. They know in the pits of their souls, in the dark corners of their being, that something evil lurks there and they feel guilty. I have a theory as to why everyone feels guilty, and that is that perhaps they are guilty. Is it morally repugnant to torture a baby just for fun? How do you know, and on what basis can you say that, that is in fact true? She might respond "well, what you believe is determined by psychological, environmental, chemical or class conditioning. If that is true, then this belief about beliefs is also the result of such conditioning as well, and is equally worthless. If I was "brainwashed" by Christian moral principles, then she was also brainwashed by other morals. Atheists sometimes say "the only reason you don't kill anyone is because God said not to, I don't kill people because I care about others." Here's the thing: Christians don't murder people because we don't want to hurt people either. It is because God says it is wrong, and also because we don't want to (both). Why are these assumed to be separate. The fact is, is that you (atheist) also think it is wrong b/c God wrote it on your heart, as he did mine (conscience). Being that my spirit was made alive through what the bible talks about as the new birth, I follow God in other areas that some think are benign areas of moral transgression. So, I obey because #1, God says to, and #2, because I no longer feel comfortable doing that which is contrary to God's nature. I delight in following Him. Atheists are known for other such throat slitting, self refuting statements like: "No one can know anything about God, if there even was one." But of course that very statement requires a great deal of knowledge about God to say in the first place. Or, they may say, "We can't know anything with certainty," yet we are supposed to know this statement with certainty. Next thing Kelly said, which really shows her ignorance, that there are different versions of the "10 commandments." Look, Exodus 20, 34, and Deut. 5 are complimentary. She needs to take a course in hermeneutics. She makes mention that we should all know to worship Yahweh if it was in fact written on our hearts (1st commandment). She is missing the fact that everyone does know that God exists, but that people are suppressing that knowledge so that they can live the way they want to mostly. Also, after the fall of man into sin, we have become depraved in our thinking, and that is why there are many false gods. The same is true in breaking all of the other commands of God, being that it is due to our fallen nature. She is also ignorant of the difference between transcendant MORAL laws (you know, the ones written on our hearts) vs. the cultural and ceremonial laws of that time, because she was snide about how we should know if we need to pay attention to laws about mixing different fabrics in our clothing or not. Cultural and ceremonial laws change, but moral laws do not and will never change. Her stupid comment about why morals don't need a moral law giver, as she paralleled that to democracy, saying, we didn't need captain America to come up with democracy for us. You see, the bible makes no sacred/secular dichotomy. Every part of life is spiritual, and God did set up governmental structure in the bible to be instructive to us. That is where our founding fathers got the idea of a republic. Isaiah 33:22 says: "For the LORD is our judge (judicial), the LORD is our lawgiver (legislative), the LORD is our king (executive); it is he who will save us." From Exodus, to Deut., to Judges, to Samuel, Proverbs, and throughout the entire bible, it is riddled with principles for how the government should be run, so you can thank Christianity for the strength of our country, although I am sad to see, that the influence is deteriorating, and will eventually result in our country's downfall, as has partially already been exhibited. Next, Kelly rants about Hitler being a catholic and how 6 million unrepentant jews will go to hell, but Hitler to heaven. I already explained the hypocricy bit in the last post, but aside from this, Catholics are not Christians by doctrine #1, and #2, Hitler was not even a catholic. He just liked to mingle with Rome because of the political hand it could provide him. Hitler was raised in a catholic home, but thats all. Here's a quote from him 14th October, 1941, midday: "I regard Christianity as the most fatal, seductive lie that ever existed."
"The best thing is to let Christianity die a natural death.... " "When understanding of the universe has become widespread... Christian doctrine will be convicted of absurdity." "Christianity has reached the peak of absurdity." "The only way to get rid of Christianity is to allow it to die little by little.... Christianity [is] the liar.... We'll see to it that the Churches cannot spread abroad teachings in conflict with the interests of the State." (p 49-52) There are many other similar things he says that display his disgust for christianity and the bible. He was not a Christian or a catholic period, so quit trying to reconstruct history as if he were. The point of the jews going to hell though is completely fair if they are unrepentant. Just because they went through pain and suffering on earth does not make them any less guilty of their crimes. Suppose we saw a man who robbed a bank 20 years ago, but he has been suffering from severe arthritis and migraine headaches and gout for the past 5 years. Does that mean he is off the hook? No way, the judge needs to give this man justice. Next she claimed that Christians use "guilt and dishonesty to force you into believeing in their God." First, there is no force, and there is no dishonesty, for that is what the bible says, check for yourself. Lastly, if you don't like the fact that the message of the bible sounds condemning or fearful, then I don't want to ever hear you tell your kid not to touch the hot stove because you are putting fear into him. Never tell him to wear his seatbelt by telling him he could get seriously injured if he doesn't, and never tell him where he's being a bad kid and needs to shape up because then you'd be condemning him and putting fear into him. The point of warning someone is not to simply produce fear for the sake of it, but to hopefully get a person to avoid a danger. That is far from dishonesty. Christians know this is not a popular message, but the fact that we are willing to tell you despite how you'll ridicule us and or persecute us, shows that we are genuinely honest to ourselves and you, and that we care for your souls. The last thing she said was that Christians appeal to trickery and emotions, but on the contrary, it is the atheist who does so. Instead of inventing God, have atheists invented non-God? Have they invented atheism to escape some of the frightening implications of God's existence? Maybe, i don't know. This could be an emotional commitment, and I've heard many propagandist type of tricky statements come out of their mouths. Atheists are never consistent, always fallacious, and are usually dry in the department of logic and reason. Last thing on this post is one comment that Brian made, in response to Kirk on the phone when Kirk said he'd pray for him, Brian responded "You pray for me, and I'll think for you." This shows again how he thinks his little snappy comments help him as far as any real argumentation goes. If he thought that through, he'd not have said it. When a Christian prays, they must think about what they are going to pray about, and think all the way through the praying. Until the next time.......

Final round:
Brian's bit about the 1st law of thermodynamics was not addressed successfully the way he thought he did. He still did not explain the origin of the universe. He said that Ray created some God idea to account for the universe, but then said that the 1st law supports the idea that the universe has always existed. That is not what the law states though. It says that matter cannot be created nor destroyed, and mentions nothing of the space/time continuum. Of course it says that things cannot be created or destroyed, for we are finite human beings. Call it begging the question if I presuppose God's existence, but you simultaneously presuppose that God could not have had the hand in creating the universe.
Also Brian doesn't know much about occam's razor. The evidence at hand should produce our reasons to believe what we believe. We don't say that a man with 5 bullet holes in his chest may have died from natural causes or a diabetic fit, because we may find out later by the blood chemistry tests that he died for such reasons. That could be possible, but i think it's pretty obvious he died from the gaping holes in his chest. The simpler answer is the correct way to go. So lets not assume that evolution is true in hopes that one day it may be proven. Let's deal with the data we have now for our conclusions.
Next, Brian slammed on personal testimony as counting as nothing in a debate, yet he puts all his eggs in the science basket, which ultimately has to filter through his brain and other brains which will produce a testimony of the results that person or persons got. So really, he doesn't believe what he said he believes about testimony counting for nothing. Sometimes personal testimony can be the greatest proof. If it is not worthy then what the heck is the point of saying you'd believe if God would pull the roof off your house with his big finger for you to see.
Next, Kelly appeals to society functioning as a reason for morals, and I agree, we do need morals for society to function in any sort of harmony, but I say, according to their worldview, why does society need to function or have harmony. According to a materialistic evolutionary position, reducing the population down to about 0.5 billion would make living conditions the way they need to be, according to some people. Survival of the fittest is the card I pull in order to support executing 5.5 billion people right now. She was just talking about the way things are and not mentioning why. That was not an answer. Whether or not we realize that the cops would get us if we started killing people is irrelevant, as Brian said, but a better question is, should we have cops in the first place. He repeated Kelly's idea that morals are necessary for us to survive as a people, but this is not true according to the evolutionary model. Evolutionary thinking would as I've said, want to make the living conditions better by eliminating low class vermon who need to die, and the elderly don't produce anything, so definitely kill them. There are many other "undesirables" and burdens to society and our world is supposedly overpopulated anyway and the earth is unable to support all of us, so we need to sharpen the gillotene and start lopping heads to remedy this problem. Brian makes an assertion about moral codes coming from some other source than by special revelation from God, yet he gives no evidence. He just simply states it and that's it, and his monkey squad fan club as part of the audience thought that was worthy of applause. I guess intelligent debate is not that important these days anymore. What they forget is that before the penning of the Old Testament texts, God did speak to His people of Israel. The book of Job predates the code of Hammurabi Kelly, so sorry, try again. Not that it would matter if it didn't predate it though. Chronology is not the issue. The point is, is that even if there was some other code of conduct, either written or spoken or otherwise, if it was not from God, then there really is no reason to follow it or expect others to follow it. Different strokes for different folks.
Next, Brian assumes that everyone and every fossil is a transitional form. His proof for this is only an assertion, based on his sad presupposition. Where's the reptile to bird fossil? We ain't got one. A transitional is not a fully formed organism that you can "chunk" in between 2 other fully formed organisms, we need something that is not fully formed that can neither do one function or the other (swim or walk) if these incremental stages actually took place. Where's the fin leg. In fact, we should see a lot of them living today. These weak transitions would never have made it out of transition phase because they wouldn't mate, because they wouldn't become at age enough to do so, but rather would become a meal for some other animal. How could a heart have done its job correctly if its changing from 2 to 3 to 4 chambers. Millions of individuals of millions of species over millions of years should produce billions of examples of transitions, so I'm not impressed with one or 2 false examples. The fossil record showing transitional fossils would be the rule, not the exception if evolution were true. By the way. Fossils don't prove anything. Only that something died. We will never know if it had kids. Stephen Jay Gould understands that the fossil record is an embarrassment to evolution and that is why he came up with the theory of punctuated equilibrium. This is basically him adjusting the evidence to his preconceived ideas. He is essentially saying that the evidence for evolution is that there can't be any evidence for evolution. He's saying that evolution happened in such a way that it couldn't leave evidences in the fossil traces. Is that scientific, or does someone have there mind made up before coming to the table. The gradualism idea of evolution doesn't work either. The law of irreducible complexity exposes this nonsense. Nobody lays a piece of wood down on the floor and says "lets see if this wooden slat will catch mice, nope, lets add a spring and see, nope, how about a piece of cheese, nope (mouse trap). Basically, irreducible complexity shows that with the thousands and quite possibly millions of parts in a certain organ, it could not have come about bit by bit, it had to develop rather quickly or the organism would not live. If one of the thousands of working parts in the eye did not work the whole gelatinous spere is utterly functionless and therefore useless. Not only that, but the principles of "evolution" wouldn't support the idea of making something that for most of the time its being produced, it is inoperable. That would be counterintuitive for the evolution model because that body part is dead weight and will only hurt and not help the survival of the organism. It will use up needed blood supply that could be used elsewhere (it needs blood or it will go necrotic and die), or it will give another possible portal of entry for infection (as with the eye), etc. So, i suppose man was around for millions of years with no ability to see and then one day, whala. Apply this principle to other organs and life is not even a possibility. A living organism is preserved according to its favorable interaction with the organism, that is to say, it must provide some advantage for life.
And there isn't a date stamped on the fossil, like with a coin. Brian and Kelly sidestep defending the challenge of how they know that carbon dating works. Radiometric dating or carbon dating is highly unreliable, and even if it were reliable, it can only date up to roughly 50,000 years through half life configurations anyway. Next, nimnu Brian gets on Kirk's case for being ignorant, when he himself can't understand that if someone believes there is no creator, then there must be a beginning with something or nothing. This is exactly what evolution's sister theory of the big bang holds. They are pretty much Siamese twins, for you can't have one without the other. You've got to be clear on what type of evolution you are talking about. Last time I checked, evolution is much more than biological evolution. Take it back my friend, to chemical evolution, stellar evolution etc. Also, concerning the whole evolution idea, I have pages and pages of devastating material to show how much a brain washed idiot you have to be to buy into this, but I'll resist the temptation, and keep to arguments of this debate as closely as I can. I'll post a separate blog for evolution. With evolution they say we went from order to disorder, and from inorganic to organic. I ask why? Can you please explain that to me? This is contrary to every pattern of reasoning that you'll see in the scientific process and in logic. You can't get more in your product than what you had in the cause. Life cannot be just be a complex version of non life. "You know bricks are non-living, but if you put them in the right complex order, they come to life." And you have a PhD!
Next the evolution must take the jump on the evidence he sees in the diversity of life, and presuppose that after the soup stage of identical life form, it then started to become diverse, for whatever reason, we'll never know. What caused all the life forms to go from non-intelligent to intelligent, from inarticulate to articulate, from amoral to moral, etc. The best refutation of the theory of evolution is to simply repeat it out loud. Just say what it is and you refute it. This is true because often you're only given a small slice of what it is, and evolutionists love to cheat on you by changing the subject and then equivocate on the word. When you ask for evidence they may give you evidence of change within a life form.
Next, we see that again Brian and Kelly pride themselves that everything they believed as fact in science, that was changed because it was simply wrong, or not fact, is a noble thing. I don't know how they can be so dogmatic about their supposed "facts" when they have been proven wrong so often that it is disgusting. What else is disgusting, is how they have their propagandist type edited clip on their website, instead of giving something more in context. They are dishonest liars who have no shame and no integrity.
Next, Kelly misunderstands the point again, back on the fossils bit, that if we transitioned little by little over millions of years, then why is it that every fossil we find, is something that is found on the planet living today. The transitions were supposedly transitioning from something to something. If there was a purpose in mind, a direction from starting point "A" to now at point "P," and we actually find ourselves at whatever "P" is, where are the fossils of B-O?
Next, Kelly tries to say that Jesus probably didn't even exist. This form of arbitrariness is ignorant conjecture. People can make a lot of arguments that sound pretty elaborate and convincing, but when pressed for their foundation for that, you may find that they really don't know much of what they are talking about. The problem is, is a lot of atheists are lazy and they surf sites or clubs which pool in said ignorance and they just parrot off whatever is funny, snappy, or sounds witty to them, but it ends up doing the opposite for their case, because they are only doing an excellent job of refuting a phantom position that no Christian holds, or they come up with bizarre conclusion that even pagan scholars and philosophers mock.. An example of this is that people seem to assume that the bible we have in our hands today can't be true to the original text. There is all sorts of skepticism about original authors, and the phone game bull, etc. At this point we need to say that what they are relying on here is ignorant conjecture. This assumption is based not on evidence, but prejudice. "For all you know some monk wrote this," they may say. Ok, but what literary evidence do you have for that claim. You can't refute me by a possibility or conjecture. They may say, "I imagine the text must have been changed." Well, I'm sorry, but your imagination has no authority. I could say with equal arbitrariness, if you want to play the arbitrary game that the words of Paul were actually written by Isaiah, and Paul signed them. I don't have any evidence for this, nor do I believe it, but if you can say it was developed after him, I can say it developed before. If the opponent says "you're just playing games with me." I'd just say, "I learned this game from you." If we don't need evidence, why don't we make up our own reality. This is usually a sign they haven't read about the subject, say, textual criticism, when they say things like that.
The book in the Barnes and Noble that has the compiled writings of Plato, were not actually written by him. Now did Plato actually write that line in "The Republic." Check the originals. Oh, but we don't have the originals. The earliest manuscripts are of 900 A.D. Plato was around in 350 B.C. The math there is 1250 years after his earth's visit. Professors will hardly blink an eye about the reliability of its accuracy. It is taken for granted, "of course we know what Plato wrote." The gaps in the New Testament documents and the actual events are about 50 years. This is the best attested manuscript from ancient history. Unbelievers will tell you that. That doesn't mean they believe its true or trust in what it says, but they know we are on far better ground in knowing what Paul taught verses what Plato taught. The O.T. reliability was demonstrated by the dead sea scrolls. People do this same sort of prejudice of ignorance when they say things like "We don't even know if Jesus ever lived." Give me a break!
Now, Concerning evil in the world comment they made: God is not an agent of evil, meaning He doesn't do or perform evil, and secondly, he is not responsible for evil in the world, for He's at the top of the "food chain" so to speak. He is God, and doesn't answer for anything, He is the authority of authority. Why did God have evil included as part of His plan? We won't know all the reasons here and now. This is not a cop out because we truly don't know all the reasons. There are many ideas that people have given, that all have pretty decent warrant for concluding, but the main thing I want to say is that, we don't need an answer for this. It is not an argument that God doesn't exist, but perhaps an argument for why you think God is an asshole or whatever negative slur you want to give Him. The simple fact is that God has more than the attribute of love as describing His essence, and secondly, He is in a much better position of defining what love is in the first place, than we will ever be. Who are you, finite man, to speak against God. That's right, step off.
Lastly, Brian's closing comment's as much of the rest of the debate, was delivered off of some script he wrote to help him sound more poetically forceful. He trumpeted reason and logic, both of which are impossible in his worldview. When the atheist says there is no God, no soul, no after-life, there is just matter, that's all there is, I've got to say that if this is the case, then you couldn't know it was the case and couldn't prove it or anything else for that matter. All science rests upon inductive inference. This is basically just a taking of things we have experienced in the past and projecting it into the future. If you stub your toe in the dark, you assume that if you stub your toe again, it will hurt again like it did the first time. All science rests upon the uniformity of nature. All science experiments would be a waste of time if this were not true, because you could learn all you want about chemical reactions on Tuesday, but on Wednesday, that information would be useless to you. Is everything physical in this universe? What about the concepts of classes of things in logic. No, logic is not physical, therefore logic cannot exist in a materialistic world. A material 2 doesn't exist. "I'm going to pull 2 out of the fridge." 2 of what is my question. "Go to the cafeteria and see if they are serving up the laws of logic." The point of saying this is that there can be no class concepts, or deduction for the materialist. Which is to say he cannot even reason. What about the concept of "mind." Your oatmeal above the eyebrows is physical, but is it even possible to say that if a surgeon opened my cranium and did a complex surgical procedure, that he'd in the end be able to say "oh, you were thinking of the star spangled banner weren't you." It is not only not possible, but not even theoretically possible. Synapses have nothing to do with the conceptual content of the mind. Mind can't be reduced to brain, and is not simply an electrical chemical response in the gray matter upstairs. But if this were true that mind is only brain and simply electrical chemical response, then you don't even have control over what you think. If this no mind theory is true, then you have no reason for believing it to be true. This worldview undermines any confidence the atheist could possibly have in their own worldview. They slit their own throat. Their beliefs end up destroying their own beliefs when lived out consistently. Because on your worldview, Mr. atheist, all of your talking about atheism is just the result of electrical chemical responses in your brain. For all we know, the machinery in your head just went wacko. We won't hold you accountable though because its not your fault, you had no options, your brain just cranked out the things that it does and sent the stimulus down to your tongue and made you say the words that you did. Basically, if atheism is true, then there is no reason to believe atheism is true because my brain just does what it does and yours does what it does. If there is no mind, then there is no reason trying to convince me that there is. If the atheist is right, then we don't even need to debate it, because after-all there can be no rules of logic, there are no laws of science, and we don't even have any minds in which to debate in the first place. Any atheist showing up to an atheist debate, proves my position before the debate even starts. Every atheist is on the horns of the moral absolutes dilemma. They are constantly borrowing from the Christian worldview and not owning up to this fact. It's like they are halfway closet Christians. It's like the great Philosopher Van Til said "the unbeliever must sit on the lap of God in order to smack Him in the face (because their arms are only so long).
I want to know how an atheist can tell a person that he ought to be reasonable. Everyone should be able to do anything he/she wants in an atheist universe. On the one hand, you have atheist people who will say that shacking up with his girlfriend is perfectly ok and it makes him happy, so you shouldn't give him flack for that, but on the other hand, he complains about the unrighteous nature and wrongness of the war in Iraq or this problem or that. You can't have it both ways. Subjective demands atheists make for why God doesn't exist because he doesn't do things for him the way he thinks He should, thus concluding that He is not good, will not logically work. Well sir, if you are a good person, why don't you let me sleep with your wife every weekend. Starving kids in Africa doesn't make God evil. Mr. atheist. Are you helping the kids in Africa, or are you evil. The atheist has essentially boarded a plane for Boston, but then wants to get out at Chicago. But, you see, I am not that stupid, I'm going to make sure nobody gets off this plane so they can see where their views take them.
The atheist may say that what I have said here, all looks good on paper theoretically, but it just isn't true in life. They say things to me like "atheists do science and use logic, so I have to reject your philosophical analysis because I see that atheists are not that way." But the truth is, that since you do, do science and have knowledge and logic, and do use moral absolutes, then what that proves is that you do know God in your heart of hearts. What you say with your mouth doesn't reflect what you believe in your heart, otherwise you wouldn't live on borrowed capital as I have explained, using God's reality and world of reason in order to deny His reality. This is called self deception. Paul talks about how the unbeliever suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. Next, Brian talks about how it should be considered child abuse to teach your child irrational things. Well, I guess I'll be the first one to call social services on you for your irrational indoctrination. Hopefully you don't have any kids.
Too sum up everything, as this is the final post addition, Brian Sapient and Kelly just proved to the world that atheists are as irrational and illogical as we always knew they were. We have learned that Kelly is a rude whiny voiced nag with a childish, bitchy attitude, and her male counterpart was about as rude and unprofessional. It's interesting that Brian makes his living off of religion and I can almost guarantee he wouldn't want to give it up. He wants to abolish it so he says, but he wants to keep it because it pays his bills. I am glad they made the spectacle of themselves that they did on national t.v.

The idea behind this bumper sticker is that you basically have to be God in order to disprove God, which is self refuting. In order to make such a universal negative statement like "there is no God," you have to know everything about everything, and to do that you have to be all powerful. Inside our circle of knowledge, we don't even know a massive .1% of all knowledge there is in the universe to know. Given that .1%, in order to be reasonable, you'd have to say that within the 99.9% of all the knowledge you haven't yet come across, there could be ample evidence for God's existence. So really all the person can be is an atheistic agnostic, which is of course reflective of their presumptive bias when they speak so boldly. It's like saying "there are no aliens." In order to prove that, i'd have to be everywhere in the universe, at the same time, for all time. Because, i could go to Jupiter, find no aliens, then leave, and aliens show up. On the other hand all i have to do to prove that aliens exist is to have one land in my backyard and commandeer his ship somehow, or kill one of the aliens. Basically, it is impossible for anyonw to disprove God's existence, but not so to prove His existence, and one of the greatest proofs is that without Him, you couldn't prove anything at all. He is the necessary pre-condition for all intelligibility as i stated earlier. The End.

Birth Control and Celebacy

2007-06-30T13:17:00.000-07:00

The Bible says, "God said, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the Earth and subdue it...." (Genesis 1:28) Some Bible teachers today say that this is conclusive evidence that God is against any kind of birth control. I would suggest this is not the case. There is no doubt God said this, but it needs to be put in context. He had just created Adam and Eve, and if there was ever a time in human history for people to be fruitful and multiply, that was it. The only other time He said that was to Noah and his crew. Is that just coincidental, or do we see a trend here.
Does this command of God apply today? There are two ways to view this question.
First, there is the idea that we have already done a pretty good job of filling the Earth, so the obligation has ended. There are those who are ready to argue that there is still a place at the table for one more child, but inevitably these are people in the Western world where there is plenty to eat. In much of the world people are starving to death, so it is fair to assume we have already "filled the Earth" to it's agricultural and economic capacity (not talking about the open space argument of Hovind). This of course is a debatable point, because of tyrant governments stealing the people’s food, and the wastefulness and excessiveness of flourishing countries, but worth thinking about.
The second way to look at this is to argue that the command still applies to humanity at large because of the need to keep the human race alive. While this may be true, it does not mean the command to be fruitful and multiply applies to each and every individual on the planet. The Apostle Paul recognized this when he taught that it was best for a Christian man not to touch a woman (1 Corinthians 7:2). This idea is directly opposite of the concept of fruitfully multiplying. If this command were universally applicable for all time, then shouldn’t you be telling someone who God has called to be single that he is being sinful because he is not being fruitful and multiplying. According to this line of thinking, you need to pressure all single people to get married and start having those babies earlier so that they can have as many as possible before the biological fertility clock stops. Earlier marriages should be encouraged, as soon as puberty hits.

Every person espousing this view, should have (marital) sex as much as they have time for so that there is the most opportunity for the most pregnancies, and thus most babies. If this rule is transcendent, then this rule also applies when a tyrannical government is oppressing a nation and times are really bleak. “Go on, multiply,” even if your already existing family is starving. And you Chinese Christians who live under the rule of any babies after the 2nd one is to be killed because of population control, you need to ignore that threat because after-all, God commanded you to be fruitful. It wouldn’t be your sin, but theirs if they kill the child, so you must obey. On top of this, what does it really mean to multiply and be fruitful. Could you say that it includes reproducing Christians to the service of God (not necessarily by blood or procreating), and being fruitful in that sense. If this is the case, then you must not stop with having your own kids, but you should also adopt a whole bunch of kids as well. How many? Who knows, for these terms seem a bit ambiguous and subjective anyway. What constitutes fruitfulness? Is multiplying one time fruitful enough? Twice? 10X? 40x? Do you see how ridiculous this belief is when you bring it to its logical end. I guess you’d have to go back to trying to reproduce as much as possible as God’s sovereignty plays out, and read out of context what was being said, and then not have any other application of that verse outside the literal meaning. I can just turn around and say you are being sinful by not adopting a truck load of kids. Perpetual parenthood for everyone, including you grandpa. It is indeed absurd and unbiblical to say that a married couple is sinful if they want to use condoms to prevent pregnancy. You are welcome yourself to hold a personal conviction in that area, and all the more power to you if you want to have 18 kids, but when you start saying it is biblical mandate for all, then you are wrong. Same goes with you saying it is a command to get married in the first place. Where the bible is silent, we are silent, where it speaks, we speak, end of story. There are many things that are freedoms we have to exercise as Christians. Many infertile couples would be in a predicament where they are physically incapable of keeping this command. But there is no such moral command that cannot be kept because of a physical limitation. The bible says that God always provides a way out of a sinful encounter. “Don’t lie, steal, lust, kill, worship false gods, blaspheme, dishonor your parents, etc.” “But pastor, I can’t keep those commands because I have cancer or crippling arthritis.” Do you see how that doesn’t work. The physical limitation doesn’t mean you can’t obey God, and God will never put us in a situation where we have to sin or have no option but to sin. Being infertile would leave us no choice. Women nearing menopause usually have miscarriages. Knowing that, I wouldn’t want to bring a child into this world that will only live a few weeks or months. You may say “but its not sin for that person because they can’t be fruitful.’” But that is a weak way of trying to weasel out of the horns of this logical dilemma. Either it is a moral command, or it was a cultural/ceremonial command for a certain people at a certain time. In the culture of the population-less in history, it was quite obvious why it was commanded. It was absolutely sin and wrong for early Jews to have a tunic made of two or more fabrics weaved together. Today, I’m glad to say that we can wear a cotton and polyester blend with no qualms of conscience. There would be some who would argue that to "be fruitful and multiply" is an obligation of all married couples. But of course the Bible does not teach this. Companionship seems to be as important as procreation according to Genesis 2:18. This idea of companionship is echoed in Ephesians 5:25, 1 Corinthians 7:3, 5 and elsewhere.

God also says in 1Corinthians7 to get married if you burn with lust to remedy that lust through legal sexual pleasure that is sought. Why would God tell someone to get married only for the sake of silencing that sinful passion, by turning it into something pure? Sexuality is a gift, but can only be exercised in the marriage bed. Sex is not just something to encourage us to have kids, but can be enjoyed simply on the merit of the gift of sexuality. Pleasure in eating food is not evil, nor is sex in marriage for the sake of pleasure. They are both gifts. Read Song of Solomon. Intimacy and a parallel reflection of our union to Christ is also another reason for intercourse. Interestingly, the New Testament does not give any command that couples have children. The issue is not brought up in any context. Many contemporary Christians have been brainwashed to believe the focus is on the family. This is not true. The focus of the Bible has always been on Jesus Christ, and following him and He did not command what we have been talking about. Did Jesus share the same views of family as, say, a popular contemporary radio psychologist? Jesus said, "He who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me." (Matthew 10:37). Jesus said, "Everyone who has left houses...or wife or children... for My name's sake, shall receive a hundredfold, and inherit eternal life."(Matthew 19:29) It may very well be the false emphasis on the family by so many churches that is rendering those particular churches impotent in these latter days. Raising children properly is extremely important, but that does not mean the Christian faith should be reduced to a cult of the family. It surely is considered part of ministry to raise kids, but some people have made it sound like parents exclusively have the opportunity to raise up soldiers for Christ and that people who aren’t parents can’t do that. This is ridiculous though. There have been a certain handful of men of God who have impacted my life more than my dad ever did concerning Christ and His teachings. In fact these men impacted thousands upon thousands of people, which they would not have been able to do had they been raising kids their whole life. Compare 12 kids with hundreds and perhaps thousands of people. Lets not forget that you have to teach your kid pretty much everything, and not just ministry things. You have to teach the same thing, but to every new child (how to tie their shoes, how to do mathematics, etc). 5 kids=5 separate sessions on how to tie your shoes until they get it down pat. You have to have bible lessons for each age group to fit their level of understanding. So, you may have to teach 4 different bible lessons in one day, every day. The list goes on and on. If getting married is a moral command, then Jesus was a sinner and so was Paul. The Old Testament has passages about the value of children, such as Psalm 127:4 which says, "Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, So are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them." While this is true for a man who can afford to feed and clothe many children, it was probably more of a statement about the culture at that time rather than a general statement for all times. Children had much more of an economic and strategic role in Old Testament times, and that's one of the reasons polygamy was practiced to generate more of them in a shorter period of time. Wealth and power came from having big families to tend flocks and fight enemies. With this in mind, we can dismiss sentimental ideas about big families. They may be nice for some people, but they certainly don't fulfill any requirement of God.
Why did God kill Onan for spilling his seed on the ground? (Gen. 38:7-10) “But Er, Judah's firstborn, was evil in the sight of the LORD, so the LORD took his life. Then Judah said to Onan, "Go in to your brother's (Er’s) wife, and perform your duty as a brother-in-law to her, and raise up offspring for your brother.” Onan knew that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother's wife, he wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother. But what he did was displeasing in the sight of the LORD; so He took his life also.” The reason God did this is not because Onan wasted his seed on the ground, but because Onan refused to perform his familial duties of producing offspring for his brother's. This was a great offense at the time. Now, we must realize that the culture was very different than ours is today. In that culture, when a man died and left no children, the next of kin was sometimes obligated to "go into" the wife and produce children. These children were then considered to be the descendents of the original late husband and would be raised as such. This way, the offspring would be able to take care of the mother when she got old, provide more people for the community, and thereby raise their own children, continuing the name of that family. Onan knew this and refused to take part in furthering the honor and name of the brother's wife and thereby also risking provision for her in the future. To this, God was very displeased and took Onan's life.

What methods of contraception are acceptable, if any, from a biblical perspective.
If we remove the idea, as I hope i have, that God expects every human on the Earth to reach maximum breeding efficiency, then the question of birth control becomes an important concern.
Before we examine the pros and cons of various methods of birth control, we need to make a general statement about what birth control really is. Birth control, or family planning, is nothing more or less than good Christian stewardship. Generally we tend to think of stewardship only in terms of money, but it extends to all areas of life. Jesus calls us to be good stewards of our resources, and he explains that to us in places like Luke 16. Jesus holds us accountable for all the resources he provides in our life. We show good stewardship when we bring children into this world that we can love, feed and educate. We show bad stewardship when we neglect, through our emotional or financial limitations, the children we bring into the world. If I had 8 kids, I would not be able to have the time to teach them in the quality way I know they need to be taught. According to this logic, people with Downs Syndrome need to get married and have kids as well if this were true. People who abusive and emotionally unstable atheists also need to keep on having those babies, even though they are going to be raised as pagans. As an aside, has anyone ever considered that it would be better to have most of the kids we take care of, to being adopted, so that the souls already here on the planet, get a Godly upbringing, instead of introducing new souls while the rest are neglected and paganized. Back to birth control. Any abortifacients are out of the question because it destroys a human life. Now, Sperm cells alone, egg cells alone, skin cells, red blood cells, are all examples of living cells that are not developing into humans, so please don’t use the unintelligent stance that it follows that if we can’t abort babies, then we must crack down on people who use birth control as well. First off, sperm cells are killed without ejaculation anyway (they don’t just build up and build up), but more importantly, only a fertilized egg is a developing human life. This just happens to be accomplished by a female egg and a male sperm. The mechanism or components are not important, but the resultant entity. This argument is usually used by pro-choicers, but it applies here as well. Next, there are a bunch of different pills that prevent union of sperm and egg, but can cause side effects that can damage the users health, and so for the most part, I am against the idea of using those as well. The apostle Paul says that everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial, and so I’m not sure that I could say it is immoral to use those birth control pills, however it is my personal conviction that it is wrong and so therefore I will not violate my conscience by allowing or asking my wife to take such pills. This narrows the scope to very few birth control methods left available (male condoms, female condoms, foams, jellies, and a few others).
Condoms were one of the first attempts at barrier contraception and were first made of sheep intestine according to early Egyptian history. So yes, condoms have been around throughout biblical history.
Sometimes children are conceived no matter what steps we take (God can put sharp teeth on the sperm to rip through the condom, ha ha). In such cases we should accept them as a special gift from God. The attitude about having unplanned children should always be one of thanksgiving to God, for He is sovereign and wanted the child to come into the world through the means of certain parents. And once children are conceived, they should always be viewed as the blessings that they are. I agree with the idea that certain people are being sinfully greedy and that is perhaps keeping them from wanting to get married or to have children once married, but the unmarried state or status of not being a parent or limiting # of kids is not inherently wrong or sinful, it is the greed, etc. It is possible for one to (like Paul) not have those desires to get married or have children for reasons that are not sinful. You are sinning everyday according to this dumb thinking because you are not married yet. It’s been really sad to see some people in their gullibility be brought to the point of walking down cult road and like dominos, accepting one new false teaching after another. This article deals with birth control, but as you can see it all applies to your marriage concept because if you aren’t married, you can’t start producing babies, so the arguments hit 2 birds with one rock in a way. As far as it not being good for man to be alone verse, look at the context. Sexual intercourse is how we reproduce. Adam was not laying eggs that had other dudes being born in them. I’d be pretty lonely if I had nothing but animals to converse with as well. But if I had other human contact as in friends, I would not feel alone. The verse “a man who finds a wife finds a good thing,” no doubt, but that shows nothing for saying there is a command to get married. It might show that you have a weak basis for your belief because you are using a composite of verses that even when added up, don’t produce any stronger of an argument. If any of you have any other SCRIPTURES and/or commentary to those scriptures to support this idea I’ve refuted, let me know.

Political Un-Correctness (response to a friend)

2007-06-30T12:05:00.000-07:00

This is a response I got to one of my posts on evolution. My friend thought I was wrong in my approach, and left the following statements to which I respond below that. His words are in brackets:

[[[[[[[[[[[[[ Using the term "retarded" as a slur to refer to somone who doesn't hold the same position as you is not only ignorant but highly unchristian.

i have a mentally retarded second cousin and i'm sure you know, or are even close to, someone with a similar condition. using the term in a derrogatory fashion is not cool.

again, your message (which may be legit) is lost due to poor delivery.]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]]

Dan, dan, dan… I appreciate your challenge, but once again you are wrong. In fact, you are not the first one to being this up, so I figured I'd take the time to turn my response into yet another blog. Many Believers today are constantly worried about how people will portray their language, tone, or expressions, rather than their message they are trying to reveal! Actually the term "retarded," when applied to a person just means that they are stupid, obtuse, slowed, or ineffective in some way (not even particularly in the brain). They are impeded or slow in their thinking as I applied it. "Retard" is not a person, it is a condition applied to a thing, and it can be applied in all sorts of levels. Check your English lexicons for the etymology. People with down's, etc. don't own the word, ok. The slur we all know of is not something I applied to certain peoples you are talking about. It seems if anything, you are using the term as applied to them in a derogatory fashion, because you brought them up. You also seem to be misplacing the target that is being hit by my words. I am not slamming the mentally retarded person. We wouldn't expect them to operate on the level of people who are not mentally deficient. I am OBVIOUSLY slamming the person who ought to be sharper, who is like the one who cannot help it. According to your logic, I shouldn't say someone is acting like a baby, because that would be derogatory towards babies. NO, we expect babies to act like babies, but not grown adults. You're right, I know a few people who have retarded brain transmission, but I don't have a problem using the word because I understand the condition, and it is true that they line up with the definition of what the word means. I can even say "retarded" within the confines of a medical discussion and not have to worry about looking over my shoulder to make sure no retarded people are around. The problem is you in your understanding of the word. I am not saying "Johnny was born with a prolapsed cord situation for over 3 minutes (lack of O2) and now he's a freaking idiot (my brother had this happen to him). That you could say would be a bit out of line to say, especially if he were in ear shot. Anyway, I think you get the point. As far as something being lost in my blog due to what you think is poor delivery is not only subjective, but intellectually weak. You should accept or reject things due to the content being strong or weak in argumentation, not the tone of the presenter. This is like you having a problem with a person who throws an occasional ad hominem out there, by in turn throwing one yourself and then rejecting it on the basis of it. Seriously, you can do better than that. You call me ignorant and unchristian-like, fine, I'm not going to get my pants in a bunch. Water off of a duck to me, but how about you substantiating your claims. That's what I have a problem with. People open their mouths who have no idea what they are talking about. Now, to show why you are wrong in your idea of what Christianity says concerning argumentum ad ridiculum:

Our Church fathers would have never guessed that Christian's are stooping down to the level of calling anything that even looks offensive, as Sin. But as you probably know, "Modern-church-people" are quite backwards. To hurt someone's feelings is now a Sin, and compromising doctrine is just a matter of saying " that's your interpretation." I hope to show you that our postmodern society's influence on the church is anti-christian. The Church must not fall into this "touchy-winey" crap, lest she be tossed to and fro by the whim's of the world. God is my first example for using Humor, Ridicule, and Scorn in the Bible. God is harsh with believers as well as unbelievers...unlike modern Christianity portrays...
To the Unbelievers:
Psalms 2:4 = (vs.1 context) Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a stupid thing? (vs.4) He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh (to laugh mockingly): the Lord shall have them in derision.
Psalms 37:13 = (vs.12 context) The wicked plotteth against the just, and gnasheth upon him with his teeth. (vs.13) The Lord shall mock at him: for he seeth that his day is coming!
Psalms 59:8 = ...But thou, O LORD, shalt laugh at them; thou shalt have all the heathen in derision.
Mat 23 = When confronted with False religious leaders, Jesus scorned the crap out of them...which eventually led to His assassination. Jesus wasn't some feminine hair-dresser from San-Francisco, that said sweet sentimental things all the time...He was tough...Why else would they Kill Him?

To Believers:
Mat 15:16-17 = (vs.15 context) Peter said, "Explain the parable to us."
16"Are you still so dull (stupid)?" Jesus asked them. 17"Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body?

Note: Some people may say, "well that is God...we don't have to or can't follow everything that God does." So in order to be consistent, I have dedicated the remainder of this post to the Prophets and Apostles.
Prophets:

To the Unbelievers:
Mat 3:7-10 (John the Baptist)= But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to where he was baptizing, he said to them: "You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? 8Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. 9And do not think you can say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. 10The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.
1 Kings 18:27 = (vs.17 context) When he saw Elijah, he said to him, "Is that you, you troubler of Israel?" (vs.27) At noon Elijah began to taunt them. "Shout louder!" he said. "Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened." He was making fun of their false idea of gods.
Jer 10:8 = They (unbelievers) are all senseless and foolish; they are taught by worthless wooden idols. (which they made with their own hands)
Prov 1:25-26 = since you ignored all my advice and would not accept my rebuke, 26 I in turn will laugh at your disaster; I will mock when calamity overtakes you...
Amos 4:1 = Hear this word, you cows of Bashan on Mount Samaria, you women who oppress the poor and crush the needy and say to your husbands, "Bring us some drinks!" I personally find that one pretty humorous (calling these women fat and greedy leaches).

Apostles:
To Believers:
Gal 3:1 = O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified?
Gal 2:11-13 (Paul calls Peter a Hypocrite) = 11 Now when Peter had come to Antioch, I withstood him to his face, because he was to be blamed; 12 for before certain men came from James, he would eat with the Gentiles; but when they came, he withdrew and separated himself, fearing those who were of the circumcision. 13 And the rest of the Jews also played the hypocrite with him, so that even Barnabas was carried away with their hypocrisy.
To Unbelievers:
Titus 1:12-13 (Paul accepts the stereotype of the Cretan people)= One of them, a prophet of their own, said, "Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy gluttons." 13 This testimony is true. Therefore rebuke them sharply, that they may be sound in the faith."
This small collection of verses to support the Bible's use of Humor, Scorn, and Ridicule. As I have noted before, this post-modern society we live in today has rubbed up on Christians to the point that political correctness reigns supreme! Political Correctness is the Dominant Heresy of our day. Politically correct people make it look as if mocking unbelief and defending the Faith is Sin. Why has the Church fallen into this Heresy? It's this bull crap political "correctness" of non confrontationalism, and then gossip behind each others backs that we see. The truth is, is that this may be political in nature, but it is not correct, so let's drop the C in PC. This is academically low to deal with people this way. Why is the "Church" foaming with Ecumenical ooze? They talk about speaking the truth in Love, and walk around saying stuff like, "Judge not, lest ye be judged(Mat 7:1)," as if that is supposed to shut up everything. " Judge not, least ye be judged," in context, is speaking of a person who is living as a hypocrite. For example, if someone was living in adultery, he should not judge another person doing the same exact thing, and the word judge is also a harsh condemnation of such an act, taken from the Greek language. So one person who has just committed adultery could go and advise another person not to commit adultery and tell him of the horrible consequences if he did. It's a warning so to speak, not a condemnation. So next time a person is about to jump into a shark infested water and another dude says "Don't jump in dude, you're going to get ate up stupid!" Why don't you just say "Don't judge him, you don't know him!" That's retarded right!" But if a dude who just committed adultery yesterday and sees a guy commit it today and says "you evil man, you're going to hell, I cant believe you did that to your wife." Then that guy is wrong…. If we cannot judge, then how could we ever say what Hitler was wrong in killing 6 million Jews? We would have no standard, no morals. The only way we can say Hitler was wrong is because God said not to, Likewise, if God said you must do this, this and this to be saved and as a result, this, this and this would happen if you are born again, then by the very same principle all Christians say to the unregenerate, or (ones not born again) that they are wrong, using scripture as their authority, when these things aren't happening or aren't apparent, and as a result are headed for Hell. God also said not to throw pearls before swine (or pigs) only 5 verses down from this judge not verse in Matthew 7:6! Which basically means don't try to give the jewels of the life giving words of the gospel to pigs who will just trample all over them and dirty them in the mud and then attack and maybe trample the person trying to give it. Well, why would God tell us this if we were not allowed to judge. How then would we ever know who not to throw the pearls to. You'd have to judge in order to know who the piggies are. One needs to understand that when they say someone else is being judgmental, they, in that very statement are being judgmental of the person who made a judgment. You see, there is no way around judging things and people. We do it all the time. A few verses down in Matt 7:15, God says to beware of false prophets. We have to judge who is a false prophet and who is not if we are going to heed this warning. Check Luke 7:43 and the Lord Jesus said unto him: "Thou hast rightly judged."
Luke 12:57 "Why do you not of yourselves judge what is right?"
John 7:24 "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."
1Cor.2: 15-16 "But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."
Anyway, there are many other passages that show that judging is not the issue, but whether the judgment is correct or not. This is known by whether it is in line with scripture.
And as for speaking the truth in love...that whole issue has to do with motives. If Christians are serious about the lost people, they will evangelize to them and "smack them around a little" in order to wake them up. Thus, I speak the truth because I love people, and don't want them to go to Hell. These "cheese-ball" statements I hear from various church people are not only ignorant, but hypocritical because these type's of people don't witness anyway. The Average church denomination isn't interested in the Truth, but rather this phony Sentimentality!
Very seldom do you actually walk into a church that doesn't have a neutered Pastor. If you contrast an average Pastor today, with an average Pastor from the 13th-17th century you'll see what I'm talking about. Now does this mean that we are to go around mocking and scorning people all of the time? Of course not. The Bible says we are to honor all men. But honoring all men, doesn't mean, "respecting their beliefs." When people start to spout out falsehood, it is a Christians obligation to slam their beliefs by answering a fool according to his folly (Proverbs 26:5) so that on-lookers, as well as themselves may see the blatant ignorance, thus disregarding the persons teachings/professions/beliefs/etc. You want them to feel stupid about their beliefs! Especially if those beliefs are what is aiding their path to Hell. In a one-to-one conversation with someone, we should be more gentle. Jesus was both velvet and steel! With the Pharisee Nicodemus in a one to one format, Jesus was very gentle because Nicodemus was humble and seeking truth (Jn 3). But as a group or in a public setting, Jesus slammed the pharisee's with their prideful arrogance (Mat 23). All Christians should follow these examples. If we give heed to Scripture, we find that use of humor, ridicule, and scorn to mock false religions and those who speak in its name, is a virtue and not a vice. You know Dan, it seems strange that you are trying to tell a Christian what it means to be a Christian. I hope this gives you a clearer picture. Let me know if you have any other questions or concerns about what it means to be a Christian.

When is it right to fight?

2007-02-19T16:02:00.001-08:00

When is it right to fight:

This is certainly a topic that has been under heated debate among certain groups of Christians and I think it deserves a decent and honest look, and in so doing I will use a book entitled: “When is it right to fight” by Dr. Robert A. Morey, and 3 chapters out of a book entitled “A Christian Manifesto,” by Dr. Francis A. Schaeffer, and an article by Pastor Matt Trewhella entitled “A biblical response to those who teach pacifism,” for most of the work here, in form of quotations, citations, and references, as they do a most thorough job in explaining this issue exegetically. This way, I have condensed all the good meat out of a total of 187 pages of reading, down to 15-20 pages, so that you can benefit from their research and my "grunt work" and regurgitation of it, having the “cliff notes” to make it reasonable to fit reading this into your busy schedule. Enjoy,

“If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” (Romans 12:18). To jump right into this topical discussion, I give a passage that is commonly used to demonstrate that Paul was endorsing pacifism under any and all circumstances. The apostle Paul is clearly speaking in terms of personal relationships as the context reveals. The Christians response to personal attacks should be to avoid all internal bitterness and external retaliation. Obviously here, the apostle recognizes that this living at peace with everyone cannot always be done, therefore he adds, “if it is possible.” These additional words show that there are going to be times when maintaining peace will be impossible, impractical, and unlivable. God recognizes that we will find ourselves at times in a situation where, although our inner attitude is not motivated by a lust for personal vengeance, peace will not be possible. To imagine that the only option given to Christians is peace, is to deny the validity of church discipline, using the force of spanking our children, and civil justice. To remain undisturbed in the face of repeated or grave evil is not the way of peace because peace is never maintained by giving in to all the demands of evil. God gave certain ethical and moral responsibilities to the state that He denies to individuals under normal circumstances. While the individual believer or citizen should not use violence to resolve personal conflicts with his fellow Christians, or neighbors (Rom. 12:17-19), God has given the state responsibility of using the sword to punish wrongdoers (Rom. 13:1-7). Or again, while an individual is commanded to love his neighbor even if he is his personal enemy (Matt. 5:44), the state is never commanded by God to love other nations, because governments are not capable of either love or hate. Yes, we should suffer personal insult and persecution as long as it is possible (Rom. 12:14-21), go the “second mile” with people (Matt:5:41), and let love cover a multitude of sins (1Pet.4:8). But what should we do if someone will not live at peace with us? Appeal to the state for justice (Rom. 13:1-7). That is what Paul did when confronted by a murder plot. He did not hesitate to seek military protection of the “sword” of the state when his life was in danger (Acts 23:12-35). He clearly saw that while personal insults could be endured by taking the way of peace, when the lives of others or of oneself were in danger, the way of peace had to give way to the way of justice. When peace will no longer work, the use of just force becomes a moral obligation as well as a God given right. Our emotional sensitivities must not be allowed to overrule the Word of God. Someone may quote Romans 13:1-2 and say “see, here it says God puts all governments in place and he who resists it, resists God.” I’m going to tell you something very important, and I want you to hang on to this and remember this next statement. NEVER read a bible verse. Whenever someone quotes a verse or two to you, make sure you turn there yourself and read the surrounding context. I don’t know how many times that cleared up simple discrepancies to any given text. Chapter breaks were not in original manuscripts, so the end of chapter 12 should be paid attention to, but I want to draw particular attention to the verses which follow v. 1-2. In verses 3-4 we have described to us the kind of governmental power that God ordains are the ones who minister to you for good. The disjunctive word “for” in v. 3 indicates explanatory information for v.1-2, and it says that these rulers are a terror for the evil man, but a blessing to the man who does good. The logic on this one should be pretty easy. Now, if God set all governments in place, does He not also take certain ones down? We are called simply to obey, and leave the sovereignty matter to God, right? If, within our own government, (which God set up), it grants us the right to abolish it if it gets unruly, then we are actually in accords with obeying our government. Our "government" is not obeying the government if we have to take action against it. In fact, if tyrannical forces are set up and we do nothing, then we have actually disobeyed our government and betrayed our country. Here's something else to chew on. If we are not supposed to go against the governmnet which is set in place by God, then we cannot go against anyone elses government either. We cannot send military aid to a tyrannized people, because after all, what is one governments say against another, if God set them both up. I think the text of scripture makes it plain what type of government we are to obey in Romans 13:3-4. I realize that there is still some confusion as to when that point has been reached where the government is no longer acting as a legitimized government, and should be resisted. I would have to say that is when government officials take it into their power to steal, kill, and destroy. When they take our property without paying us, destroying our property, killing us when we have done no wrong, taking our freedom by imprisoning us when we have done no wrong, and other things along those lines. Right now, our country is in more of an anarchy than a tyranny. I say this because i know some people might say, "well, abortion is the killing of innocent citizens." That is true, but the mother is not forced to have an abortion. Our government is still not punishing the evil doer of the act of abortion. It is as if they are not protecting us. They are not protecting the unborn. The government is not hurting us, but they are not protecting us from ourselves either. That is why i say it is anarchy and not tyranny. They let us do anything we want (anarchy), and we get away with murder (literally). This is a bad sign, as tyranny is probably not too far around the corner. Peaceful action needs to take place now and later, so that we won't be put in a position where fleeing, fighting/overthrow, or death and imprisonment are our only options.

The breathtaking panorama of history recorded in the Old Testament covers thousands of years, and according to the apostle Paul, it was written for our benefit today (1Cor. 10:11, Rom. 15:4). Isaiah 2:4 says “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks…” It is assumed by some that the passage quoted referred to a permanent peace achievable through human means in this age. But Isaiah is only saying that wars will cease after Christ returns and judges the wicked (Isaiah 2:10-11 [context!) Isaiah is describing the new earth where righteousness reigns (vs. 1-3). In the new testament, Jesus clearly indicated that wars will continue until the end of history (Matt. 24: 6,7). Historical reality simply does not correspond to romantic ideas. While passive resistance worked in a democratic context, such tactics have never worked in ruthless totalitarian government such as the Soviet government, which has no moral restraints at all. Idealists who think that if we only held up signs saying “we love you” we could win the hand of fellowship, are not remembering the thousands who have been crushed under the treads of Soviet tanks, who tried such similar pleas of peace. The biblical authors were realistic, not idealistic, about the nature of man, and the utter depravity he is not only capable of, but prone to. You see, the Soviets know that as long as the West is free, the enslaved peoples of the world have hope,--hope that perhaps the West will one day deliver them from the tyranny and oppression they are under; hope that by some means they may escape to the West for freedom and opportunity. God’s angelic armies do not use techniques of nonresistance in their fight against Satan. Instead, God’s army will forcefully cast them out of heaven at the final battle. If pacifism does not work in heaven, neither will it work on earth (on earth as it is in heaven Luke 11:2).

Capital punishment: Satan assured Eve that God would not really carry out the punishment of capital punishment (“You will not really die”). We are all now on death row, waiting to die because of our representative head, Adam. The New Testament also recognizes the justice of the death penalty (Matt. 21:40-41; Rom. 1:32; Rom. 13:4). The death penalty was the means God used to provide salvation for sinners (Christ on the cross). This application by the state is made as one of the marks of a God-ordained government in Rom. 13:4. Matt. 21:40. What does the death penalty have to do with the subject of war? The death penalty is a just punishment for whatever number of criminals are involved in the perpetration of a crime. If 5 men acting in a group, murder one victim, all five men deserve to die. If 100,000 are accomplices to punishable acts, force needs to be used to bring justice. If someone would have mowed down the SS soldiers, it would have been justified. Jesus used the flood, the fiery destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, even the destruction of the temple as “previews of coming attractions” to the Judgment Day ethics into present history. If the Scriptures taught that the use of force is intrinsically wrong and immoral, how could it describe the return of Christ as Jesus waging a righteous war? (rev 19:11) The fact that Jesus will return to punish the wicked with flaming fire reveals that the use of force is not intrinsically incompatible with love, justice, righteousness, or truth. As long as the war to end all wars is righteous and true, lesser wars fought for the same reasons will always be righteous and true. Once the righteousness of Armageddon is accepted, the principle of the just war is established. Moses describes Abraham’s actions (Gen 14:17 in taking on Chedorlaomer) with obvious pride over Abraham’s demonstration of courage and love for his fellow man. Some people have mistakenly thought that only wars in the Old Testament which were directly initiated and commanded by God can be viewed as just. All other wars must be viewed as sinful. Consider Abraham, whose own sense of justice initiated the use of force. However, after he returned, God put His stamp of approval on Abraham’s actions by having Melchizidek, the high priest, bless him (Gen. 14:18-20). It is assumed by some that only wars fought in self- defense are just. The problem with the above theory is that Abraham’s use of force was not in self-defense and it was not directed, but blessed after the fact for it being in accord with righteousness. The people of Grenada rejoiced when a united force of Caribbean and U.S. troops came into their country and delievered them from Communist oppression. One of our greastest sins today is that the west is not more actively involved in funding freedom fighters everywhere from Cuba to Afghanistan. The west is failing to be a good Samaritan to our poor oppressed brothers who are being crushed under the heels of Marxist tyranny. The oppressed people in every communist country, if given the funds and weapons, would rise up and overthrow their slave masters. The Czechoslovakians cried out to the west for military help. To our shame, the west refused to give them help, and the freedom fighters, were crushed under the tracks of soviet tanks.

The First Treaty: Lest anyone accuse Abraham of being a bloodthirsty and violent man, the first treaty recorded in Scripture, which avoided war was between Abraham and the Philistines (Gen. 21:22-23). Whenever differences can be worked out by negotiations and treaty, that is the proper thing to do. The just-war theory has no lust for war or violence. War is always the last resort.

Unjust violence: The first recorded instance of personal violence was Cain’s murder of Abel (Gen. 4:8-15). In no sense can Cain’s actions be justified. Next, we have the murdering of all the males in Shechem’s village. Several things can be deduced from this passage. First, since Shechem alone was guilty, he alone should have been punished. Killing all the men in his village was unjustifiable, as there is no indication they were involved in the rape. Keep in mind that Just because something is recorded in scripture, it doesn’t necessarily mean its something God approves of it—(Literary genre of historical narritive)—Jacob was outraged at his sons actions (Gen 34:30) Rom. 12:19 is merely quoting the Old Testament’s condemnation of the improper use of force in Duet. 32:35. There is no OT/NT dichotomy, just because certain rituals, laws, and ceremonies are fulfilled in Christ. Lastly, Jacob warned his sons that such acts of violence would only lead to further acts of violence. While the just use of force can solve problems as it did for Abraham, the unjust use of violence may create more violence.

Exodus: Whenever the state commands something which violates God’s law, that government has entered into an area for which it has no divine warrant, It is therefore devoid of any valid authority at that point, and we can ignore or resist it with God’s blessing. It has become tyranny and not true government. The many deaths resulting from the plagues and the slaughter of Pharaoh’s army in the Red Sea all reflect God’s just use of force as a means to throw the yoke of tyranny off the neck of His people. God delivered His people because they were unarmed and weak, later He gave laws to regulate their preservation. Just as God can do everything for us and doesn’t need us in evangelism, He has chosen us to fulfill His purposes on this earth, be it in carrying out justice or saving souls. Exodus 22:2 In this verse, God declares that if someone breaks into your house at night and you kill him, you are not guilty of murder. This verse makes clear that you have a God-given right to defend yourself and to defend your family. Deuteronomy 22:23-27 This passage deals with rape. Notice that verse 27 ends with the words "but there was no one to save her." What is the implication of such a statement? The implication is that had someone been around to hear her cry out, they had a moral duty to intervene and protect her from being raped. To stand by would be immoral. We have a God-given right to defend not only ourselves, but also others.

Numbers: Num. 1:1-3 While God delivered them out of Egypt by His own hand, He now wanted them to wage war by their own hands. They could not hope to maintain the freedoms God has given them except by the use of force. It was God himself who initiated the military draft in these verses, numbering the males in Israel 20 years old and up.

Joshua: Joshua’s leadership in military, as well as spiritual matters, will stand as a shining example of the warrior priest. He was a spirit filled believer (Deut. 34:9) who led his people to victory over the enemies of God and Israel.

Judges: If the New Testament taught pacifism, as some imagine, the freedom fighters described in Judges would never have been praised by the New Testament writers as examples to follow today. Tyrants oppressed Israel because the Israelites failed to carry out God’s command to annihilate the Canaanites (Judg. 1-2) and because they were involved in idolatry.

1 Samuel- 2 Chronicles: God is revealed in 1 Samuel as “the Lord of Armies” (1 Sam. 1:3). 1Chronicles 5:22 says “the war was of God.” Let it be noted that the government which was in power at the time was not necessarily the government God had appointed. Thus, there would often be two governments functioning at the same time- illegitimate tyrannical power in office and a legitimate divinely appointed government in exile. One cannot but wonder what wonderful blessings would have been bestowed on humanity if such tyrants as Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Hitler, and Mussolini had been assassinated. We should praise Deitrich Bonhoeffer’s involvement in an assassination plot against Hitler.

The Psalms and Ecclesiastes: The Psalms are the cries of oppressed people against the evils of tyranny. Throughout the Psalms, the people of God are told that they should hate tyranny with all of their hearts because God hates it (Ps. 139:19-22). The wisest man who ever lived, Solomon states, “There is a time for war and a time for peace.”

The Prophets: The people are condemned for not stopping the tyrants from robbing the widows and orphans and oppressing the poor Amos 2:6-8; 4:1-3; Jer. 22:13-27). What will work one day in the context of perfection and sinlessness will not work now in the context of sinfulness where the lion devours the lamb.

Review and Discussion Questions : If something is morally right or wrong in one age, can we assume that it will be morally the same in other ages? For example, in the Old Testament, adultery was viewed as morally wrong. Is adultery ever right? Similarly, In the Old Testament, the use of force is viewed as morally right. Can someone rightfully say that the use of force is wrong today because we live in a different age?

Jesus and the Gospels: 1. Jesus spoke with obvious approval of a king who waged just war to punish a wicked people by putting them to death Matt. 21:33-41. While Jesus was not discussing war per se, His use of a just-war model for this parable is possible only if Jesus accepted the Old Testament concept of the just use of force. 2. When dealing with Roman or Jewish soldiers, Jesus never told them to leave the military or that it was morally wrong to be soilders (Matt. 8:5-13; Luke 6:15). This lends further support to the inference that Jesus accepted the scriptural position of the valid use of force. If He were a pacifist and opposed in principle any violence by anyone, He would not have failed to rebuke those who were in the military. Jesus was not known for overlooking sin in the lives of those who sat under His teaching. He denounced sin whererever and in whomever He saw it. 3. In Matt, 24:6-7, Jesus clearly stated that wars would remain part of human experience until the end of the age. If He were a pacifist, then this would have been a perfect opportunity to condemn all wars. Jesus did not do so in this passage. This underscores the fact that although Jesus referred to the use of force in war or self-defense on many occasions, not once did He condemn such things. 4. One searches in vain for a secular/sacred dichotomy in Jesus teaching. To Him all of life was sacred. His disciples were involved in every walk of life. Jesus did not condemn governmental or military careers as being “secular” or sinful. Once we understand that Jesus Christ is Lord of all life and all life has been sanctified by His dominion, the secular/ sacred dichotomy is destroyed. There is no occupation or area in life which a child of God may not be involved in as long as it is not in violation of God’s moral law as given in Scripture. 6. Jesus said in John 18:36 that if His church were an earthly kingdom, it would be perfectly proper for His disciples to take up weapons and fight for Him. While Jesus is clearly, in this passage, forbidding the Church as an institution to use physical force in its discipline or defense, He clearly states here that an earthly kingdom can and should fight when necessary. 7. In His parables, Jesus often pictured rulers using valid force to punish wrongdoers (Matt. 18:23-35; 21:38-41; 22:13, etc.). While this is compatible with the teaching of the Old Testament on the just use of force, Jesus would never have given such parables if He were a pacifist. This logically implies that Jesus carried on the teaching of the Old Testament. 8. When the Jews brought Jesus to Pilate, they claimed that Jesus was trying to overthrow the Roman government (Luke 23:1-5). While it is clear that the Jews were wrong in saying Jesus had come to start a violent revolution, it is equally clear that such an accusation could never have been used against Jesus if He had been publicly preaching pacifism. 9. At the beginning and the end of His ministry, Jesus used just force to cleanse the temple (Matt. 21:12; John 2:15). His whip of cords and the Greek words used to describe His driving out the money-changers (drove, poured out, over-threw) cannot be legitimately interpreted to mean anything else than a forcible ejection of the money-changers. The only logical inference possible is that Jesus condoned the just use of force. When the Apostle John described this episode in Jesus’ life, he recorded that the disciples appealed to an Old Testament passage as a justification of Christ’s use of force (John 2:17). This demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that the disciples were not pacifists. 10. (Matt. 25:41, 46) If the sinless Son of God is going to use force to destroy His enemies, then it is not possible to view the use of force as being intrinsically wrong or immoral. 11. Jesus exercised divine force and knocked down His attackers (John 18:1-6). Since the Son of God himself exercised force in self-defense, then the use of force in self-defense should be viewed as good. Jesus’ use of divine force in self defense was to guarantee that no one could take His life, except at the appointed time. This put them in their place and made them peacefully deliver him for trial.
12. Jesus told His disciples to buy weapons to arm themselves (Luke 22:36-38). 13. After Peter cut off Malchus’ ear, Jesus did not tell Peter to throw away his sword but to put it back in its sheath. Evidently there would be other occasions where it could be rightfully used (John 18:11). God’s plan of salvation called for Christ to die. The disciples would have hindered God’s plan if they had risen up to fight for Christ and delivered Him from the Jews. When force is exercised to hinder God’s plan or revelation, it is unjustified violence. Such illegitimate violence will only lead to further violence (Matt. 26:52). 14. Jesus said He could call upon an entire army of angels to fight for Him (Matt. 26:53) Christ had come to fulfill the Old Testament prophecies concerning His death (Matt. 26:54). This explains why Jesus did not call upon His disciples or the angels of God to fight for Him. It was not because He was a pacifist, but because He had come to die for our sins.

The Sermon on the Mount: The context of the Sermon on the Mount must also be in view to understand Jesus’ forward with His speech. In Mat 5:17 He says He hasn’t come to erase even the smallest stroke of the Law…and this prefaced the entire sermon…so when He is refuting unjust practices, you must keep in consideration where He is coming from. When He says, “As it is written,” He is referring to scripture, when He says, “As you have heard to people said long ago,” He is referring to rabbinic tradition. Nowhere in this sermon does Jesus bring up the subject of the state or whether or not governments can protect their citizens with armed forces. So any claims that the sermon on the Mount calls for national or international pacifism must be rejected as exegetically erroneous. Second, Jesus is clearly discussing personal ethics. He is describing vital inner qualities of piety and the ways in which we should respond to our neighbors when they become sources of irritation. That is why Jesus could talk about loving one’s neighbor, turning the other cheek and giving one’s coat to someone. At no point in the passage does Jesus discuss national or international ethics. The church has a moral obligation to punish an offending member even to the point of excommunication (Matt. 18:17; 1 Cor. 5:4-5). If personal ethics must apply to the church, then the church’s use of moral, spiritual and ecclesiastical force of disciplining its members must be viewed as wrong. The church has a unique set of rules to guide its behavior, not the personal ethics of Matt. 5. The state has a moral obligation to punish offenders even to the point of death (Rom. 13:1-4). In Matt. 5:39, Jesus specifically referred to the right cheek as being slapped instead of the left check because the slap of the right cheek by the back of the left hand in Jewish culture was a personal insult and not an act of violence. Slapping the right cheek was not a life threatening attack. It was like spitting in someone’s face. Let us address the “Blessed are the meek” passage (vs. 5). We must not assume that meekness means weakness. This is clear from the simple observation that Moses was described as “very meek, more than any other man on the face of the earth” (Num. 12:3). The word itself carries the connotation of a quiet strength and resolution to overcome evil. “Blessed are the peacemakers” (vs. 9). The Greek word for “peacemaker” was one of Caesar’s titles. He was called “the peacemaker” because he won and maintained peace by the use of force. The word does not mean “peaceable” or “pacifistic” or “peace at any price.” The word meant “peace through strength.” As such, it named the head of the Roman army without contradiction. “ Do not resist him that is evil” (vs. 39). When Jesus gives us the general principle that we should not be quick in returning evil for evil, His subject is dealing with your neighbor. We should personally be willing to go the second mile in enduring personal insults in order to win our neighbors to Christ. Even extreme pacifists resist evil by peace demonstrations, hunger strikes, not paying taxes, denying the military draft. Yet nonviolent and passive resistance are still resistance. Equally absurd is the idea that resistance against any kind of evil whatever is condemned by Jesus. The New Testament tells us to “resist the devil” (1 Peter 5:9; James 4:7). Didn’t Jesus resist the Pharisees (Matt. 23)? Aren’t all Christians called upon to fight for the faith (Jude 3)? Are we not called upon to resist heretics (1 Tim. 1:3-11; Titus 1:9-11)? Certain kinds of evil should be endured while other kinds of evil must be resisted. If a woman is being beaten with a lead pipe and no one is around to save the day but you, you are going to have to use aggressive force and knock the guy out, possible kill him, or he will kill her, or the both of you.

The Apostles and the Epistles: For the apostles, the gospel was just as much an Old Testament truth as it was a New Testament revelation (Rom. 1:1-3; 1 Cor. 15:3-4). They looked to the Old Testament Scriptures for basic principles of doctrine and ethics. The apostles were careful to point out when various aspects of the Old Testament ceremonial laws, for instance, were superseded by the finished work of Christ. If the apostles rejected the Old Testament position on war and now taught pacifism, this would have stirred as much controversy as the laying aside of circumcison. When we survey the epistles, we do not find a single place where the apostles exhorted Israel or Rome to disarm their military forces or where the apostles condemned war or a Christian’s participation in the military. On the other hand, the Christians appealed to Rome for safety. The leadership in a sphere has authority as long as it functions within the context of its divinely appointed tasks. Once they seek to dominate the other spheres or step out of the circle of their own responsibility, they no longer have any divinely delegated authority. Whenever the state oversteps its delegated sphere of authority, it becomes tyranny. God has the ultimate authority over all spheres of authority, and He is to be obeyed rather than tyrants. Second, as the apostles evangelized Roman soldiers, they never told these new converts to leave the military. In Acts 10, Cornelius is set forth as an example of a respected soldier who remained in “the situation he was in when God called him” (1 Cor. 7:20). If the early church was pacifist, then there would be some indication that converts from military were encouraged to desert their posts. Paul caused a wicked magician to be blinded (Acts 13:6-11). Paul’s missionary travels began with the use of force. Also, when Paul was threatened by death, he did not hesitate to claim the political and military protection which was his as a Roman citizen (Acts 16:37-39; 22:25-29). If the early church believed that anyone involved with politics or the military was necessarily involved in evil, Paul would not have called upon either of them for protection. The Jews wanted to kill him, he appealed to Caesar to obtain armed military protection. After he appealed to Caesar, the Apostle Paul was safe from assassination because of the presence of an armed guard. This protection allowed the Apostle freedom to write his prison epistles, to preach the gospel, and to win converts even in Caesar’s household (Acts 28:16,30,31).

The Epistles: Rom. 13:1-7 is describing the internal police policies of punishing criminals and protecting citizens. The word tyrant means someone who has usurped authority that does not belong to him, such as the sphere of the family or the church. Paul exhorts Christians to pray that their leaders will punish the wicked and protect the righteous.(1Tim2:1-2) Look at Heb. 11:32-40. The Old Testament saints who were “valiant in battle,” “subdued kingdoms,” and “put armies to flight,” are set before us as Christian heroes of the faith to imitate. Most of these things were not addressed in depth in the epistles because there was no controversy over them. As one surveys the New Testament, one cannot find a single instance where a passive model or nonresistant model is used to describe the Christian life. On the other hand, Christians are compared to active soldiers, farmers, and athletes. Every Christian is to view himself as a militant soldier for Jesus Christ (2 Tim. 2:3,4). The church on earth is viewed as “the Church militant” in that it is storming the gates of hell itself (Matt. 16:18). If they were convinced that all connection with the military was intrinsically sinful and immoral, they would not have used the military as an illustration of the Christian life in an analogous way for the spiritual realm. A modern example would be the impossibility of using prostitution as a model for describing the Christian life, as she is devoted to her pimp, we are devoted to Christ. This doesn’t seem to jive.

The Early Church and war: Christians were involved in the military from the apostolic period to Constantine. Only two, or possibly three, Church Fathers were openly opposed to Christians participating in the military. Their grounds for rejecting military life is clearly the military’s involvement with idolatry, concerning certain ceremonies and clothing articles.

Methodology: The Christian Church did not begin with pacifism. The apostolic age began with Christians such as Cornelius remaining in the army. We must remember that these are the same believers who went bravely to their deaths rather than deny what they believed. At one time, the Church changed its beliefs about fighting because there were a change of circumstances. As soon as Constantine changed the idolatrous circumstances, there no longer remained any reason why Christians hesitated to be in the army. General statements such as “do not render evil for evil, cursing for cursing,” etc., should not be illegitimately applied to national defense when the authors of church history do not make the application themselves. Pacifists cling onto quotes of some of the church fathers to try and support their case, but the quotes used, are taken out of context for why the church father said “such and such” in the first place. When pacifists seek to prove their position, they frequently overstate their case. Origen, who was a pacifist to a degree, said, “For those fighting in a righteous cause, and for the King who reigns righteously, that whatsoever is opposed to those who act righteously be destroyed.” Tertullian, who was against Christians involved in an idolatrous army said “Without ceasing, for all our emperors, we offer prayer. We pray for life prolonged; for security to the empire; for protection to the imperial house; for brave armies. . . . “ If Origen or Tertullian were against the use of force in principle at any time, by anyone, including the state, they would hardly be found praying for those involved in righteous wars, that their soldiers would be brave in the destruction of their enemies.

The evidence: We have archeological evidence found on Christian tombstone inscriptions which identify the person buried as a Christian who was in the military. At least 8 of these inscriptions are clearly pre-Constantine. It seems very unlikely that the relatives of a Christian would have gone to extra work to place his rank and legion on the tombstone, if being a soldier was a mark of shame and church discipline. Under the influence of Saint Gregory, Armenia became the first Christian nation A.D. 303. When Maxminus tried to force the Armenians to renounce Christianity in A.D. 312, the Armenians took up arms and defended their faith and freedom. They defeated the Roman army. The Thundering Legion (A.D. 173) is another example. Eusebius relates that soldiers in the Melitine Legion would kneel and pray before going into battle, as was the custom of Christians. In a particular battle with Germans, the legion was in dire thirst. Due to the prayers of Christian soldiers, God sent rain to refresh them while he sent lightning to confuse their enemies. The legion went on to triumph against their enemies due to the influence of the Christian soldiers. Since pagan Roman historians recount the same incident, it seems unlikey that Eusebius invented the story of the Thundering Legion. Why do we find so many accounts in the apocryphal gospels of Jesus using force to punish evildoers? For example. In The Gospel of Thomas, Jesus is pictured as striking people dead. These “gospels” are clearly fictitious; nevertheless, their presence in the popular literature of the early church reveals that believers did not view Jesus as a pacifist. Clement of Alexandrai wrote: “Has (saving) knowledge taken hold of you while engaged in military service? Listen to the commander who orders what is right.” (II:200) Clement Said “For a man bare feet quite in keeping, except when he is on military service.” (II: 267) “We sail with you and fight with you, and till the ground with you; and in like manner we unite with you in your traffickings.” (III:49). It did not matter if a person were the mayor of a small village or a soldier in the army. Any association with Rome was an association with satan himself. The concern was with idolatrous association.

A.D. 185-254: Origen believed that Christians were on a spiritual plane and should not become involved with secular activities as war. He believed, nevertheless, that some wars were perfectly just and that it was the duty of Christians to pray that enemies of righteousness would be destroyed in such a war (IV:268). It is clear from his statements, that Origen was not a pacifist in principle because he did not believe that the use of force per se was evil. Cyprain made one reference that has been seized upon as proof he was a pacifist. He stated: “The hand spotted with the sword and blood should not receive communion.” (V:448). When we turn to the context for his statement concerning hands spotted with blood, we find that he was dealing with “adultery, fraud, and manslaughter.” He was discussing murder, not military per se, or killing someone in self-defense or in a war situation.

The Fathers and the reformers: It is the duty of Christians to resist tyranny because tyranny seeks to take Christ’s place as Lord of all life. This resistance can be either passive or active, depending on the situation. No private individual has the right to commit violence out of personal vengeance. But when oppressed people desire to depose a tyrant and political recourse is closed to them, force may be used. We should not judge a government as tyrannical because of isolated acts of tyranny. A father may act tyrannically at times. Yet this does not give his children the right to take away his authority. When a government tries to take control of all of life, it is tyrannical. The moment a government takes away the freedoms of religion, free speech, lawful assembly, etc., it is a tyrannical power and can be resisted. It is no surprise to find that the clearest thinkers in the Christian Church have almost always believed in the just use of force. The churches in America were the driving force behind the American Revolution because of their Puritan theology of resistance to tyranny. The concept is as simple as understanding that sometimes to have unity, there must first be dis-unity. St. Augustine said “The purpose of war is peace….this kind of peace is a product of the work of war..” This was the situation with the people of the American Revolution. The colonists used force in defending themselves. Great Britain, because of its policies toward the colonies, was seen as a foreign power invading America. The colonists defended their homeland. As such, the American Revolution was a conservative counter-revolution. The colonists saw the British as the revolutionaries trying to overthrow the legitimate colonial governments.
Manegold of Lautenbach (11th century) taught that tyrannical powers can be abolished by the people because government exist at the will of and for the good of the people. “We the people. . . .”
Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274, A.D.) said “It may happen that a war declared by legitimate authority for a just cause may yet be rendered unlawful through a wicked intention. The passion of inflicting harm, the cruel thrist for vengeance, a plundering and implacable spirit, the fever of turmoil, the lust of power and suchlike, all these are justly condemned war.” Francis Suarez said “The tyrant in question is an aggressor, and is waging war unjustly against the state and its separate parts, so that, in consequence, all those parts have the right of defense.
Martin Luther (1483-1546, A.D.) said “A prince and a lord must remember that according to Romans 13(:4) he is God’s minister and the servant of his wrath and that the sword has been given to him to use against such (wicked) people. If he does not fulfill the duties of his office by punishing some and protecting others, he commits as great a sin before God as when someone who has not been given the sword commits murders. If he is able to punish and does not do it- even though he would have had to kill someone or shed blood- he becomes guilty of all murder and evil that these people commit. (Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes, [1522]). In the passage above Luther was pleading for the civil authorities to stop the Radical Anabaptists who had gone on a rampage of murder, rape and looting during the Peasant’s War. This war caused the deaths of over 100,000 people.
John Calvin said “We ought rather utterly to defy than to obey them when they are so restive and wish to spoil God of his rights.. If we wink at kings who violently fall upon assault the lowly common folk, I declare that our dissimulation involved nefarious perfidy, because they dishonestly betray the freedom of the people, of which they know that they have been appointed protectors by God’s ordinance.”
Zwingli (1489-1531, A.D.) was the leader of the Swiss Reformation and was known as the “fighting priest” because he died in battle defending his family, church, and nation. As a pastor with a true shepherd’s heart, he fought to protect his sheep from the wolves though it cost him his life. He says “Some are so audaciously evil that, unless they be smitten with the sword, the rest cannot have peace. They say it was written among them of old time “Thou shalt not kill”; but that we are forbidden to yield to anger, much more to kill. Nice fellows these! They refuse with the very words before them to see what the meaning of God’s word is. For when He says that we are not even to yield to anger, it becomes clear that, wishing to block up the fountain-source of killing, He is speaking of that killing which proceeds from ungovernable passion, not of that which is visited by law upon those who have dared to upset the public peace, towards whom we more often feel pity than anger.” “For he is a minister of God, an avenger for wrath to him that doeth evil” (Rom. 13:4). He therefore avenges in God’s name, not in his own: He smites in God’s name.” (No wrath or emotion of his own).
Bullinger (1504-1575. A.D.): says “Ecclesiastical history recites many instances of holy princes who have defended and succoured the Church of God.” It is permissible for Christians to wage war, no less than it was formerly for the Jews in the old testament (Thou shalt not kill is in the 10 commandments which is found in the Old Testament [Exodus]. The reason this can be said is that it is not forbidden anywhere in the New Testament, and also that the centurion at Capernaeum (Matt. 8:5-13), and Cornelius the Centurion (Acts 10) are included among the believers. What John urged soldiers to give up was not war, but injustice (Luke 3:14).
George Buchanan (1506-1582) refuted the doctrine of the “divine right of kings,” which was used by rulers in those days to justify their most wicked deeds. He says “The people, from whom the king derived his power, should have the liberty of prescribing (limiting) its bounds: I require that the king should exercise over the people only those rights which he has received from their hands. They were tyrants. . . . because they were the superior to the laws. A king rules over a willing people, a tyrant over a reluctant people. . . . Tyranny is a master’s power over his slaves. . . .Tyrants rule for the oppression of their citizens. If the king extorted obedience from the people by force, the people. . . may shake off so grievous a yoke. . . every system upheld by violence may, by the like violence, be overturned. (p. 264) ): “Whether a people, long oppressed with the encroachments of tyrants and usurpers, may disown their pretended authority.”
Samuel Rutherford (1600-1661): “The king’s power of wars is for the safety of his own people, if he deny his consent to the raising of arms till they be destroyed he playeth the tyrant, not the king (p. 18).” “We teach that any priest may kill a tyrant, void of all title…”(pg.38) There are 3 levels of resistance: First, he must defend himself by protest (in contemporary society this would most often be by legal action); second he must flee if at all possible; and third, he may use force if necessary to defend himself. One should not employ force if he may save himself by flight. There is of course a distinction between a lawless uprising and lawful resistance. If possible, lesser magistrates or local officials, being just as much from God as is the office of the highest state official, should work to depose higher chain of command authorities. “When the supreme magistrate will not execute the judgment of the Lord, those who made him supreme magistrate, under God, who have under God, sovereign liberty to dispose of crowns and kingdoms, are to execute the judgment of the Lord, when wicked men make the law of God of none effect.” Our checks and balances and separation of powers system of government was originally purposed to be “of the people, for the people, by the people” so that if the governing authorities overstepped their boundaries, we could put them in their place. We have gradually and dangerously slid away from our strong roots. I believe everyone should obey the government, including the government. And we are to, by our own form of freedom system, to rule our own nation as a people.
John Lilburne (1618-1657) says “The most authentic servants of Christ have always been the worse enemies of tyranny and the oppressor.”
Brutus (?-1689): said “If they command that which is against the law of God. . . . God must rather be obeyed than man. Charity (demands) the right of revealing and restoring the oppressed. Those who make no account of these things, do as much as in their lies to drive piety, justice, and charity out of this world that they may never more be heard of.” To people who reply that Christ also said to love your neighbor, I respond that if there is no negotiating with a madman tyrant in control, then you must overtake him by force if you love your oppressed neighbor.
Christopher Goodman (1502-1602): “Kings are instituted to rule in God’s fear and laws, as subjects and servants to God, and not against his laws, and above him: it must needs follow (as we first said) that all obedience given to such, wicked princes against God, is playing rebellion in (God’s) judgment. And in that case to obey God, and disobey man, is true obedience, how so ever the world judgeth. For none will condemn Peter and John for (their) disobedience, because they would not herein obey their ordinary magistrates; no more will any which have right judgment, condemn the like resistance in others, which is alike lawful to all (pp. 60,61).” Do nothing commanded against God and your conscience (If you think its wrong to kill wicked tyrannical forces or to kill in defense of yourself then don’t do it because it would be sin to you, but just like someone thinks they can’t eat pig meat, they are not correct in what is tolerable action by God’s authority. However, the person who has a qualm of conscience shouldn’t eat the pig meat. “When Kings or Rulers become blasphemers of God, oppressors and murderers of their Subjects, they ought no more to be accounted Kings or lawful Magistrates, but as private men to be examined, accused, condemned and punished by that law, it is not mans but Gods doing (p. 139).
John Knox (1505-1572): The father may be stricken with a frenzy, in which he would slay his children. If the children arise, join themselves together, apprehend the father, take the sword from him, bind his hands, and keep him in prison till his frenzy be overpast- think ye, Madam, that the children do any wrong? (or if necessary, kill him).”
What clear position Prevailed for fifteen hundred years of Church history? The position laid out here was embraced by the clearest thinkers in the Christian Church for centuries. Laying all this out doesn’t prove it is right, but it ought to get you to think about why you believe the pacifist position, if indeed you do, when throughout church history, they did not. This should raise a red flag in your mind and cause you to re-examine your held beliefs.

The Creeds and Confessions: Almost all of the historic creeds, confessions and catechisms support the just use of force as consistent in the Christian life, and none of them denounce it as wrong. I suspect you are scholarly enough to look those up yourselves. I have plenty of quotations in front of my face, but for the sake of space and not repeating myself, I leave that to you. I will provide a couple quotes to get you started however. The Second Helvetic Confession (A.D. 1566): “Provided he hath first sought peace by all means possible, and can save his subjects in no way but by war.”

The Orthodox Creed (A.D. 1678): “The supreme lord and king of all the world, hath ordained civil magistrates to be under him, over the people for his own glory, and for public good. And the office of a magistrate, may be accepted of and executed by Christians, when lawfully called thereunto; and God hath given the power of the sword, into the hands of all lawful magistrates, for the defense and the encouragement of them that do well, and for the punishment of evil doers, and for the maintenance of justice, and peace, accordingly to wholesome laws of each kingdom, and commonwealth, and they may wage war upon just and necessary occasions.” (art. XLV)
Without the coercive power of force, society itself would be destroyed by anarchy. Think about the following question: “It is morally right for a non-christian to protect my family, but be morally wrong for me to protect them?”
Modern Leaders:
Loraine Boettner: “It should hardly be necessary to say that we hate war as do all right-minded people. We hope that our country may never have to engage in another. We desire peace, but we realize there are some things worse than war. We desire peace, but not the kind that is found in the cemetery or in the slave camp.”
John Murray (1898-1975): “By what kind of logic can it be maintained that the magistrate, who is invested with the power of the sword (Rom. 13:4) may and must execute vengeance upon evildoers within his domain but must sheath the sword of resistance when evildoers from without invade his domain?”
Gleason Archer: His careful scholarship and cogent defense of the integrity of the Bible as the word of God have made him an internationally known and respected scholar of the highest caliber. The goodness of God and the wars He commanded in the Old Testament are explained thus. (1 Chron. 5:22) (Deut. 20) (Exod. 15:3) “For many fell slain, because the war was of God.” Is it really a manifestation of goodness to furnish no opposition to evil? Can we say that a truly good surgeon should do nothing to cut away cancerous tissue from his patient and simply allow him to go on suffering until finally he dies? Can we praise the police force that stands idly by and offers no slightest resistance to the armed robber, the rapist, the arsonist, or any other criminal who preys on society? How could God be called “good” if He forbade His people to protect their wives from ravishment and strangulation by drunken marauders, or to resist invaders who have come to pick up their children and dash out their brains against the wall? No policy would give freer rein to wickedness and crime than a complete surrender of the right of self-defense on the part of the law-abiding member of society. All possibility of an ordered society would be removed on the abolition of any sort of police force. No nation could retain its liberty or preserve the lives of its citizens if it were prevented from maintaining any sort of army for its defense. Not only is a proper and responsible policy of self-defense taught by Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, but there were occasions when God even commissioned His people to carry out judgment on corrupt and degenerate heathen nations and the complete extermination of cities like Jericho. The rules of war laid down in Deuteronomy 20 represented a control of justice, fairness, and kindness in the use of the sword, and as such they truly did reflect the goodness of God. Special hardship conditions were defined as a ground for excusing individual soldiers from military duty until those conditions were cleared up (Deut. 20:5-7). Even those who had no such excuse but were simply afraid and reluctant to fight were likewise allowed to go home (vs. 8). Unlike the heathen armies, who might attack a city without giving it an opportunity to surrender on terms (cf. 1 Sam. 11:2-3; 20:1-2), the armies of Israel were required to grant a city an opportunity to surrender without bloodshed and enter into vassalage to the Hebrews before proceeding to a full-scale siege and destruction. Even then, the women and children were to be spared from death and were to be cared for by their captors (Deut. 20:14). Only in the case of the degenerate and depraved inhabitants of the Promised Land of Canaan itself was there to be total destruction; a failure to carry this out would certainly result in the undermining of the moral and spiritual standards of Israelite society, according to vs. 16-18. (This corrupting influence was later apparent in the period of the Judges [Judges 2:2-3, 11-15]. In the New Testament itself, the calling of a soldier is considered an honorable one, if carried on in a responsible and lawful fashion (Matt. 8:5; Luke 3:14; Acts 10:1-6, 34-35). Paul even uses the analogy of a faithful service in the army as a model for Christian commitment (2 Tim. 2:4), without the slightest suggestion of reproach for military service. In a similar vein is the description in Ephesians 6:11-17 of the spiritual armor to be put on by the Christian warrior in the service of his Lord. There does not appear to be any basis in Scripture, either in the Old Testament or the New, for the concept of a “good” God who enjoins pacifism on His followers.” (God has always used his people in warfare to take out certain peoples way more than he used his “divine fireballs” to do the same. It makes sense that he would continue this method today.)
Francis Schaffer (1912-1984): The founding fathers operated in the spirit of “Lex Rex,” or law is king and not “Rex Lex,” King is Law. Therefore, the heads of government are under the law, and are not a law unto themselves. “Simply put, the Declaration of Independence states that the people, if they find that their basic rights are being systematically attacked by the state, have a duty to try to change that government, and if they cannot do so, to abolish it (p. 129).” “Unilateral disarmament in this fallen world, especially in the face of aggressive Soviet materialism with its anti-God basis, would be altogether utopian and romantic. It would lead, as utopianism always does in this fallen world, to disaster (p. 26). To refuse to do what I can for those who are under the power of oppressors is nothing less than the failure of Christian love. . . This is why I am not a pacifist. Pacifism in this poor fallen world in which we live- this lost world- means that we desert the people who need our greatest help (p. 23).

What happens when Christians refuse to give in to the state and obey God instead, when they are in small numbers and can’t defend themselves? What happens is they are taken to the lions, or today, the labor camps. But, when these Christians were commanded not to give their children Christian religious training, they chose the obvious call of obedient disobedience. When they command you to not preach the gospel, will you listen? When the para police tell you to “freeze” so they can imprison you and torture you for preaching, will you not try to flee? If our government was that submissive to other wicked countries, then we would be eventually taken over and made slaves, or communists. Back in the puritan era, many preachers/ministers brought guns to church with them behind the pulpit because of the turmoil of the times. Obviously, political and legal means are not only the far more tame way of fighting our battles these days, but fortunately also they are the norm for societies like ours. My brother Matt, who is a police officer, made the point that he wishes all law abiding citizens were allowed to carry guns. He said it’d make his job a whole lot easier. It is a statistical fact that cities with free right to bear arms, have always reaped a low crime rate. The criminal is apt to think twice before victimizing someone, when that person can ruin his “career,” so to speak.
While doing nothing to stop evil has always led to greater evil, the just use of force has allowed free societies to exist and true religion to flourish (We would never have enjoyed freedom in this country if we had limp wristed pacifist founders. There would have been no breaks from the persecution.
review and discussion question: How can God be called “the God of war” if He is a God of love? (reconcile this).

Questions and Answers:

Question: Isn’t human life sacred? Then wouldn’t it be wrong to destroy it?: Human life is not sacred in and of itself. Only in reference to God and His Word is human life elevated above animal life. Because man is created in the image of God, the sin of murder must result in the greatest punishment possible, which is the just taking of taking of the murderer’s life. Thus, the sacredness of life, forms the basis of capital punishment (Gen. 9:6).

Question: While a case can be made for some wars in the past being just, how can nuclear war which annihilate all life ever be justified? What is moral and right in principle does not change because of circumstances. Christians need to understand that there is not conclusive scientific evidence that all life would be destroyed on this planet if nuclear war broke out. The National Academy of Sciences decided to look into this theory and found that the worst that would happen after nuclear war would be a brief drop in temperature for the most twenty weeks. The so-called “nuclear winter” is just another “better red than dead” (communist color) scare tactic. If the free world disarmed and surrendered to the Communists, given the fact that they have killed over 150 million people in this century, and have recently slaughtered half the population of Cambodia, then more deaths would probably result after the Communists took over than would die in a nuclear war! (Yep—they want that population down to ½ billion) The holocaust of death which would follow disarmament would no doubt exceed any horror that any war ever produced. God’s Word guarantees that humanity will not be annihilated. Jesus said that the earth would continue to experience wars until He returned to judge the wicked (Matt. 24:6).

Question: Would not pacifism and nonviolence forms of resistance best safeguard our lives? Shouldn’t we give peace a chance by signing disarmament agreements with the Soviets? In every recorded instance, the disarment agreements led to war. The “honest” side that actually disarmed was without exception attacked by the “dishonest” side, and usually conquered.

Question: Isn’t it true that all the early Christians were pacifists until Constantine? Mr. Sider and others like him do not attempt to document their position by citations from the early Fathers because such citations do not exist.

Questions: Didn’t the horrors of the Thirty Years’ War during the Reformation reveal that pacifism would have been a better way? The “peace” churches exist today because of the military victory of the reformers. When Cromwell’s diplomatic efforts lessen the persecution of Protestants in Catholic countries such as Italy and France failed, he threatened to invade Europe with his army of godly psalm-singing puritans to punish the Catholics for murdering Protestants. Persecution ceased in many places.

Question: What about Gandhi’s successful use of nonviolent resistance? Gandhi was a pacifist only when it served his purposes. Gandhi’s so-called pacifism was successful only because he was dealing with a democratic Christian nation. Even Gandhi admitted that his tactics would not work in totalitarian states.

Question: Doesn’t the Old Testament concept of “shalom” (i.e., peace) necessarily involve the idea that all war is evil? Shalom or peace by the use of force. Thus 2 Sam. 11:7 Josh. 21:43-44

Question:. What about “The lion and the lamb would lie down together? We do not have it already, “for who hopes for what he already has? (Rom. 8:24-25). When Jesus returns and sets up His glorious kingdom, there will be no need of force for He shall reign with divine authority.

Question: The just-war theory utilizes the Old Testament as its foundation. Isn’t this wrong since Christians should base their lives on the teaching of Jesus? The unity of the Scriptures should not be broken simply because we don’t like what they say. The New Testament authors did not hesitate to derive doctrine and ethics from principles contained in the Old Testament (2 Tim. 3:16-17)[All Scripture is given]. Furthermore, when pacifists think they have found something in the Old Testament to back up their position, such as “shalom,” they use it without hesitation. They end up doing what they condemn others for doing! For example, when arguing against the just-war theory, Ron Sider states that the Old Testament proves “too much” and “too little” to be of any practical use. But when Sider argues for a form of socialism in which wealth is redistributed by force, he bases his argument on over 150 Old Testament quotations.

Question: Since by His nonviolent life Jesus revealed that He was a pacifist, shouldn’t we follow His example? After all, He did not join the army or fight in any wars. The money changers might think differently about his being a pacifist. Jesus’ unique mission of salvation excluded Him from many normal things in life, such as marriage, following a career, owning a home, or fighting in a war. Obviously, we are not called to follow Jesus’ example on all these things. It is not logically valid to say that we are not to do something simply because Christ did not do it in His lifetime.

Question: Doesn’t the Bible say. “Thou shalt not kill”? It says, “Do not Murder,” not “Do not kill.” The two are totally different. Murder is usually pre-meditated based on a fit of rage, or hatred toward an individual for unjust reasons, while killing people, as Moses and Joshua led armies to do, is perfectly fine. The Hebrew word “murr” in Exodus 20:13 means murder. NIV, NKJV, NASB and others translate the word correctly. The very next chapter establishes that murderers should be put to death (Ex. 21:12) Why would the bible say to break the commandment because someone else broke it (murder, because someone else murdered). Two negatives don’t equal a positive. Obviously there is a difference between the two.

Question: Since Jesus calls us to be “peacemakers,” shouldn’t we join the modern “peace” movements? Christians do well to ascertain whether they are part of a scheme to disarm the country and render it incapable of resisting the machinations of those who would overthrow its historic institutions. Many of the so-called “peace” movements are either funded, directed or manipulated by the Soviet KBG. These groups will lead us into war if they disarm the Free World. Another favorite method of the Nazis to prepare a country for easy takeover was to disarm the population by strict gun control. If the people did not have weapons in their homes, they could do nothing to resist an invasion. In West Germany alone, in one year, the Soviets gave 30 million dollars to finance the “peace” party. When a country is selected for attack, they first set before the youth a mental barrage which will forever prohibit the youth from being molded into an armed force to oppose our invading armies. This can most successfully be done by creating “war horror” thought and by the teaching of pacifism and non-resistance. It is our duty to inculcate in the minds of all nations, the theories of international friendship, pacifism, and disarmament, encouraging resistance to military appropriations and training, at the same time, however, never for one moment relaxing our efforts in the upbuilding of our military establishment.

Question: Do you feel that America is God’s country in the same way Israel was in the Old Testament? We are Christians first and our ultimate allegiance is to Christ’s kingdom (Phil. 3:20). No nation is to be viewed as a divine theocracy on earth. Note that use of force was approved in all ages, before and after the theocracy, and not unique to a theocratic kingdom.

Question: How can a Christian participate in war when he may be called upon to do covert ops, such as spying? After all, we must tell the truth even to our enemies. The just-war theory does not condone the idea that “anything goes” in wartime. They did not rape and plunder like the typical armies of their day. The Bible does not teach that we owe the truth to everyone at all times, including our enemies. Wartime calls for special rules. According to Proverbs, a wise man does not tell everything he knows (Prov. 10:19; 13:3; 17:27-28; 21:23; 29:11). Concealing the truth by refusing to answer someone’s questions or simply by not saying anything is perfectly proper because it is not the same as lying. To think God would condemn concealing things from one’s enemies is absurd. This would make Biblical ethics impractical and unlivable. In the Old Testament, both Moses and Joshua sent spies into enemy territory under the direction and blessing of God (Num. 13; Josh. 2). Whatever God commands cannot be viewed as morally wrong unless one believes that God is the author of evil. Joshua’s spies entered Jericho, where they were concealed by Rahab from enemy soldiers (Josh. 2). She is exalted as an example of courage and faith by the author of Hebrews (11:31). She is not condemned for hiding the spies. God himself planned Israel’s ambush at Ai by having Joshua conceal his troops (Josh. 8:2)? In John 7:1-10, Jesus’ half brothers taunted Him by saying that He should go up to Jerusalem and publicly demonstrate that He was the messiah (vs. 4). Jesus told them in verse 8 that He was not going up to Jerusalem. Then in verse 10, we are told that Jesus went secretly up to Jerusalem! Yet we know Jesus did not “lie” to his brothers. Or again, when Jesus stood before the civil authorities, He refused to answer their questions because He was not under any moral obligation to tell them anything (Matt. 27:1-14). The Apostle Paul used a covert rescue operation to escape his enemies (Acts 9:25). Calvin and Knox used false names to escape their enemies. Corrie Ten Boom and others concealed Jews from the Nazi exterminations during the war. The underground Churches in Communist countries have to use covert operations just to meet for worship. IF they told the KBG the names of all their fellow believers and where they met because they were under the delusion that they were bound by the Bible to tell the truth to everybody, including their enemies, millions of them would have been destroyed years ago. God’s law never calls upon us to do what is insane or stupid. “His commandments are not burdensome” (1 John 5:3).

History has demonstrated that the greatest foe of tyranny is Biblical Christianity. Totalitarian states cannot allow the free preaching of the Gospel because Christ is proclaimed the Lord over all of life, including the state. Some suggestions would be to get involved. Write letters to the editors of newspapers and magazines when you find them pushing the tyranny of abortion, disarmament, etc. Call up the late night talk shows and let them hear the truth for a change. Visit your local TV station and get on their local talk shows. It is a lot easier than you think. If they have a “speak out” program, then get on the program and speak out about relevant issues. Write, phone and visit your local and federal politicians. Join a political party and work to see its platform reflect Biblical concerns such as the need for a strong military to defend your country. Go on marches and demonstrations. Register people to vote. Give your money to support good causes. Join a Christian political action groups such as the Moral Majority, The Roundtable, Christian Voice, and Freedom Foundation. “Man will ultimately be governed by God or by tyrants.” Shall we be carried to heaven “on flowery beds of ease, while others fight to win the prize and sail through bloody seas.”

Conclusion:
Genesis 4:8-12 In this passage, Scripture records the first murder wherein Cain killed Abel. That Cain must have used some sort of weapon to kill Abel is evidenced by the fact that Abel was bleeding (he was not strangled). Notice how God responded to the killing. He did not institute some sort of weapon-control, rather, He punished the one who committed the crime.
Exodus 20 and following In His holy Law, which God decreed at Sinai, nowhere do you see God outlawing weapons in regards to the various crimes which He prohibited in His legislation. He always punishes the perpetrator. He never disarms the citizenry.
Numbers 1 In His economy, God instituted an armed citizenry, not a standing army, in order to deal with the affairs of war regarding Israel. This is what the Founding Fathers of America envisioned for our nation. Even in Switzerland today, every home is furnished with a machine gun (one of the reasons Hitler chose not to invade Switzerland).
I Samuel 13:19-22 The Philistines disarmed the Israelites. Weapon-control was instituted. No blacksmiths were allowed lest the Israelites arm themselves. A disarmed people is the sign of a conquered people. A disarmed people is the sign of an enslaved people.
Matthew 5:38-39 In this passage, Jesus is not denigrating the Law of God in regards to one’s right to defend himself and others, rather He is repudiating the lex talionis - the law of retaliation, which said, "if someone messes you up today, you go back and mess him up five times worse tomorrow." The Pharisees were even using the Law of God to justify this mindset. Jesus is repudiating this personal vengeance which some sought to justify and participate in. He is not saying we cannot defend ourselves or others. Vengeance belongs to God (Romans 12:19; Deuteronomy 32:35; Proverbs 20:22). We are not to avenge ourselves. If we see someone who needs our help during the commission of a crime, we have a God-given right and duty to intervene. If however, the crime has been committed (past tense), we have no God-given right or duty to go and execute judgment upon the perpetrator. God will avenge. God will judge. We defend and kill if necessary, but if the damage has already been done, we don’t, for example, seek to kill the person who killed our spouse that we weren’t there to protect. I should turn him into the authorities so that they can dish out the justice. E.G. The government can go find the murderer of your spouse and hang him, just as the military can go find members of the Al’ Qada, Hamas, or hesbullah and execute them. God has given the sword (a symbol of judgment) to the civil magistrate (Romans 13:4). If a crime has been committed, it is to be reported to the civil authorities and they have a God-given right and duty before God to execute judgment.
Matthew 26:51-52 Where does Jesus tell Peter to put his sword? "In its place." John makes it clearer, Jesus said to Peter "Put your sword into the sheath" (John 18:11). Jesus didn’t tell him to melt it down into a plowshare. Jesus was trying to teach His disciples that His Kingdom is not expanded in the earth through the use of force, rather it is expanded through the preaching of the Gospel and the discipling of the nations.

If someone wants to live by the sword, they will die by the sword, as Jesus says. In other words, he who uses the sword for improper purposes will die by it. On that same but opposite note, it can be said that if people don’t practice self defense, they will die by the sword. To use the sword in self defense is not to “live” by it. It was improper for Peter to have used it in that situation. A criminal or a tyrant who uses the sword improperly will rightly die by it. A gang banger would be a perfect example. Their medicine usually is boomeranged back on them pretty quickly. But the use of the sword in a proper fashion, to defend one’s person or one’s family or one’s country, is not condemned by Scripture, rather Scripture upholds it.
As Jesus said in the very next verse, verse 53, "Or do you not think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He will provide Me with more than twelve legions of angels?" Jesus could have used force. The use of force; the use of swords were simply improper for the situation in which Christ was involved. He was supposed to die. He and the Father are not pacifists. He did not use force because He had to drink the cup of the Father, for that was His reason for being on earth to begin with.
Exodus 15:3 This verse of Scripture declares the Lord to be a "man of war." The book of Revelation defines Him as a King who does what? "Judges and makes war" (Revelation 19:11). The Scripture declares that Jesus Christ is "the same yesterday, today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). God’s character does not change. God is not a pacifist.
In closing, there are some who say that "we should not have guns; we should just trust God." My response to those who say this is - "let me ask you, do you have a lock on your front door?" They always say "yes." I then ask "Do you lock it when you leave or go to bed at night?" Those who live in the city always say "yes." I then ask "Why do you have a lock on your door? Why don’t you just trust God?" Or why do you go to the doctors office at times, or take vitamins, surely you have more trust in God than a doctor. There’s a borderline between being naturalistic and mystical. Stay on the biblical in between and have no qualms of conscience when a snake bites you and you go to the ER, that it shows you lack faith in any way. Just because we have a lock on our door or a gun in our closet does not mean we are trusting in them to protect us with the same trust with which we’re to trust the Lord.
Rather, we simply see the wisdom and prudence of having such things in order to be good stewards in protecting our belongings and our families. Sometimes all that is needed is just the threat of force (like the pointing of a gun and not the actual shooting of it) to deter criminals. Use some discernment with using the least amount of force as needed. If you are in a hopeless situation, for example: you have a pistol and the enemy is 6 guys with m-16’s, your smartest move would be to surrender and pray you don’t get tortured. The psalmist understood that there was no contradiction in any of the material presented here. The psalmist (David) who said in verse one of Psalm 144 "Blessed be the Lord my Rock, Who trains my hands for war, and my fingers for battle" said in verse two of Psalm 144 "My lovingkindness and my fortress, My high tower and my deliverer, My shield and the one in whom I take refuge."

Here is the “bottom line” of it all: If there is no final place for civil disobedience, then the government has been made autonomous, and as such, it has been put in the place of the Living God, because then you are to obey it even when it tells you in its own way at that time to worship Caesar. And that is exactly where the early Christians performed their acts of civil disobedience, giving to God what is God’s, even when it cost them their lives. I know that some of this has been repetitive, but only for clarity’s sake. I have shown not only that all of biblical history (OT and NT), and church history vindicates the material presented, but have also shown it to be exegetically accurate, looking at all the related bible passages. Some closing scriptures to motivate you to civil action for the unborn and other causes:

“The Lord looked and was displeased that there was no justice. He saw that there was no one, and He was appalled that there was no one to intercede.” Isaiah 59: 15-16
“Wake up! Strengthen the things which remain, that are about to die, For I have not found your deeds complete in the sight of my God.” Revelation 3:2

Here’s some humorous ending remarks for fun: “Sure I’m a pacifist, I’ll “pass a fist” if I need to. Blessed are the peace makers “Smith and Wesson.” Peace was still, peace be still, piece is made of steel. I wave my glock around and there will be peace, I guarantee it.

Abortion: Are you really that blind?

2006-10-17T01:00:00.001-07:00

Abortion: Are you really that blind?

UNITED STATES
1) Number of abortions per year: 1.37 Million (1996)
Number of abortions per day: Approximately 3,700 (The nation took notice of the roughly 3,000 murdered in the towers in New York, but no one batted an eye or made any complaint or anguish of heart over the roughly 3,700 murdered babies on U.S. soil that day, and every day for that matter.)
82% of abortions occur within the first trimester of life, 15% occur inside the second trimester of life, and 3% occur within the third trimester of life. Most of that 3% are done as partial birth abortions simply because of the size of the child at that point makes it unsafe to perform the abortion in much of any other way. That means close to 110 babies are murdered every day on U.S. soil in such a way (completely delivered except for head) that you either have your conscience completely seared, or you’re a complete idiot not to see the blatent contradiction and absolute horror and reality of abortion.
Why women have abortions: 1% of all abortions occur because of rape or incest; another 2-3% of abortions occur because of potential health problems regarding either the mother or child, and 96% of all abortions occur for social reasons (i.e. the child is unwanted or inconvenient).

The Media: Generally speaking, people gobble up whatever the news media feeds them as truth. Tell me, what is the first thing you think of when you hear the word abortion? If what you thought of was the actuality of mutilated babies, then perhaps you aren’t as brainwashed as the rest, but if what you thought of was images of pro-life, abortion protestors with signs, in front of a clinic and footage of some abortion doctor assassin getting carried away in cuffs and a jump suit, then your mind has surely been shaped and formed by the mass media. The soap and scrub brush have been applied to your gray matter. The second portrayal I gave is exactly how the media presents this issue, which is highly dishonest journalism at best.

1.On the occasion that I make a personal statement against abortion with signs of pictures of aborted babies, I often get the objection “Why do you have to use those pictures, they’re so graphic and upsetting. You are using emotional manipulation.” To which I respond, yes they are gruesome and upsetting and even emotions flow from looking at them, but the question is, is why are they so upsetting and emotional? Is the gruesome nature of the photos reflective of reality? If so, then your objection is groundless. You see folks, the media has hidden the real face of abortion for so long that it is shocking to lay claim to the real deal. Using accurate pictures is not manipulative, and is not meant to make or replace our case and position, but rather to supplement our case. The pictures don’t distort the truth, but rather clarify. People sometimes say “a picture speaks a thousand words,” and its true that a picture of an aborted baby speaks volumes more than my descriptive tongue can provide. When we talk about the holocaust, what immediately comes to our minds but pictures of Hitler and his German mob with their boot on some poor jewish man’s head. We are flooded with pictures of walking skin and skeletons (because of the starvation), we think of piles of dead bodies and the incinerators they are going to go to. The movie Schindler’s List was designed to give an honest representation of those historical events, and surely a moving picture is more powerful than a still photo. What is horrendous is not the pictures themselves, but the reality they depict. Pictures challenge our denial of the horrors of abortion. If something is too horrible to look at, perhaps it is too horrible to condone. Nothing could be more relevant to the discussion of something than that which shows what it really is. The humanist propaganda has surely blinded the minds of the public into believing this issue is even less than benign. What the abortion industry tries to do is to change the vocabulary of society in a way. This is done by labeling people who are opposed to abortion as Anti choice or Anti- abortion. This is done in the media to give off a negative connotation to that particular stance, while they trumpet themselves as pro-choice. Gee, pro (positive connotation) choice (choices are good too), sounds pretty good to the average ear. However, we need to be consistent. If we use these same tactics of linguistic shift, then pro-abortionists need to start taking on the label of pro-death or anti-life. Sure the pro lifers call themselves what they are, but they are rarely ever labeled as such in the media. It is clear that the pro-choice movement consistently caricatures and misrepresents pro-lifers and their agenda. As I said, it is sometimes claimed that Pro-lifers distort the facts and resort to emotionalism to deceive the public.” But it is not the pro-life position, but the pro-choice position that relies on emotionalism more than truth and logic. The pro-life position is based on documented facts and empirical evidence, which many pro-choice advocates ignore or distort. It is clear that the facts themselves is what makes abortion an emotional issue.

Memorize this 3 letter anacronym: DDL, or development, dependence, and location. These are some popular arguments from pro-choicers and they go like this: The fetus is in the mother, “its her body,” to which I respond “but what if its outside the mothers body, is it still her body?” They always say no. OK, so am I still a human despite my location, whether in my mom’s uterus, or in a crib or in Romania, or the bahammas. I am still a human no matter where I am. It’s interesting to note a surgical procedure called a congenital formative operation. This is an operation in which the doctor has to take the baby out of the womb to perform corrective surgery so that a congenital defect doesn’t worsen as development continues. The child is placed back in the womb after the surgery is complete and the mother is sutured up. Did the baby go from not being a human to being a human (when out of the womb), and back to not being a human again, when placed back in!!! The next argument is “Well, they can’t survive outside the mom, they are dependant and helpless,” as if the baby were a parasite leaching off the mothers flesh. To this I respond: So what, toddlers are dependant on their mothers as well and would not survive unless someone took care of them. I guess we must now execute or refuse treatment to diabetics because of their dependance on insulin drug therapy for type 1 diabetics, and the list goes on and on. The last argument is “they are only zygotes or fetus’s and aren’t fully developed so its not a human.” This is rediculous. A toddler, an adolescent going through puberty, etc, are not fully developed either. As you can see, the logic of the pro choice abortion stance is pretty weak, but unfortunately many pro lifers are addressing mothers cares and concern issues such as she may have psychological or health related problems. Although these things may be true, they are not a good way to address this issue because some women are glad they have had 5 abortions and if given the opportunity they’d have another one, and many aborters don’t come away with medical problems. Besides all this, what happened to sticking to our guns with why its wrong intrinsically, morally, using good sound logical argumentation? Aside from these 3 points, some will say size and appearance matter. Some may argue that the unborn does not even look like a human, how can you justify killing a human if it doesn’t even look like one! This was the attitude of the mob in the movie Elephant Man, that was about to kill him because he was badly deformed and didn’t look human. Folks, Does size and appearance validate the killing of unborn babies? Should women have less rights then men because most women in the world are a couple inches shorter than a man? Does Shaquille O’neil have more worth than most people? Should people with dwarfism be annihilated because there shortness in size. What about skin color, ethnicity, gender, and so forth. If someone is going to argue that size and appearance is the justification for killing the unborn, then they must also justify ethnic cleansing, and racism. All handicap, paralyzed, mentally challenged, geriatric, or people with deformities should be executed because they are not a “fully developed” or “Fully functioning human beings.” This is non-sense. So, because this little human person cannot fully talk, walk, or even go to the bathroom on its own, a woman should have the right to kill it? Anal sphincters and eyes are not fully developed until several months even years after birth. That is why kids poop their pants all the time. Some blind people have to be “dependent” on dogs to function in everyday life. Does that mean if we run a blind person over with our car, that they had it coming to them. Ask yourself this, how many body parts can I loose and still be considered a human? Are you only 60% yourself, or 60% of a human person because you got your arms and legs blown off by a land mine in a war, and therefore only receive 60% of the rights of everyone else. Give me a break! Pro-abortion rhetoric often confuses functioning as a person with being a person. Size, Level of Development, Environment, and Degree of Dependency are all moot when considering the sanctity of life. A person is not defined by what they can and cannot do. This would justify people who are in comas. Should a person in a coma be killed because he or she cannot fully function anymore? And another thing, this argument actually supports pro-life because one must first be a person to function as a person, and the unborn are nothing more than people who cannot fully function yet. I guess we can also kill those under general anesthesia who are basically comatose and stone cold to the world during surgery.

Abortion: One Key Issue
Abortion involves killing and discarding something that's alive. Whether it's right or not to take the life of any living being depends entirely upon the answer to one question: What kind of being is it? The answer one gives is pivotal, the deciding element that trumps all other considerations.
Let me put the issue plainly. If the unborn is not a human person, no justification for abortion is necessary, go ahead, have your abortion, who cares. However, if the unborn is a human person, no justification for abortion is adequate.

Did you know it is considered double homicide when someone kills a pregnant lady. Hmmm, I wonder why. --Abortions are performed with baby hanging out and then stabbed in the base of the brain. Somehow they don't see the logical inconsistencies. And another thing, why doesn’t the father get notified to see if he wants to have the child when the mother wants to abort? Is it simply because she is the incubator. Does not he get a say, and if not then why does he not get a say to abort, because if the mother wants to keep the baby and the father wants an abortion, then why is he obligated to pay child support. (just playing the logical strings of some of these nimnus, not that I believe this way as far as child support goes).

-- Now for those people who talk about health dangers to the mother. Look, if the baby’s continued occupancy is putting the mother’s life at risk, you don’t then kill the smallest member to save the other. Where are the medical ethics? EMS will try their best to save both lives. A fire fighter will not take his door axe and hack one person who is in the way, to get to another person in the house. NO! They try their best to save both lives, and if one can’t be resuscitated on the outside then that’s life, and don’t say there is a time issue involved here, because you can extract a baby pretty darn quick. This is why C-section was invented as a practice, so that a baby could be moved out stat. These hypothetical situations are rare anyway. I've followed many of the reports of these "medical emergencies," and in most cases the mother was told to take some pill for 3 consecutive days that would make the cervix softer and more pliable so that the procedure of abortion would go much smoother. Let me get this straight, a medical emergency that is not all that emergent!!! (3 days) Some hypocratic oath (more like hypocritical oath). Hospital sanctioned death care, not health care. Once again, the mother is doing fine and there have been many cases where a doctor says that later there will be complications and come to find out there were none. Lets go ahead and give the doctor the benefit of the doubt, and if in the future the mother has complications then at least the baby will be more developed and you could do a c-section and the baby would most likely be fine. Abortion to save the mothers life was legal before convenience abortion was legalized, and would continue to be if abortion were made illegal again. Next on the chopping block is objection “What about a woman whose unborn baby is diagnosed as deformed or handicapped?” First, the doctor’s diagnosis is sometimes wrong. The child’s deformity is often minor, when the diagnosis is correct, compared to what was thought of. Also, Medical tests for deformity may cause as many problems as they detect. Handicapped are often happy, and usually delighted to be alive. Handicapped children are not always social liabilities, and bright “normal” people are not always social assets. And using dehumanizing language may change our thinking, but not the child’s nature or value. Our society is hypocritical in its attitude towards handicapped children, for the arguments for killing an unborn handicapped child are valid only if they apply to killing born people who are handicapped (to supposedly keep them from further suffering in their future life).
-- I once heard someone say that if you don't give these pregnant women a clean, safe environment in which it is legal to do abortions, then they will do it themselves and probably harm themselves and possibly die in the process. To this i say, if we had laws that made guns illegal to posess, and all the existing guns were rounded up and destroyed, we'd have all those "poor gang-bangers" trying to make guns on their own, hurting and possibly killing themselves because they lack technical expertise and gunpowder would be blowing up in their faces when they do their drive-by shootings. Do you see how stupid this sounds! Its the same thing though.. "Poor women" who are so depressed that they can't murder innocent children that they murder themselves. That last statement is attached to the idea that it is wrong to legislate "morality." This is also a not very well thought out idea, because no matter who is in office, some set of moral guidelines will be put in place. Its not a matter of keeping religious ideas out of the state, but whose religious ideas will be in the state, because everyone is unavoidably religious, even if you follow the religion of atheism. Religion is nothing more than the beliefs you have concerning origin, destiny, and purpose of life, in relation to God, gods, or no god at all. Many nonreligious people believe that abortion kills children and that it is wrong. Morality must not be rejected just because it is supported by religion. America was founded on a moral base dependent upon principles of the bible and the Christian religion.
1.Now, the laws related to church and state were intended to assure freedom for religion, not freedom from religion.
2.It is so stupid to object to this because if one doesn’t believe in a god, why are they so adament about getting this figment out of their lives and government. After all, its just one worldview vs. another. Whether or not our reasons for wanting certain political ideas enforced has to do with a god is irrelevant to the issue. Your religion influences your ideas in the political arena as well. It is unavoidable. Someone’s religion is going to be involved in the state, and its just a question of whose its going to be. By the way, the only thing that can be legislated is a moral code of some sort, so don’t say “you can’t legislate morality,” for that is all you can legislate.
3.Ok, The whole bit on "seperation of church and state” came from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury baptists, to declare that there could not be one nationally acclaimed denomination. Thats all he was saying! The first ammendment is what allows all religious affiliates to live on this land peaceably without persecution like you see with Shirea law in Islamic lands, where christians are to be killed unless converted. It was also to assure that the government could not do things like impose a tithe on the people on behalf of the church and practice church discipline and the sort, for that was the church’s dealings. Continuing with the back alley abortion business we were talking about.. For decades prior to its legalization, 90 percent of abortions were still done by physicians in their offices, not in the back alley the propagandist talks about. And it never was tens of thousands that they claimed. If abortion became il-legal again, it’d be done with medical equipment, and not clothes hangers. Lets not forget that women still die from legal abortions in America. Some have said “Even if abortion were made illegal, there would still be many abortions.” Well, just because harmful acts against the innocent will take place regardless of the law is a poor argument for having no law. Plus, history shows that laws concerning abortion does indeed have a significant influence on whether or not women choose to have an abortion. Laws with ramifications do indeed deter crime. Also, abortion is not a safer medical procedure than full-term pregnancy and childbirth, as pro-abortionists have claimed. Abortion can produce many serious medical problems (Huge bloodclots from ru486 to name one). The various abortion procedures are often both difficult and painful for women. The many post abortion therapy and support groups testify to the reality of abortion’s potentially harmful psychological effects. The suicide rate is significantly higher among women who have had abortions than among those who haven’t. Post-abortion syndrome is a diagnosable psychological affliction. It is in the books. Many professional studies document this finding.

Some Scientific Facts:
1) There is NO period of “Non-Life” throughout the entire pregnancy process. From the moment of conception, the unborn is being developed. It has been said by some uneducated people that it is uncertain when human life begins. Well, first, If there IS uncertainty about when human life begins, the benefit of the doubt should go to preserving life. Some have said, “we really don’t know if it is a human.” Let me ask, If you are a hunter and you see some bushes moving or rustling, do you just start shooting away? Or do you investigate and see if it is a deer, or human, or whatever? If you do not know, then investigate WHAT IT IS. How much trouble would I be in as a demolition team manager, if I got report that we think there is nobody in the building and proceeded, being satisfied with that report. NO! I better make damn sure there is nobody in that building, before I start blowing stuff up. If you say you don’t know if it is human, then how dare anyone roll dice with the life of someone.
2) Medical textbooks and scientific reference works consistently agree that human life begins at conception. Every one of my nursing textbooks, which are not written by Christians mind you, say that life begins at conception. Some of the world’s most prominent scientists and physicians testified to a U.S. Senate committee that human life begins at conception.
3) Science has shown that DNA Fingerprinting is unique to each individual human being; therefore the unborn is not just a “part” of the woman’s body. The Unborn is a separate being with rights just like any other person living.
4) Further proof for the individuality of the unborn is its gender, blood type, and unique genetic code. If this being was a part of the mother’s body, then how could it possibly have a different genetic code? The body would surely attack the foreign invader with a different blood type. This is why you can’t just get a blood infusion without checking the type. A body part is defined by the common genetic code it shares with the rest of its body. That is why liver transplants are determined most successful by family members b/c of similar genetic structure. If the unborn is really part of the mother’s body, then you must concede that she has 8 appendages like an arachnid, and is potentially a hermaphrodite if she has a boy inside her. “Nice penis you’ve got there Cindy.” If the fetus is just a part of the pregnant woman’s body, like her tonsils or appendix, explain why the child may die and the mother live, or the mother may die and the child live, proving they are two separate individuals.
5) The unborn child takes an active role in his own development, controlling the course of the pregnancy and the time of birth.
6) Being inside something is not the same as being part of something.
7) Here’s something to ponder, what about Siamese twins who are one body. Can one kill the other because the other is part of its body? Can a woman kill a man like a black widow when he is part of her body during sex, or can i kill a surgeon when his hand is in my abdominal cavity?
8) Now, if a woman has a choice to do with her body as she wills, Then Why is it illegal for her to prostitute It out, or to pump it full of drugs, after All, it is her body.. Here is another interesting Fact:
The baby’s body can survive Outside the mother, some cases in the mid Second Trimester (8.5 oz.--actual case), which proves that the Baby doesn’t need the mother’s body to Survive. They are 2 separate Bodies. At what point do you define when a baby becomes a viable human being. Where is that threshold. Birth is not the correct answer, for many "pre-me’s" survive every day. The word “fetus,” is Latin for “offspring,” so next time you say its just fetal tissue, Know that you are really Saying, “its just the early stage tissue of my offspring.” How about taking a chunk out of your adult sized tissue.. You and i are just grown up fetus’s.. And anyway, the point of viability constantly changes because it depends on technology, not the unborn herself or himself. Eventually babies may be “viable” from the point of conception. Also, someone’s helplessness or dependency should motivate us to protect him or her, not to destroy him or her.

What Kind of Being is the Unborn?
Is it a rabbit, a fish, owl, tomato plant, corn cob? What is it? If she is not alive, why is she growing?
If he is not a human being, what kind of being is he? If I had my back turned while doing dishes and my kid asked me “ daddy, can I kill this,” there is a simple question that must be answered before I can respond and that is the question, “What is it?” If it’s a cockroach or a spider, yes, and kill it quick, if it’s the neighbors cat, whoa, slow down Billy, if it’s the kid down the street, then we have to have some counseling son. Do you see the importance of answering this one vital question. All the other side issues are irrelevant aside from this question.

I’m going to tell you something very important, and listen carefully. It cannot be anything but an unborn human being—scientifically speaking. Why? Because of the DNA of the Zygote.

Louis Pasteur, maybe some of you are familiar with if you took high school biology or something; proved that life cannot come from non life. This is called the Law of Biogenesis. All life must come from a pre-existing life, thus each being must produce after its own kind—whether human or plant or animal, etc. So when we speak about the topic of abortion, one question must quickly follow… what is the unborn’s parents? Are they human, and if so, then isn’t what they are producing a human as well? And if they are producing a human, then how can abortion be right if it is the killing of that human?
Well some may say, “It’s not a human, but a potential human.” Or well, “an acorn is not an oak tree is it?”
This is a divergent from the real issue. The point is not of development, but rather, what is the unborn. Whether or not the baby is fully developed is not the issue. An acorn is in fact an oak, just not fully developed, as there are stages (seed, sapling, small tree with no seeds, large seeds with its own seeds or acorns). The same is the case with a fetus being a baby or a human, just not fully developed. Just the same as an infant is a developing adult, or a teenager a developing adult. The difference being the size and development gives them a different title or name. Symantics don’t change reality. Like the words “toddler” and “adolescent,” the terms “embryo” and “fetus” do not refer to non-humans, but to humans at particular stages of development. Semantics affect perceptions, but they do not change realities; a baby is a baby no matter what we call her. To say “the unborn is an embryo or a fetus---just a simple blob of tissue, a product of conception, is not using the noggin. First, from the moment of conception, the unborn is not simple, but very complex. Prior to the earliest first trimester abortions, the unborn already has every body part he/she will ever have. Every abortion stops a beating heart and terminates measurable brain waves. Even if there weren’t, I don’t think it matters much when brain-waves are present because there is only one moment when a NEW HUMAN BEING appears... at conception. Any point after a new human life begins, is the during or the ending, a person cannot have 2 beginnings. Whether the death is caused by miscarriage, induced abortion, car wreck or old age, the end is still the same. That life no longer exists. Even in the earliest abortions, the unborn child is clearly human in appearance. And, no matter how much better it sounds, “terminating a pregnancy” is still terminating a life.”
Some have said similar things like “the fetus may be alive, but so are eggs and sperm. The fetus is a potential human being, not an actual one; its like a blueprint, not a house.”
1) Now, Sperm cells alone, egg cells alone, skin cells, red blood cells, are all examples of living cells that are not developing into more humans, so please don’t use the unintelligent stance that it follows that if we can’t abort babies, then we must crack down on people who masturbate as well. First off, sperm cells are killed without ejaculation anyway (they don’t just build up and build up), but more importantly, only a fertilized egg is a developing human life. This just happens to be accomplished by a female egg and a male sperm. The mechanism or components are not important, but the resultant entity.
2)Plus, physical remains after an abortion indicate the end not of a potential life but of an actual life.
3) Next, I want to ask, Were You Ever an Unborn Child?
It doesn't seem to make sense to say you once were a sperm or an egg. Does it make sense, though, to talk about yourself before you were born? Did you turn in your mother's womb or kick when you were startled by a loud noise? Did you suck your thumb? Were those your experiences or someone else's? If you were once the unborn child your mother carried, then you must accept an undeniable truth: killing that child through abortion would have killed you. Not a potential you. Not a possible you. Not a future you. Abortion would have killed you. This is why abortion is tragic. It kills more than a human body. It kills a valuable human being. A common way to dehumanize the unborn in order to justify abortion is to refer to pregnancy as "creating potential life." Calling an unborn child a "potential life" is just a clever rhetorical trick. There is no such thing as creating a "potential life."
Think about it. First, you could potentially create life, that is, create a potential for life. When a man and a woman get married and have sex there's potential in their conduct for life to be created. Second, you could create a life with potential, one that has the possibility of developing into something good or noble. But that's the end of your options. You either potentially create a life or you create a life with potential. You never create a potential life.
It's like saying, "I just had a potential thought." What could that possibly mean, you just had a potential thought? You either had a thought or you didn't. And your thought has some potential for the future or it doesn't. But you never have a potential thought.
In the same way, pregnancy doesn't create a potential life. If so, then the problem of that potential life could be solved simply by having a potential abortion. Since a real abortion is needed to end pregnancy and not a potential one, a real life must be involved, not a potential one.
But I want to bring you back to the original point. If the unborn, Scientifically speaking, is in FACT a human being with its own finger print, DNA, central nervous system, blood type, gender, etc. Then abortion is in FACT, the killing of an innocent, smaller, undeveloped or handicapped, human being. Because only something living can be killed.

Abortion for Rape Victims?
If we allowed an abortion under those circumstances it would send a terrible message, that when someone reminds you of something extremely painful you can eliminate them. But you can't kill another human being just because their existence makes your life physically or emotionally burdensome.
If I had a law on my desk that restricted abortion except in the cases of rape or incest I would sign it, even though I don't think rape and incest ought to be exceptions. I'd just rather save 99% of the children whose lives are taken through abortion rather than none, because most abortion cases are ones performed for "convenience" sake. Pregnancy due to rape, with the proper treatment, can be prevented. My sister is an example of this. What about already born people who are “products of rape?” All that is true of children conceived in rape, is true of those conceived in incest.
No adverse circumstance for one human being as with these hard cases, changes the nature and worth of another human being. Laws must not be built on exception cases. There are many cases where a mother was raped and decided to keep the child as her own, because…Duh! It is her own, no matter whose sperm cell Fertilized the egg. It is no less hers than if her consent was involved.
Here’s a question for you.. Should the rape victim have the right to execute her rapist when he is caught? Most people will say no, that’s inhumane or unjust. But it is okay to kill the unborn baby who didn’t have anything to do with the crime! Folks, do you see how unintelligent these arguments are in the real world. If it is wrong to kill the criminal for raping the victim, then why kill the unborn child? You Don’t kill the child for the Crime of the father! This is like taking this scenario: that someone attacked you and chopped off your arm (which will impact the rest of your life), and to fix this problem you want to chop off some innocent persons arm in hopes that a doc can reattach their arm to your socket. (trying to “fix” your dilemma at the very high expense of another.

"Life a Beautiful Choice? It's Not So Beautiful for an Unwanted Child."
Believe it or not, a pastor made this comment. I had to ask myself, "Why isn't an unwanted child's life beautiful?" The answer is, because he's unwanted. But this alone doesn't make anyone's life miserable. There's more to it than this. What makes an unwanted child's life miserable? Other people do. Unwanted children are unhappy because of the way they're treated. This pastor's startling admission amounts to this: "If we let this child live, I'm going to treat him so badly, I'll make life so miserable for him, he'll wish he was dead." It's an admission he would rather kill a child than do what is necessary to give him a meaningful life. Is this a good argument for abortion? Do you see what kind of people we're becoming? I’ve also heard someone say “Every child a wanted child. It’s unfair to bring children into a world where they’re not wanted.” First off, every child is wanted by someone. There is no such thing as an unwanted child. (adoption). And anyway, “Unwanted” describes not an actual condition of the child, but an attitude of adults. The problem of unwantedness is a good argument for wanting children, but a poor argument for aborting them. What is most unfair to “unwanted” children is to kill them. I’ve also heard “Having more unwanted children results in more child abuse.” Actually, child abuse has not decreased since abortion was legalized, but has dramatically increased. You wonder why when we have such a disposable attitude about them. Since they are viewed as expendable before birth, they will be viewed that way afterward. Also, it is illogical to argue a child is protected from abuse through abortion since abortion is the epitome of child abuse.

Modified Pro-Choice
When ever you hear someone say, take this stand, "I am personally against abortion, but I don't think you should pass any laws against it," there's a question that should immediately be on your lips. Simply ask, "Tell me, why are you personally against abortion?" What you'll almost always hear is, "I'm personally against abortion because I think it kills an innocent human being, but that's my personal belief."
Follow up with this comment: "Let me see if I understand you correctly. You say that abortion takes the life of an innocent human child, but mothers should not be prevented from killing their own children."
He said, "Well, when you put it that way..." I said, "Put it what way? That's your view, unless I've misunderstood you. Please correct me if I have. As I understand it, that's precisely what you believe. This isn't a trick. It's not a clever 'spin.' I merely repeated what you just told me. That is your view. Doesn't sound so good coming back at you, does it?" The only good reason for being personally against abortion is a reason that demands we be against other people choosing to have abortions as well.

The “Seamless Garment” Unravels
I am consistently amazed at the “consistently pro-life,” those who reject capital punishment as a matter of principle (the so-called “seamless garment” argument).
Strict “pro-life” consistency requires more than opposition to executions. It requires the Eastern doctrine of ahimsa: harm no living thing, including microbes and mosquitoes. What about the poor termites that are tearing up the wood in your house or the roaches. No pro-lifer goes this far. But why not? Because there’s a big moral difference between human beings and bugs. Sure, but there’s also a big moral difference between innocent unborn children and vicious murderers.
“Pro-life” is actually shorthand for the more cumbersome, “We are ‘pro’ the lives of innocent children being destroyed for frivolous reasons.” Nothing about the logic of the pro-life view properly understood requires opposition to capital punishment. Ironically, capital punishment turns out to be the real pro (in favor of) life position. Executing guilty people is a way of affirming the value of the innocent life being preyed upon by murderers. On a more national level, if we kill a dictating tyrant, who is murdering thousands, perhaps millions, then we are actually loving our neighbor by protecting the innocent, when we execute a guilty violator of inalienable human rights. Same thing if I see a defenseless woman or child being pummeled to the edge of their life, I am going to do my best to knock that guy out, if necessary to preserve both their life and mine, I may need to kill him. These types of things are acts of heroism, not criminalism. People seem to have it backwards. Many pro-lifers are Christians (at least by name) and need to realize that the capital punishment is something that I didn’t make up. God did: Whoever sheds man’s blood, By man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made man. (Gen 9:6) Pretty straight-forward. Twenty-one different offenses called for the death penalty in the Old Testament. Again, God’s idea. If Jesus reversed this principle, apparently Paul missed it:
Rom 13:3-4 for [ruling authority] is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath upon the one who practices evil.
Acts 25:11 If then I am a wrongdoer, and have committed anything worthy of death, I do not refuse to die; but if none of those things is true of which these men accuse me, no one can hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar. Christ Himself used capital punishment to rescue us from darkness and death. Look to the cross.

"Forced" to Be Parents?
A new challenge to the pro-life view is the claim that restrictions on abortion actually force women to become parents against their will, an unconscionable intrusion of government into our private lives.
Agreed, no one should be forced to become a parent against his or her will, but this is not the situation we face in abortion. If the unborn is a human being, then pregnant women already are parents. It seems morally self-evident that no parent should escape her responsibilities by killing her unwanted children. The only legitimate way to escape from already being a parent is through adoption.
Clearly, the issue isn't unwanted parenthood. If the unborn is a human being, the woman already is the child's mother and should not be permitted to kill him just because she doesn't want him. A similar argument I’ve heard goes like this: --“Even if the unborn are human beings, they have fewer rights than the woman. No one should be expected to donate her body as a life support system for someone else.” But what a person using this argument fails to realize is that the comparison between baby’s rights and mother’s rights is unequal. What is at stake in abortion is the mother’s lifestyle (temporarily at that), as opposed to the baby’s life. It is reasonable for society to expect an adult to live temporarily with an inconvenience if the only alternative is killing the child.

--Pro-abortion advocates are gung ho about presenting their agenda as a women’s rights campaign. What’s interesting is that these femi-nazi’s (I call them that) don’t realize that their rally’s are based on a principle that destroys itself. You see, they are really only pro-rights for adult women, not for little women. They try to turn this into a gender issue of women’s liberation. They just forget about the smallest of females. Those females have no rights, in fact, they are to be eliminated. Every woman should have control over her own body, they say. But, abortion assures that 750,000 females each year in America do not have control over their bodies. Control over the body can be exercised to prevent pregnancy in the first place. It is demeaning to a woman’s body and self-esteem to regard pregnancy as an “out of control” condition, where she is no longer in control if she cannot execute her child. Not all things done with a persons body are right, nor should they all be legally protected.

Pro-abortionists flawed rhetoric is shown in how they often attacks the pro-lifer instead of the argument (this is called an ad-hominem attack and is a fallacy in logic and argumentation). A common example is, “men shouldn’t even have a say in anything concerning abortion.” Really why? What if I were to say that 9 out of the 10 people on Roe v. Wade were men… Should we reverse the Laws on abortion because the majority was men? And again, what does this have to do with killing unborn children? Some have said that “Abortion-rights are fundamental for the advancement of women. They are essential to having equal rights with men.” Well, I hate to break it to you, but early feminists were pro-life, not pro-choice. Some active feminists still vigorously oppose abortion. Besides which, women’s rights do have boundaries, just like men’s rights. The basic premises of the abortion-rights movement are demeaning to women. One of the beautiful things about a woman is her introducing new life into the world. Some of the abortion-rights strategies assume female incompetence and subject women to ignorance and exploitation. Abortion has become the most effective means of sexism ever devised, ridding the world of multitudes of unwanted females. If the pro-lifers are a bunch of men trying to tell women what to do, then why are there more women than men oppose abortion. The great majority of pro-life workers are women. Of women who have had abortions, far more are pro-life activists, than pro-choice activists. And anyway, if men are disqualified from the abortion issue, they should be disqualified on both sides of the argument. The fact is, is that men are entitled to take a position on abortion. Another way the Pro-abortionist likes to attack the pro-lifer is by saying “Pro-lifers don’t care about women, and they don’t care about babies once they are born.” But this is not true, Pro-lifers are actively involved in caring for women in crisis pregnancies and difficult child raising situations. Pro-lifers are actively involved in caring for “unwanted” children and the other “disposable people” in society. It is “abortion providers” who do not provide support for women choosing ANYTHING but abortion. If the circumstances of many women really leave them no choice but to have an abortion, how can they conclude that saying they have no choice is being pro choice at all. It’s more accurate to say that they are just pro-abortion. Even if no pro-lifer is willing to put her “money where her mouth is” that still would not mean that this gives any credence to the opposite side. But hey, I am willing (as most any pro-lifers are) to take care of a baby that someone says they will abort otherwise. I will put my money where my mouth is.

Another thing is, Pro-abortion rhetoric often confuses the objective with subjective claims. In other words, Moral Objectives vs. Personal preference. Like chocolate or vanilla ice-cream, just random personal preference. But the problem is that it is a moral issue. We discussed earlier that the unborn is in FACT a living being, separate from the mother’s body. It cannot be anything but a Moral issue! And relativism is not an answer. It’s not about what we like or don’t like. Saying, “then don’t have an abortion” or “don’t bug someone if they feel that its okay,” is like saying “if you don’t like slavery, then don’t buy a slave.” The argument is not going to work in the real world.

-- The Biggest argument proposed by the pro-choice advocates is, “Woman have the right to choose.” I always say, “choose what?” This is once again a tangent from the issue. Everyone has the ability to choose to do whatever they want. I have the right to choose to go to school or not go, eat or not eat, etc. The fact is, is that women do not have the right to murder unborn babies. To say “Right or Freedom to choose” is too vague for meaningful discussion. IF a chooses to murder an unborn human being, then they should be punished for their crimes. Men do not have the right to choose. Scott Peterson got second degree murder charges for killing his unborn child, as he was charged with double homicide, not singular. So why should women have any more of a right to murder than men? It’s interesting to see the people who are pro choice about abortion are often not pro-choice about other issues with less at stake. E.G. the choice to (as a teacher) start class with prayer if they so chose. Let us not forget that the one-time choice of abortion robs someone else of a life-time of choices and prevents him from ever exercising his rights.
The right to choose is not the issue, but rather, what is the unborn, and if it is human (as I have shown that they are), should a person have the right to murder these unborn people? Of course not!
Womens rights you say? Where do these rights come from anyway? Are they transcendent rights? If so, then what about the transcendent value of human life given by the same transcendent right giver. If the government is the giver of the rights and not a transcendant right giver, then I suppose you won’t be opposed when the government takes those rights away. Bologna, you'll be up in arms, Mr. or Mrs. pro-death advocate..

MISCELLANEOUS POINTS OF ADDRESS AND INTERESTING FACTS:

--Did you know that you will go To prison for a long time for Tampering with or killing an Eagle egg or a baby seal. Why An elevated regard for animal Life and not for human life.

Abortions and Holocaust
Both abortion and the Nazi holocaust are unspeakably evil, purely on the merit of the number of
human lives sacrificed. However, in the case of the Jewish Holocaust, the evil is compounded by the circumstances under which it was done.Aborted human beings die relatively quickly and, by comparison, with little or no mental anguish. (This is certainly not always true, but that's another issue.) Jews, on the other hand, were treated like animals--terrorized, persecuted, raped, beaten, and then eventually murdered. Clearly, not all holocausts are equal. If they are, who would say that taking the life of a youngster (in this case very young) is not the moral equivalent of taking the life of an adult? Generally we're more shocked by the loss of young life than old, though we would hold that both are equally valuable in virtue of their humanity.

Bumper Sticker Slogans
The bumper sticker says, "If You Can't Trust Me With A Choice, How Can You Trust Me with a Child?"
There are some choices no one should be "trusted" with in the sense that the decision is up to them. One of them is the choice to kill innocent human beings. Further, no one is "trusting" the mother with a child. She doesn't need permission to get pregnant. Because of the nature of motherhood, this is properly out of the state's control. If it were in the control of the state, many would be denied that trust.

Kids: Have an Abortion, Not a Smoke
If a woman, even a teenager, even a minor, even without her parents' consent, has an inalienable right to have an abortion, then how does one argue she can't do something less violent to her body than such a medical procedure, and less violent to the body of another human being--the unborn child--than smoking? How does one argue this is no longer an acceptable choice?
If the government is willing to say that something as extreme as abortion is a private, personal choice (so much so that even the real father of the girl seeking the abortion can't interfere), then how do they justify their own paternalism by taking a cigarette out of the hand of a teenager because she just isn't old enough to decide for herself?

MISCELLANEOUS ARGUMENTS OF PRO-ABORTIONISTS AND ANSWERS TO THEM:

--“Obviously life begins at birth. That’s why we celebrate birthdays, not conception days, and why we don’t have funerals following miscarriages.”
1. Our recognition of birthdays is cultural, not scientific.
2. Some people do have funerals after a miscarriage.
3. Funerals are an expression of our own subjective attachments to those who have died, not a measurement of their true worth.
4. There is nothing about birth that makes a baby essentially different than he was before birth.

“Abortion is a decision between a woman and her doctor. It’s no one else’s business. Everyone has a constitutional right to privacy.”
1.First, the Constitution does not contain a right to privacy.
2.Privacy is never an absolute right, but is always governed by other rights.
3.The father will often face serious guilt and grief as a result of an abortion. Since his life will be significantly affected, shouldn’t he get a say about it.

--“ It’s unfair for an unmarried woman to have to go through the pain of giving up a child for adoption.”
-The reason that adoption may be painful is the same reason that abortion is wrong—a human life is involved.

--“Restricting abortion would be unfair to the poor and minorities, who need it most.”
-The rich and white, not the poor and minorities, are most committed to unrestricted abortion.

--“Abortion helps solve the problem of overpopulation and raises the quality of life.”
-1.The current birth rate in America is less than what is needed to maintain our population level.
2.The dramatic decline in our birth rate will have a disturbing economic effect on America.
3.Overpopulation is frequently blamed for problems with other causes. Really, there is no over all population problem (maybe in N.Y.C. and Tokyo, but not abroad, universally).
4.If there was a population problem that threatened our standard of living, the solution is not to kill off part of the population.
5.Sterilization and abortion as cures to overpopulation could eventually lead to a communistic type of mandatory sterilization and abortion, if “overpopulation” is the stated reasons as being legit.
6.The “quality of life” concept is breeding a sense of human expendability that has far reaching social implications.

--“The anti-abortion beliefs of the minority shouldn’t be imposed on the majority.”
1.Majority polls clearly indicate it is a majority, not a minority, who believe there should be restrictions on abortions.
2.In 1973, the Supreme Court imposed a minority morality on the nation, ignoring the votes of citizens and the decisions of state legislatures.
3.If the majority said it was ok to rape women without penalty, would that be ok? Majority is not always the guide.

--“Abortion providers are respected medical professionals working in the woman’s best interests.
1.Abortion clinics do not have to maintain the high standards of health, safety, and professionalism required of hospitals.
2. Many clinics are in the abortion industry because of the vast amounts of money involved.
3. Clinic workers commonly prey on fear, pain, and confusion to manipulate women into getting abortions.
4. Clinic workers regularly misled or deceive women about the nature and development of their babies.
5. Abortion clinics often exploit the feminists connection, making it appear their motive is to stand up for women.
6.Doctors doing abortion violate the fundamental creeds of the medical profession.

This is just a bit of info to chew on. There is much more I could say to show the logical inconsistencies and moral wrongness of the pro-abortion standpoint, but this is plenty for now. E-mail me if you have questions, objections or anything else at powerof33ad2004@yahoo.com. Later, Tom

The Lie of Homosexuality

2006-07-20T23:14:00.003-07:00

TO THE PERSON WITH HOMOSEXUAL PREFERENCE:

Christ said that “open rebuke is better than secret love and “faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. (Proverbs 27:5-6) What I mean by using this is, that a rebuke to your behavior, as much as you may cherish it, is not necessarily a bad thing (the rebuke) if the rebuke is true. Luke 6:26 says “Woe to you, when all men shall speak well of you..,” which is to affirm how, many people just like to give others what their “itching ears” want to hear, (2Tim 4:3) I also want to encourage you to not be so quick to dismiss this letter just because it sounds like an attack. Sometimes its these kind of challenges that are the best thing for us. . Jesus actually said it to be a virtue to “call out,” and expose sin and heresy and false teaching, not a bad thing. Judge not, least ye be judged, in context, is speaking of a person who is living as a hypocrite. For example, if someone was living in adultery, he should not judge another person doing the same exact thing, and the word judge is also a harsh condemnation of such an act, taken from the Greek language. So one person who has just committed adultery could go and advise another person not to commit adultery and tell him of the horrible consequences if he did. It’s a warning so to speak, not a condemnation. So next time a person is about to jump into a shark infested water and another dude says “Don’t jump in dude, you’re going to get ate up stupid!” Why don’t you just say “Don’t judge him, you don’t know him!” That’s retarded right!, but if a dude who just committed adultery yesterday and sees a guy commit it today and says “you evil man, you’re going to hell, I cant believe you did that to your wife.” Then that guy is wrong.. If we cannot judge, then how could we ever say what Hitler was wrong in killing 6 million Jews? We would have no standard, no morals. The only way we can say Hitler was wrong is because God said not to, Likewise, if God said you must do this, this and this to be saved and as a result, this, this and this would happen if you are born again, then by the very same principle all Christians say to the unregenerate, or (ones not born again) that they are wrong, using scripture as their authority, when these things aren’t happening or aren’t apparent, and as a result are headed for Hell. God also said not to throw pearls before swine (or pigs) only 5 verses down from this judge not verse in Matthew 7:6 ! Which basically means don’t try to give the jewels of the life giving words of the gospel to pigs who will just trample all over them and dirty them in the mud and then attack and maybe trample the person trying to give it. Well, why would God tell us this if we were not allowed to judge. How then would we ever know who not to throw the pearls to. You’d have to judge in order to know who the piggies are. One needs to understand that when they say someone else is being judgemental, they, in that very statement are being judgemental of the person who made a judgement. You see, there is no way around judging things and people. We do it all the time. A few verses down in Matt 7:15, God says to beware of false prophets. We have to judge who is a false prophet and who is not if we are going to heed this warning. Check Luke 7:43 and the Lord Jesus said unto him: "Thou hast rightly judged."
Luke 12:57 "Why do you not of yourselves judge what is right?"
John 7:24 "Do not judge according to appearance, but judge with righteous judgment."
1Cor.2:15-16
"But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."
Anyway, there are many other passages that show that judging is not the issue, but whether the judgement is correct or not. This is known by whether it is in line with scripture.
The first part of this letter shows how a gay persons arguments don’t hold up logically, scientifically, and the second part deals with how it is not morally sound either. I list the many misconceptions and fallacies that homosexuals use to try and support their habit by twisting scripture. You’ll see…..
I’m doing this not because I like to type long letters and waste my time. I do it because I love you, and I am presenting the truth of your condition before God. I would expect you to get on my case if I was a practicing thief because that will get me put in hell just as quick. I’m not trying to split hairs and be a “sin sniffer.” This is no small issue though. Here we go:

First point i’ll make is concerning how homosexuals talk about tendencies that they have which makes them gravitate towards the same sex. This tendency is the same tendency though, that every human being has. It is called the sin nature. Even your mom has the capacity to turn into a homosexual, but chances of that happening are very slim because she just won’t allow herself to slip down that road. It is a build up of things that snowball into a depravity avalanche. One starts getting into the party scene, hanging out with the wrong people, getting into drugs and alcohol, and on we go, into stranger forms of sexual appetites, then homosexuality, then perhaps one will desire to watch snuff films of people getting raped and murdered and beasteality, s&m, etc. We all have the tendency to be gay, just like we all have the tendency to be murderers.

On the surface, there seems to be some truth to the claim that homosexuality is natural. It’s not unusual, for example, to see male dogs mount each other in an erotic way. There are two problems with this view, however.

First, the observation is flawed because it assumes that erotic behavior in other mammals is the same as homosexual desire in human beings.

Male homosexuals engage in sodomy not because of an attraction to a physical body part (women have that body part, too [an anus]), but rather because of an attraction to a gender. They are male erotic, and sodomy is an expression of that desire.

Does the animal kingdom display this kind of same-gender eroticism? When a male dog mounts another male dog, is it because he’s attracted to the male gender of the other dog?

I don’t think so. This same poor pooch will slavishly mount sofas or shrubs or anything else available, including the leg of your dinner guest. None of these things are the object of the canine’s sexual lust; they are merely the subject of it. The dog does not desire your unfortunate visitor. He simply desires to be stimulated. This may prove that dogs masturbate. It doesn’t prove they have homosexual desire in any way parallel with humans.

Secondly, the view asserts that simply because the condition "occurs in nature" it is "natural." But by this use of the word all sorts of things would be natural. Humans mating with animals, children drinking cleaning fluid, rain forests being replaced with concrete, because all would be occurring "in nature." Human beings are part of nature by this definition, and therefore all and any human conduct would be natural. Virtually nothing could ever be considered unnatural on these terms.

Generally we mean something else when we say that replacing virgin forests with parking lots, imbibing poison, and copulating with beasts are not natural. Things are natural if they fit the pre-technological, natural order of things; they are functioning according to their primitive pattern or purpose, and that’s key. A natural sexual desire, then, is a desire that serves to accomplish a sexual goal in the primitive order of things.

However, this definition of "natural" doesn’t help the homosexual either. According to the primitive natural order of things (evolution), the natural purpose of sex is reproduction, getting one’s genes into the next generation. But homosexuals don’t reproduce, so homosexuality can’t be "natural" on this definition either. They would not help evolution, but de-evolution. They certainly would not survive, nor be the “fittest.”

Further, wouldn’t one consider it unnatural if someone had eyes, but couldn’t see, or ears and couldn’t hear? Why is it then deemed natural to have male genitals, but be dispositionally incapable of using them to accomplish their reproductive purpose with the opposite sex? Or a vagina and uterus, but to not fulfill its purpose of being the passageway of getting pregnant and bringing a child into the world. Its interesting to see the role reversal that goes on in the gay community, as if half of the gay guys are trying to be more feminine and half of the women are trying to be more masculine. Also, women who use strap on dildo’s because they desire to have the natural use of their vagina’s and gay guys settle their desire for a stinking poop hole in place of a vagina. How sad it is to see that they could have all their sexual desires fulfilled in marriage with proper usage of the “utensils” if only they found the proper mate.

Homosexuality does not seem to be natural in any meaningful sense of the word. Therefore, its morality cannot be defended by a mere appeal to nature. What if the focus was turned, though, from the external patterns of nature to the internal design of one’s own nature? What if homosexual desire were dictated by internal biological mechanisms?

Before moving on, I want to quickly deal with this claim to equal rights nonsense. Mixner writes in Time, "The effort to ban same-sex marriage would deny us the basic rights accorded to our neighbors and friends." Later he adds, "Although I am sad that people are so frightened of Patrick's and my love, I refuse to allow anyone's discomfort to be the reason why we should be less free than other Americans." The claim that homosexuals don't have the same rights as others is misleading. Survey the Bill of Rights or any legislation that proceeds from it. Nowhere are homosexuals excluded as benefactors of any right that others enjoy. Strictly speaking, even the right to marry is shared equally with homosexuals. Any homosexual has the same right to an officially sanctioned marriage to an eligible member of the opposite sex of his choosing as I do. "But I'm not interested in the opposite sex," he responds. "I want to marry who I want." Yet no citizen has the right to marry whomever he wants. I cannot marry my daughter nor my neighbor's wife. If I loved two women, I couldn't marry them both. The fact is, homosexuals have the same freedoms as others, but for personal reasons most don't choose to exercise them (I say "most" because some homosexuals do exercise their right to heterosexual marriage). Homosexuals want an additional freedom no one else now has. They want the legal freedom to redefine marriage to fit their own preference.

The key to answering the claims of same-sex marriage advocates is understanding the basic rule of justice: Treat equals equally. If parties are not equal in a relevant sense, then there is no obligation of justice to treat them the same.
When someone demands the same recognition for homosexual unions as for heterosexual unions, remind him of the rule of justice. Then ask if homosexual relationships are really equal with heterosexual ones. Does he actually believe there is no essential difference between the two? If there are essential differences, then the two are not equal and there is no moral obligation to treat them as if they were.
Further, since legal marriage is really nothing more than officially granting public respect and approval to a union of two individuals, and since you as a member of the public do not in fact approve, then you have no obligation to support homosexual "marriage," and can even oppose it. Homosexuals will claim that their cause is a “civil rights” issue, similar to the hard-fought struggle that Blacks have gone through. The analogy is a false one. For example, abortion and homosexuality—two hotly contested political issues—are what people do. Abortion kills a pre-born baby. Opposing abortion does not mean that we oppose women. We oppose one thing women do with their pre-born children. The same is true for homosexuality. The euphemism “gay” has been used by the homosexual movement to hide the fact that homosexuality is really same-sex sex. This renaming tactic has been used by abortion advocates for years. The word abortion is hardly ever used. Abortionists talk about being “pro-choice” to hide the bloody nature of the procedure. This is why Colin Powell writes of the inappropriate linking of homosexual behavior with the civil rights movement: “Skin color is a benign, non�]behavioral characteristic. Sexual orientation is perhaps the most profound of human behavioral characteristics. Comparison of the two is a convenient but invalid argument.”

"I Was Born This Way"

The term "sexual orientation" itself implies biology rather than preference. Sexual desires that are not mere preferences, but a direction one is forced to face ("orientation") because of predetermined physical factors.

This argument won’t work for a number of reasons. First, the empirical evidence that homosexuality is genetic is meager to non-existent.

For one, we already have experience with male bodies and female hormones in the case of transsexuals who inject hormones to change their physical appearance. Female hormones, being physical things, influence a male’s physical body secondary sexual characteristics like size of breasts, facial hair, etc. But do those physical changes also give rise to changed sexual desire? The answer is no. This is a double whammy against the argument that physical conditions predetermine sexual desires. First, the absence of female sexual characteristics in the bodies of male homosexuals indicates that their basic physical chemistry is not different from heterosexual males. Male homosexuals have bodily chemistry that produces male sexual characteristics, just like heterosexual males. This is prime evidence that the genetics are the same. If the female hormones make secondary physical traits appear, then the fact that ones who are not given the hormones, yet still have these desires, and are as physically male as can be, testosterone and all, proves it is not a biological issue.

This point can be stated another way that is so obvious it often goes unnoticed. What kind of sex is natural for the homosexual when one considers the physical body that nature has given him? It’s obvious that a homosexual’s genitalia are fit for a woman, not for a man. At best, a homosexual’s body is giving him mixed signals: mental homosexual desires coupled with physical heterosexual body parts. The shape of his physical body proves that, at least in one sense, his desires are not natural.

There’s a second problem. The infusion of female hormones into male homosexuals can create secondary physical female characteristics, but not sexual desire. Instead, they are artificial changes forced upon the physical body because of a prior mental desire unrelated to physical chemistry. A straight man or woman can pump all the opposite sexes hormones into them and their sexual preference will not change although some minor physical traits may. I’m only making the point that efforts by transsexuals to change their physical bodies tell us something about the relationship of physical constitution to sexual desire.

Because of a prior sexual desire, the transsexual seeks to change his physical characteristics. In other words, the desire comes first, then the physical change is made, not the other way around. In fact, a homosexual’s physical body will go back to its natural state if he stops taking female hormones, or the other way around if a female takes male hormones. The desire was prior to the physical condition, not a result of it.

The correlations between homosexual desire and the physical body, when they can be found, appear to be accidental, not necessary. To establish a physical cause one must show a consistent direct relationship, that every person with homosexual desire has a physical characteristic shared by all homosexuals and not possessed by heterosexuals. Or vice versa, you’d not find manly “beef cake” homosexuals (yet you know that we do). If this were the case of genetics, why are there very feminine lesbians and butch ones as well. In one study of identical twins who were homosexuals, the genetic marker was missing in nearly 20% (7 out of 40) of the cases. It’s hard to establish that a physical characteristic “A” causes behavior “B,” if in a significant number of cases there is behavior “B” and no physical characteristic “A.” Something else is going on.

My friend is taking a class on psychology and they are trying to push the idea that we are only male or female physically, externally, sexually, but that our drive or psyche can be predetermined as hetero or homo. The “class conditioning” argument is attached to this claim, because they’ll say that we all are driven because of the way we were taught. This is partly true in the sense that we can be influenced by our surroundings. In fact, this further proves that homosexuality cannot be genetic. For example: I went into the blockbuster video store the other day and saw 2 gay movie previews back to back on their monitors, and my eyes also noticed how many gay cover boxes for rentals that there were. I have never seen so much promotion for homosexuality than I do today (schools and media), and as a result, we see more people who are “becoming” gay and more people coming out of the closet. The truth is that most have already been out of the closet because homosexuality has been fairly normalized in the past 15 years or so. If you do your research, Matthew Shepherd was actually killed over a drug dispute, not his homosexuality (side note). One of the murderers was a bi-sexual. So yes, influence definitely does increase occurance, which shows the non-genetic relation, because genetic code is set in stone. Another example of this is how women today are sluts, just dishing it out to every guy on the block. This is because being loose with ones sexuality is more and more popular and seen as an expression of freedom and coolness. This would have never been acceptable from a woman’s perspective 100 years ago. Note also that there are many testimonies of people who were heterosexuals their whole lives, never having any desire for the same sex, and later in life they become homosexual. The reverse is also true, whereby a person who for as long as they can remember liked the same sex, and then later in life they grow out of it or whatever the psychological explanation is, and they desire the opposite sex and are repulsed by their previous lifestyle. If genetics were a factor, then this would not be possible.

Nature vs. Nurture

Homosexual twins are an exception that is completely eclipsed by the rule: millions of people with the same physical machinery (genetics) same plumbing, wiring, and chemistry but utterly disparate sexual desires.

One can examine every physical aspect of 100,000 males, a full assessment of their body parts, hormone levels, blood chemistry, etc.and never be able to determine from the physical evidence alone who has a desire for the same sex, even though one to two thousand in that group would be so inclined.

To sharpen the point, one wouldn’t be able to know any particulars about the nuances of anyone’s sexual desire by examining his physical make-up: who was hot for redheads rather than brunettes, who turned on to slender instead of meaty, who was sensually rabid, or who was sexually listless. Therefore, since so many people have the same basic physiology, yet differ radically in both sexual tastes and environment, it seems to follow that developmental factors, the formation of sexual tastes as one matures, are the preeminent influence in sexual preference, and not physical nature.

Second, one’s own sexual tastes change over time with no change in his physical body. Heterosexuals can manifest homosexual desires, homosexuals can manifest heterosexual desires, yet there is no change in diet, no alteration of genes, no injections taken, no brain surgery performed. There’s no physical modification of any kind, only a change in mind.

If one was born a homosexual, no one could be heterosexual at one point in life and homosexual at another point without some corresponding physical change. This is a clue that sexual tastes are largely developmental.

Psychologists talk of the "formative period" of sexual identity. There seems to be no physical or chemical reason, for example, why heterosexual men should be attracted to certain women and not others, but most will not entertain fantasies about their mothers or sisters. Why not? This aversion is not dictated by physical factors of any sort. It must therefore have a non-physical cause, in this case, social taboo, because one could have a very “hot” or attractive brother or sister and won’t lust sexually over them.
Even if homosexual desire were discovered to be completely physiological, it still wouldn’t follow logically that the conduct was moral.

Is and Ought

Does a natural tendency towards violence justify assault? Does a natural desire for food justify theft? Does a natural aversion to homosexuals justify gay-bashing?

Animals do what comes naturally. We are not mere beasts, but human beings protected by morality from the tyranny of our natural appetites. The difference between "just doing what comes naturally" and principled self-restraint is called civilization.

Further, persisting in this line of reasoning annihilates the argument for adoption rights by homosexuals. If homosexuality is right because it’s natural, then adoption must be wrong because it’s unnatural. If nature dictates morality, and the natural consequence for homosexuals is to be childless, then it’s unnatural and therefore immoral for homosexuals to raise children. Artificial insemination of lesbians or adoptions by homosexual couples would be wrong by their own argument. The same principle governs both issues.

My goal here has not been to prove that homosexuality is immoral, though I’m convinced it is, but rather to refute one of its common justifications. The morality of homosexuality can never be defended by any appeal to nature, but only by an appeal to moral rules. Nature alone can never provide us with those. Rosie O’Donnell and those like her must find another way to make their case.

It's common of late to justify one's "sexual orientation" by an appeal to nature. The claim "I was born this way" is all that's needed to stem moral criticism of homosexuality. But why settle for this approach? Why think that the state of nature is an appropriate guide to morality? An "is" (because something is a certain way) can never logically produce an "ought" (it ought to be this way). If we go down that road, i could easily say "ever since i was a little kid, i had this natural tendency, that whenever i saw a gay person, i wanted to beat the crap out of them. It just seemed natural for this hatred to stir up in me." Do you see how this argument doesn't work! I hope so.

Seventeenth century Philosopher Thomas Hobbs noted famously, "Life in an unregulated state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short." It was precisely this fact, according to Hobbs, that caused humans to enter into social contracts, gladly accepting the moral constraints of civilization to its alternative,,,,,, the law of nature. Morality, as an extension of that contract, is a way of protecting ourselves from the brutality of living in a world where people simply did what came naturally.

Since, living according to nature would easily justify all kinds of barbarism, how does it make sense to invoke the natural state of things to justify anything? Behavior that's "natural" is the very thing morality is meant to protect us from. Morality that counters one's natural inclinations rather than commends them is our only refuge from a life that is "solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

I don't consider myself a bigot because a bigot is someone who is dogmatic and holds a harmful position in an irrational way, thinking he is the only one who is right and considers everybody else substandard. I don't think homosexuals are substandard. I think they are immoral. I think heterosexuals who commit sexual sin are immoral, as well. I think we are all human beings made in the image of God, therefore we have an obligation to treat each other in a gracious way.

It makes my job much more difficult when some Christians hold the right moral perspective, but use it to beat people over the head. Part of the problem in taking the stand that there are immoral choices that one might make sexually--on both sides of the spectrum, heterosexual or homosexual--is in the way the message is presented. If you are familiar with that Fred Phelps guy who holds up signs that say “God hates fags,” just know that he’s an idiot and is probably not a Christian because he shows no love, only anger toward gay people and he ends up making Christianity look bad, when the bible doesn’t condone such behavior, in fact it condemns it. The truth is, is that God hates all sinners that are not found in Him as we will see later. Gods “hatred” is not an unruly emotional disturbance like we humans experience, it is His expression of justice. People can claim to be all kinds of things, like “I’m a Christian,” but the simple verbalization doesn’t make it a true claim.

Anyway, I want to take a few more moments and engage in what I hope for you will be a fairly clear-headed and even-handed assessment of this issue in regards to whether this is a "normal" lifestyle. In the case of The Birdcage (movie), homosexuality is promoted as normal and something's wrong with those who don't see it that way. They're not just mistaken, they're bigoted or homophobic.

What does it mean to be "normal"? The question we are facing right now is whether the word normal applies in any of its senses to homosexuality. Certainly the attempt has been made among homosexuals to cause us to accept the idea that their choice of sexual behavior is morally benign.

Just as an aside here, you can see how the language and conversation has changed in the last five years. Prior to five or six years ago, the attitude was, "Please leave us alone. We just simply want the freedom to exercise our privacy in our own bedrooms. You have nothing to say about that." It is no longer an issue of privacy in the bedroom. There is a very powerful campaign through the media and Hollywood to normalize this behavior such that the goal now is that all of us ought to--morally ought to, rationally ought to--accept homosexuality as a sexual lifestyle that is on par with heterosexuality.

So, keep in mind that the language has changed. They want us to accept this and to give it equal status. That's the reason for the emphasis of homosexual marriages and homosexuals in the military.

Let's face it. Who is dying to get into the armed forces? Who else is just breaking down the doors as if this is some major right that is being denied to a group of people who would desperately like to get in? That isn't the case. There are some who want to be in the armed forces and I certainly don't put that down. But it isn't like this is something everybody wants to do. Therefore, it's an unlikely choice for them to campaign in terms of their civil rights. The reason they do is that it's a venue. It's an opportunity for them to make their point that they ought to be considered "normal," and they ought to be able to get married and have spousal support, and all of the support from health care and other organizations.

By the way, this relates to the constitutional homosexuality question. Homosexuals might say, "Well, I was born this way." Even if I were to accept that as true, which I don't, it doesn't change the issue one bit. Because one feels this compelling sexual attraction doesn't mean it is moral to fulfill that in action. It just doesn't follow. You have to do some more work, ethically speaking, to make that point.

The word normal is used at times to show that homosexuality is ok. The fact that something occurs frequently, thus making it normal is no case for homosexuality. Its normal for smokers to have health problems, particularly heart and lung, but that is purely descriptive language, with zero application to morality. In fact, it is very normal to sin, being a fallen creature, yet it is not moral, and even if it were moral to sin, the mere discussion of it as normal proves nothing. We are only at that point being descriptive about the thing or activity.

But further, whenever you talk about things being meant for something, guess what comes along with that? God. When we say something was meant for something, whether meaning or intention for that thing, we find that this is something we process in the mind. Only minds can intend something. So, what mind intended for bodies to go together in a particular way? That's a design argument. That argument makes no sense unless God exists who intended the body for something in particular. Ok, now that we’ve covered the logical and scientific areas, lets now deal with the moral aspect of homosexuality.

I don’t know how it happened, but a few decades ago someone branded homosexuals with the worst misnomer—“gay.” Gay used to mean happy, but I can assure you, homosexuals are not happy people. They habitually seek happiness by following after destructive pleasures. They habitually seek happiness by following after destructive pleasures. There is a reason Romans 1:24-28 calls homosexual desire a “degrading passion.” It is a lust that destroys the physical body, ruins relationships, and brings perpetual suffering to the soul—and its ultimate end is death (Romans 7:5). Statistics show that homosexuals compared to heterosexuals on average live a shortened life of about 40 years. Perhaps this is because of disease or increase in suicide because of depression, or Gods judgment of a short life, who knows.
If you ever come across a homosexual who tries to say that God's word is not authoritative because it was written by men and they don't need to listen to it, just say this: First, it doesnt follow that because the Bibles written by men, that it therefore must be in error. Human error is possible, not necessary. If human error were always necessary in anything man said, this challenge would be self-refuting (suicide tactic). If all human claims were necessarily in error, then the claim that the Bible was written by men and men make mistakes would also be in error because its a claim made by men who err, defeating itself. It is possible for human beings to produce something without errors. Its done all the time. What is 2+2? What is the formula for nuclear fission?
Second, this is circular reasoning. If theres good evidence the Bible can be trusted, then the issue of mans involvement is moot. A simple question illustrates this: Are you suggesting with this objection that if God does exist, Hes not capable of writing what He wants through imperfect men? This is hard to affirm. If the answer is No, then the objection vanishes. If the answer is yes, then ask, Did you ever own a dog? Could you get your dog to sit? If you can get a dumb dog to sit, what makes you think an all-powerful God cant get a man to write just what He wants him to? If you first establish that the Biblical record can be trusted, then the second problemhuman involvement is irrelevant. If God inspires it then it doesnt matter if men or monkeys did the writing; theyll still write exactly what God intends.
Another way of stating it: God cant err; the Bible is Gods Word; therefore, the Bible cant err, even if men are involved. Of course men wrote the bible, mice and monkeys do not write. An analogy that is suitable is shown when posing the question (if you received a handwritten letter) "Who wrote this, the pen or the person?" Obviously the pen did the actual inking process of writing the letter, but it took the control of the person, the pen was instrumental in the process. Apply that to man being instrumental, and you get the idea....

Why have homosexual interpretations of Scripture been so successful at persuading so many? Simple: people want to be convinced. Since the Bible is so clear about the issue, sinners have had to defy reason and embrace error to quiet their accusing consciences (Romans 2:14-16). As Jesus said, “Men loved the darkness rather than the Light, [because] their deeds were evil” (John 3:19-20). They hate light and love darkness. People hate God without even knowing it. Contrary to popular claims, people do not have a God shaped hole in their heart, they have a world shaped hole in their heart if anything, and that is why God must transform the heart. So, what is God’s response to the homosexual agenda? Certain and final judgment. This is not to try to bring damnation on the head of homosexuals, but to try to bring conviction so that they can turn from that sin and embrace the only hope of salvation for all of us sinners—and that’s through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Homosexuals need salvation. They don’t need healing—homosexuality is not a disease. They don’t need therapy—homosexuality is not a psychological condition. Homosexuals need forgiveness, because homosexuality is a sin. Homosexuals stand in defiant rebellion against the will of their Creator who from the beginning “made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4-5). Why does God condemn homosexuality? Because it overturns God’s fundamental design for human relationships—a design that pictures the complementary relationship between a man and a woman (Genesis 2:18-25; Ephesians 5:22-33). This verse in Ephesians shows a parallel relationship of God himself to his children or church by comparison to earthly union in marriage, and to misrepresent the beauty in His gift of marriage is surely blasphemy to His character. God is the groom and the children of God are the bride. Some key passages in scripture that clearly condemn homosexuality, as if it weren’t already clear are as follows: Genesis 19:1-28 which is the story of Sodom and Gomorrah. Note verse 5 talks about how these men wanted to have their way with raping the angels. Angels are messengers of God. Somewhere along the line Greek mythology got mixed in with people’s understanding of what an angel is. They do not have wings, but they are supernatural heavenly entities who come in human form. Cherubim and seraphim have wings, but they are not used as messengers of the Lord. They are used as guards, worshippers, etc. The point of mentioning this is that some may argue that these guys wouldn’t be turned on by some humans with wings. Well, it’s a dumb argument, but besides that they didn’t have wings, but looked just like regular human beings. Perhaps they were attractive and that’s why the men wanted a piece of them. In verse 5 it says that they wanted to know them. Well, in the king James English, that means to have intercourse with. See Genesis 4:1 1And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.” I use the king james and the NASB bibles primarily because they are a couple of the best “word for word” translations available today, instead of “thought for thought,” or paraphrases like the NIV. However, the thought for thought translations are good to. Its important to remember that when dealing with translations that the message or meaning doesn’t change, but just the language. We have Chinese translations or versions for Chinese, Dutch for the Dutch, English of today for people who speak English today, and English of yesteryear, for those who are used to or enjoy its poetic tone. For example, a passage in the king james says “hearken unto me, gird up your loins.” What the heck does that mean? Well, in modern English we’d say, “Listen to me, put on your pants.” You see, the meaning or message has not changed, but only the language. We speak different today, and we will speak different to a degree 20 years from now than we do today. I bring this up because most homosexuals who claim to be Christian try their hardest to find a justification for their lifestyle by distorting the facts plainly known. There is a little thing called hermeneutics, which is a fancy word that is the art or science of accurate interpretation. There are rules one must follow to properly interpret any historical text, not just the bible. These rules include context, grammar, syntax or sentence structure, knowledge of the original languages and cultures, defining of terms, recognizing different genre’s of literature (such as poetry vs. historical narrative vs. instruction, etc.), knowing the difference between literal or figurative language etc. I have studied hermeneutics and the bible quite extensively, and the plain message on homosexuality that I saw the first time I read them when I was a novice or beginner in the Word have not changed, in fact it is more solidly confirmed after the extensive studies. The average “village idiot” can read the same verses and get the proper interpretation, so I don’t think homosexuals who come up with all sorts of twisted interpretations are unintelligent, but rather just desperate to protect 2 things, #1 their addiction to homosexual affairs, and #2 the idea that they are still cool with God. Isaiah 5:20 ”Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
“He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).” The truth is, is that God hates unrepentant sinners. See psalms 5:5 and 11:5 - 5:5 “The foolish shall not stand in thy sight: thou hatest all workers of iniquity.” 11:5 “The LORD trieth the righteous: but the wicked and him that loveth violence his soul hateth.” God says of Esau in Romans 9:13 “Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." Why else would God have created hell, for people he loves?! People need to quit deceiving themselves that God is just going to keep forgiving and forgiving though we keep rebelling. This goes for other sins and other sinners as well and not just homosexuals. The bible says there is a point in time where God will just give you over to your sinful nature and basically gives up on you, and trust me, you will lose the battle against yourself. Your sinful nature cannot be beaten, and if not beaten, you will suffer eternity in hell, wishing you had been submissive to the Lord Jesus Christ. You need to be rescued from your nature. Its like a dog who has a bowl of lettuce and a bowl of hamburger meat placed right before him. What’s he going to eat. You know good and well he’s going to eat the meat. Now, does he have an objective choice to choose the lettuce… Sure, I suppose, but its not a matter of can he choose the lettuce, but will he. Our natures control us in the same way. We will not naturally choose to follow God without his helping us, and He will at a point give up on us. We can never know where that point is, because many die young without warning or chance to get a deathbed experience, and even if they did get a deathbed experience, most are hardened and given over to their sinful natures, where they won’t even want to come to God and follow Him, even on their deathbed. Some people think God owes them something, and get angry at Him when things aren’t going their way. Beware, if this is your attitude, for people have been known to suffer massive heart attacks and die in their sleep, even among the young 20 something crowd. I saw one case first hand as an e.m.t. Do you remember me telling you that story? Check this out, If you were about to die of thirst and dehydration in a desert and I had a nice 64 oz. glass of cool, clean water in one hand and a fistful of diamonds in the other, which would you take? You would take the water of course, but on any other occasion you’d take the diamonds and the water would be worthless. This is called priority of circumstance. Your priorities will dramatically change to “I want the cool water of eternal life,” on the day of judgment and all the riches of the world and life will be useless shadows.
➢ Here is a special warning for those professing to be Christians, keep in mind that hypocrites will not enter the kingdom of heaven. In 2 Corinthians 13:5 Paul says to “examine yourselves,” “to make sure you are in the faith,” because there are many false converts out there. Matthew 7: 19- 23 leaves some very sobering words for church goers, because the people in this passage are calling him Lord and doing things in his name and yet they are cast into hell. These people were only thinking they were Christians. I can call myself Batman all day long, but that doesn’t make it so. The problem is, is that many have been given a false gospel and a false Jesus and a false Christianity and ultimately a false hope and a false conversion. All I can say for this group of people is to get serious about your proclaimed faith, read your bible a lot and obey what you read. In doing so, you’ll be able to tell if the preachers are actually telling you the whole truth. Be aware, for you will be responsible for you, not them. Note also that people who have heard and know the gospel, but reject God will get worse punishment than those who don’t know the gospel that go to hell (Romans 2:12-16).

Another favorite tactic of a homosexual is to say that the Old testament is no longer applicable for today. This is one of the most ignorant, but sadly common remarks from people who wish to justify their sin. But God says,
2 Timothy 3:16
➢ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness
Matthew 5:18
I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
And many other verses which say similar things. This is common sense even if there were no specific reinforcement in the New Testement because there is no specific abrogation or dismissal of the O.T. in the O.T. or N.T. with the exception of some of the ceremonial rituals because they were fulfilled in Christ, but the law of God will never cease till He returns and judges.
Getting back to the Sodom and Gomorrah history, when you look at Genesis19:8 you see that Lot attempts to offer his daughters who are virgins to appease the mob of homosexuals so they won’t continue to try to assault the angels. In the end, we see that they were judged according to their wickedness. Homosexuality was a big part of that judgment. This is absolutely unrefutable. V.8 “Behold now, I have two daughters which have not known man; let me, I pray you, bring them out unto you, and do ye to them as is good in your eyes: only unto these men do nothing; for therefore came they under the shadow of my roof.

Next lets look at Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 18:22Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. 20:13 If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” This speaks for itself and needs not my comments.
Now lets turn to the New Testament keeping in mind that the words “New Testament” just mean New Covenant. The bible is composed of 66 books and is a complete encyclopedia. “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever (Hebrews13:8).” “For I am the LORD, I change not (Malachi3:6).” This is the same God of the Old Testament. Many verses, in the gospels and particularly in Revelation, show that God is just as righteous and just and angry at the wicked than in the O.T. Jesus Himself mentions hell 13 times more than He ever talks about heaven in the bible. Here we go: Romans 1:18-27 18For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;
19Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
20For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
21Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
22Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools,
23And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
24Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves:
25Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen.
26For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature:
27And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet. (emphasis mine) Note the word “likewise,” describing the men doing as the women did.
1Cor6:9-10 states
Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, 10Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.” Look at verse 24 again to see that this old English or “king james” language describes the abusing of oneself or ones body through sexual perversion. Scripture should always be taken in context and we see, no more than 8 verses down a further description of this “abusing of oneselg.” 18Flee fornication. Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body. The meaning is obvious even with the king james English. If you say that “ I won’t commit fornication if I get married first,” then you are dealing with the passages previously mentioned about the ordinance of marriage and how God designed it for male and female and no other way. You cannot define marriage anyway you want to or the term means nothing. If the word peach, can mean apple and doorknob, it begins to lose its meaning in the first place. If a word means anything and everything, it means nothing and we cannot start creating our own definitions. Otherwise I could marry my hammer or my dog. This makes no sense! Homosexuals who go to the state to get “married” are not actually married, because they violate the meaning of the word marriage. What they have is something altogether different. I don’t know what I’d call it.
Here’s another example from the N.T. in Jude1:7-8 7Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.
8Likewise also these filthy dreamers defile the flesh, despise dominion, and speak evil of dignities.
This article is in no way to degrade a homosexual, because any other sin is nasty and vile to God. If fact He considers our good deeds as filthy rags. This is because we as fallen humans have tainted motives and it is only through Christ’s perfectness that God will ever consider us as being worthy of Him. James 2:14,17-19 says 14What doth it profit, my brethren, though a man say he hath faith, and have not works? can faith save him? 17Even so faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone. 18Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works. “19Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble,” so I guess merely “believing” is not enough. But, I thought our good deeds are filthy rags and that “believing” is not enough, but should be accompanied by works. This is reconciled by understanding what Christ said “One must be born from above (or born again in modern English) to enter into the kingdom of heaven. The truth is, is that God must make you spiritually alive. He gives you the desire and ability to have real faith that produces works naturally. The works themselves are useless and a false faith or mere intellectual agreement that Christ is God means nothing. I love all sinners as people made in the image of God, whether they are homosexual or not. The main thing for a homosexual is that they repent just like a reformed thief would stop thieving. That’s what the word repent means—to stop doing the crap that God hates. The thief may occasionally be tempted to steal, but God has given them a new heart to overcome temptation, and a born again homosexual will stop doing it, but may have a temptation here or there, but like any sin, it will be conquered with the power of the Holy Spirit and time. A person who rejects this and decides not to change is just proving that they are not regenerated or born from above and are on dangerous ground because if they die, and they could go at any time, they WILL go to hell. They have a promise from God, and He doesn’t lie. Matthew 10:28 says “And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear Him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” I don’t want you to go to hell. Please heed this warning and serve an awesome God who even allows an opportunity for us to go to heaven, something we definitely don’t deserve. Tom

P.S. This was just a small bit to say on this topic, but i’m telling you, you got nothing to keep thinking you are justified before God or before man even, continuing as a practicing homosexual. It is inevitable,, you have to either say “screw you God, I reject you,” and go to hell, or you have to stop being a homosexual. It’s one or the other. You can’t have it both ways. This means you’ll have to stop hanging out with other homosexuals, unless they become true Christians, and repent of their lifestyle as well. "Know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with
God? Whosoever, therefore, will be a friend of the world is
the enemy of God."--James 4:4. "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world; if any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him." (I John 2:5.) We are to befriend the world, or be friendly to them, but we are not to be their friend in the sense of fellowship and hanging out with them.
I’d rather give you this bad news than to have you get the ultimate bad news of “depart from me,” and have you being pissed off at me for eternity because I didn’t have the courage to confront you on this matter.

Also, revelation of scripture is sealed Jude 3: “Once For all time.” If you don’t accept scripture, then by definition, you cannot be a Christian. “God, speaking to you” is not scripture and it’s not God either, if He is telling you that homosexuality is ok. On the other side, if you say parts of scripture don’t count, then you can’t say that the part about Jesus dying for sins is valid or counts either. Be very careful where you’re getting your info from. That Bart Ehrman guy and similar “scholars” are idiots. They have zero credentials or real scholarship. They are only scholars by name. Believing what they say is up there with believing in Elvis sightings. Nothing more than fictional b.s. from guys who have an agenda to slam Christianity. The Dead Sea scrolls alone show that God has preserved His word to us in modern times. Oh, and don’t create a god in your own image (violation of the 2nd commandment) by saying, “God understands, or God is cool with me.” The Bible says He resists the proud and un-repentant. Remember it is loving for someone to try and restore you to Righteousness (Galatians 6:1). A child who cries because “Mommy is mean” because she took away his bowl full of M & M’s for supper is an example of love, not the opposite of love. The child sees it as unloving and is mad at mom, but the mom is caring for her child’s health. It’s not good to accept and allow disobedience from a child either, that’s why the Bible says you hate your child if you don’t discipline him.

A great portion of this paper is credited to quotations of articles by Greg Koukl.
Other quotes from John MacArthur, and Gary DeMar

Is Catholicism a cult?

2006-06-20T13:22:00.001-07:00

Dear Catholic Friend, I spent months of intense study and preparation for the compilation of this small study guide, so that others could use it as a reference piece and not have to labor through all the “dirty work,” so to speak. The things of God and the state of our soul and destiny of it, are things we should engage study in, our entire life, but yet our laziness and apathy keep us from doing it. Millions of years into eternity will only be the start, and we only have this short vapor of a life to get it right. I was raised Catholic the first 20 years of my life and I noticed many things that didn’t line up with the scriptures. (by the way, a big majority of the protestant churches have some messed up doctrine as well, so this is not a ploy to get you to align yourself with a different brand or denomination. What this is, is a wake up call to get you to consider the truth of things and to understand the heresies that are being taught out there, particularly, in the roman catholic church. If you are unwilling to at least grab your Bible and a Roman catholic catechism to study this out, then I really think there is no hope for you, because that shows that you really don’t care to search deeper into the scriptures to “ make your calling and election sure,” (2Peter 1: 10). That you hold so tight to the church’s traditions rather than God, when Christ Jesus himself opposes the catholic church’s teachings (as you’ll see later). If you read on for yourself. If you don’t like the little tid-bit comments that I added to this study, then ignore them and just read the catechism references and the scriptures listed and make your own judgment call. Gods word will speak for itself, and needs not my help. Will you be too scared, stubborn and close-minded to find out that I am telling the truth. Proverbs says that “open rebuke is better than secret love and “faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful. (Proverbs 27:5-6) What I mean by using this is, that a rebuke to your church, as much as you may cherish it, is not necessarily a bad thing if the rebuke is true. Luke 6:26 says “Woe to you, when all men shall speak well of you..,” which is to affirm how, many people just like to give others what their “itching ears” want to hear, (2Tim 4:3) I also want to encourage you to not be so quick to dismiss this letter just because it sounds like an attack. Sometimes its these kind of challenges that are the best thing for us. Look at it this way: either you’ll learn about catholicism and become a stronger Romanist or you’ll learn and find out that I am not being bias after all. But if you don’t check it out, there’s no chance for you to learn this info, or to become a stronger roman catholic and on the other end of the spectrum, you won’t be efficiently educated and warned and possibly end up in hell as a result. Christ warned that many would say in that day “Lord, Lord, did we not… and do many wonderful works in your name,” and he said to them “Depart from me, ye workers of iniquity, for I never knew you.” (Matthew 7: 21-23) Pretty scary and sobering words because these people are obviously church going folks who were caught off guard, thinking that they were “good to go” and in the right camp. People may say that the person who wrote this letter is a catholic hater, but if you stop and think about it, if I really hated catholics, wouldn’t I just say nothing. I mean, if I really hated catholics, would I really waste any of my time researching this and put myself in the path of opposition, from catholics, and other “politically correct,” groups. No, I would just be as comfortable as I can and I wouldn’t take 2 thoughts towards this, but how dare I say that I care for you if I conceal life saving information just because I thought it might offend you. That would not be true love. I cannot conceal and keep my love a secret. Christ said to preach the truth in love, and he did, as well as the apostles, and all but one of them were murdered, not because they were offensive, but because the people didn’t like what they had to say. Christ said there would be people preaching false Jesus’s, and a false gospel, with false teachers as the spearhead, and he warned sternly to stay away from them, because they lead to eternal destruction. The usage of the “age old” argument doesn’t work too well for catholics. Let me explain…. The Hindu religion is pretty ancient, as it existed hundreds of years before Christ and still thrives today, and yet, they are condemned by God, with their worship of millions of false gods. Orthodox Judaism claims to be the one true religion that affiliates itself with the bible and they have been around since the beginning, yet they don’t even think that Jesus is Lord. Obviously, everybody can’t be right. Jesus said there is but one prescribed way to heaven, through Him and through His unchanged gospel. So either we are all wrong, or one of us is right. I am going to go with God’s word on this one. Strength in numbers and popular opinion has never been an accurate barometer of truth. Its really popular these days to do any number of sins, but we don’t waste time arguing that the sins are right to do, because we know better. Christ said that “wide is the gate that leads to destruction and narrow the path to eternal life.” That tells me that popularity isn’t going to work on judgment day. How could Muslims, which comprise of about ¼ of the worlds population, be wrong. Its pretty clear that most of the people in the world are going to go to hell, never to receive a second chance or a way out. Don’t say that you don’t have time to examine your heart and mind (2Corinthians 13: 5). 80 trillion years will only scratch the surface of eternity. We are all eternal creatures, so we needn’t worry about time, we have forever, but we can’t afford to regret and burn because we failed to prioritize the 50-80 short years of this flesh. Anyway, I made this as simple as possible so you could reference this material fast and easy.

The topic is listed first, then the page number of the catechism with the # of the reference inside the catechism, (in case the page numbers vary from one catechism to the next) and finally all the scripture citations that refute each point listed, from the official Roman Catholic doctrine. Some parts are highlighted a certain shade or have a different font so you can match it to certain scriptures because the scope of some of the topics under a specific title have multiple categories. You will be enlightened and surprised at what you have gotten yourself into, with things you probably never knew was a part of your faith. If you haven’t noticed, the days are short and the time is near, so please don’t just toss this under a stack of papers, for your sake, and the sake of your family and friends.

1. Who is the final authority?
- Page 29, # 95 - Page 26, # 81-82 - Page 30, #100 - Page 34, # 119 - Mark 7: 7-8
- Matthew 15: 3
- Romans 16: 3: 4, 17-18 - Galatians 1: 8-9 - Proverbs 30: 5-6 - Psalm 12: 6-7 - 1 Corinthians 3: 9-11 - Revelation 22: 18-19 - Colossians 2: 8 - 2 Peter 1: 21 - 2 Timothy 3: 15-16 -1 Thessalonians 2: 13

2. Salvation through the Church- Page 215, # 816 - Page 224, # 846 (On May 7, 2001, pope John Paul II addressed people gathered at the Greek-Melkite Cathedral of Damascus and said “ you cannot be a Christian if you reject the church founded on Jesus Christ,” keep in mind that whenever the catechism mentions “the church,” they are referring exclusively to the Roman catholic church.) - Colossians 1: 18 - Ephesians 5: 25 - Romans 1:16 /10: 9-10, 13 (if catholics are right about this doctrine, then Paul is a liar, and since he was inspired by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit is a liar. “Houston we have a problem.” Do you see the discrepancy.) - John 1:12 / 3:36 / 5:24 / 6: 47 / 3: 16-18 - 2 Timothy 3: 15 - Acts 4: 10-12 / 10: 43 / 16: 31

3. Salvation through good works- Page 320, # 1257- Page 292, # 1129 - Matthew 7: 22-26 - Ephesians 2: 8-9 - Titus 3: 5 - Romans 3: 28 - Mark 7: 5/ 7: 9/ 7: 13 - Galatians 2: 16/ 2: 21/ 3: 26

4. The Church forgives sins- Page 256, # 982 & # 983- Page 257, # 986- Page 363-64, # 1448- Page 367, #1461- Page 255, # 979 - Mark 2: 7 - Ephesians 1:7 - Psalms 32: 5/ 51: 2-4/ 103: 2-3 - 2 Chronicles 7: 14

5. The one true Church- Page 214, # 811- Page 216, # 817- Page 215, # 816- Page 216, # 818 - Ephesians 1:22/ 2: 20 - Colossians 1: 18 - Ephesians 1; 22 - Ephesians 4: 15 - 1 Corinthians 1: 2 (the words “the church,” refer to those who trust in Christ, not to the catholic church)
- 1 Corinthians 10:4 (Peter is not the rock referred to in Matt 16:18)
- Psalms 18: 31/ 62: 1-2
- Deuteronomy 32: 3-4

6. Baptism saves
- Page 320, # 1257- Page 312, # 1213- Page 322, #1265- Page 321, # 1263 /Page 257, # 985- Page 324, #1274 - John 1: 12 - 1 Corinthians 1: 14/ 1: 17 - Acts 8: 12-3/ 8: 36-7/ 16: 30-3 (these passages teach that they were baptized, not to become sons of God, but because they already were sons of God. Baptism always occurred after salvation, not as a requirement for salvation.) - Ephesians 1: 7/ 1: 13

7. The pope: vicar of Christ – (vicar means substitute)- Page 234, # 882- Page 235, # 891- Page 246, # 937- Page 235, # 889 & 890-91- Page 495, #2051 (pope infallible) - John 14: 16/ 14: 26/ 16; 13 - 1 Corinthians 2: 11-13 - Mark 10:18 ----even if the pope were Christ’s substitute on earth, there should be many similarities in their lives, instead you find the opposite: While on earth, Jesus never controlled great wealth. The pope controls one of the wealthiest corporations in the world. Most people eventually rejected and hated Jesus because he told the truth. The pope is worshipped and adored by millions worldwide. The pope gladly welcomes the praise of men, but Jesus, at times directed worship to the Father, as in the above scripture. Acts 10: 25-26/ 13:22 - Colossians 1: 18/ 2: 10 - Ephesians 5: 23/ 3: 8 (paul himself said) - Matthew 23: 9 (the pope not only takes the title “father,” but “holy father.”) - Isaiah 42: 8 - Revelation 15: 4

8. The sacraments save- Page 292, # 1129- Page 289, #1113 (the sacraments are works listed on this catechism page) since the sacraments are only practiced in the roman church, and those are supposedly necessary for salvation, then what is being said is that every non-catholic is burning or will burn in hell. -Ephesians 2: 8-9 - Titus 3: 5 - Romans 3: 28 - Galatians 2: 16/ 2: 21/ 3: 8 - Mark 7: 5/ 7: 9/ 7: 13 - Romans 3: 20/5: 1 - Matthew 7: 21-23 (“done many wonderful works) - John 3: 18/ 6: 29/ 6: 40/ 8: 40/ 8: 47 - Acts 5: 29 - Isaiah 64: 6 - 1 Corinthians 1: 18 ---- do you believe that good works like the sacraments are necessary for salvation? Do you consider it foolishness to believe that salvation can only be obtained through faith in Christ’s work on the cross? If so, God’s word warns that you will perish in hell.

9. Sin of presumption- Page 507, # 2092 ( would a loving God keep you in the dark about a sure fire plan to keep you away from hell or does he just say “do as many good works as possible, cross your fingers and hope for the best.” NO!) - Titus 1: 2 - 1 John 2: 25/ 5: 13 - John 1: 12/ 3:3/ 3:16/ 3: 36/ 5: 24/ 10: 27-8 (it is not presumptuous to take God at his word in fact he loves when we do) 6:47/ 6: 40/ 14: 2-3 - 1 Peter 1: 4 - Psalm 37: 28 - Philippians 1: 23 (will you now accuse Paul of being presumptuous)

10. Infant baptism- Page 319, # 1250 & 1252 - Colossians 2: 8 - Matthew 3: 6/ 3: 16 (Jesus was an adult when he was baptized and not one instance in scripture has a baby being baptized, only adults) - Acts 2: 41/ 8: 12/ 16: 30-3/ 18: 8 (all that were baptized, believed first as prerequisite. You will be hard pressed to find a young child, no less, a baby that understands the gospel, and if they can’t understand, how can they believe.)

11. Degrees of sin- Page 454, # 1854- Page 456, # 1862 & 1861 (See also: Page 269, # 1033; Page 270, # 1035 & 1037) - Romans 3: 23/ 3: 28/ 6: 23 - 1 John 3: 4 - Hebrews 10: 12
why is the bible silent on the issue of gravity to certain sins?, what exactly constitutes a mortal sin

12. Transubstantiation- Page 347, # 1376- Page 336, # 1333- Page 347, # 1377 - John 6: 33- 5/ 6: 40/ 6: 63 (these verses clear up the misunderstanding in John 6: 53-54. You cannot selectively cite passages and build a doctrine from that. Everything in scripture must be taken into context. Jesus was speaking in the spiritual sense, not physical as to how he is received and that was through believing upon him, having faith in him the same way you have faith in a parachute if you have to jump out of a plane.) - Genesis 9: 4 - Leviticus 17: 12 (God forbids cannibalism) - 1 Corinthians 11: 23-25 - Luke 22: 19 (notice how the verse ends to “do this in remembrance of me,” not a re-enactment of his body being broken. Its obvious he was talking about what was about to happen and to take and eat (metaphor since they were supping together) of his salvation.

13. Eucharist: preserves from sin- Page 351, # 1393- Page 352, # 1395 - Psalm 32: 7/ 119: 9-11/ 121: 7 - 1 Corinthians 6: 11 - 2 Timothy 4: 18 - Jude 1: 24-5 - 1 John 1; 7 - Revelation 1: 5 (all this doctrine does is keep a catholic in bondage to ritual, I suspect its because the church wants you to keep attending there for financial reasons. You can break bread at home in remembrance, in fact God said we should do it every time we drink. Why? Because, since we eat all the time, we will have our mind on Christ’s sacrifice all the time, thus evidence of Christ’s blood preserving us from sin)

14. Eucharist: helps the dead- Page 345, # 1371- Page 420, # 1689 -Romans 14: 12 - Hebrews 9: 27 - John 3: 18/ 3: 36/ 5: 24
(this cruel method of doctrine to control people is not only not mentioned in the bible, it directly violates scripture. Everyone will give an account for themselves, no person on earth can help, and the verse about a person who believes not as being condemned already, pretty much says it all.

15. Mary saves- Page 252, # 969- Page 125, # 494- Page 303, # 1172 - Acts 4: 12
- Jeremiah 7: 18 - John 14: 6/ 10: 9/ 4: 42 - Hosea 13: 4 - Isaiah 43: 11 - 1Peter 1: 18-19 (there are a multitude more scriptures repeating these truths over and over, but I think you get the point. Every point listed has multiple more scriptures that reinforce what I’ve laid out, but you have plenty to chew on with the ones given. Like I said, I want to make it easy, because I know most people to be lazy.)

16. Mary: saved from birth- Page 124, # 493, 494- Page 128, # 508 - Page 123, # 491
-PAGE 253, #971 - Acts 4: 12 - John 10: 9/ 14: 6 - 2 Corinthians 5: 21 (mary is not mentioned as one who knew no sin) - Romans 3: 10-12/ 3: 23 (doesn’t say all have sinned, except mary) - Galatians 3: 22 - Luke 1: 46-7 (mary herself admits to being a sinner, otherwise she would not need a saviour)
- Luke 11: 27-28 (when a woman attempted to exalt mary, this is how Jesus responded) Jesus called mary “woman” on a couple different occasions.
- Matthew 12: 48-50 (God announces again that these physical relations he had are not what is of real importance)

17. Mary: perpetual virgin- Page 128, # 510 - Page 126, # 499 - Matthew 13: 55 (I could think of more prominent disciples to list if “brethren” meant his followers!) - Mark 6: 3 - Galatians 1: 19 (James, 1 of the 12 was Jesus’s brother. Kinda makes sense that a close relation would follow him, plus the text is undeniable)
- I suppose Joseph was denied having normal marital relations with his wife. Is this taught to make mary appear more like current priests and nuns, leading a celibate life. There is a more amazing resemblance of the roman catholic version of mary to pagan deities than the mary of the Bible.

18. Mary: source of holiness- Page 490, # 2030
- Luke 1: 48
- Revelation 15: 4
- Isaiah 6: 3/ 43: 15/ 48: 11 - Leviticus 11: 44* The words “holy” or “holiness” are used in the Bible over 600 times, not once does either word refer to Mary.*

19. Mary: the intercessor- Page 252, # 969 - 1 John 2: 1 (mary an advocate, I think not) - Psalm 54: 4 (mary a helper, I think not) - Hebrews 13: 6/ 9: 15/ 9: 24/ 8: 6/ 7: 25 - 1 Timothy 2: 5 (mary a mediatrix, I think not) - Romans 8: 27/ 8: 34 (mary never mentioned as intercessor) / Ephesians 2: 18/ 3: 11-12

20. Mary: recipient of prayer- Page 644, # 2677- Page 253, # 971 - Matthew 11: 28 - Luke 11: 27-8 - Isaiah 33: 2 - Philippians 4: 6 - Psalm 55: 16-7/ 55: 22/ 50: 15/ 91: 15/ 41: 1/ 55: 17/ 145: 18 (never does scripture mention praying to anyone other than God) Attribute of omniscience

21. Mary: queen over all things- Page 252, # 966 - Jeremiah 7: 18 (You’d be fascinated by a study of the many false religions that have worshipped a “queen of heaven.” Remarkable are the similarities) - Psalm 57: 5/ 46: 10 - 1 Chronicles 29: 11 - Philippians 2: 9-11 - 1 Peter 4: 11 - Acts 5: 31 ( Jesus’s name appears 943x’s in NT, Christ: 533x’s, Lord Jesus: 115x’s. the first 4 books of the NT revolves around and chronicles the life of Jesus. Mary is only mentioned a handful of times, and is never referred to as the queen of anything)

22. The mass- Page 344, # 1367- Page 343, # 1364- Page 354, # 1405 - 1 Peter 3: 8 - Hebrews 7: 27/ 9: 12/ 9: 26-28/ 10:10-12 (notice the emphasis on “once,” and not daily. This practice is not only nothing short of blasphemy and sacrilegious, but is yet another attempt of the catholic church to steal Christ’s glory and honor.

23. Purgatory- Page 268, # 1030- 31- Page 249, # 954 - Romans 3: 24/ 5: 9/ 5: 18/ 6: 23/ -(to declare it to be free and a gift, then to have to earn it through purification is nonsense and contradictory) - 1 Corinthians 6: 11 - Deuteronomy 18: 10-12 - Ephesians 2: 8 - Acts 20: 28 (keep in mind that millions upon millions of dollars have been given to the church to have prayers and masses said on behalf of departed loved ones. This doctrine was hatched from the minds of men, not from the Bible)2+2=4

24. Praying to saints- Page 645, # 2683 ( See also: Page 249, # 956--957) #956 contradicts itself- Page 219, # 828 - Romans 1: 7/ 15: 25-26/ 16: 2,15/ 12: 13 (saints are nothing more than those soundly converted in Christ) - Ephesians 3: 8/ 4: 11-2 - Acts 9: 13/ 9: 41/ 9: 32/ 26: 10

25. Praying for the dead- Page 250, # 958 - Hebrews 7: 25 - Matthew 28: 18/ 15:9
- Deuteronomy 18: 10-12 (necromancy in #958)
(Isn’t it enough to have God the Son interceding for us? Does the creator of the universe need the help of mortal men to persuade the Father on our behalf. See a pattern of demoting Jesus with catholic doctrine)

26. Statues- Page 307, # 1192- Page 300, # 1161 - Exodus 20: 4-5 (think of this when you see the pope bow before a mary statue) - Deuteronomy 4: 15-6/ 4: 23/ 16: 22 (interesting how the church banks millions through statues and trinkets yearly in their stores) - Leviticus 19: 4/ 26: 1 - Ephesians 5: 5-6 (are the Romanists deceiving you) - Psalm 135: 15-18 - Mark 7: 8 (not making a graven image is one of the 10 commandments that the catholic church conveniently misplaced) 1Corinthians 10: 19-20 (think about all the roman churches that offer money and flowers before a statue of Mary, and think of who they are really offering it to: devils)

27. Confirmation- Page 333, # 1316-17- Page 326, # 1285 (more bondage, anyone) - Romans 8: 1/ 8: 38-9 (God’s word teaches that you are either a child of His or you are not, and a child of God does not need to be more “firmly planted.” - 2 Corinthians 5: 17

28. Confessing sins to a priest- Page 374, # 1493 & 1495- Page 365, # 1456-57 (yet more bondage)- Page 357, # 1424- Page 363, # 1446 & 1448 - Psalm 32: 5/ 51: 2-3/ 130: 1-4 - 1 John 1: 9 - Hebrews 9: 28/ 10: 12/ 10: 19
- Mark 2: 7
- 1Timothy 2: 5 (this doctrine proclaims that if you leave the catholic church, you cannot obtain forgiveness for your sins. What a powerful bondage causing threat. Don’t let them hold you captive.)

29. Indulgences- Page 374, # 1498 -Page 370, # 1471- Page 371-72, # 1479 (sins can only be remitted while you are alive “it is appointed unto man once to die, and then the judgement.”(Heb. 9: 27 - 1 Corinthians 15: 3 - Ephesians 2: 8-10 (good works are a result of salvation, not a requirement for) - Titus 3: 5 (This is spiritual blackmail at its best. Note also that the good works of the Bible concern doing for others, not out of fear for yourself or as devotion to the roman church)

30. Interpreting God’s word- Page 30, # 100 - Mark 12: 24
- Acts 17: 11 (Paul and Silas preach in Berea.--Bereans interpreted with the help of the Holy Spirit)
- 1 John 2: 26-27 - 2 Peter 1: 20 - 2 Timothy 2: 15 - John 5: 39/ 14: 26/ 16: 13 - 1 Corinthians 2: 12-13 - Psalm 119: 97-99 (why would God want us to memorize scripture if we couldn’t interpret it)

31. Catholic prayer- Page 637, # 2650 - Psalm 120: 1/ 62: 8/ 50: 15/ 3: 4/ 30: 2 (God’s word condemns the catholic way of praying as stated in Matthew, (below scripture) and the catholic church condemns the way God said to pray to him.) - Matthew 6: 7 - 2 Kings 6: 18 (the catholic catechism says that scripture is not enough for instruction on how to pray, but that the church is needed to fully understand how to pray. Its just too bad that the catholic church wasn’t around till about 300 a.d., yet Moses, Abraham and scores of other biblical figures were getting their prayers answered. All of scripture was written and all the apostles died before the catholic church ever appeared on the scene.) - Philippians 4: 6-7

32. Penance- Page 366, # 1459- Page 367, # 1460 - Hebrews 10: 17-8 - Galatians 2: 16/ 2: 21 - Psalm 86: 5 - Romans 3: 28

33. Are catholics Christ?- Page 210, # 795 (WE ARE THE BRIDE, NOT A FOURTH MEMBER TO MAKE UP A QUADRINITY, BLASPHEMY KEEPS ABOUNDING)- Page 116, # 460 - Isaiah 14: 13-4/ 46: 9 (is this a clue to who is the real father of Catholicism, think hard—satan. - Genesis 3: 5 - Matthew 24: 5/ 24: 23 (catholics contend that “we don’t believe that,” but why then is it plainly written in their official doctrinal teachings.) - Luke 21: 8 (Throughout this study, you’ve seen catholic doctrine rob glory due to Jesus Christ alone and give it to mary, popes, wafers, saints, statues, etc, but this is the ultimate insult.

34. Could 850 million catholics be wrong?Does nearly 1 billion sound like “few,” that will enter the kingdom of God. Jesus warns that many will follow the masses to destruction. There are 60 million catholics in the U.S.. When Jesus walked the earth, a small minority followed him, and its gotten worse over time. - Matthew 7: 13-4/ 9: 37/ Matthew 7: 22-23 - Luke 6: 46/ 13: 23-4 (Matthew 9: 37 teaches that most people are lost and need a Saviour, but few have the truth to go and tell them.)

35. Reconciliation- Page 367, # 1462 - Colossians 1: 20 - Romans 5: 10 (the entire Bible’s theme is, sinful man being reconciled to a just and holy God, never to a group of other sinners.)

36. Celibacy- Page 395, #1579 - Hebrews 13: 4 (notice the word all.) - 1 Timothy 3: 2/ 3: 12/ 4: 1-3 (there’s a harsh warning, fellow catholics in 1 Tim 4: 1-3) - Genesis 2: 18 - Mark 1: 30 (once again, Simon Peter was not the first pope. Even if he was, he certainly had a wife.) Proverbs 5: 18 ( One must wonder why Catholicism would teach that celibacy “radiantly proclaims the reign of God,” when the Lord declares that this docrine originated from hell as a “doctrine of demons.” Its rather convenient that the roman church would enforce celibacy, since it would save millions of dollars each year that it would cost to support the families of priests and nuns.

37. Last rites- Page 379, # 1516-17 & 1515- Page 381, # 1523-24 - 2Timothy 4: 6-7 (rules on top of more rules. Think of how this doctrine keeps its members in bondage to the church all the way to death because the only ones who can perform these rites are priests or another catholic leader (see pg.379 #1516)

38. Confusion- Page 267, # 1023 - Psalm 71: 1 - 1 Corinthians 14: 33 - 2 Corinthians 11: 3 (Wouldn’t God be clear cut on how to get to heaven when there could be nothing more important than where you spend eternity. He wouldn’t turn it into a calculus formula. Along the grounds of confusion: I was raised in catholic schools and was taught the heretical teaching of evolution. What a shame when we wonder why kids act like monkeys or other animals, or why murder, abortion, rape, other crime, sexual promiscuity and other vices have increased nearly 800% since Charlie Darwin made the theory popular. (that’s fast progress for satans cause) Its no wonder when kids question if God even exists when they are being taught this. Why then does the Catholic school system continue to promote this venomous lie. For a mind-blowing, educational series on evolution and science, contact http://www.drdino.com/ or call 850-479-3466 and ask if you can get a promotional disk or a free seminar tape or dvd.

In Closing,
You see the scriptural evidence laid out before you and if you made it this far without skipping ahead, I see that you are smart enough to check things out for yourself and not trust my word for it necessarily, but on that same note, don’t trust your priests word for it either. This is your salvation, not mine or theirs. Examine my motive: I don’t want your “checks and cheeks,” (which is to say, I’m not asking for your money or your butt in a pew at my church service). My motive is not one of gain for myself, but for the concern of the welfare of your soul. The church on the other hand does have a financial motive for you to be faithful to them. Don’t get me wrong, not all officials of the catholic church are purposely spreading corruption, as it may seem I am presenting them, but many are just programmed through years of indoctrination, and are truly sincere, but if the Bible is the truth guide and the source of all real knowledge, then, while they may be sincere, they are sincerely wrong. The dilemma is, that if you affirm that the Bible is in fact the word of God, then as a Roman Catholic, you deny the Bible’s obvious truth and are in big trouble and headed straight for hell, plain and simple. That’s not a popular thing to say, but then again, the truth has never been popular. I hope you don’t take this as some pompous letter from some mystery person who thinks they know it all and is better than you. Please take it as nothing more than something that you should seriously consider, coming from someone who has researched this topic for years and who cares about the most important investment you have, your eternal soul. You have heard the truth and can be made free. (John 8: 32) God is giving you a chance to be with him forever. He is using this as a tool to help bring you to him. (Revelation 3: 20/ 2Corinthians 6:2)
Becoming a child of God is as simple as repenting from your sins, (turn from, and stop doing what God hates) beg for mercy, and put your complete trust and faith in him as your only possible way to go to heaven. Read your bible daily and obey what you read. God is more interested in obedience than your good intentions, so if you become a child of God or already are one, you are not to be a part of the Romanist church anymore, even if you think you are doing good there to help influence other people. (Revelations 18: 4, Galatians 5: 1, 2Corinthians 6: 14, 2Thessalonians 3: 14, Jeremiah 42: 6, 1Samuel 15: 22, Ephesians 5: 11. Trust in God, not in man. (Jeremiah 17:5) Don’t fear leaving the Roman catholic church, Jesus will take good care of you. (2Timothhy 1: 7, Romans 8:15, Hebrews 2:15)
Every heartbeat is the drum beat of your funeral march, counting down, marching forward towards the cliff of death. Not one of us can avoid deaths grip and its coming sooner than we know. When you lay your head on your pillow at night in a quiet room and can hear your heart beating in your ear, just remember, that the God of this universe can stop it at any time. Satan is described as a master deceiver in Revelations and as an angel of light and he has been using authentic looking religions for centuries to pull people into hell. I am not against catholics, I love them. (Galatians 4: 16) I am not your enemy. On the contrary, I have presented the one and only message that can spare catholics (and all people) from an eternity in the lake of fire, that’s not hate, that’s love. I want you to be free from a religion that enslaves you, that’s not hate, that’s love. I want you to know the joy and peace that only Jesus Christ can give, that’s not being an enemy, that’s being a friend. You do however have an enemy. (1 Peter 5: 8) May these words touch your heart and open your eyes, and may God grant you repentance.

** If you have any questions, comments, complaints, objections, praise reports, or anything else you’d like to discuss or relay to me, you can e-mail me if you have access to a computer at powerof33ad2004@yahoo.com
If you don’t have a roman catholic catechism, you can either ask your parish if you can borrow, or have one, (sometimes they give them away for free) if that fails you can always buy one from Barnes and Noble, Walden, or similar type bookstores, or you can buy one online. They normally cost about 10-20 dollars.**