Reading a lot of forum comments, I see that when Rick Perry referred to Social Security as a Ponzi Scheme, that many people took exception to that characterization.

I will give my opinion on that topic in this thread, because I did not want to hijack another thread where this topic is incidental, not the main point.

First, let me say up front that I do not think Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme, and I will give a few reason why in a moment.

It would be helpful if we had a working definition of a Ponzi scheme, but I cannot help you there. Looking for a definition on the web, was not that helpful, as the term in general, come from a specific case of fraud perpetrated by one Charles Ponzi, but the term has grown to include many schemes that have some of the same characteristics, so the definitions can vary somewhat.

Since we are talking about a government program, it might be best to find out what some of the characteristics of a Ponzi scheme are, from the U.S. government itself. From the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission website, I learned that Ponzi schemes have the following characteristics:

1. They involve the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors

2. They focus on attracting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage investors instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity.

3. They divert funds from the investors to other purposes, besides the generation of return on investment

So far, we can see why Perry (and others before him) refer to S.S. as a Ponzi Scheme, because:

1. Social Security involves the payment of purported returns to those “investors” who are now retired, from funds contributed by “investors” still in the workforce

2. Social Security focuses on collecting new money to make promised payments to earlier-stage “investors” instead of engaging in any legitimate investment activity.

3. Social Security diverts funds from the “investors” to other purposes, besides the generation of return on investment for retirees etc,

Now, with such striking similarities, you might ask: “Why do you say that Social Security is NOT a Ponzi Scheme”? That is a good question.  Let’s look at some of the differences instead of the similarities, and we will see a few reasons why.

Does a working person have the choice to not join?   Ponzi scheme yes, Social Security no.

Is there an upper limit on how much you can get back? Social Security yes, Ponzi scheme no.

If you are collecting your return on installment payments and you die, can you will your balance to your descendents? Ponzi scheme yes, Social Security no.

Is there a huge, inefficient, expensive bureaucracy that guarantees the investors money is wasted on overhead, so that much of the money is not available for the investors later? Social Security yes, Ponzi no.        (although most Ponzi schemes have dishonest operators who do siphon of funds)

When there are too few new investors to pay the early investors, will the plan collapse? Ponzi yes, S.S. no, the govt. just mandates more and more money to be taken from paychecks, increases the retirement age of earlier investors, and reduces their benefits, and possible declares a needs assessment in order to qualify for benefits.

Does the law prosecute systems that seek to knowingly and intentionally fleece victims by taking more from  them that they will get back? Ponzi yes, S.S. no, it is immune to this sort of prosecution.

Does the system increase the required contribution over
time?  S.S. yes,: 2.25% of pay between 1935 and 1953 to 4.5% by 1960, 6.9% by 1970, 8.1% by 1980, and 15.3% by 1990. Ponzi, no, all investment is voluntary.

So, now you can see for these reasons, that I do not consider Social Security to be a Ponzi Scheme. I feel it is an insult to the memory of Charles Ponzi, a criminal, cheat and crook, to compare the more abusive and lame-brained Social Security system, to his particular fraud.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/13/jobapproval-presobama-economy_n_726161.html

With numbers like shown above, it is hard for me to imagine that Obama can win, but I never count my chickens before they hatch. Time will tell. I have not even chosen a candidate. I am not sure there is a candidate in any party, that I would not choose over the current President, but there still seem to be a surprising number (to me) that are sticking by him.

However it turns out, I always assume that nothing surprised God, He is still in control, and even if the U.S. were to totally self destruct, even that is part  of His plan for His purposes, and I am o.k. with that. Still, I take voting as a serious duty of a Christian. I cannot stand by, failing to act or participate, just because I see no perfect candidates. I will always try to at least, elect a lessor of evils. To fail to do so, to me, is morally equivalent to voting for a worse evil, and I cannot do that.

It is a long way until the next election, long enough for us to get in a lot of serious prayer for the candidate, the election, the U.S., Israel, and the world. If we are not salt and light, then we are tolerating sand and darkness. I invite you to join me in praying for leaders in families, businesses, politics, the church. For good or for evil, they effect all of us, so they are a good subject for prayer.

We all wonder what will happen to us after we die. When a loved one dies, we long to see him or her again after our turn comes. Will we have a glorious reunion with those we love or is death the end of all consciousness?

Jesus taught that life does not end after our bodies die.  He made this startling claim: “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die like everyone else, will live again.” According to the eyewitnesses closest to him, Jesus then demonstrated his power over death by rising from the dead after being crucified and buried for three days. It is this belief that has given hope to Christians for nearly 2000 years.

But some people have no hope of life after death. The atheistic philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote, “I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my own ego will survive.”¹ Russell obviously didn’t believe Jesus’ words.

Jesus’ followers wrote that he appeared alive to them after his crucifixion and burial. They claim not only to have seen him but also to have eaten with him, touched him, and spent 40 days with him.

So could this have been simply a story that grew over time, or is it based upon solid evidence? The answer to this question is foundational to Christianity. For if Jesus did rise from the dead, it would validate everything he said about himself, about the meaning of life, and about our destiny after death.

If Jesus did rise from the dead then he alone would have the answers to what life is about and what is facing us after we die. On the other hand, if the resurrection account of Jesus is not true, then Christianity would be founded upon a lie. Theologian R. C. Sproul puts it this way:

“The claim of resurrection is vital to Christianity. If Christ has been raised from the dead by God, then He has the credentials and certification that no other religious leader possesses. Buddha is dead. Mohammad is dead. Moses is dead. Confucius is dead. But, according to…Christianity, Christ is alive.”²

Many skeptics have attempted to disprove the resurrection. Josh McDowell was one such skeptic who spent more than seven hundred hours researching the evidence for the resurrection. McDowell stated this regarding the importance of the resurrection:

“I have come to the conclusion that the resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most wicked, vicious, heartless hoaxes ever foisted upon the minds of men, OR it is the most fantastic fact of history.”³

So, is Jesus’ resurrection a fantastic fact or a vicious myth? To find out, we need to look at the evidence of history and draw our own conclusions. Let’s see what skeptics who investigated the resurrection discovered for themselves.

Cynics and Skeptics

But not everyone is willing to fairly examine the evidence. Bertrand Russell admits his take on Jesus was “not concerned” with historical facts.⁴ Historian Joseph Campbell, without citing evidence, calmly told his PBS television audience that the resurrection of Jesus is not a factual event.⁵ Other scholars, such as John Dominic Crossan of the Jesus Seminar, agree with him.⁶ None of these skeptics present any evidence for their views.

True skeptics, as opposed to cynics, are interested in evidence. In a Skeptic magazine editorial entitled “What Is a Skeptic?” the following definition is given: “Skepticism is … the application of reason to any and all ideas—no sacred cows allowed. In other words … skeptics do not go into an investigation closed to the possibility that a phenomenon might be real or that a claim might be true. When we say we are “skeptical,” we mean that we must see compelling evidence before we believe.”⁷

Unlike Russell and Crossan, many true skeptics have investigated the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. In this article we will hear from some of them and see how they analyzed the evidence for what is perhaps the most important question in the history of the human race: Did Jesus really rise from the dead?

Self-Prophecy

In advance of his death, Jesus told his disciples that he would be betrayed, arrested, and crucified and that he would come back to life three days later. That’s a strange plan! What was behind it? Jesus was no entertainer willing to perform for others on demand; instead, he promised that his death and resurrection would prove to people (if their minds and hearts were open) that he was indeed the Messiah.

Bible scholar Wilbur Smith remarked about Jesus:

“When he said that He himself would rise again from the dead, the third day after He was crucified, He said something that only a fool would dare say, if He expected longer the devotion of any disciples—unless He was sure He was going to rise. No founder of any world religion known to men ever dared say a thing like that.⁸

In other words, since Jesus had clearly told his disciples that he would rise again after his death, failure to keep that promise would expose him as a fraud. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. How did Jesus die before he (if he did) rose again?

A Horrific Death and Then. . . ?

You know what Jesus’ last hours of earthly life were like if you watched the movie by road warrior/brave heart Mel Gibson. If you missed parts of The Passion of the Christ because you were shielding your eyes (it would have been easier to simply shoot the movie with a red filter on the camera), just flip to the back pages of any Gospel in your New Testament to find out what you missed.

As Jesus predicted, he was betrayed by one of his own disciples, Judas Iscariot, and was arrested. In a mock trial under the Roman Governor, Pontius Pilate, he was convicted of treason and condemned to die on a wooden cross. Prior to being nailed to the cross, Jesus was brutally beaten with a Roman cat-o’-nine-tails, a whip with bits of bone and metal that would rip flesh. He was punched repeatedly, kicked, and spit upon.

Then, using mallets, the Roman executioners pounded the heavy wrought-iron nails into Jesus’ wrists and feet. Finally they dropped the cross in a hole in the ground between two other crosses bearing convicted thieves.

Jesus hung there for approximately six hours. Then, at 3:00 in the afternoon—that is, at exactly the same time the Passover lamb was being sacrificed as a sin offering (a little symbolism there, you think?)—Jesus cried out, “It is finished” (in Aramaic), and died. Suddenly the sky went dark and an earthquake shook the land.⁹

Pilate wanted verification that Jesus was dead before allowing his crucified body to be buried. So a Roman guard thrust a spear into Jesus’ side. The mixture of blood and water that flowed out was a clear indication that Jesus was dead. Jesus’ body was then taken down from the cross and buried in Joseph of Arimathea’s tomb. Roman guards next sealed the tomb, and secured it with a 24-hour watch.

Meanwhile, Jesus’ disciples were in shock. Dr. J. P. Moreland explains how devastated and confused they were after Jesus’ death on the cross. “They no longer had confidence that Jesus had been sent by God. They also had been taught that God would not let his Messiah suffer death. So they dispersed. The Jesus movement was all but stopped in its tracks.”¹⁰

All hope was vanquished. Rome and the Jewish leaders had prevailed—or so it seemed.

Something Happened

But it wasn’t the end. The Jesus movement did not disappear (obviously), and in fact Christianity exists today as the world’s largest religion. Therefore, we’ve got to know what happened after Jesus’ body was taken down from the cross and laid in the tomb.

In a New York Times article, Peter Steinfels cites the startling events that occurred three days after Jesus’ death: “Shortly after Jesus was executed, his followers were suddenly galvanized from a baffled and cowering group into people whose message about a living Jesus and a coming kingdom, preached at the risk of their lives, eventually changed an empire. Something happened. … But exactly what?”¹¹ That’s the question we have to answer with an investigation into the facts.

There are only five plausible explanations for Jesus’ alleged resurrection, as portrayed in the New Testament:

1. Jesus didn’t really die on the cross.
2. The “resurrection” was a conspiracy.
3. The disciples were hallucinating.
4. The account is legendary.
5. It really happened.

Let’s work our way through these options and see which one best fits the facts.

Was Jesus Dead?

“Marley was deader than a doornail, of that there was no doubt.” So begins Charles Dickens’s A Christmas Carol, the author not wanting anyone to be mistaken as to the supernatural character of what is soon to take place. In the same way, before we take on the role of CSI and piece together evidence for a resurrection, we must first establish that there was, in fact, a corpse. After all, occasionally the newspapers will report on some “corpse” in a morgue who was found stirring and recovered. Could something like that have happened with Jesus?

Some have proposed that Jesus lived through the crucifixion and was revived by the cool, damp air in the tomb–“Whoa, how long was I out for?” But that theory doesn’t seem to square with the medical evidence. An article in the Journal of the American Medical Association explains why this so-called “swoon theory” is untenable: “Clearly, the weight of historical and medical evidence indicated that Jesus was dead. … The spear, thrust between His right ribs, probably perforated not only the right lung, but also the pericardium and heart and thereby ensured His death.”¹² But skepticism of this verdict may be in order, as this case has been cold for 2,000 years. At the very least, we need a second opinion.

One place to find that is in the reports of non-Christian historians from around the time when Jesus lived. Three of these historians mentioned the death of Jesus.

• Lucian (c.120–after 180 A.D. referred to Jesus as a crucified sophist (philosopher).¹³
• Josephus (c.37–c.100 A.D.) wrote, “At this time there appeared Jesus, a wise man, for he was a doer of amazing deeds. When Pilate condemned him to the cross, the leading men among us, having accused him, those who loved him did not cease to do so.”¹⁴
• Tacitus (c. 56–c.120 A.D.) wrote, “Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme penalty … at the hands of our procurator, Pontius Pilate.”¹⁵

This is a bit like going into the archives and finding that on one spring day in the first century, The Jerusalem Post ran a front-page story saying that Jesus was crucified and dead. Not bad detective work, and fairly conclusive.

In fact, there is no historical account from Christians, Romans, or Jews that disputes either Jesus’ death or his burial. Even Crossan, a skeptic of the resurrection, agrees that Jesus really lived and died. “That he was crucified is as sure as anything historical can ever be.”¹⁶ In light of such evidence, we seem to be on good grounds for dismissing the first of our five options. Jesus was clearly dead, “of that there was no doubt.”

The Matter of An Empty Tomb

No serious historian really doubts Jesus was dead when he was taken down from the cross. However, many have questioned how Jesus’ body disappeared from the tomb. English journalist, Dr. Frank Morison. initially thought the resurrection was either a myth or a hoax, and he began research to write a book refuting it.¹⁷ The book became famous but for reasons other than its original intent, as we’ll see.

Morison began by attempting to solve the case of the empty tomb. The tomb belonged to a member of the Sanhedrin Council, Joseph of Arimathea. In Israel at that time, to be on the council was to be a rock star. Everyone knew who was on the council. Joseph must have been a real person. Otherwise, the Jewish leaders would have exposed the story as a fraud in their attempt to disprove the resurrection. Also, Joseph’s tomb would have been at a well-known location and easily identifiable, so any thoughts of Jesus being “lost in the graveyard” would need to be dismissed.

Morison wondered why Jesus’ enemies would have allowed the “empty tomb myth” to persist if it wasn’t true. The discovery of Jesus’ body would have instantly killed the entire plot.

And what is known historically of Jesus’ enemies is that they accused Jesus’ disciples of stealing the body, an accusation clearly predicated on a shared belief that the tomb was empty.

Dr. Paul L. Maier, professor of ancient history at Western Michigan University, similarly stated, “If all the evidence is weighed carefully and fairly, it is indeed justifiable … to conclude that the tomb in which Jesus was buried was actually empty on the morning of the first Easter. And no shred of evidence has yet been discovered … that would disprove this statement.”¹⁸

The Jewish leaders were stunned, and accused the disciples of stealing Jesus’ body. But the Romans had assigned a 24-hour watch at the tomb with a trained guard unit (from 4 to 12 soldiers). Morison asked, “How could these professionals have let Jesus’ body be vandalized?” It would have been impossible for anyone to have slipped by the Roman guards and to have moved a two-ton stone. Yet the stone was moved away and the body of Jesus was missing.

If Jesus’ body was anywhere to be found, his enemies would have quickly exposed the resurrection as a fraud. Tom Anderson, former president of the California Trial Lawyers Association, summarizes the strength of this argument:

“With an event so well publicized, don’t you think that it’s reasonable that one historian, one eye witness, one antagonist would record for all time that he had seen Christ’s body? … The silence of history is deafening when it comes to the testimony against the resurrection.”¹⁹

So, with no body of evidence, and with a known tomb clearly empty, Morison accepted the evidence as solid that Jesus’ body had somehow disappeared from the tomb.

Grave Robbing?

As Morison continued his investigation, he began to examine the motives of Jesus’ followers. Maybe the supposed resurrection was actually a stolen body. But if so, how does one account for all the reported appearances of a resurrected Jesus? Historian Paul Johnson, in History of the Jews, wrote, “What mattered was not the circumstances of his death but the fact that he was widely and obstinately believed, by an expanding circle of people, to have risen again.”²⁰

The tomb was indeed empty. But it wasn’t the mere absence of a body that could have galvanized Jesus’ followers (especially if they had been the ones who had stolen it). Something extraordinary must have happened, for the followers of Jesus ceased mourning, ceased hiding, and began fearlessly proclaiming that they had seen Jesus alive.

Each eyewitness account reports that Jesus suddenly appeared bodily to his followers, the women first. Morison wondered why conspirators would make women central to its plot. In the first century, women had virtually no rights, personhood, or status. If the plot was to succeed, Morison reasoned, the conspirators would have portrayed men, not women, as the first to see Jesus alive. And yet we hear that women touched him, spoke with him, and were the first to find the empty tomb.

Later, according to the eyewitness accounts, all the disciples saw Jesus on more than ten separate occasions. They wrote that he showed them his hands and feet and told them to touch him. And he reportedly ate with them and later appeared alive to more than 500 followers on one occasion.

Legal scholar John Warwick Montgomery stated, “In 56 A.D. [the Apostle Paul wrote that over 500 people had seen the risen Jesus and that most of them were still alive (1 Corinthians 15:6ff.). It passes the bounds of credibility that the early Christians could have manufactured such a tale and then preached it among those who might easily have refuted it simply by producing the body of Jesus.”²¹

Bible scholars Geisler and Turek agree. “If the Resurrection had not occurred, why would the Apostle Paul give such a list of supposed eyewitnesses? He would immediately lose all credibility with his Corinthian readers by lying so blatantly.”²²

Peter told a crowd in Caesarea why he and the other disciples were so convinced Jesus was alive.

We apostles are witnesses of all he did throughout Israel and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by crucifying him, but God raised him to life three days later….We were those who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
(Acts 10:39-41)

British Bible scholar Michael Green remarked, “The appearances of Jesus are as well authenticated as anything in antiquity. … There can be no rational doubt that they occurred.”²³

Consistent to the End

As if the eyewitness reports were not enough to challenge Morison’s skepticism, he was also baffled by the disciples’ behavior. A fact of history that has stumped historians, psychologists, and skeptics alike is that these 11 former cowards were suddenly willing to suffer humiliation, torture, and death. All but one of Jesus’ disciples were slain as martyrs. Would they have done so much for a lie, knowing they had taken the body?

The Islamic martyrs on September 11 proved that some will die for a false cause they believe in. Yet to be a willing martyr for a known lie is insanity. As Paul Little wrote, “Men will die for what they believe to be true, though it may actually be false. They do not, however, die for what they know is a lie.”²⁴ Jesus’ disciples behaved in a manner consistent with a genuine belief that their leader was alive.

No one has adequately explained why the disciples would have been willing to die for a known lie. But even if they all conspired to lie about Jesus’ resurrection, how could they have kept the conspiracy going for decades without at least one of them selling out for money or position? Moreland wrote, “Those who lie for personal gain do not stick together very long, especially when hardship decreases the benefits.”²⁵

Former “hatchet man” of the Nixon administration, Chuck Colson, implicated in the Watergate scandal, pointed out the difficulty of several people maintaining a lie for an extended period of time.

“I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me. How? Because 12 men testified they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, and then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it. Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned and put in prison. They would not have endured that if it weren’t true. Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world—and they couldn’t keep a lie for three weeks. You’re telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years? Absolutely impossible.^“26

Something happened that changed everything for these men and women. Morison acknowledged, “Whoever comes to this problem has sooner or later to confront a fact that cannot be explained away. … This fact is that … a profound conviction came to the little group of people—a change that attests to the fact that Jesus had risen from the grave.”²⁷

Were the Disciples Hallucinating?

People still think they see a fat, gray-haired Elvis darting into Dunkin Donuts. And then there are those who believe they spent last night with aliens in the mother ship being subjected to unspeakable testing. Sometimes certain people can “see” things they want to, things that aren’t really there. And that’s why some have claimed that the disciples were so distraught over the crucifixion that their desire to see Jesus alive caused mass hallucination. Plausible?

Psychologist Gary Collins, former president of the American Association of Christian Counselors, was asked about the possibility that hallucinations were behind the disciples’ radically changed behavior. Collins remarked, “Hallucinations are individual occurrences. By their very nature, only one person can see a given hallucination at a time. They certainly aren’t something which can be seen by a group of people.”²⁸

Hallucination is not even a remote possibility, according to psychologist Thomas J. Thorburn. “It is absolutely inconceivable that … five hundred persons, of average soundness of mind … should experience all kinds of sensuous impressions—visual, auditory, tactual—and that all these … experiences should rest entirely upon … hallucination.”²⁹

Furthermore, in the psychology of hallucinations, the person would need to be in a frame of mind where they so wished to see that person that their mind contrives it. Two major leaders of the early church, James and Paul, both encountered a resurrected Jesus, neither expecting, or hoping for the pleasure. The Apostle Paul, in fact led the earliest persecutions of Christians, and his conversion remains inexplicable except for his own testimony that Jesus appeared to him, resurrected.

From Lie to Legend

Some unconvinced skeptics attribute the resurrection story to a legend that began with one or more persons lying or thinking they saw the resurrected Jesus. Over time, the legend would have grown and been embellished as it was passed around. In this theory, Jesus’ resurrection is on a par with King Arthur’s round table, little Georgie Washington’s inability to tell a lie, and the promise that Social Security will be solvent when we need it.

But there are three major problems with that theory.

1. Legends rarely develop while multiple eyewitnesses are alive to refute them. One historian of ancient Rome and Greece, A. N. Sherwin-White, argued that the resurrection news spread too soon and too quickly for it to have been a legend. ³⁰
2. Legends develop by oral tradition and don’t come with contemporary historical documents that can be verified. Yet the Gospels were written within three decades of the resurrection.³¹
3. The legend theory doesn’t adequately explain either the fact of the empty tomb or the historically verified conviction of the apostles that Jesus was alive.³²

Why Did Christianity Win?

Morison was bewildered by the fact that “a tiny insignificant movement was able to prevail over the cunning grip of the Jewish establishment, as well as the might of Rome.” Why did it win, in the face of all those odds against it?

He wrote, “Within twenty years, the claim of these Galilean peasants had disrupted the Jewish church. … In less than fifty years it had begun to threaten the peace of the Roman Empire. When we have said everything that can be said … we stand confronted with the greatest mystery of all. Why did it win?”³³

By all rights, Christianity should have died out at the cross when the disciples fled for their lives. But the apostles went on to establish a growing Christian movement.

J. N. D. Anderson wrote, “Think of the psychological absurdity of picturing a little band of defeated cowards cowering in an upper room one day and a few days later transformed into a company that no persecution could silence—and then attempting to attribute this dramatic change to nothing more convincing than a miserable fabrication. … That simply wouldn’t make sense.”³⁴

Many scholars believe (in the words of an ancient commentator) that “the blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church.” Historian Will Durant observed, “Caesar and Christ had met in the arena and Christ had won.”³⁵

A Surprise Conclusion

With myth, hallucination, and a flawed autopsy ruled out, with incontrovertible evidence for an empty tomb, with a substantial body of eyewitnesses to his reappearance, and with the inexplicable transformation and impact upon the world of those who claimed to have seen him, Morison became convinced that his preconceived bias against Jesus Christ’s resurrection had been wrong. He began writing a different book—entitled Who Moved the Stone?—to detail his new conclusions. Morison simply followed the trail of evidence, clue by clue, until the truth of the case seemed clear to him. His surprise was that the evidence led to a belief in the resurrection.

In his first chapter, “The Book That Refused to Be Written,” this former skeptic explained how the evidence convinced him that Jesus’ resurrection was an actual historical event. “It was as though a man set out to cross a forest by a familiar and well-beaten track and came out suddenly where he did not expect to come out.”³⁶

Morison is not alone. Countless other skeptics have examined the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection, and accepted it as the most astounding fact in all of human history. But the resurrection of Jesus Christ raises the question: What does the fact that Jesus defeated death have to do with my life? The answer to that question is what New Testament Christianity is all about.

Did Jesus Say What Happens After we Die?

If Jesus really did rise from the dead, then he alone must know what is on the other side. What did Jesus say about the meaning of life and our future? Are there many ways to God or did Jesus claim to be the only way? Read the startling answers in “Why Jesus.”

-from y-Jesus.com

Notice the title carefully. It describes the subject. I will be using some
examples of things that might fall into the categories above, but please
remember that the examples are not the topic, the topic is about being deceived
vs. discerning the truth.

We are bombarded with messages from television, newspapers, magazines, movies,
radio, schools, the web. Even our friends share their opinions and beliefs with
us. It is easy to accept what our loved ones tell us. Children are especially
susceptible to believing what parents tell them. I believe this is God’s design.
He wants children to learn from their parents, and He wants parents to teach
their children. While the most important subject that a parent can teach a child
is about a loving Creator/God and His plan for redemption, it is not the only
thing. We who are parents, are responsible for training our children in ethics
and life skills, and from my observation, I think many are doing a poor job. Of
course, it is not easy, the same things I mentioned at the beginning of this
paragraph, are bombarding our children as well.

This is not about parents and children though, it is about everyone, so let’s
look at some examples of challenges we face.

Example 1 – Emotional Manipulation in Media

Let’s take global warming as one example. I am not here to debate the
validity of either side in that debate, but I want to show one way that
information is used to sway our opinions.

The image to the right has become very famous. It is used in magazine and articles on the web, documentaries etc. It depicts a polar bear on a small piece of ice. Often, the accompanying text or commentary will say something to the effect, that this polar bear is drifting out so sea on this little chunk of ice, because manmade global warming is melting the polar ice caps. Now, is global warming real? Maybe. Is it caused by man? It is possible we are contributing to it. But let’s examine what the picture is, how it is used, and what it is said to be of.

First off, you will notice that the photo I put here, has the iStockphoto
watermark. iStock is the source of the picture, they are a stock photo agency
that licenses buyers to use their pictures (without the watermark). If you were
to go to the iStockphoto website, and locate this picture, you will find the
text:

“A polar bear managed to get on one of the last ice floes
floating in the Arctic sea. Due to global warming the natural environment of the
polar bear in the Arctic has changed a lot. The Arctic sea has much less ice
than it had some years ago.”

Sometimes, that quotation accompanies the picture in articles. What you would
also see at iphoto, is this:

“(This images (sic) is a photoshop design. Polarbear (sic), ice floe, ocean and
sky are real, they were just not together in the way they are now)”

In case you have not guessed, this last part is usually not quoted, maybe it
never is.

So what do we have here, we have people knowingly using a contrived picture,
and implying that this is one of the last ice floes, and somehow, this lucky
polar bear managed to find it. This is designed to arouse your emotions, feel sorry
for the polar bear, and generate real concern about these disappearing ice
floes. This could be expected to work on children, but it also seemed to work on
adults.

Again, I am not debating global warming here, I am demonstrating
manipulation. One might think that is is a good thing to do something like this,
because it is an important cause which needs to be promoted. I say fine, if
global warming is real, then sell it with facts. Will the people who use this
kind of tactic bother to tell you that there are 5 times as many polar bears
today as there were in 1950? I doubt it. Will the mention that DNA genome
studies indicate that the polar bear has survived previous global warmings? Not
likely. Do they mention that polar bears can swim 60 miles? Seldom. Do they
mention that Polar Bears can live on land, without any ice? You get the idea.
While the ice may be thinning, and the polar bear’s normal habitat may be
shrinking, they are manipulating information and images to manipulate your
emotions. Resist emotional manipulation, recognize it when it is happening, and
look deeper into things. Don’t believe something, just because it tugs your
heart strings, believe things because facts back them up. Remember, even people
we trust, who would never lie to us, can also be deceived.

Example 2 – Email Urban Legends

I got an email one time, one of those chain emails that people
forward to their friends. Fortunately, I do not have many friends, so i do not
get these often. This one was talking about some woman who purchased a large
potted cactus, and put it in her home as a decoration. Without going into all
the details that builds the story up, the cactus later explodes from the pressure
of growing baby tarantulas inside it, and the house is filled with the little
critters. 

Now I read this, and had a huge laugh, because the story is so
ridiculous. Where do I begin? Cactus are not house plants, they need sun.
Tarantulas do not lay eggs in cactus. The babies, in order to grow, would have
to have a food supply, they eat insects. If there were enough insects in the
cactus to feed them, would not the cactus have already exploded from their
volume? Cacti are not hollow, there is no place for all of this to even happen.
Cacti are stronger that fragile spiders, if the pressure were that great, the
spiders would have been squished. There are so many levels that point this out
as an urban legend, but as obvious as it was so to me, apparently it was not
obvious to the friend that forwarded it to me.

If you receive this sort of email, do a little research before
passing it on. Think also, of what the consequences of passing it on might be.
For example, there are often emails forwarded about some new way criminals have
come up with to get their victims. I won’t go into examples, and I would not
forward these. Most of the time, they are not true. Some of the time, the
tactics might even be clever. By forwarding these around, the will eventually
fall into the hands of criminals, who beleive it or not, also have friends with
email. Why give them clever ways to victimize people?

There is one of these that surfaces once in a while about
Madalyn Murry O’Hair, telling of her successful effort to remove Bible
reading and prayer from schools, and her plans to get the Federal Communications
Commission to ban the gospel from broadcasting. It urges Christians to petition
the FCC. It also says that Madalyn is campaigning to remove Christmas songs and
programs from public schools.

I have no problem with Christian activism. What saddens me, is
that people just assume that these sorts of emails are true, after all, it was
forwarded to them by a trusted friend, so they forward it to people that trust
them. So, is the any truth to the claims in the email?

Ms. O’Hair never petitioned the FCC on the topic, nor does the
FCC have the authority to ban religious programming. Those who know me, know
that I believe that we need to be ever vigilant though, as the federal
government has had a track record of overstepping it’s constitutional bounds.
Never-the-less, petition number
RM-2493, to which the email refers, had nothing to do with Ms. O’Hair and
was not about banning religious broadcasting, it was about  preventing
religious organizations from obtaining broadcasting licenses on channels
reserved for educational purposes, and then using them for other purposes.

It was defeated in 1975, yet the FCC still is receiving
petitions to stop Madalyn (who had nothing to do with it) from having her way.
Now, if someone were to read this email, and then just look up Madalyn Murray
O’Hair, the would discover that she went missing in  1995, and her remains
were discovered in 2001, so you can rest assured that she is not a danger to
your religious liberty. There is a newer version of this email floating around
out there, that has president Obama as the villain.

Scare Tactics

Did you notice that in all the cases above, that those who
were perpetuating this disinformation, did so one the basis of fear? You have
heard all of the dire predictions of the result of global warming, the stripping
of your religious rights, how scary would it be to have a house full of
Tarantulas? If you read something, and it induces fear, that is a good time to
take a deep breath and say “Wait, is this really true?” If you can get the fear
out of it, you can more clearly think rationally, let fear grip you, and you
will focus on the fear, and stop looking for the truth. Fear paralyzes, truth
empowers. This tactic of employing fear is wide spread. We see it in politics -
vote for us, because our opponents want to send your babies to war, and feed you
parents dog food. I know, it sounds silly, but those have been used to mobilize
opposition. For some reason, we are willing to believe our guys when they lie to
us, and are ready to believe the worst of “the other guys”. Don’t fall for it,
both sides lie and use fear in politics.

It is true in day to day advertizing as well. If you have
dandruff, bad breath, tooth decay, wrinkles, you will not be happy. If your
laundry is not a white as can be, if your car doesn’t get 40 miles to a gallon
of gasoline, you will be ostracized or you are not a responsible world citizen.

Some of this stuff isn’t even public advertising, some of it
is just word of mouth rumor. Years ago, in a discussion on Worthychat, the topic
of artificial sweeteners came up. One person contending that Aspartame
(NutraSweet, and Equal) had formaldehyde in it, and could lead to cancer and
brain tumors. Now, I am immediately skeptical of such claims, because our food
an drug administration is fairly cautious, so cautious that you could make a
valid case that thousands have died, as a result of being denied medications
that could have saved their lives, because they have not passed the stringent FDA
guidelines that allows release to the public. We sometime have to wait a decade
or more, for the release of a drug in the U.S., that has been successfully
employed in other countries. There is no way around this, we can either be
cautious, and lose people, or we can be reckless, and lose people. My point is,
that it is doubtful that the FDA would approve something, that it knew caused
cancer and tumors.

I did not challenge the chatter’s assertion that Aspartame
contains formaldehyde, because I just did not know the the facts. I did however,
look it up in the next few days. What did I discover? Aspartame does contain
formaldehyde, well sort of. . Under certain conditions of temperature, a small
amount of formaldehyde can form in aspartame. How much? Let’s put it this way.
If you drank 500 cans of soda sweetened with aspartame, you would be ingesting
about as much formaldehyde as is contained in a single orange.

A similar one, is that in some countries, they have all but
ceased using sodium lauryl sulfate. What is that? It is the main ingredient in
many if not most shampoos. It is rumored to cause cancer. Big surprise, most
‘dangerous’ things are using the cancer scare. It is said, that it is a powerful
detergent, used to clean garage floors. Now, there is some truth to that. The
properties that make for a good garage floor cleaner, would be that is is able
to clean, dissolve oil and grease, be water soluble, and not be too dangerous.
These are the same properties that we want is a shampoo, the ability to clean,
break down grease and oil, and disolve in water. Furthermore, since it is going
down the drain, it cannot to too toxic, or we put the environment at risk.
Bio-degradability is what we need. This type of substance, is known as a
biodegradable anionic surfactant. We usually refer to them as detergents. While
there are others, they all do the same thing. Any ingredient that will clean
your hair well, will also clean a garage floor. There are two types of people
who will attempt to scare you about sodium lauryl sulfate – those who are
ignorant, and those who willfully deceive in order to sell you an alternative.
Use what you want, but don’t be fooled by urband legend hype. How did this get
started? The cancer scare and shampoo started in the early seventies, because
shampoo contained nitrosamines. Nitrosamines are known carcinogens (cancer
causing substances). What is odd though is that bacon contains nitrosamines, and
we eat that. We were afraid to put nitrosamines in our hair, but not too afraid
to eat them. Go figure.

There is one ingredient commonly used in industry, which is
responsible for the deaths of thousands. It is commonly dumped into our oceans
lake and streams, and there is some in every household. An analysis of your
blood, would show it’s presence. It is not only in the chemical solutions of
cleaning products that we use, it is even used in food preparation and even as
an ingredient in the food itself. This dangerous chemical compound, is
Dihydrogen Monoxide. according to the
Dihydrogen Monoxide
Research Division :

Dihydrogen Monoxide (DHMO) is a colorless and odorless
chemical compound, also referred to by some as Dihydrogen Oxide, Hydrogen
Hydroxide, Hydronium Hydroxide, or simply Hydric acid. Its basis is the highly
reactive hydroxyl radical, a species shown to mutate DNA, denature proteins,
disrupt cell membranes, and chemically alter critical neurotransmitters. The
atomic components of DHMO are found in a number of caustic, explosive and
poisonous compounds such as Sulfuric Acid, Nitroglycerine and Ethyl Alcohol.

Petitions have circulated in the U.S., but to date, no
legislation has been inacted to ban or curtail it’s use. New Zealand, however,
had been on the cutting edge of fighting DHMO. In 2001 a staffer in New Zealand
Green Party MP Sue Kedgley’s office responded to a request for support for a
campaign to ban dihydrogen monoxide by saying she was “absolutely supportive of
the campaign to ban this toxic substance”. In 2007 Jacqui Dean, New Zealand
National Party MP, wrote a letter to Associate Minister of Health Jim Anderton
asking “Does the Expert Advisory Committee on Drugs have a view on the banning
of this drug?”

 You have probably heard of this dangerous substance
before. In the U.S., we usually refer to it as water. That is how normal,
ordinary things, can become something to fear. Nothing said about water above,
was untrue.

Of course, when there is a fear, it is an opportunity to sell
the antidote – to sell hope. We fear cancer, so we will but things that offer us
hope of prevention. I know someone who spent $500 on what amounts to a blender
with colored LEDs. Supposedly, you put water in this, swirl it around, and you
get hexagonal
water, which prevents cancer. I wish you could see me roll my eyes.

However, just because there is no science to back up claims of
health from certain practices and substances, doesn’t mean they won’t work. Look
up the

placebo effect sometime.

What is the point of all this? I’ll bet you thought I would
never come to that. The point is that we are easily and readily deceived.

Deception

What all of the above have in common is deception. Deception
can be done to us, or we can be self deceived. The worst kind of deception by
far, is religious deception. The are thousands of  religions and cults
offering differing world views and ideas. Atheism and related
dogma (like evolution as an example), while not properly religion, are
practically religion, because they are based on faith and offer alternative
thought to traditional religion. Let’s be clear about one thing, if there are
ten ideas which contradict each other, no more than one of them can be correct.

Some may question why I said religious deception is the worst
kind. If it is true (and it is obviously true) that it is impossible for two or
more contradictory statements to all be true, then we have to compare religious
claims, and their implications. The bible tells us that mankind is too flawed to
enter in to eternal life in Heaven, and that we need a savior to deliver us from
the consequences of our sins. The Bible presents Jesus as that savior, and the
only way that we may enter Heaven. That claim is either true, or it is false. If
it is true, then we must follow that faith, or suffer eternal consequences. If
it is false, then we should not go about being self deceived and deceiving
others. This is of such vital importance, that we should spent to most effort
possible, to arrive at what is true. To fail to do so is to risk eternal
damnation for ourselves and for others. Nothing can possibly be more important.

Much of what I discussed above, involves what many call “junk
science”. I would like to propose, that there is also “junk religion”. Junk
religion, is similar to junk science and urban legends. It plays on fears,
exploits false hopes, and like junk science, can be exposed with a little
research and a willingness to yield to the fact, if we can get past our
emotions. Some might argue that  playing on fears and emotions, offering
false hope is exactly what religion does. That is true. Since it is true that no
more than one religion can really be true (I am not talking about denominations,
but truly different religions), then that means that all but perhaps one, is a
junk religion, However, if there is one that is true, we need to find that one
and avoid all others, and discourage others from getting involved in false hope
with eternal consequences. We need to avoid all of them but one, if even one is
true.

I am haunted by something Penn Gillette said:

“How much do you have to hate someone to believe that
everlasting life is possible and not tell them that?” Pretty convicting words
coming from an athiest. Whatever else you may think about Penn Gillette, I do
believe truth is important to him. He just has not discovered it yet.
Never-the-less this foul mouthed entertainer and skeptic, has done much to
expose a lot of the junk science that is out there, one can only hope and pray
that one day he will receive a blessing from God and use his sharp mind and
investigative skills and apply them to the religious issue.

We as Christians, are aware that forces of deception exist,
but being aware of them is not enough to be free of their effects. We need to be
vigilant in our pursuit of the truth, ever on the guard for religious deception,
even from witin our own ranks, perhaps especially so. Dr. John Warrick
Montgomery wrote an interesting book called “Damned through the Church”, it is
worth a read.

From within the ranks of those that call themselves
Christians, we have seen doctrines immerge which appeal to our base instincts.
The prosperity gospel, for example. Some have come to believe that God wants us
all health, happy and rich. He wants us content in our circunstances, but that
does not mean that He wants our circumstances to cause our contentment.

As usual, I have not set about to write this blog, knowing
exactly where I am going, so it should not surprise you to learn, that I do not
know when and where to end. So, having grown weary of writing by now, I will
leave you with the following verses to ponder:

2 Tim 2:15

15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not
need to be ashamed, handling accurately the word of truth.NASB

1 Tim 6:3-10

3 If anyone teaches false doctrines and does not agree to the sound instruction
of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching, 4 he is conceited and
understands nothing. He has an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels
about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions 5 and
constant friction between men of corrupt mind, who have been robbed of the truth
and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain.

6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into
the world, and we can take nothing out of it. 8 But if we have food and
clothing, we will be content with that. 9 People who want to get rich fall into
temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men
into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of
evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced
themselves with many griefs.

NIV

2 Tim 4:3-6

3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting
to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in
accordance to their own desires; 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth,
and will turn aside to myths. 5 But you, be sober in all things, endure
hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.

NASB

1 Peter 3:14-18

14 But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed.
And do not fear their intimidation, and do not be troubled, 15 but sanctify
Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone
who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness
and reverence; 16 and keep a good conscience so that in the thing in which you
are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to
shame. 17 For it is better, if God should will it so, that you suffer for doing
what is right rather than for doing what is wrong.

NASB

Be Content!

photo from freakingnews.com

Omegaman 2.0

Choose a number between 1 and 48.  Don’t over think it, the number should be random, as though you drew it out of a hat.

Write it down.

Next, choose  some letter of the alphabet, either upper case or lower case, or choose a space instead of a letter, but make it something random, with no reason for your choice.

Write that choice down also.

Now, consider the following sentence:

Even a simple life form is extremely complicated

Now in the sentence above, count over from the left by the number you wrote down. In my case, I chose the number 7. Moving over 7 times in the sentence, I see that my number is the space between the word “a” and the word “simple”.

Now, remove the symbol that is at the number position you chose, and insert the character or symbol you chose (the letter or space). In my case,  I chose the letter “h”.

Applying my choices we arrive at a new sentence which reads:

“Even ahsimple life form is extremely complicated”

Do the exercise a few more time, using your new sentence. For example, with the number 23 and the letter N, my new sentence reads:

“Even ahsimple life forN is extremely complicated”

Okay, two more times  43 s   and 33 K

“Even ahsimple life form is extreKely complscated”

What has just happened? We took a perfectly good sentence and made a few random changes to it.

My question is this: “Did our changes improve the function of the sentence?”

The obvious answer is no, it did not. What is the difference between the two sentences? One serves a purpose, the other is just a deformed mess. As you can imagine, the more random changes we make to our sentence, the less functional it becomes.

What accounts for the differences between the first sentence and the last sentences? In the first case, the letters were chosen intentionally, with a purpose in mind, to convey information. In the last sentence, we see how that purpose is destroyed by chance changes, mutations.  This is the difference between intelligent design, and random changes.

Someone might argue, that given enough mutations, this sentence might again become functional. It has been said let a million monkeys type on a million typewriters for a million years, and you will get Shakespeare. Personally, I seriously doubt that. However, let’s assume that is true.

“To be or not to be that is the question”

Here is the problem. Let the monkeys keep typing and you will soon have:

“fodfe ob soteto be phat iq tre wsdstoon.”

What chance creates, chance also destroys. Millions of years of monkey typing, will be eradicated in a few moments.

Any child can see that chance mutations cannot bring about sophisticated order, it takes a brilliant scientist, to come up with a story that that attempts to explain away, what we know intuitively.

Now, while this poses a problem for any honest atheist, it is a tiny problem compared with another problem.

In the first example (Even a simple life form is extremely complicated), we took an already formed and functional sentence and mutated it into extinction.

But what are the chances of this sentence coming into existence in the first place by random, non intelligent processes.

I had 26 lowercase letters as 26 upper case letters to choose from to make that sentence, plus the spaces, for a total 53 symbols.

There are 48 ‘slots’ taken up by the the letters and spaces in that sentence. To arrive at the total number of possible combinations we would take the  number of symbols (in our example 53) and multiply it times itself 48 times.

The number of possible combinations of letters in those 48 places is then

5.82427 X 10^82, or to put it another way, there are 5,824,273,234,102,671,721,638,474,597,358,900,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 possible combinations.

Astrophysicists tell us, that there are about 10^80 atoms in the universe.

The first number is over 582 times larger that the second number.

To grasp the scope of this, imagine taking an atom,and writing a check mark on it. next, take the atoms contained  in 582 universes, and put them in a very big bowl, and toss our checked atom into the  bowl. Stir them up very well.  Now, with a blindfold on, reach into the bowl and draw out a single atom.

The chances of random letters falling into the 48 positions and forming the sentence, are the same as drawing out that one specific atom from 582 universes. Good luck with that.

So, how do these numbers relate to life arising. All life that we know of, contains DNA molecules. The DNA molecules, are the blueprints, the instructions that govern the nature of life forms. DNA is a language, a code, a form of information, just like our sentence is.

There is  big difference though. The simplest micro-organism that we know of, is Nanoarchaeum. It has 10^200,000 possible combinations in it’s DNA code.

I would do the math and show you how big a number that is, except for two problems, my calculator cannot perform calculations with numbers that large, and you do not have enough time to read the number if I could put it here.

(if you want to see an interesting depiction of the way DNA ‘works’, you will have a better understanding of yet another aspect of this, that is just hard to explain away apart from an intelligent designer. Note: youtube is known for having videos of every sort, some which you may not want to see (use your own judgement):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4PKjF7OumYo&feature=youtu.be

Remember how I said that the first problem the random chance theorist has to deal with was small, compared to the problem I just finish outlining?

Well, they have a bigger problem yet. Again, I will use the analogy of a sentence. A sentence is composed of words, and the words are composed of letters. What if there were no letters to choose from, what if there was no ink to write the letters with, or air to transmit the sounds of the words and letters. Without materials, we cannot communicate. So where do the letters come from? Where to the words come from. Where do the ideas to have letters and words come from, and where to the ideas come from that we communicate with the words and letters? The answer to all of those questions is that they come from intelligence, they are designed by a mind.

In a similar way, in order for  DNA to be sequenced in a life form, there has to be a programmer, and builder of the environment and materials for life, is this really too complicated for those who do not believe in a creator to grasp? Of course it is not, but they have too much faith in the religion of nature and chance mutation driven evolution, to be rational.

I think the problem is obvious. One can believe in evolution or not. One can believe it is intelligently set in motion, or was just some cosmic accident.

A Christian (or other person of faith) can believe in evolution, as a instrument of God’s hand in creation. It is not the simplest explanation of Genesis chapters 1 and 2 are about, but their are those who for their own reasons, believe that these chapters are more poetic, than literal, a metaphor of the actual events, only intended to identify the fact of a Creator, and introduce us to Him, and His claim on, and plan for, our lives. The Christian believing this way, can still have a saving relationship with his/her savior.

In the same way, a person who is sold on the idea of a naturalistic explanation of existence, can still believe in a God, whose hand is seen in the creation, without having to acknowledge any specific tenants of any given religion. This is possible because the examination of things outside of and existing prior to the universe, are outside of the investigation of science. That being the case, science cat never affirm God. Neither can science refute God. Science is silent and therefore neutral on the topic.

For some reason, many scientists and those influenced by them, seem intimidated by the idea that it was God who did it. Is there some rational reason for this? If there is, I have never heard it, and I cannot think of one.

The mathematical science of statistical analysis and probability estimation, leads one to conclude that the odds are hugely in favor of a creator. Science and statistics cannot reveal if this creator is male or female or genderless. In cannot reveal if it is the God of the Bible, or any other god, or, several gods. We can only look at the facts that we can observe, and perhaps extrapolate some details about this creative force. The universe seems to be in a state that supports diverse life on our planet. We study all of the interactions of physics and chemistry, life and environment, and when we take it all in, we should be stunned bye how complex, intricate, and functional it all is.

We can also look at the things we have learned through science, and compare what we know to the catalog of beliefs in various religions, and weed out some of them as not worthy of consideration, they are just  too out of whack with the facts in many cases, and in other cases, these religions just lack enough support from science, history, or other disciplines to make them worthy of further consideration.

My hope is, that one day, people who are anti-God in their philosophy, would just give it a rest, and realize that all the blustering in the world, does not make their case more likely or appealing, and we can enter into dialogue about what we actually know and can know.

I have had the opportunity on several occasions to have conversations of just that sort on worthychat.com, and in general, it has been a rewarding experience for all parties.

This particular blog has been about looking at one aspect of belief systems and certain aspects of the physical world and looking at those though the spectacles of probability.

If you found this at all interesting, leave a comment, perhaps I will explore similar topics in the future.

Thanks for reading my blog.

Lately, I have gotten into a few conversations and debates, having to do with so-called rights. Those who are familiar with my rants on topics political and social have heard me say that rights are not plucked from trees.  Rights, true rights, ultimate rights, can only be dictated by our Creator. It is for His pleasure and purposes, that we exist, everything we are, everything we have, everything we do, is ultimately His do with as He pleases. Really, what this boils down to is that we have no rights, He owns us, end of story.

God is not a cruel slave owner though, He is a loving Father to those who will allow it, and a terror to those foolish enough to oppose One of such great power, and the only one who can define what is good.  By definition, all who oppose God are evil. Consequently, since we all oppose God, we are all evil. Where are the rights here? He has the right to wipe us from His presence.

However, we know that He has chosen to give life, and He reserves the right to take it away. We have no right to interfere in that process, unless he grants it to us.  Capital punishment comes to mind, so also might war. While there are many who would take issue with whether God has granted mankind any license whatsoever in the taking of human life, I am not here to have that debate.

In trying to recall verses about God granting rights specifically, only one came to mind:

John 1:12-13

12 But as many as received  Him, to them He gave the right  to become children of God,  even to those who believe in  His name, 13 who were born not  of blood, nor of the will of  the flesh, nor of the will of  man, but of God.

NASB

I decided to look at the Greek underlying the word “right” in that passage:

Strong’s NT:1849

exousia; (in the sense of ability); privilege, i.e.  (subjectively) force,  capacity, competency, freedom,  or (objectively) mastery  (concretely, magistrate,  superhuman, potentate, token  of control), delegated  influence

From the way that definition from Strong’s reads, even this does not sound like what we consider rights to be. This kind of makes sense. If it is a right, we can take it. Our relationship however, is a gift, we were adopted, this is a bestowed privilege, more than it is a right.

Anyway, having these  discussions about rights, and  my repeated claim to the fruit  pickers, that rights do not  grow on trees, made me wonder  myself about rights. Where do they come from, who has the authority to say, how do you know what is a right, and what is not?

While it is not hard for me to say to others claiming rights, that no such right exists, I have a harder time defining what rights do exist. It is easy to point to some law, and within the law, discover rights secured by that law.  However, what about rights that are not obviously given to us by God, nor granted in any law, do they exist? If so, on what basis or on whose authority?

I have no idea. I am not  willing to say that a right  does not exist, if there is no  law establishing that right,  but I also cannot find it  within myself to grant every  right that people  think they  or others have. Often, when  people state “it is my right”,  I think what is going on is at  some level, they think it  should be their right, but  fear that unless they claim it as a right, no one is going to automatically grant them the  supposed right.

Claimed rights can be pretty silly.  Some of these rights are claimed on behalf of others who have no voice. Some will say that chickens have a right to be treated decently. In fact, according to the law in my state, they do have that legal right. It is a crime, to have roosters have fights with each other. Now, this one I understand, but I cannot help but think there is a sort of irony in this. No one is making the roosters fight; they are only being allowed to do what they want to do, what their instincts tell them to do. Could t not be said then, that the roosters are having their rights interfered with, not protected, because the roosters are entering into personal combat by mutual consent? Boxers do this, and it sometimes results in death, unnecessary death. Why do we allow grown men to kill each other in the ring, while we generally believe that men have more value than roosters? Animals apparently have the right to be protected from themselves, while humans do not. Interesting!

Now, of course, one thing that will jump into the mind of many readers is that the roosters lack the clear thinking ability to make decisions regarding their own lives. Okay, I can accept that, they lack the rational ability to enter into contracts with such serious consequences. I would argue that the fact that two men will get into a ring together and pummel each other into unconsciousness, is evidence that they also lack the ability to think rationally.

Okay, enough with silly illustrations. Let us get into a real world example. Children.

We are protective of children. We assume that they cannot rationally make all of their own decisions. Let a child choose between chocolate and broccoli for dinner, and you will see what I mean (not that adults would necessarily choose well either).They cannot enter legally binding contracts; they cannot make decisions about other areas of live that they are not mature enough to decide on. I should not have to get too specific here. If you are an adult, you can figure some of these things out. We also recognize that children do not have a powerful political voice, so, are at the mercy of the adults in the society around them.  Some of these adults, make poor choices themselves, and are not suited to make decisions regarding the welfare of children. I should not have to offer evidence or examples of that for they are plentiful and obvious. So, out of the recognition for a need to have a way to insure that the rights of children are protected, comes the U.N.  Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Now in my country, few people have even heard of this. I am not sure, but perhaps it is not well known in other countries either. For those interested in a long read, you can read the text of it here:

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/pdf/crc.pdf

Now, I will be the first to admit that I do not know all that I should about how international law/treaties work, but my understanding is that all nations which have ratified the UNCRC, have obligated themselves to submit to the terms laid out in that treaty. This treaty has been in force, since late 1990. Unless you live in Somalia or the United States of America, this treaty is probably the law of your land.  Somalia is planning to ratify the treaty. Elements within the current administration in the United States and in Legislative Branch of the U.S. are preparing to try to shove ratification through there as well. One might well ask, “Why would a country resist ratifying a treaty to protect the rights of children?”

 Let me remind the reader, that this is what I am trying to reason out for myself here: “Where do rights come from”?

In this treaty, we have an attempt to recognize and agree upon, a universally accepted set of rights that children have. This seems like a lofty goal. Now, I would like to point out, just how dedicated to children’s rights, this U.N treaty is. There is a protocol in the treaty, which is optional. Basically, it says that children (under 18) cannot be conscripted into military service. It also requires that those children who volunteer for service, shall not be directly involved in direct hostilities. There is no age limitation on how young a child volunteer can be. As I read it, it looks as though a 5 year old can volunteer for military service under this protocol. Remember, this protocol is optional, meaning that the nations that ratified the UNCRC, are not obligated to obey this optional protocol unless they also separately, ratify it. In other worlds, this treaty allows nations who have not adopted the optional protocol, to force children into the military and make them be soldiers in combat if such nations see fit. So much for protecting the rights of children – oh, I guess that means that the U.N. had decided that children do not have a right not to be forced to be soldiers. O.K. I am beginning to see where rights come from, they come from the U.N. So, if a child complains that it is their right to try to have a happy and peaceful childhood, the U.N. say no, that is an option, not a right. I might mention another optional protocol. Article 1 of this second optional protocol declares Article 1 of the protocol declares that states must protect the rights and interests of child victims of trafficking, child prostitution and child pornography, child labor and especially the worst forms of child labor. So here again, this is an option, and Nations that do not choose the option are not obligated to obey they option. Once again, we have the U.N. pointing out, that children have no implicit right not to be sold, or to not be prostitutes, or not to participate in child pornography. I feel very comforted knowing that the U.N. is there to tell us that children only have these rights as an option, up to their country’s leaders to decide.

Now, I have mentioned these optional protocols, to demonstrate that the U.N. proves itself incapable of figuring out what rights should be. My country, the United States, is preparing to join the other countries that have already ratified the U.N. Treaty; I certainly hope that it does not. I do believe that children have rights, but I do not think the U.N. is the source of rights, nor am I confident that is it right place to hope to find rights.

I make no secret of the fact, that I distrust governments. The bigger the government, the more I distrust it. I am not an anarchist, I just believe that smaller governments are better, and local governments are superior to broader governments.

The smallest, most local human government is the individual. Children are individuals. However, clearly children lack the wisdom, knowledge or power to manage their own lives. The next largest small, local government is the family, specifically the parents. In my opinion, the family is God’s design and the raising of children, providing for them and protecting them, is a role given to parents by God. If it is given by God, does not that mean that it is a right, if anything can said to be a right?

While I distrust governments, I also recognize that God raises up authorities and wants us to obey the authorities as long as they do not usurp His position or try to overrule His commands.

To me then, rights, true rights, come from God. If the rearing of children is placed into my control, then I assume that it is parents, more than children, who need to have their rights protected.

Are we to trust that an international body, which thinks that keeping children from prostitution is an option, is the governing body that should decide what parents can and cannot do? I would rather have my own government, maintain it’s sovereignty, because so far, it has demonstrated itself to be morally superior to the U.N., but more to the point, I do not want distant, unrelated people, who have no personal interest in my children, deciding what is best for the family God has charged me with managing.

Now this is where it gets tough. Parents sometimes abuse their children, parent sometimes are drug addicts, or violent, etc, etc. Do I believe that the God given right of parents is absolute? No, I do not. Now, how can I say this?

It is God that grants human life and God who sustains it, and it is God’s right, to take back the life He has given, as he sees fit. Life is a basic human right, if there is one. It is God given. However, God has also dictated terms in which men can deprive other men of life. One only need read the Old Testament to discover many of these. I am not saying that every excuse for removing life found in the Old Testament should be exercised, that is not what I am addressing. What I am saying is, that God has shown us, that there are times, when it is proper for men, to deprive other men of rights that He has given.

I see parenthood in this light. Since He has charged us with taking care of and loving our families, it is our job first, as parents, to raise our children, and to make decisions about their welfare, according to the principles he has given us. When a parent is beating a child (beating, not spanking), or not providing for the child’s well being, or in some other way demonstrating that he or she is unwilling or incapable of providing and raising a child, then it is time to recognize that the parent has surrender parental rights, by quitting the job of being a parent. This is not different that giving a child up for adoption, rights are not ultimate or unlimited, they are dependent on responsibility.

As I said, this is where it gets difficult. Who gets to decide, and on what basis, when a parent has relinquished their right as a parent, through irresponsibility or lack of ability? This is dangerous ground. In my country, children have been removed from their parents because of the parent’s decision to educate their children themselves (a role assigned to them by God, by the way), rather than subject their children to the indoctrination of the public school system.*

I do not have the answers. I am writing this with no plan in mind, just exploring ideas about “rights” as they pop into my head. Every time I try to come up with some hard rule about who has what rights and what is a right and what is not, I can think up a situation where there is a large potential problem.

One day, not of this will matter. One day, we will either be with the Lord under His rule and yet as a co-heir, or we will be in a place where we do not have any rights whatsoever, except the right to a continual existence that we cannot enjoy. In this life, we do have the one right, to choose to live in eternity in bliss, or in pain, it is a tremendous opportunity.

For now though, we have to muddle our way through the complexities of a fallen and cursed world, imperfect humans and situations, and try to figure out it means to have rights, where they come from, what they are, when they can be removed, and whether they are flexible or inflexible, timeless or temporary, universal or regional etc.

I would be interested in hearing your thoughts, if you are up to the challenge, since I clearly do not have the answers. All I know, is that for now, I need to try to obey God and let everything else, take it’s course.

Once again, if you managed to make your way all the way through this (only to find no light in the darkness), thank you for your patience. May the Lord’s peace be with you.

* As a side note, you can read about a few cases where children have been removed from families for stupid reasons at  this website, as well as find out more information about the possible implications of the UNCRC and what you can do to resists it’s implementation in the United States.

What is prompting me to write this one is the fact that a judicial activist (an ideologue wearing a black robe) has decided that his opinion is worth more than the 7 million voters he just overruled.

We had a proposition on the ballot here in California, to define marriage as between a man and a woman in our state constitution. Proposition 8 added these words to our state constitution:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California

Now, one would expect that I might be against gay marriage as a Christian; after all, the Bible has several passages denouncing homosexuality. I am not writing this as a Christian, I am writing this as a citizen, and my Christian faith requires that I be a good citizen.

I have made it abundantly clear that I am a right wing conservative, something that my left wing brothers and sisters in Christ seem to be offended at, not because of my actual positions, but because in their perception, most Christians are right wing and seem to question the faith of left wingers, or at least, regard them with suspicion. Maybe that is true, but please do not think that I question the faith of those on the left. Whether one considers oneself left wing or right wing is irrelevant to me, what matters to me is things like right and wrong, practicality or impracticality, and law or lawlessness.

It is this last aspect that I am addressing here this time. Some refer to the U.S. as a democracy. This is not accurate, but its system does have a strong democratic component. We are a constitutional republic. What does all of this mean? Our roots derived from the fact that most of our early founders and residents, before we were a country, came from England. England was a monarchy, a country ruled by a king. Our founders were so distressed by the abuses of the monarchy – heavy taxation and religious bias from ruling authorities, that they finally rebelled. These men and women put everything on the line to achieve the right to be self-governing. The fought a war with their own countrymen, lost fortunes, land and family, all for the belief that the natural state of man, as intended by God, was to live lives of morality and responsibility free from the tyranny of a human king or ruling class. Democracy could have achieved that goal, but the founders saw a danger in democracy. In a democracy, the people rule. They implement laws through the vote of the majority. The founders believed that the danger of a democracy was that laws would be no better than the quality of character and sophistication of the voters. In other words, if the majority of the people proved to be unknowledgeable or of poor character, the resulting laws of the country would reflect this. In order to minimize this unfortunate side effect of direct democracy, a system of government where a constitution was the highest human law of the land was implemented. This law would be written, maintained and modified by representatives of the people; these representatives were to be democratically elected.

The hope was that those who chose to be representatives would have to be people of knowledge and character, in order to have the confidence of the people, and earn their vote. Voting was not a right bestowed upon everyone. It was recognized that certain classes of people, were more likely to be educated. Certain classes of people, would be funding the government, and had an extra stake in the country. The concern that led the founders to go this way is perhaps best illustrated by hypothetical example.

One could imagine, for example, that 80% of the people might be of low economic means. These people might desire a better standard of living. See the 20% who are well off, the 80% might decide to tax away the wealth of the 80%, to appropriate the benefits of wealth for themselves. If this were done without the legitimacy of law, we would call the confiscation of property “theft”. In essence, a democracy has the potential to make theft legal. While it might seem fair to have people of equal means, in practical terms, the rich provide jobs for the poor. Confiscate the wealth, and you destroy jobs, and ultimately, a lower standard for living for all.

Therefore, recognizing the dangers of democracy, the system was improved to make it a bit less dangerous. Furthermore, the government was split up into three branches, the legislative branch (those who write the actual laws), the judicial branch (those charged with trying actual cases in and rendering judgments in accordance with the intent of the laws) and the executive branch, The president and his staff and departments under his leadership, (functions as the chief executive officer of the country), in charge of enforcing the law, the military, and foreign affairs.

These three departments were created so that power would not be concentrated in any individual or ruling group. The goal in our form of government is to insure that the country is governed from the bottom up, not from the top down. The will of the people is superior to the will of a ruling class. That is the theory upon which our form of government is based.

None of what I have told you, is subject matter, it is only background, a framework from which we can understand the actual topic I have chosen to ponder and share.

The topic is Tyranny. People in other parts of the world would laugh to know that I hold that the United States is governed by tyranny. Certainly, it is not 100% true, but just as certainly, it is the direction we are headed. We have, though our choices in elected officials, slowly moves this country toward tyranny. We do not notice much, because we have a nice tyranny, not one bent on abusing us and harming us in a way that we would notice, but it is tyranny just the same.

The individual states were robbed of their right to self govern, and choose for themselves whether they wanted to allow abortion as a legal option. This was done by a judicial ruling, not through an act of legislation. In essence, a court held that abortion was a constitutional right. Looking over the constitution, you will find no mention of the topic of abortion, one wonders then how it could be a constitutional right. Furthermore, the 10^th amendment declares, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

That is clear is it not? If abortion is neither delegated to the United States, nor prohibited to the States, then the States or the people get to decide what they want to have, it is not an area of federal concern.

The government has many laws about religion, placing limitations on what places of worship can or cannot do, creating tax exemptions for churches, restricting prayer in school or religious symbol on public property etc.

Look at the 1^st amendment, in part it says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof”.

Again, it is quite clear. If congress shall make no law prohibiting the establishment or exercise of religion, then why are there such restrictions? Now notice, that is say congress shall make no law. This, in accordance with the 10^th amendment, leaves such matters to the states. Indeed, in the early days of our country, many states required a statement of faith, for one to hold public office. However, the federal government has again, overstepped it’s bounds, and just does what it wants to. This is tyranny.

Taxation. Power is granted to the Federal government to levy taxes. However, it is not empowered to do things that the constitution does not grant it as it’s role. Therefore, most everything that the federal government spends money on (think of the hundreds of social programs), it has no legal authority to do.  For the government to confiscate money and then spend that money in ways that the government is not authorized to do, and that the people were never allowed a choice in, is again, tyranny.

What set me off was this court decision to hold a law about marriage as unconstitutional. The constitutionality of this law has already been looked over, tested and found to be in harmony with the constitution by a great number of legal minds.  The judge himself in this case, is a self-proclaimed homosexual. It seems to me, that if he were a man with honor, instead of a man with an agenda, he would have excused himself from the case because of a conflict of interest. Whether gays should or should not be allowed to marry, is not at all my point or issue. My issue is with an individual deciding that he can use his position to override the will of the people. There are so many of these types of issues, that I see where states and individuals are losing their rights to a few who think they should decide for the rest of us what is right or lawful.

It is tyranny, and I am tired of it. I want my country back. The person currently occupying the Whitehouse is in my opinion, the biggest tyrant our country has seen since we won our independence.

Are we reaping our just rewards for abandoning God in this country, or is it just the result of lazy, selfish, and ignorant people not caring to preserve the things that made this country work so well for so long? I think it is a little of both, and I think the cures are obvious. However, I am not very optimistic that we will do what it takes. We have failed to pass on values, and we have failed to encourage values in those who immigrate to our country. I fear that our moral, political, and fiscal destruction is no longer in question, the only question is, “How fast will we fall”.

Part one in a potentially ongoing series.

The first category that comes to mind had to do with words and language. One of my pet peeves is hijacking words.

Some examples:

Organic. When I was younger, organic had to do with life or with carbon (life that we know is carbon based). Although the term had been applied to food and farming before I was born, it was my generation that made the term begin to mean something different. When I first heard of organic food, I thought that is redundant. All food is organic, but some in my generation seemed to think there was great benefit to eating tomatoes full of worms, because synthetic pestisides had not been used on them, a claim that I am still skeptical of. To my mind, any benefit, comes from the consumption of the worms, but I’ll pass anyway, thank you. I wonder if they ever stopped to realize that the curare poison on the tips of blow dart of indigenous South American peoples is organic, as are poisonous mushrooms, bubonic plague and crude oil.

Chill. People are sometimes described as chill these days. I don’t know what it is, but each generation seems to have some need to incorporate words into their speech, in ways that distinguish them from prior generations. To me, this appears to be a way of lowering others’ opinions of you, by using fad language of your own generation, you wish to identify with people with less wisdom than those the hand the language down to you. The sad thing about the word chill, is it is so unoriginal, since previous generations had already hijacked the word “cool”.

Gay. Believe it or not this used to mean happy or festive. There is a Christmas carol with the words “don we now our gay apparel”. I cannot hear that song any longer in the same way.

Ghetto language. By this, I do not mean the inner city only. I mean any time that a group of people, decide to modify the language in a way that makes it unique. I suppose that the purpose, is to make one feel part of something that others have in common, but what annoys me is that it has the effect of alienating those not of the group. Even the church does this.

There are several ways that the church does this.  One way is to use regular words in a different way than “normal”people do. For example, the word “just”. You may have no idea what I am talking about, but if you are an evengelical Christian, you have heard it:

“Father, we just come together tonight, to seek your face in prayer, and we just ask that you would look over us as we drive to the retreat. And Father, we also just ask that you would just bless those who attend the retreat . . . “  Now, if you examine that sample prayer, you will notice that leaving the word just out of it, leaves the intent of the prayer totally intact. Another example: the word “fellowship”. Fellowship is a noun, at least to “normal” people. Christians, however, think it is a verb. “where to you fellowship?”

Another way the church employs ghetto language, is to use words of theologians, those who make a living out of making word of God complex and specialized. Please undertand that I am not suggesting that theologians are doing anything wrong. There are reasons why special words exist in any specialty, whether it be science, law, medicine, theology or even construction work. What I am talking about is when we lay people (lay people meaning simple non theologians, non clergy) use theological terms in talking to each other or talking to non-believers.

We use phrases like sanctification, justification, propitiation, etc. I would bet that over 90% of non-believers have no idea what we are talking about, surely over 50% of believers are not certain, but nod their heads in agreement, waiting for the subject to end. Let’s not even talk about such clear terms as homologoumena, kenoticism, or perichoresis.

Even words like “the rapture”. In spite of the popularization of the term, especially among evangelicals, it has always struck me as odd. When I was an unbeliever, rapture meant a state of ecstasy or passion. I saw the bumper stickers that read “Warning, in case of rapture, this car will be driverless”. I kept thinking, that person needs to find a hotel.

Then there was the time when I started noticing little chrome fish or window stickers that has a fish with the letters IXOYE in them. I did not know how to pronounce IXOYE, but I figured it must be a brand of detergent, sold through multilevel marketing, that was friendly to the environment (fish friendly). I really thought that.

I still have to wonder why people have those, even knowing what is behind them, what it means. In case someone reading this, thinks it is and organic detergent, let me set you straight.

It is said that in the early church, where it was under heavy persecution, that believers used that fish symbol, as a way to identify each other without verbalizing their faith in Jesus. They might be sitting or standing, one would just casually draw a curved line in the dirt with a stick or finger, or even the edge of his sandal. The other person, if they were Christian, would do the same thing, making their mark overlap the other to form the fish symbol. They now both knew they were Christians and could speak freely to each other about things of faith. Is this story true? I have no idea. One might wonder why the fish, and not the cross. Perhaps the cross was too obvious. The fish supposedly comes from the idea that many of the first disciples were fishermen, and Jesus told them, that He would make them fishers of men.

O.K. what about the IXOYE? Well, it isn’t IXOYE, it is five Greek letters, Iota, Chi, Omickon, Upsilon, and Epsilon – ΙΧΘΥΕ . These stand for Iesous Christos Theou Huios Soter, Jesus Christ God’s Son King. Now, knowing this, why do we use these on our cars. Some might say, it is as a witness to Christ, to show that we identify with Him. Well, that might be the reason, but are unbelievers going to buy into this form of advertising, or will they think you are selling organic soap? I have asked unbelievers what they think it is about. Some say that they have no idea. I tell them what it means, and they ask the obvious question: “Why don’t they just say Jesus then?” I have no idea, but I have a theory. I think it is somewhat like the fish was used in the first place, a way for other Christians to know each other, only this time, they don’t have fellowship, they just drive by each other. Gee, that was worth the $3! I have heard other theories advances by unbelievers. One of my favorites is: It is a way for Christians to say: “I am a Christian, I am better than you!” Wow, is that what we are saying? We need to rethink our marketing strategy.

Okay, you get the idea. I make an issue where there is none. There is no real point to this article, no deep issue or importance, it is just a glimpse into what my mind concerns itself with when my intellect is disengaged. You now know some things that annoy me. Perhaps this article, can be one of yours.

Omegaman 2.0

The Pastor was talking about how a child learns to play music. In the beginning, as they learn to play, they tend to rush through the music, delivering it at an increased pace and without pauses. As the child gets more comfortable and confident, the music begins to be played more as it was written, and the child learns to appreciate that rests and pauses, are not empty places, but an integral part of the music itself. The music might run for a while, with a predictable regularity, and quiet down, and have several seconds of silence, before erupting suddenly and building to a crescendo and perhaps leveling out again before the glorious finale. It is all part of a well orchestrated plan, the notes and the pauses, are all part of the music.

In our lives, we often feel anxious or sad, even depressed. We wonder why we cannot hear from God. Perhaps, it is all part of His well orchestrated plan, and we need to hear the silence as part of the song, as we wait expectenly for the next movement.

 In these times, it is good to read the Psalms, perhaps Philippians 4 or Romans 8. It is good to seek council, seek friends, pray, or even minister to the needs of others. Perhaps, listening to some worship music might lift your spirits or encourage you. A favorite verse from one of my favorite songs by Petra, called “road to Zion, goes like this:

“Sometimes a shadow, dark and cold,

Lays like a mist across the road,

But be encouraged, by the sight,

Where there’s a shadow, there’s a light.”

Perhaps, what we need to consider most of all,  is the following eight words:

“Be still, and know that I am God”

Be blessed – Omegaman 2.0

I believe that God expects me to raise my children in the best ways, training them to be Godly and to also love their neighbors.

I believe that I have responsibilities to try to make the world a better place. That means to me, that I need to try to be part of a solution, and less of a problem. This translated into decisions that I make regarding voting issues, volunteerism, charity and countless other oportunities to affect peoples lives in a positive way, in the family, in the church, in the neighborhood, in the world at large.

I doubt many who name themselves liberals, would disagree much with my goal and principles to this point.

However, where they often do disagree, is how best to accomplish these ideals.

So, where do I part company with liberals philosophically? I will answer that, but please keep in mind, that I will be using generalities, there may well be many liberals who do not think that they are as I am going to discribe them, if you are a liberal, or a conservative, do not think that I am talking about you, I am talking about my perception of liberals and conservative in the U.S., the country in which I live and with which I am most familiar.

In my observation, there are some fundamental differances in the way the conservative mind and the liberal mind think. I am not going to say that one is superior to the other, but here is my attemp to explain what I see as differences in general.

The conservative thinks more in terms of individual responsibility, he/she sees obligation to act on a personal level, while the liberal tends to think in terms of what government should do to help people. That is probably not going to go unchallenged here, but it is what I beleive. Perhaps it would be good to give an example to illustrate my contention.

A conservative is likely to want to see government welfare programs reformed, reduced, or possibly elliminated. He believes that charity, is the job of individuals and charitable orgnizations. He will not generally approve of government attempts at charity, because he realizes that they have not demonstrated themselve to be efficient (only allowing 30 cents of every dollar spent to reach the beneficiary), are fraught with fraud, lack accountability, and get their funding by confiscating money from those who have it.  He believes it is better to to have people giving willingly out of love or compassion, than to have his elected officials deciding for him the best way to accomplish charity.

By contrast, a liberal is likely to assume that need is so great, that volunteerism will be insufficient to meet people’s needs, that those who have money, will not be generous enough to cover the needs of the needy, so therefore we need government to step in, take money from some individuals to give it to others.

I have a theory about why liberals have so little faith in voluntary charity.  Liberals are not going to like it though, but please, this is about generalities, not any individual

My theory is this. We see the world through the prism of our own world views, and that creates a kind of predjudice.  If we do not give much of our own substance away, we are likely to conclude that many or most others, are like us. Therefore, if we are not giving much, probably others are not giving much either. Is this a theory that I can prove?  No, not in the slightest. However, what can be demonstrated, is that in general, conservatives give more away than liberals. Now some will be thinking, that is not true, conservatives are likely to be more careful with their money, wealthier also, and there fore either the conservative will be stingy, or he is only giving more because he can easily affort it.

That notion is, of course, also a theory. However, there are massive amounts of data available to show that conservatives give more, regardless of their economic level. Poor conservatives give more than poor liberals, rich conservatives gove more that rich liberals. Now, I can hear someone thinking, that that may be true, but conservatives are more likely to be religious, so that explains that. I am happy to inform you however, that non religious conservatives still give more, and that those who attend church, and give there, are also more likely to give more in addition to that giving, even to non religious causes. The fact is, conservative on the whole, are more compassionate in deeds, than liberals are in the United States at least.

As a side note, the citizens of the United State pay for many types of government programs through their tax system which have goals to help those in need; I am pleased to state  they also manage to give away voluntarily, enough of their assets to charity, to amound to 8% of their gross domestic product, about 1 trillion dollar of charitible giving per year. I would like you to think about that number. It means that the average American, gives over $3000 to charitable causes each year, in addition to what is taken from him/her through taxation for similar purposes. Min you, that number is an average, taking into account every man, woman, child, and baby. If we adjusted those numbers to reflect only those people with assets and income, we would see that those who are able to give, do so generously without the goverment forcing them to do so.  I am sure this is true for many other countries as well. Is this related to conservatism? I have no way of knowing, but when American are polled about the values they believe in and hold, America turns out to mostly moderate to conservative, with a little over 20% being categorized as liberals. While Americals political leadership tends to be to the left, it’s citizens tend to be to the right.

I believe that both liberals and conservatives are true to their world view.  Conservatives beleive in individual giving, and do so, while liberals believe that charity is largely a government responsibility, and consider that they have given already through taxes, and of course that is true.  The difference is, that thr conservative is more likely to  ”give” both ways.

Now, I do not have an answer to the question of what motivates a conservative to give more. When one considers that it is not religiousity, or income level, I am at a loss to explain it.  However, I am happy to dismiss the stereotype that liberals are more compassionate, the facts do not seem to bear that out under examination.

I would like to point out another idea that ties in with this. Four times in U.S. History, that I am aware of, income taxes have been reduced. Liberals feared that this would result in a loss of income to the federal government, and that programs would have to be cut. In each of the four times, when taxes where cut, the governments revenue increased. How is this possible? It is not only possible, it is predictable. When you cut taxes on businesses, businesses have more money to invest in growth, give raises, hire new people etc. When a business buys more equipment, supplies, and raw materials, some one else who sold these items, is making more money. When some one makes more money from those investments, or from getting a raise or a new job, that new money becomes part of an income base, that is in turn taxed, producing more money for the government while at the same time, reducing the governments outlay for welware programs, unemployment insurance benefits, and the like. Also, there is probably another factor at work, the less abused a person feels by the tax system, the more likely he is to pay his taxes, instead of finding ways to cheat or to “loophole” his way out of them.

Lower taxes are one of those rare things, where everybody wins. So why don’t we lower taxes and keep them lower? Ask liberal politicians that question. It is hard to figure out to be sure. Historically in the U.S., it has been conservatives that fight the for reducing taxes and slowing tax growth. I can think of no good reason to burden people with more taxes in order to grow the government in ways that are not necessary, or to fund more inefficient programs that the private sector can handle. Now, while lowering taxes provides more jobs and higher incomes and more revenue to the governmet, there is another side effect that is worth noting. When people’s net income goes up, charitable income goes up also.

Now, with these things all in mind, which is more loving of these two models:

More jobs, more income, more money for govt programs, more charitable giving

or

less jobs, less income, less money for govt programs and less charitable giving?

There is no rocket science here, conservatism is more compassionate in practice, than liberalism is. I could go on with scores of other examples. Liberals who are passionate, could respond with their counterpoints, but I see no benefit in dragging this out to that degree. Instead, I want to bring this to a conclusion to what I think the real problem is, one which I cannot fix, but one which any individual can, in his or her own life.

Liberals are truly compassionate people at the heart level, where God looks. So I am not going to call into question their devotion to God or good intentions. But as I see it, the liberal tends to think with his heart, he feels his way to decisions. He believes that government can be a good force to help people, and that therefore, more government equals more help. The reasoning is not too bad, it all sounds logical and feels right.

By contrast, the conservative analyzes results, he observes that government is too often in the way of helping people, it lowers the standard of living in many ways, lowering the quality of live and the ability to help others. The conservative is not usually ready to try bold new ideas without a lot of examination and forethought as to consequences. Where the liberal sees the world through eyes that examine the way things ought to be, the conservate examines the world through an examination of what works and what doesn’t. Now, I know many will take exception with that analysis, and I admit that I cannot see into the minds of others to see how they tick. But with a world of evidence around us, and that information being more available than ever, it is not hard to find out what works and what does not, what has succeeded and what has failed.

Liberalism has sought to take from the rich and give to the poor, yet in spite of the fact that liberals are more often in control of the country than conservatives, one can reasonable wonder, why has the number of poor people not been reduced or elliminated by now. We have been growing income taxes for over 100 years in the U.S. We have created more social welfare programs than one can shake a stick at over the last 70 years, yet the ratio of poor people to not poor people has not improved, what we have received for those efforts, is a large group of individuals who feel entitled to be provided for, instead of feeling the need to improve their own condition. But it is worse than that.

In one sector our population, our poor black communities to be specific, we have managed to convert a people who were once very family oriented, to a subculture of people where 9 out of 10 black children are born out of wedlock, many of whom have no idea who there daddy is, because they cannot ever remember seeing him. Our government pays the mother money, to help support her child, but pays her more if she does not have a man living in the house, so we have rewarded women by paying them more to have dad gone. Is there something wrong with this picture? We also pay them more money, the more cildren they have.  It then becomes nearly impossible, for these women, to ever get off welfare, because too often they are undereducated, and if they could find a job, it would likely pay less than the goverment check. This then, becomes a way off life, often for multiple genrations in these families. No, lest someone accuse me of racial stereotyping here, I will quickly point out, that  more white people are on welfare, than black people are. I am just using this example to point out how devestating welfare programs have been to some of our minority communities, the communities that many liberals with their well intentioned hearts, claim to want to help. 

Speaking of blacks, I wish I knew more of them, the few that I do know cannot explain their allegiance to the Democratic Party. This question though, is more about party allegiance than conservative/liberal ideology. For those who are not aware, in the U.S. we have two major political parties, and dozens of minor ones. The Democratic Party, is largely liberal, while the Republican Party, is largely conservative, though only slightly at times. The Democratic party and the Whig party, were the major parties a bit prior to our civil war. It was the Republican Party, that opposed slavery and won freedom for slaves. In the early civil rights movement, Republicans by ratio, outnumbered Democrats in inacting civil rights reforms. The Democrats, for the most part, have created a welfare situation which has kept many black people who would rather work, dependant on the welfare system, penalyzing them if they try to better their position in life through personal effort for financial gain. Is it any wonder that drugs and prostitution is big business in these areas, since they seem to be the only way many see to make decent incomes without being worse off employed, than if on welfare?

 We have a very Racial focused ‘hate group’ in America, thankfully it is not very large. You may have heard of them, they are called the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Most of them, profess to be Democrats. Senator Robert Byrd, sometimes referred to as the conscience of the Democratic part, was at one time a Grand Dragon of the Ku Klux Klan. That Blacks show special allegiance to the Democratic Party, baffles me. Just a random thought.

I am beginning to realize that I could continue in this vein for perhaps days, because the number of problems that liberals have helped bring about through their good intentions is staggering, the current economic crises comes to mind. Their opposition to solving problems with solutions that actually help, is mind blowing.

Where does the common notion come from, that the rich are greedy and made there money off the backs of the poor? Or that corporations are only out to cheat, steal, and destroy the environment. You know the kinds of notions I am talking about here, I will ask you, are they more common among liberals or among conservatives?

Having anwsered that, would you like to be rich yourself, given the choice? How many times has a poor person offered you employment? Since most corporations are owned by the stock holders, don’t the officers of a company have an obligation to try to make the company profitable. Almost half of American houshold own shares of stock, if companies where not “so greedy” many of these stock portfolios would not perform as well as a savings account, and savings accounts lose value in terms of buying power, every year.

Do you really beleive that some lawyer or a person who has never held a normal job or run a business, is the best sort of person to put in charge of running our lives? Why do we keep electing them? That is not a liberal/conservative question, that is for everyone.

If I continue, I am going to work myself into a state where I think my country is no good. I have focused here on a lot of problems that I see, but the truth is, that we have it pretty good, I just want to keep it that way – that is what conservatism is, “if it aint broke, don’t fix it”!

I apologize if that all seemed less than coherant. I know I went off topic a few times. This was not some well thought out thesis, this was just me rambling and ranting. I hope that at least one of three things happend while reading this. I hope that you at least saw your own thoughts crystalized, or, that you thought “Hmm, that is interesting, I never thought of it like that”, or that you got good and mad and feel motivated to prove me wrong. If your responce is a complacent yawn, I apologize for taking your time, maybe you can go find some professional wrestling on tv to watch, or maybe a good sitcom to stimulate your mind. Enjoy!

I realize, that if you think of yourself as a liberal, that you may feel that I have attacked you. Please do not! I know your intentions are good, I would just like you to rethink your ideas and examine if they are producing the good results that you expect. If not, why not look at the world of ideas out there, and find solutions that are working, and join in with them, and not feel an obligation so side with any group by label. This is for all people, all parties and philosphies. Any solution proposed by any group, party, or individual, which does not work, is not a solution, and does not need to be grown. Such ‘solutions’ need to be modfied or replaced. The world is not perfect, and problems are complex, therefore no simple solution will likely be perfect or capable of wholly fixing  a complex problem, but we can chose the better solutions, and we should.  Do your best to do your homework, and think things through.

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Yet another reason for our expensive medical care, is medical insurance and government programs. Why would that be the case? Two reasons.  One, whenever an insurance company or government entity is involved, there is a lot of paper work to be done. This paper work means that additional personel have to be hired to process the paperwork. This cost is reflected in the cost of care. Another problem that accompanies government and insurance provide care, is fraud. There are always those who will scheme to jack up the costs, or even bill for services that are never provided, sometimes for patients that do not even exist.

There is yet another reason that healthcare costs go up with a government or insurance system. When people feel that they will not be charged anything if the visit the physician, they are more likely to go to the physician, for minor maladies like the common cold.
As anecdotal evidence of how much money is saved when one pays for ones medical cost out of pocket at the time of need, I have recently had some medical expenses to deal with, as an uninsured and unemployed person who pays for his own expenses directly.
In the last year, my three daughters needed dental extraction of impacted wisdom teeth. Our usual local dentist recommended an oral surgeon. We called the office after he received the xrays, to discuss what these procedures would cost. The bill for the three girls, would be about $4500 dollars. That was a bit out of my price range. A few phone calls to lok for alternative solutions, and we ended up a a univeristy dental school, the bill there was $946 dollars, a savings of $3554, or almost 80%. If medical customers price shopped this way, medical intitutions would have to consider how to lower costs in order to attract business.
I went in for a checkup, and they were going to bill my insurance company $75, until I told them that I had no insurance, and I would pay cash, they lowered the bill to $37.
One of our daughters need to get a physical to go to a camp to volunteer, she shopped on the telephone, and found a clinic that gave her the physical fo $29.
What is the point? If Americans took more responsibility for their healthcare, instead of relying on work provided or government provided care, they would drive the overall cost of care down, through competition.
So, what else drives health care costs up? Quality of care does. Americans want a high standard of care, and they get it. While many may think that the quality of care is not good enough, the fact is that when you compare the outcome for specific maladies in the United States as compared with the rest of the world, we outperform other countries. Of people diagnosed with cancer, pneumonia, Aids, heart disease and others, the U.S. enjoys the longest survival after diagnoses of all countries. So, while we pay more here, we get more also.
If the U.S. adopts the sytems of other countries, and it ends up that our system works on a par with them, we will find, that we have to wait longer for appointments and treatments, sometimes months for life threating conditions. We will find our survivability rate lowered. There is a reason that patients for the U.K. and Canada come here for treatment, and that is because their own countries either deny it, or delay it dangerously. If the U.S. has such a system then, not only will our healt be in danger, but people in those other countries, will lose the option of having the safety of the backup system, that America now provides. These countries that many want us to copy, are living with the shortcomings of thier systems, and their newspapers have chronicled hundreds of hooro stories that result from their systems. Now, they are recognizing that they need to reform their systems, and work toward a more profit driven system.
People sometimes fail to consider, that the U.S. already has nationlized healthcare systems. Interview anyone who is stuck with the Vetarans Administration health care, or Medicare, or Medical, or the health care provided on Indian Reservations, and find out if they think the care is as good as outside the government system.

I have left a lot unsaid here, that is intentional. We can have healthcare reform, we can improve the system, without going to the nationalized system. We can be creative and make new models to help lower costs and improve quality, as well as make it more available, but we will have to get out of the idea that it is either the present system, or nationalize. The key to improvment, is more choices, competing, not limiting ourself to a government run system. Think about it, do you really want your healthcare controlled and decided by government beaurocrats, or are those decisions best left in the hands of the experts (healthcare professionals) and the patient (you)?

What do the people think?

I created this page for the purpose of making the blogs easier to use. If this is your first time visiting the blogs, you might be curious about what they are all about, so let’s start there.

The blogs were originally intended to give the Chat Administrators a place to record some of their thoughts, in the hopes that chatters could get to know us better, and more quickly. What the admins write about, is their choice, it could be about some personal experiences, or thoughts they have, or commentary on world events or results of personal Bible study, you never know what you will find here.

That last thought, is my main purpose on this page – making it easier to discover what exactly it is that you will find here, a table of contents, so to speak. I will get to that later.

For now, I want to tell you what to expect as you enter the blogs. As I said, the chat admins have the opportunity to maintain a blog in this area of Worthy. So do so, most do not. If you are a chat admin and want to blog here, send me a message and we will get you set up. For the rest of you, you can not blog here, but you can read the blogs of the admins, and comment on them at the end, if the author has enabled comments, most do.

When you read a blog there will be the words “no comments” or “add comments” or an areas saying how many comments exist. Clicking that, will bring you to the comment area. Also, at the bottom of the blog article, there is a “leave a reply function” – same thing. If you elect to comment, there is one thing you should know before you spent a lot of time typing out a response. Your comments are screened before they will show up.

Now, there isn’t a formal list of do’s and don’t on comments, but here are some guidelines if you want your comment approved.

1 . No Spamming. This means if you attempt to promote something, most likely it will not be approved. This is true whether it is blatant or stealthy. For example, if you were to say:

“Like I point out on my website, www.nothinghere.google.com, yada yada yada” , your comment might not be approved. Same can go for mentioning a book title, or a product etc. It is up to the discretion of the person approving or denying comments, but leave references to such things out, to assure success.

2. Promotion or even mentioning of “wild ideas, conspiracy theories, or asserting doctrine that can not be demonstrated by scripture, will likely get you comment blocked, unless it adds something meaningful to the topic, as judged by the administrator reviewing the comments.

3. Inclusion of swear words, intentionally mean or threatening language, or failure to show the proper respect to any person, will likely get your message blocked.

4. If your comment is not about the topic, it might be blocked. A comment like “Hi, I am new here, this is a nice website”, will not be posted because it has no relevance to the topic or the author of the topic. However, a comment like “Thanks for the thoughtful article” will probably be included because it encourages the author to write more blogs.

Comments are the only way we have of knowing that anyone is reading these blogs. If the admins are under the impression that few are reading the blogs, most likely the blogs will be few and far between. If you do not see your comment post on the site, and you followed the above guidelines – be patient, it can take some time for the comment to be read an approved.

O.K. Now, for the table of contents. This will be an ongoing work, and at times may be out of date, not showing the most recent blog installments. Even now, that is a problem, as I am out of time, but, I will return to create the contents, with links to the articles, and a short description of them.

Patience, is a fruit of the Spirit

This is not the type of thing I would normally blog on, but there seems to be a fair amount of chatter and mis-information about the new flu strain, happening in the chat rooms at worthychat. So, I have decided to put this information here, in order to have it readily available when the topic comes up.

Well, there are some things that people should consider before going nut or getting panicky. First of, this is not a pandemic at this time, it is pre-pandemic, and perhaps will be pandemic . . .

However, we have pandemics from time to time, and they are not always scary things, but they are cause for concern.

Here is what I think people should keep in mind as they hear the stories of death, that will likely happen . . .

Reagular seasonal flu, that we are all familiar with, causes deaths aslo. In the United States, we typically have 36,000 deaths a year from seasonal flu, with no less that 800 deaths each week since the beginning of this year EACH WEEK.

World wide, the estimates run from 1/4 million to 1/2 a million deaths from regular flu each year. Keep those numbers in mind as you here the numbers from this new strain of flu that is making the headlines. I think the spread of fear through the internet, is way more unusual than the spread of flu from person to person.

I do not know about other parts of the world, but in the states, 90% of flu deaths occur in people over 65 years of age.

So, so far, this new strain of flu is spreading quickly, but it has not demonstrated itself to be any more dangerous that regular seasonal flu at this time, but being a new stain, we do knot know alot about the strain yet, and since it is not flu season, se also do not know if it will become worse when flu season arrives, or whether infections will taper off, we basically just don’t have enough infomation on this particular flu to make intelligent projections, butwe also do not kno enough to panic over it either.

Information provided believed accurate as of April 30, 2009

Information derived from CNN, Center for Disease Control, and pandemicflu.gov website

BTW 109 cases of this so far in the U.S. with 1 death to date – that being in the state of Texas

Not a lot of preface to this one. Let’s just say it reveals God’s inpiration of the scriptures, and demonstrates the value of careful study. I call it FlashBack to the Future.

Matthew does not give us a very detailed description of the crucifixion. Jesus said a
number of things from the cross, among them, the following, as reported by Luke:

“Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise .”

Luke 23:46

“Father, into Thy hands I commit My spirit.” And having said this, He breathed
His last.

You are probably familiar with these sayings, and their contexts. I am assuming that Matthew, had a reason for leaving these sayings out, he surely was aware of them, or perhaps God had a reason for Matthew omitting them.  So, what reason could Matthew have for focusing on the saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani”? Could it be that there is something here, that is more important, of a differing importance? Is Jesus, in crying out, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me” experiencing a moment of doubt? Is His faith wavering? Does there seem to be an element of accusation in these words?

It is clear, from Jesus’ conversations with his disciples, that He fully understood His mission. He knew that He was to die, He knew it would be hard, and He knew it had to be done.  Jesus did not doubt, whatever does not come from faith, is sin, and Jesus never sinned:

Jesus was always a righteous man, He always lived by faith.

Jesus never sinned, so everything He did, He did not do in doubt. He was tempted, but never sinned.

We can see, that Jesus was not doubting at all, so why did He ask why God was forsaking Him?

I think the answer lies not in the content of what He was saying, but the source of the saying. I think also, you will see why Matthew thought this saying was uniquely important.

Time for a flashback:

Ps 22:1 says:

My God, my God , why hast Thou forsaken me?

Sound familiar? That is right, Jesus is quoting the words of a Psalm, why would He do that, why this psalm? When Jesus was crucified, He was crucified in Jerusalem, in the land of Israel, the homeland of the children of Abraham, God’s chosen people, the keepers of the written word of God. A Jew, on that day, might upon hearing those words, know the
source, that they came from this Psalm. The more learned ones, may even have been able to recall the context of the words and gone over them in their minds. If so, what would they recall?

7 All who see me sneer at me;

They separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,

8 “Commit yourself to the LORD; let Him deliver him;

Compare the words above with those of Matthew:

39 And those passing by were hurling abuse at Him,
wagging their heads,

43 “He trusts in God; let Him deliver Him now,
if He takes pleasure in Him

See any similarities? Do you think it is possible, that some of those present, might
have noticed this? I think that is possible, even likely. Perhaps, some went home, deeply
troubled by the events that had just unfolded. They would never forget this. Perhaps some
would take the trouble to examine this Psalm, when they had the opportunity, What else
would they have seen?

13 They open wide their mouth at me,

As a ravening and a roaring lion.

14 I am poured out like water,

And all my bones are out of joint;

My heart is like wax;

It is melted within me.

15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,

And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;

And Thou dost lay me in the dust of death.

16 For dogs have surrounded me;

A band of evildoers has encompassed me;

They pierced my hands and my feet.

17 I can count all my bones.

They look, they stare at me;

18 They divide my garments among them,

In the above passage, we see this person surrounded by strong aggressive men, snarling at Him, while He is poured out like water, His strength waning, his bones being pulled apart, heart is under stress, thirsting, and recognizing that He is about to die. While in this condition, the evil surround Him, having pierced His hands and feet. He can sense each of His bones in the agony, and while people are gawking at Him, those at His feet, gamble and divide His clothes.

I would like to think, that if I were a Jew at that time, having witnessed this spectacle, that when I read this passage in the Psalm, I would have said “Oh my God, I witnessed this that day. I was there, the words of this Psalm, were fulfilled in my presence”. I would hope, that I would have fallen to my knees, and begged for mercy. I suspect, that many did. I also suspect, that as Matthew’s gospel was spread, that there would be those who read it, who may also have been here that day, or been close to the events, who also would have had this reaction, I am confident, that those who were
permitted to realize the significance, would also have sought God’s forgiveness, and received it, as people have hrough the centuries since.

One from that time, would have seen something else in that Psalm:

28 For the kingdom is the Lord’s,

And He rules over the nations.

29 All the prosperous of the earth will eat and worship,

All those who go down to the dust will bow before Him,

Even he who cannot keep his soul alive.

30 Posterity will serve Him;

It will be told of the LORD to the coming generation.

31 They will come and will declare His righteousness

To a people who will be born, that He has performed it.

Pictured in the above passage of that psalm, we see the prediction that the church, that is to say that the future believers, who are gentiles, will turn from their pagan gods to the one true God. Of course, this turning to the Lord, was accomplished because the Messiah died for all men, and the faithfulness of Jesus apostles, in spreading the good news, led to the adoption of the gentiles, into the family of God, making the promise to Abraham come to fullness.

It is my belief, that Jesus quoted this psalm, not in any doubt about His Father’s faithfulness, but was indeed making a powerful statement. It is as though He were saying, “look to the scriptures, you will see this, and you will know I AM He. ” We can look today, and see this is clearly a prophecy, and a fulfillment. I believe, that this was a sign to believers, to the faithful, that they should be reassured, that the Son of Man, was supposed to die, something they were not expecting to happen to the Messiah, when He came. Otherwise, when Jesus died, they might doubt, and look for another as Messiah. This was NOT a sign to convince the unbelievers, they were to get a different sign, one more powerful than this one.

In Luke 23:46, we saw Jesus breathe His last. Those close to Jesus, were in despair, devastated, disillusioned. Although Jesus told them, repeatedly that He would be soon dying, it  was not enough, they were ready to give up, and try to put this all behind them as if it was only a terrible nightmare. They didn’t understand some things that Jesus told them. So, they hurriedly put Jesus in a tomb, and went away in their grief. To mere men, the grave appears to be the end.  Jesus was no mere man. Remember I told you that the unbelievers would get a more powerful sign?

Jesus has here, predicted his death, burial and resurrection, and stated that this is the only sign He would give those included in the evil generation. We tend to think of a generation as a group of people born at approximately the same time. In Greek, is can mean that, or the age in which a generation lives, or a race of people. I have no idea which is implied here. The sign given to this generation, would be Jesus’ resurrection after being in the earth 3 days. What Jesus went on to say, I think is very powerful, that Ninevah, would stand up (Greek anasteésontai, from the same root word that we understand as resurrection) with this generation, and condemn it at the judgement, because they repented and mere preaching of a prophet, but this generation did not believe, when the Son of God was among them, fulfilling prophecies and performing miracles.

The resurrection is a powerful idea. All people have a common enemy, one that we cannot defeat. That enemy is death. People are born with a survival instinct. What people do not stop to consider, is that death is inevitable, and that the
answer to the issue of survival, is to be able to survive after death. How would one know, if that were possible? The only real evidence that would at all be convincing, would be for some one to die and return back to life from the dead. They could not die as in having ones heart stop for a few minutes, that is not convincing, but really dead, all life
functions gone, cold on a slab kind of dead. If I am going to listen to someone tell me that there is a life after death, I want his source of information to come from someone who has been there, that is authority.

Where did the power come from for this resurrection?

Father ?

Son

Holy Spirit ?

Amen to that, what a great verse! There we see the Spirit who raised Christ from the dead, also dwells in the believer, giving life to our mortal (temporary and subject to death) bodies. What does this mean to us? We started at the Crucifixion, and went backward to see a detailed prophecy concerning it, back forward again to the resurrection. We
stopped there to see a small detail about the power of and behind the resurrection. Since tomorrow is resurrection Sunday, you will hear plenty about the resurrection itself.
Now, it is time to go forward again to our present, to examine it’s significance to our lives today.

The resurrection is the very core of our belief as Christians.

It that passage Paul asserts that if the resurrection did not occur, then you are living your life in vain, with no chance of an afterlife, and, in fact, you are a liar about God and still lost in your sins. Not only is the fact of the resurrection necessary for for your afterlife, so is your belief in the resurrection:

This brings to life another important part of our walk, one that is ignored by too many, failure in this area, can never be justified if you are able. We need to confess not only for our own salvation, but we are to love others, as a responsibility to God, a small thing which He expects from us. Evangelism. Many do not do this, because they are shy,
unconfident, not used to being pushy, or any number of other reasons. If God asks this of you, on what basis can you possibly refuse? We are told to love others as God also loved us. He loved us enough to die for us, but many of us, do not love Him enough to tell others about Him. Instead of loving our neighbors, we demonstrate contempt for them. By
not telling them of our Savior, we are in effect saying, that we would rather have them spend eternity in torment, than for us to be uncomfortable for a few moments. What could be more selfish? What is more important than a soul, for whom Jesus died? It boggles the mind, that the church treats others this way. Yes, I am guilty too.

I put this part about evangelism for one simple reason. As I was researching the preparing for this study, I kept coming across evangelistic passages. It was not in my plan to include it, but I could not steer through the passages in a way that avoided it. So, I took the hint and decided that is was not to be avoided. Those passages are there to
be read and to be accepted. Just as it would be unloving to not tell someone about the Savior, it would be unloving of me, to not encourage you to spread the word. Evangelism, is what a good and faithful servant does above all else. Christ didn’t die, to hear more worship songs. He didn’t die, so institutions would have more money given. He did not die, so people would do acts of charity. He did not die, so people would study the Bible. He died to save the lost. He died for us, and for everyone whom we have not told about Him.

After you attend your next church sevice, if not before, I’d ask you to consider, what Christ did for
you. After meditating on that, ask yourself, “What am I willing to do for Him?”.
Finally, consider following through on your answer.

May God richly bless you as you follow the Son.

Postscript:

That was the end of the study. However, after I gave this study, two attendees asked me if I knew about the worm. ”

Know about the worm? What are you talking about?”

“You know, the worm in the psalm, the one where it says “I am a worm, and no man!”

They told be some things about some worm, which I found a bit unlikely, but being an investigator at heart, I looked into it. It was an interesting investigation. You can read it here. Again, just another evidence of the inspiration of scripture.