On one hand you have one dead US border agent, hundreds of dead Mexicans, and US guns allowed to be used through a US government operation. On the other hand, you have Attorney General Eric Holder who goes before Congress with arrogance, demanding to know why he's being pulled away to answer so many questions on these issues. The man deserves more than […]
I wish he didn't apologize. Liberals started this mess by demanding that the public be forced to finance their sexual exploits while mocking religious arguments against this mandate. If you are going to demand money from the public, you should hear what the public has to say. In this case, some people think that, if you demand $3,000 per year per woman […]
When it comes to the second coming, there is a temptation among many people to set dates. Some may think that, since the Bible contains much prophecy and information on the end times, it is only natural to search for this knowledge. One need not search far on this subject, however. Very plainly speaking about the date itself, the Messiah told his followers that only the Father knew it. “But of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.”[1] Again, in another section, “But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels which are in heaven, neither the Son, but the Father.”[2]
At another time, the Messiah’s students asked him about the timing of a certain event. He replied, “It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.”[3] Seeing then that knowledge of the date of the second coming belongs only to the Father, it is evident that it is not for men to know it. The angels don’t have it. The Son of God, the Messiah, doesn’t even have it — and this means it’s not going to be found in the Word of God. If the date of the second coming was in the Bible, then the Son would know it, because he is the Word of God made flesh. Since he does not know it, it cannot be derived from studying the Bible.
An interesting discussion occurred on IRC in which an individual had a question about the fairness of salvation. Before he explained his exact problem, however, he decided to give some background about himself. He used to think he was a Christian, but he never read the Bible much, hadn’t studied most of the Bible, and apparently coasted in this regard, having some general knowledge of how salvation was supposed to work. Then when faced with challenges to his faith, he found himself entirely without answers. He soon became a believer in Evolution. As he put it, that experience “shook my foundation,” as he found himself unable to explain to himself why he should believe anything spiritual that he had believed in the past.
This naturally led to him questioning everything about everything. His underlying problem of not being grounded then manifested itself in the form of being confused about the fairness of salvation. The argument went something like this: how is it fair to require a person to believe in God when his life’s circumstances make it difficult or impossible to hear the pure Gospel? The implication here is the false notion that people are a complete byproduct of their environment and experiences beyond their control. He gave the example of people living in Islamic lands as being people who might have a difficult or impossible time when it comes to hearing the Word of God. He also gave the example of people who might conclude that the Gospel is false based on the testimony of false witnesses. He wanted to know how it could be fair for these people to be required to believe. Had they heard the Gospel?
Now it should be known that respectfully asking God to explain why things are the way they are is well allowed when one faces trouble in understanding spiritual things, but one should not rush to conclusions. Rather he should be very ready to hear what God has to say. This type of question about the fairness of salvation was discussed in the Bible. This shows that God, already knowing that we would have such questions, provided the answer for us in his Word. The answer also reveals that this individual’s accepting of Evolution and his trouble understanding the fairness of salvation are actually very closely related.
For those who are interested in semi-formal debating, I am currently open to the idea of accepting debate requests. For now, I’ll most likely be limiting the subjects to issues pertaining to the Mosaic Law, particularly its differing physical applicability to Jew and Gentile and how the Law should be viewed today.
This invitation is meant more for people who already express a belief in the Bible, but hold to important doctrinal differences. The goal of offering to debate is to help get more people studying the Bible and realizing what is right and wrong when it comes to the many asserted teachings being presented today as correct. The text used would be the Bible.
More information about submitting a debate request can be seen at the Debate Guidelines page.
With the current goal of repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and replacing it with something along the lines of Shout It Everywhere And Force The Military To Say It’s Legitimate Behavior, people are forced to reconsider the basis for their decisions regarding morality. If proponents of this change in policy are successful, fighting for this subject alone is not where this fight will end. In fact, their arguments will find new perverseness to defend, as is evidenced in some responses to the charges leveled against a particular professor who is also a known blogger.
I’ve come across a few videos on YouTube from a person who describes himself as being at different times a believer and a non-believer, presumably in the Bible or merely in the existence of God. Some of his videos attempt to argue rationally from an atheist’s point of view. Unfortunately, with this important subject of the spiritual, he makes some serious errors jumping from various premises to certain conclusions.
Update: A partial response from Chase Bank to a customer is included in this entry.
A Chase branch was forced by JPMorgan Chase to remove a Christmas tree donated to it by a businessman. The branch manager was a client of the businessman, and received the tree for free. Soon thereafter, some higher-ups at JPMorgan Chase decided this was not appropriate for the tree to be on display in the branch.
The accusation is that the IRS are letting the liberal, Jewish groups alone that hate Israel, but are going against those Jewish groups who support Israel. As additional evidence to their original claim, the pro-Israel Z Street organization has produced a letter from the IRS to another Jewish group who was seeking tax exempt status. According to the filing obtained by Politico, this letter from the IRS contains the following for the unnamed Jewish group to answer: “Does your organization support the existence of the land of Israel? Describe your organization’s religious belief system toward the land of Israel.”
Americans ought to be thankful that they have the Second Amendment. With all of the attacks on the rights of Americans to own guns, they have the right explicitly mentioned in their Constitution. Thankfully, the Democrats in the United States are largely on the run on the issue. They are losing in the courts, and they have found that they can’t sway public opinion to fight against the rights of individuals.
In Canada, the left-wing sees no such restriction. For awhile, Canadians have been required to register their guns. A large percentage of the estimated, gun-owning population simply refused to register, claiming that they are being treated like criminals and will be under the threat of having their weapons confiscated if they do. The registry is thus a broken system, with rising costs and nothing to gain from it. Even if it had worked as intended, it’s always immoral to punish and restrict the freedom of innocent people to stop criminals — something which left-wing groups never seem to understand.
As a result the Conservative Party, which is roughly akin to the Republican Party of the United States, has backed a bill that will abolish part of the need for registration. Their stated goal is now to repeal part or all of the registry program. The New Democrat Party, roughly akin to the further left-wing elements of the Democrat Party of the United States, is, not surprisingly, opposed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s support of the bill. In his statements on the NDP’s website, NDP leader Jack Layton admits that most Canadians don’t share his views on guns. “This country, truly, is divided. There is no consensus,” he writes. The rest of this speech is spent essentially trying both to attack and politically bribe his opponents.
If it hasn’t been obvious, I’ve been neglecting keeping up with the blog. Besides keeping busy with the usual things, I’ve also been trying to spend a lot of my free time working on other literary projects. This includes a religious novel, another work of fiction aimed at a much younger audience, and posting madly to the comment sections of various online news-related websites.
