iPandora

…is the freedom to choose whatever idea we please so long as we do not believe it is true.

From today’s Whirled Views from the WorldMagBlog:

Today’s quote is from an African-American pastor on abortion, the leading cause of death among black Americans since 1973: “The most dangerous place for an African American to be is in the womb of their African American mother.”

How true, and how sad. Entire generations wiped away because of any of so many lies and decietful and destructive philosophies.

The rocks are drenched in blood and the cries of a multitude massacred rise before our God.

Who will hear?

Who will praise the Lord when His smallest children, the offspring of the jewels of His creation, are being murdered?

…to know everything. Except what is worth knowing. Journalism, conscious of this, and having tradesman-like habits, supplies their demands.

~Oscar Wilde

This is worth knowing…

Happy Birthday by Piper

UPDATE: I got this from my wife, who’d posted it on Facebook. She let me know she found it on the 4Simpsons blog.

The words of Jeremiah Wright, the wrong words he’s spoken and made a central part of his message for the 20 years Barak Hussein Obama has considered him a spiritual leader, to some, they are truth.

Mr. Wright, for I do not consider him to be worthy of reverence or title beyond that of a normal man, is not the only person to preach those words either.

They are a variant of the philosophy and world view known as Liberation Theology, specifically, Black Liberation Theology.

From GotQuestions.org:

Simply put, Liberation Theology is an attempt to interpret Scripture through the plight of the poor. It is largely a humanistic doctrine. It started in South America in the turbulent 1950′s when Marxism was making great gains among the poor because of its emphasis on the redistribution of wealth, allowing poor peasants to share in the wealth of the colonial elite and thus upgrade their economic status in life. As a theology, it has very strong Roman Catholic roots.

Liberation Theology was bolstered in 1968 at the Second Latin American Bishops Conference which met in Medellin, Colombia. The idea was to study the Bible and to fight for social justice in Christian (Catholic) communities. Since the only governmental model for the redistribution of the wealth in a South American country was a Marxist model (gained in the turbulent 1950′s), the redistribution of wealth to raise the economic standards of the poor in South America took on a definite Marxist flavor. Since those who had money were very reluctant to part with it in any wealth redistribution model, the use of a populist (read poor) revolt was encouraged by those who worked most closely with the poor. As a result, the Liberation Theology model was mired in Marxist dogma and revolutionary causes…

…Liberation Theology has moved from the poor peasants in South America to the poor blacks in America. We now have Black Liberation Theology being preached in the black community. It is the same Marxist, revolutionary, humanistic philosophy found in South American Liberation Theology and has no more claim for a scriptural basis than the South American model has.

The race problem in America is real, that is undeniably true. But I do not think it is true in the way many assume it to be.

First, slavery was an inexcusable evil and a dark time for America. Today, many of us can trace roots back to those who participated, freely or under coercion, in slavery in America.

But at the same time, many of us can’t. And a significant majority have ancestors from the both the ideological North and South in their blood, as well as those who had no part at all. There has been significant immigration by all races to America after the conclusion of the Civil War and the active work of slavery.

The continuing and very real race issue was summed up by a new friend of Ed Kaitz’s. Ed had been spending time with the Vietnamese immigrants who’d settled in the Bayous of Louisiana, and while flying home he met a an American Black who’d been studying psychology and working as a prison psychologist in Missouri.

Ed tells it like this:

His answer, only a few words, not only floored me but became sort of a razor that has allowed me ever since to slice through all of the rhetoric regarding race relations that Democrats shovel our way during election season:

“We’re owed and they aren’t.”

In short, he concluded, “they’re hungry and we think we’re owed.  It’s crushing us, and as long as we think we’re owed we’re going nowhere.”

“They” are the Vietnamese Ed had spent time with, “we” are the gentleman’s own race, his fellow American Blacks.

Ed concludes his commentary on Obama’s inability to recognize the powerful forces of good in his life and the state of racism in America with this call to recognize real sources of ability and equality, accomplishment and future:

We now know that Barack Obama really has no interest in the “audacity of hope.”  With his race speech, Obama became a peddler of angst, resentment and despair.  Too bad he doesn’t direct that angst at the liberal establishment that has sold black people a bill of goods since the 1960s.  What Obama seems angry about is America itself and what it stands for; the same America that has provided fabulous opportunities for what my black friend called “hungry” minorities.  Strong families, self-reliance, and a spirit of entrepreneurship should be held up as ideals for all races to emulate.

Read Obama’s Anger at American Thinker.

Doug Ross, at Opinion Journal, quotes Nicholas Stix in Mens News Daily regarding Barak Hussein Obama’s run against Alan Keyes. Regarding Barak’s religion Nicholas has this to say:

…Obama’s closest religious advisers — Fr. Pfleger, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright of Chicago’s Trinity United Church of Christ, and Illinois State Sen. James Meeks, who moonlights as the pastor of Chicago’s Salem Baptist Church – may have quotes from Scripture always handy, but are theologically closer to Karl Marx and black nationalism, than to Christianity… The transcendent-non-transcendent motto the Rev. Wright has given Trinity is, “Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian.”

Yes, we need a Marxist president. Exactly what the country needs.

More information on Black Liberation ideology.

LA Times speaks with moral relativism and class warfare.

Roger Simon writes, in homage to Andrew Goodman “Barak, I didn’t do it for this”

And what about the New Black Panthers?

Vox Day, who I’ve linked to in the past, wrote a book responding to the rash of popular atheist diatribes printed recently.

In the The Irrational Atheist, Day employs some truly beautiful insults along with scathing rhetoric and his usual razor-sharp logic, factual analysis, and wit, to disarm, mock, and bludgeon his “Unholy Trinity” of Dawkins, Hitchens, and Dennett, as well as others.

Read Joe Carter’s 60 second review at the Evangelical Outpost, where he quotes what is quite possibly the best insult I’ve ever heard:

“I am saying that they are wrong, they are reliably, verifiably and factually incorrect. Richard Dawkins is wrong. Daniel C. Dennett is wrong. Christopher Hitchens is drunk, and he’s wrong. Michel Onfray is French, and he’s wrong. Sam Harris is so superlatively wrong that it will require the development of esoteric mathematics operating simultaneously in multiple dimensions to fully comprehend the orders of magnitude of his wrongness.”

Over at the Acton Institute’s Power Blog, Jordan Ballor mentions a survey by the Pew Global Attitudes Project finding that the wealthier a country, the less citizens’ lives revolve around religion. The one country bucking the trend? The U.S., but why?

Ballor gives a somewhat lengthy and ambiguous answer.

Ballor theorizes that it is America’s heritage and the “penetration of the Gospel message into people’s hearts and minds.” As an example, he notes that Satan’s attacks American’s differently than others. He quotes a John Piper column, “Gutsy Guilt:”

“The great tragedy is not masturbation or fornication or pornography. The tragedy is that Satan uses guilt from these failures to strip you of every radical dream you ever had or might have. In their place, he gives you a happy, safe, secure, American life of superficial pleasures, until you die in your lakeside rocking chair.”

Interesting thoughts and worth a read, if nothing else, for the mental exercise.

This sounds like a repeat of the Tower of Babel. On September 14, Nebraska Democratic State Senator Ernie Chambers filed a lawsuit against God.  The suit asks for a “permanent injunction ordering Defendant to cease certain harmful activities and the making of terroristic threats.” Chambers alleges that the harmful activities God could stop are “fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornados, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects and the like.”

Chambers has represented Omaha, Nebraska, since 1970, and after nearly 40 years in office, it sounds like it’s time for the ancient Senator to move on. Although he probably does not expect the Defendant to respond (in a legal manner of speaking), he had better prepare to argue when when he actually does face the Defendant in court… the Defendant’s court.

 Read some here and here.

“Future generations will wonder in bemused amazement that the early twenty-first centuries developed world went into hysterical panic over a globally averaged temperature increase of a few tenths of a degree and, on the basis of gross exaggerations of highly uncertain computer projections combined into implausible chains of inference proceeded to contemplate a roll-back of the industrial age.”

~ Dr. Richard Lindsen, MIT

“Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.” – Ronald Reagan

I saw a statement from John Stossel, 20/20 reporter, this morning and it got me thinking.

“[S]tudents often ask what can be done about the ‘problem’ of young people who don’t care enough to vote. I always say that I don’t see it as much of problem ‘because most of you don’t know anything yet. I’m OK with you not voting!’ The students laugh, but I’m not joking.“

I agree. Often, voters make decisions without considering their options or looking at the secondary effects of political policies. Take, for example, Social Security.

I was talking with a friend the other day about the relative benefits of a 401(k) versus Social Security.

We were discussing our God-given responsibilities to care for our families and, if given a choice (we don’t have one right now, but hypothetically.) how this responsibility would affect our decision whether to put all our eggs into Social Security or into a 401(k).

At my friend’s current salary, we calculated that he will put $300,000 into Social Security (including the employer portion) over the next 40 years.

Then we calculated the “return” on his investment.

Social Secuirty: If Social Security pays my friend $25,000 a year, he must live 12 years beyond “retirement” to recoup his investment into Social Security. Unfortunately, at this rate, it is not likely he will recoup his investment because his life expectancy is only 75.15 years (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html).

Although his wife will receive a small stipend, his children will get nothing from his investment. Further, $25,000 is close to or below the current federal poverty level. In 40 years, it will be even more so. In fact, it will probably be unlivable.

To be technical, some of these figures are variables. As Social Security becomes more unsustainable, benefits will be cut by increasing the “retirement” age. Also, the average life expectancy will probably be a few years higher in 40 years because of advances in nutrition and medical technology.

401(k)’s: Now for the alternative: If my friend puts the $300,000 into a 401(k) over 40 years until the age of 65, he will have $3,452,839.

Further, if he dies at 75, his wife will have plenty live off of and he will be able to pass the remainder on to his children (more Biblical mandates).

To finish up, here’s the remainder of Stossel’s quote:

“… I only started to think I knew what ought to be done after years of reporting and reading voraciously to absorb arguments from left and right. The idea that most voters vote without having done much of that work is, frankly, scary.”

Scary indeed. We live with the repercussions every day.