Tag: religion

Ignorance and Superstition, in My Own Hometown REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From July 24, 2014

On my hometown “Community Calendar” yesterday, the following two items:

It’s time again for the “annual Animal Spirit Guide Event,” featuring “Our clairvoyant medium.” Have you ever known a medium who did not claim to be clairvoyant? Also, “your Animal Guides will assist you in answering questions about any area of your life.”

In the next town over we have a meeting of the Citizens Climate Lobby, “a national grassroots organization working to build political will to address the challenge of climate change.” They try not to call it “Global Warming” anymore.

My town calls itself “the Brainy Borough.” There’s a rumor that the spirit of a cabbage worm gave it that nickname. We’re spending over $30 million this year to operate our four schools, just about everyone here is college-educated, or going to be–and we’re going to ask the Great Squirrel Spirit, “Should I unload this stock, or hang onto it a little longer?”

As for the Citizens Climate Lobby, “grassroots” means “funded by George Soros” or some other villain. They must think we all just fell off the potato truck.

But the presence of these two items on the same page teaches an important lesson.

When you desert the living God, and reject Jesus Christ the Savior, you don’t just stand there from then on without any god at all.

No–you wind up in the clutches of a false god; and the biggest false god of them all is the State.

“Pay higher taxes, sign away your liberties, and obey us in all things, and our experts will protect you from the dreaded Climate Change.”

Falling off the potato truck is bad enough.

Falling away from God is worse.

Another Book I’m Not Gonna Read REPRINT

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From August 7, 2014

There are books that make you want to stand up and cheer; and there are books that make you want to sit down and sigh.

A publicist has invited me to review “a compelling new book [that] fuses science and religion, exposing the cross as an ancient navigational instrument.” For thousands and thousands of years, church and state successfully concealed these great secrets: until the guy that wrote this book came along and uncovered all this ancient knowledge that was kept a secret from everyone but him.

Sigh.

“By modern-day standards,” says the press release, “religion, astrology, and science [what–no palmistry?] are three separate entities that not only contradict each other, but rarely cross paths.” Mr. Author, however, “reveals that all three were once used in unison,” blah-blah.

Sigh.

Look, I have no problem with the idea that what we call “civilization” may be very much older than we think it is. Just because people lived long ago doesn’t mean they were jidrools. Was it only a lot of ignorant cavemen wiped out by Noah’s Flood? (God’s flood, really: but I use the shorthand.) Was it the Flintstones who built the Tower of Babel? Clearly the Bible allows us to speculate that ancient people were every bit as capable, intelligent, mischievous and sinful as ourselves, and that what we call “prehistory” is only history that has been lost. The Flood, for example, would have erased practically all traces of an antediluvian civilization, and the long years would have done the rest.

But here we have the usual drivel about how “the Church in its desperate struggle to keep a profitable business alive and functioning” was nasty enough to bury all this ancient knowledge and hold us back from being all we can be, etc., etc. Boo, hiss. I hate it when the Church does that.

No, I’m not going to divulge the title of the book or the name of the author. They won’t get any free publicity from me.

Atheism is only a small cog in the great machine of godless popular culture that teaches the human race to be numbskulls.

Yabba-dabba-doo.

 

 

Self-Education… Through Entertainment REPRINT

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 From August 22, 2015

I have been dipping into R.J. Rushdoony’s The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum (Ross House Books, Vallecito, CA: 1981, 2001 reprint–available from http://www.chalcedon.edu ), and it has set my mind on fire.

Culture, said Henry Van Til, “is religion externalized.” In light of that statement, one good, hard look at our culture of today should send us running madly for the exits. And one of the chief determining factors of a culture is, of course, the education provided to its members.

And here’s the thought that blows my mind:

Our consumption of “entertainment”–novels, movies, stories, television programs, etc.–is a form of self-education.

This entertainment is what we pour into our heads when we are not in a formal “educational” setting. As a society, we have more leisure time than we used to have; and much of that time is spent consuming entertainment.

The horror! The horror!

Take a good look, kimosabe, at what we’re stuffing into our minds. Is it any wonder we’re in such a mess? Given what we educate ourselves into, of course we’re going to redefine marriage, excuse all forms of lawlessness, lie and cheat six ways from Sunday, and in general behave as if there is no God.

Because so much of our entertainment, our self-education, is absolutely, positively Godless.

Think it over–long and hard and carefully. What are we learning from our entertainment?

Our elite “educators” have labored mightily to wean our nation away from Christianity. But their efforts are a drop in the bucket, compared to the weaning-away accomplished by our entertainment.

The point is so subtle as to be well-nigh invisible. We thus defend ourselves: “It’s only a movie, it’s only a novel, it’s only a TV show”–as if our steady diet of it had no effect at all.

I thank Rushdoony for this insight.

Talkin’ Like a Liberal REPRINT

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From July 7, 2015

Well, after all this time, they finally did it to me: got me to talk like a liberal. Now I know how Ben-Hur felt when Esther told him, “You have become Messala!”

My wife was reading me the news report about a woman who visited a San Francisco tourist site and was gunned down by an illegal alien who’d already been deported a number of times and kept coming back to commit more crimes. I lost it when we came to the part, “The White House has blamed the Republicans for the incident…”

That was when I spoke like a liberal.

“I hate the White House, and I wish everyone in it would die a miserable death.”

Shameful, isn’t it? I sounded just like those liberals who cursed Michael Crichton’s survivors when he died, because he dared disbelieve in Global Warming.

True, that person occupying the White House today is utterly despicable, and he has surrounded himself with toadies and creeps. His policies are evil, and should be undone. On top of all that, he’s a race hustler who has done immeasurable harm to the country which he swore an oath to protect.

But is any of that an excuse for talking like a liberal? Really, I am ashamed of myself.

I’m comfortable with hating what people do, especially when it goes against God’s word and they try to impose their own wickedness on whole nations. Resist it to the utmost, denounce it, try to undo it. And if the bad guys want to fight, make righteous war against them.

And if they repent, forgive them.

Yes, that’s hard. But it’s what God commands. Not that any of these villains is going to repent any time soon: you don’t get to be the head of a teachers’ union by repenting evil works,. God Himself forgives sinners. He has forgiven me. And you.

But of course if you’re a lefty loon, you don’t believe that, and you are free to indulge unbridled hatred and commit crimes for your cause… as witness the entire history of that lamentable 20th century.

We can’t understand God’s ways. He is God and we aren’t. When it’s as counter-intuitive as this appears to be, we are thrown back on our faith: and that’s how He makes us grow.

Are the Powers That Be Really Ordained by God? REPRINT

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From March 24, 2015

The petulant gentleman in the picture above is the Roman Emperor Nero, a homicidal maniac and sadist who enjoyed absolute power until some dissidents got together and assassinated him. Nero was on the throne when St. Paul wrote these famous words in his epistle to the Romans:

“[T]he powers that be are ordained of God.” (Romans 13:1)

There are now, have always been, and probably always will be Christians who take that line to mean that whatever fool or criminal happens to be in power at the moment, he is entitled to respect and obedience because God Himself has put him in the catbird seat.

But is that really what “ordained” means?

Let’s go to Strong’s Concordance, an authoritative source. In the original Greek, the word translated as “ordained” is tasso, meaning “to arrange in an orderly manner, i.e. assign or dispose (to a certain position or lot)–addict, appoint, determine, ordain, set.”

There are a dozen different Greek words in the New Testament that have been translated into English as “ordain.” Most of these Greek words have to do with putting something into a particular place.

Tasso, the word Paul uses in Romans 13:1, does not mean to authorize, to endorse, or to deputize. Later in the chapter, we see that God assigns to the civil government–to the state, if you like–the responsibility to uphold the law and to protect peaceable, law-abiding citizens, and the power (and duty) to restrain evil and to punish evildoers.

In the world Paul lived in, the Roman authorities were perfectly capable of carrying out those functions, and usually did. Hence they were entitled to have their positions respected and their lawful orders obeyed, and so Paul advised Christians to do.

But suppose the powers that be break the law instead of upholding it, and plunder and terrorize peaceable, law-abiding folk while favoring and even rewarding evildoers? What if the ultimate power in the state belongs to a bloodthirsty lunatic like Nero?

The rest of the Bible, both Testaments, certainly does not teach us that God is with every power that succeeds in setting up shop in a fallen world: only that God is the sovereign ruler of heaven and earth, and nothing happens without Him.

To say that illegal and tyrannical rulers are ordained by God, in the sense of being authorized by God, is as foolish as blaming the sovereign Lord for one’s own sins. Dude, God ordained me to steal hubcaps!

As Nero and so many others like him found out the hard way, God can get rid of a despotic monster whenever He pleases. He blessed the Maccabees when they rose up in rebellion against the  blaspheming tyrant, Antiochus Epiphanes. I believe He blessed the 13 American colonies when they rose up against King George III.

Not to write a book here, but how do we know which “powers that be” that God has blessed, and which ones He has allowed to exist, but not blessed?

The Bible has the answer, in the words of Jesus Christ Himself: “By their fruits ye shall know them.” (Matthew 7:20)

If it were not so, every successful assassin and usurper could claim a God-given legitimacy.

‘We’ll Bring Back the Mammoth!’ REPRINT

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 From February 16, 2017

 

The Original Sin was to disobey God in order, as the Serpent put it, to “be as gods” (Genesis 3:5). That sin is very much with us today.

Scientists have announced a plan to bring back the extinct woolly mammoth by messing about with mammoth DNA and Asian elephant DNA, cutting and pasting and “editing genes” to create a mammoth embryo ( https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/feb/16/woolly-mammoth-resurrection-scientists ). Then they can re-introduce a population of mammoths to the Siberian tundra to combat global warming! Oh–and as an added benefit, they predict these techniques can soon be refined so as to “reverse aging” in human beings.

As much as I would love to see a woolly mammoth, what I would be seeing here would not actually be a mammoth,  but rather an elephant that’s been tampered with to make it look like a mammoth–a counterfeit.

Does anyone honestly expect this to work out as advertised? Do a lot of us need to see Jurassic Park again?

Somehow reading stuff like this makes me feel like I’m getting stupider, not smarter.

Come, Lord Jesus, come–and save us from the folly of our worldly wisdom.

My Sabbath REPRINT

Posted By: leeduigon(patty)Posted On:

From June 1, 2014

I don’t like to address contentious issues on the Sabbath day. (And if your sabbath is Saturday instead of Sunday, that’s not an issue for me.)

For one thing, it’s a way for me to remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as God has commanded. For another, I’m up to my eyeballs in abominable news all week, and I need a rest. It’s not that I’m lazy or cowardly, and want to hide from the battle. Josephus records that even Judah the Maccabee avoided battle on the Sabbath, except when the enemy literally forced it on him.

By keeping the Sabbath, we proclaim the Lord’s sovereignty over all things, and His sufficiency for all things.

But what about church? I don’t attend a church. Some would say I was un-churched, but I don’t see it that way.

No–it’s just that the church that I belong to is not in a building. It consists of a large group of fellow Christians, most of them on the Internet, who share a devotion to Jesus Christ Our Lord. We “meet” here, within the social media, in a chat room full of Christians on a popular game site, and even on our respective forum pages on an international chess players’ site. We meet every day of the week, not just on Sunday. We can’t sing hymns together, but we have some mighty good discussions. Many of them also attend a church: but the local church in which I was raised has gone over to the dark side, and I don’t trust any of the others. My old church has a sign outside that says “A Welcoming and Affirming Congregation.” I am sure I don’t want to find out exactly what it is that they’re affirming.

The burning issues can wait until tomorrow. For now, I think I’ll go back outside and enjoy more of this beautiful, cool, sunny spring day that the Lord has made.

Praying to Another Idiot REPRINT

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From September 4, 2014

Liberals ought to just stay away from religion. It doesn’t come naturally to them; and when they try to imitate religious practice, the results are often grotesque. Like, for instance, this:

A socialist in Venezuela has composed a prayer to the country’s dead dictator, Hugo Chavez. You read that right: a prayer. She has recited it in public. Let me quote it.

Our Chavez who art in heaven, the earth, the sea and we delegates, Hallowed be your name. May your legacy come to us so we can spread it to people here and elsewhere. Give us your light to guide us every day. Lead us not into the temptation of capitalism, deliver us from the evil of the oligarchy, like the crime of contraband, because ours is the homeland, the peace and life forever and ever. Viva Chavez! (http://news.yahoo.com/venezuelan-socialist-party-swaps-god-chavez-prayer-202222347.html )

She recited this blasphemy in front of a banner painted with the likeness of the dictator. I hope the link works, because you gotta see this. Remember, the artist who painted it was trying to make Hugo Chavez look good: probably his life depended on it.

Take a good look at that image. Would you even think about buying a used car from that man? Is it possible to imagine a more unworthy object of veneration than this fat, coarse, squat, toad-faced little tyrant?

Well, okay–here in America we’ve got Democrats and university professors and the nooze media who have on various occasions likened a nasty little commie to a god, while at their national convention, on world-wide TV, they loudly booed the real God’s name. So we don’t have to go back to ancient Rome, or down to Venezuela, to find idiots worshiping one of their fellow idiots as a deity.

Again we see that G.K. Chesterton was right: when a man ceases to believe in God, he doesn’t just believe in nothing; he’ll believe in anything.

Even Hugo Chavez and that other commie.

The Difference Between Us REPRINT

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From March 29, 2014

We ought to admit that, to the secularist, our Christian faith looks pretty silly. To talk to a God whom no one ever sees; to trust in a working-class Jew who was put to death on a cross some 2,000 years ago, and to claim that he’s the Son of God, and our salvation–yes, we admit it. We sound like pretty silly people.

But we can say this in our defense.

If our beliefs are silly, what secularists believe is uproariously, gigantically, rolling-on-the-floor-with-tears-in-your-eyes preposterous. We think God will save us. But they think they will save us!

Yes, the world’s smart people, by means of their idols, government and science, will save use. (They create these things themselves, and then they worship them.) Sinful, mortal human beings, acting on imperfect and incomplete information filtered through patched-up screens of wishful thinking, prejudice, fear, personal pique, weariness, hubris and hope, will transform this fallen world into a paradise–if only they’re given unlimited financing and unrestricted power.

Sorry–but it really does take an awful lot more faith to believe in that than it does to believe in God.

Atheist Chic REPRINT

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From December 31, 2013

I have a forum on chessgames.com–which I pay for–where I and my Esteemed Colleagues discuss a variety of issues, including religion and politics. As host, I insist that the conversation be civil.

But of course that never stops atheists from coming in and calling me “stupid” for believing in God, and calling themselves “smart” for not believing in Him. They come into my virtual living room, as it were, and pee on the rug.

Where do they get their enormous sense of entitlement? I guess all they have to do is look around the culture and see that those who hate God and despise God’s people are hailed as oracles and intellectuals, and they want a piece of that. Either that, or they were all raised in some incredibly rustic environment where even the most rudimentary good manners are entirely unknown.

Well, I don’t care. God is God, His word is presented to us in the Bible, the blood of His Son has washed away my sins, and I would rather win eternal life than eternal praise from fools. I don’t care how many letters they have after their names. I don’t care what schools they went to.

I’m nothing special. But it doesn’t matter. I have God’s word to guide me, delivered through Moses and the prophets, through Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, through the apostles, and by Jesus Christ Himself. I may be a pygmy, but I stand with giants.

Happy New Year, everybody. And thanks for visiting this blog.