15And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.This is clearly a product of those in the 2012 or "Ascension Networks." If this is headed where I strongly believe it is, there is no advantage either in this world or the world to come to avail oneself of the planned system:
16And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.
6And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people,And further, from Revelation 16:2, there were hideous sores as a last plague upon those who worshiped the beast and his image and/or took the mark:
7Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters.
8And there followed another angel, saying, Babylon is fallen, is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication.
9And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand,
10The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb:
11And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.
12Here is the patience of the saints: here are they that keep the commandments of God, and the faith of Jesus.
And the first went, and poured out his bowl upon the earth; and there fell foul and evil sores upon the men who had the mark of the beast, and upon them who worshiped his image.The New Age "global consciousness" networks are placing great stock in a coming new world economic system. Quoting from their first post of 2012, we read:
Choosing to understand what a global economic structure could be like, for example, is the first step to gaining access to more balanced, natural ways of relating on all levels and especially with the earth, nature and our true selves.
Even with the announcement about a new form of global currency, some of the comments are rightfully skeptical. We understand that.
My thanks to the anonymous blog poster who alerted me. The following is from the advocates of this system, Consciousness Media Network:
this is a must read about Prince Charles
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cmn.tv/blog/harmony-and-the-prince/
It's just a matter of time and thank God for His Word.We are not in darkness.I also want to thank you Ms Cumby.I've read you writings since Hidden Dangers was published.God used that book greatly in opening my eyes.
ReplyDeleteThe Economist in 1988 predicted the implementation of the global currency for 2018. These people usually try to stick to their dates - maybe they're getting nervous and trying to speed things up, realizing that their time is short.
ReplyDeleteOOPS I put this post on the wrong page.
ReplyDelete"Tony Blair, reportedly a new ager,"
well, so much for love (define love),
peace (define peace)and bliss (define bliss). This creep along with the Bushes (whose money and background are linked to the Nazis through Prescott Bush the Hitlerite, and who had no problem with the Nazi puppet soaked Ethnic Heritage Committee in the Republican Party that briefly became a scandal in the early 1980s during the investigations and deportations of war criminals and such like and then was quickly forgotten by the easily distracted and stupid American public, with a little help from the heavily interfaced to CIA etc. American mainstream media putting their attention elsewhere)
pulled off that Iraqi scam.
first, arm Saddam Hussein then turn on him with a drawing out lure of assurance he wouldn't be stopped if he invaded Kuwait. Then, leave him in power so another round of expensive military action (which funds the military industrial complex) would be inevitable, then do more WMD scamming and more invasion, effectively leaving Iran with no counter in the region for much longer.
Meanwhile, the Iraqi body count is probably close to a million by now from all this, incl. deaths from the food and medicine embargo.
Now, they may not be very nice people by and large, but neither are the rest of our allies. God may be using our evil played off against local evil to do something, but that doesn't exonerate the USA and Britain etc. any more than it did ancient Babylon.
There is a theory, I forget who put it forward, that one of the reasons Lady Di was killed, was her refusal to get too into the occultism of her husband, which would imply it went beyond tree hugging, though she did avail herself of astrologers and such like now and then. Another reason was her campaigning against land mines, a constant problem for those who have to live with the unexploded mines left behind.
Don't forget the use of depleted uranium. And don't forget the fluoridation campaign, which began NOT with the Communist Party, but with the military industrial complex's atomic energy subdivision so to speak, having to figure out how to unload all that sodium fluoride that is part of the production of uranium of use for atomic power and/or bombs.
now, we don't need to worship nature to be concerned about "raping the planet" or whatever.
we should be careful of the creation that the Creator YHWH has made.
In Revelation, it talks about Christ coming back to take revenge on the evil doers which include those "who are destroying the earth." Interesting phrase. It might well incl. new agers poisoning psychic environments with their luciferic energies and labyrinths are a case in point. In San Francisco there is a labyrinth, which thinking it was just an interesting little design and not realizing there was a real problem, I walked. And I was infested with that icky slightly yellow light, took some prayer and banishing it in Jesus' Name to get rid of it.
Interestingly enough, labyrinths though they are treated by New Agers as of some spiritual significance ("spiritual" meaning "good" but there is much evil in the spiritual realm, in fact all evil comes from that level, even the level of spirit of the individual structure, because that is where one starts in making decisions, even if the final decision is in the soul level and then acted in the material level),
but the original legend has an evil destructive thing in the center. Spirals seem to have some danger significance some archaeologist pointed out, perhaps relating to whirlpools at sea, and then of course there is the dizziness thing.
"Charles, Prince of Wales, called for the “at-one-ment” of all the world’s faiths through adoption the Alliance of Civilizations"
ReplyDeleteat-one-ment is the way New Agers, borrowing from an idea that got started in the 1800s new thought scene, and used by Mary Baker Eddy in her reinterpretation of Scripture,
twist atonement. Of course, you can argue that the Atonement by Christ made an at-one-ment in the sense of getting back together between mankind and God. But that is not what is meant in its use.
In the Eastern Orthodox scene, I have run into an appalling rewrite of doctrine, that begins with Metropolitan Anthony Khrapovitsky of ROCOR and some others but speaheaded by him, that nearly got him a heresy trial by his fellow bishops until he backed down. Details in my yahoo egroup, http://groups.yahoo.com/substitutionary_atonement_in_orthodoxy which details how Atonement is NOT a Roman Catholic infiltrated doctrine, but something they got from us in the days of the undivided church before Roman Catholicism went into schism and started developing new doctrines in AD 1054 et seq.
Atonement presupposes sin, and a Creator ruler type God Who is not amused. At-one-ment is a totally different concept.
Meanwhile, China and Japan have an arrangement to trade their currencies directly without the American dollar as an intermediary, and Russia is not jumping on the international banker bandwagon all that eagerly.
The only reason fellow occultist and anti semitic nations USA and England went to war with Hitler, was because he bought out of that system by issuing German currency not linked to debt. Just as well he did so and got taken down, as his behavior showed where the occultist philosophies go when allowed free rein and blackened their reputation for a long time.
Here is link to two youtube videos, showing that Hillary Clinton is potentially indictable on election contribution felony AND on suborning perjury. http://politicallyunclassifiable.blogspot.com/2012/01/hillary-clinton-potentially-indictable.html
ReplyDeletethis is two parts, both parts linked here, to make it easier since youtube, since its overhaul, makes the followup videos in a sequence hard to keep in order.
youtube also routinely deletes videos on copyright claims, when the poster HAS THE PERMISSION TO USE THEM, and/or is in the range of the fair use and comment exception in copyright law.
Interestingly enough, it seems that the people pushing for SOPA the anti piracy law that would make trouble even for links to pages that have links to such things, ARE THE SAME PEOPLE WHO DEVELOPED AND PUSHED FILE SHARING SYSTEMS EXPLICITLY FOR PIRATING PURPOSES.
I guess they realized that while making money doing this, from people who can't afford to or for other reasons won't pay the full price for DVDs and CDs and books, they were also facilitating the kind of research and public education they don't really want to see being done.
In this New Year let us remember that Jesus has instructed us to "love God" and "love our neighbor as ourself." Let us keep this in mind when encountering people in our daily lives, whether at work, Church, etc.
ReplyDeleteWithout denigrating prayer, which is essential, let us remember that as Jesus instructs and demonstrates throughout the Gospels, there is much more to "loving our neighbor" then simply praying for them.
Happy New Year to all, and may our lives as lived be a demonstration of our faith and not a contradiction of it, both here in the blogosphere and in the real, material world.
"You will know them by the love they have for each other."
apropos of the issue of zoning, brought up on another post,
ReplyDeletehttp://cryptogon.com/?p=26769
"There’s a reason why they don’t mention where this is with any greater precision than, “California.” It’s because banks and maniac filth don’t get to draw as much energy from people who live in outlaw dwellings."
yes, there is corruption in the form of people writing laws to further corporate interests. I suppose New Ager controlled scenes would do the same under some other rubric once they realized their stocks were in danger or something.
Or that such off the grid scenes were a bit too independent. (off the grid living can be informed by a spirit of pride and isolationism as an end in itself also, but that is another matter. survivalist information can be good for just saving money on doctors, energy, etc., without adopting their politics or philosophy especially when it gets violently inclined.)
Capitialism - control things to make money and power for certain people.
Communism - control things to make money and power for certain people.
an old joke more or less like this:
"under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism it is exactly the other way around."
Oh, yeah, New Age economics - control things to make money and power for certain people.
in each case, it is not the same certain people, but that doesn't matter. the principle is the same.
For all those who've accepted Jesus in their lives, there has always been hope. The only economy that ever matters is the one where we place our treasures in Heaven, not anything on Earth.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.unwelcomeguests.net/528
ReplyDeletehttp://www.pakalertpress.com/2011/12/30/2012-12-triggers-for-world-government/
ReplyDeletehttp://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread791920/pg1
ReplyDeletehttp://members.beforeitsnews.com/story/1569/701/Every_American_Needs_To_Hear_This_Ex-CIA_Analyst_Ray_McGovern_-2_2.html
in the link to the videos on the federal reserve being under sharp direction of the Treasury Department, from a Constitutional perspective this is as it should be, it would seem that the govt. has indeed retained or regained the power it should have, HOWEVER this is done secretly through a front.
ReplyDeleteThe Federal Reserve is unconstitutional and the role the Treasury Department has over it according to this video is exactly as it should be Constitutionally, HOWEVER this setup
keeps the govt. looking innocent while it manipulates things through the supposedly
oppressive fed, and elite elements in the Treasury Department and that next of vipers the State Department, can play games and influence politics and world events to their advantage, as
as class and individually.
"The only reason fellow occultist and anti semitic nations USA and England went to war with Hitler, was because he bought out of that system by issuing German currency not linked to debt."
ReplyDeleteO what nonsense. Yes Neville Chamberlain slammed the doors of the Holy Land in the faces of the Jews of Germany (and was shortly afterwards removed from power then dead of cancer), but plenty of Brits condemned him for it and Britain is the country that issued the Balfour Declaration which made the Jewish return to the Holy Land possible in the first place. As for occult - every nation is far from perfect but of all the nations on earth these are the two in which the views of evangelical Christian politicians have been the most influential. Kindly name one that you consider more Christian and less occult.
As for the English speaking nations fighting Hitler because of his economic policies (which were admittedly the only good thing about the man) - please quote some reliable evidence that this claim, and not the conventional narrative, is true.
Nobody is going to get the Chinese to give up the Yuan in the forseeable future.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThis video reminded me of what Benjamin Creme's "master" mentioned in an article found in the latest issue of Creme's magazine. The article claims that the "masters" are working with groups of people to bring new structures to the world.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the video Constance. I included it in my latest post:
http://prophecyproof.blogspot.com/2012/01/effort-to-bring-new-world-order-jan.html
Constance,
ReplyDeleteThank you for sharing this latest information. I found this story on Huffington Post this morning and thought I would share this with everyone. It is about the Mayan prophecy about December 21, 2012.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joshua-berman/post_2775_b_1176085.html?icid=maing-grid10%7Chtmlws-main-nb%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%26pLid%3D124261
@2:23 PM
ReplyDeleteNot even a global economic collapse that would render their currency as worthless as the rest of the world's?
Anon@3.32pm,
ReplyDeleteIn a global economic collapse, an individual currency would get taken down if its quantity far exceeds the real wealth which backs it, and/or if the banks of the relevant nation have too great exposure to the unsecured debts of other nations that go down. China has taken a calculated risk in buying US debt but I expect that the Yuan would survive if American defaulted, because the Chinese people would simply accept the temporary return to austerity involved. (The USA meanwhile would be in deep trouble, becaues Americans nowadays regard affluence as a Human Right and because China would demand some other form of compensation.) Furthermore Putin has in the last decade used energy revenues to make sure that Russia is neither greatly in debt nor greatly in credit to the Western banking system. So those currencies would survive such a crash. And those nations would not willingly join a world currency because it means giving up the freedom to determine national fiscal policy (as Greece, Ireland etc are currently learning).
Is it me or does that guy look like Jason Segel (the actor in the Muppet movie)? Put "Human 2.0" on the New Age buzzword list. We'll see if this actually comes true. All the New Age crazies will be coming out all year long.
ReplyDelete@3:55 PM
ReplyDeleteSo if the west implemented a world currency, is China self sufficient enough to refuse participation?
Let me answer that question with another: if the West had just defaulted on a trillion dollar debt to China, yet the Chinese could manage to continue with their own currency albeit with austerity, do you think that they would wish to give away the freedom to determine their own fiscal policy to the people who had just shafted them?
ReplyDeleteHey Constance, i was listening to the video clip and about 2/3s of the way he mentions the Theo Group....i googled it and this is what i found... creepy factor 10....
ReplyDeletehttp://www.asktheo.com/
ever heard of these people?? the couple pictured on the theo page looks almost exactly like the couple pictured in the frame on the top shelf in the place where the guy being interviewed is sitting
God Bless
" but plenty of Brits condemned him for it and Britain is the country that issued the Balfour Declaration which made the Jewish return to the Holy Land possible in the first place. As for occult - every nation is far from perfect but of all the nations on earth these are the two in which the views of evangelical Christian politicians have been the most influential. "
ReplyDeleteI am talking about the government level. The philosophies that produced Hitler, and his eugenics ideas ORIGINATED in England and America. The leaders of all the countries involved were into one version of theosophical ideas or another to some extent.
never mind what the people in general were into.
Dear Constance & All,
ReplyDeleteI want to wish you and everyone here a Happy Health, Prosperous and Holy New Year!!!
Christine,
ReplyDeleteI watched the Jeremiah films on Hillary Clinton. I'm not sure that because a singer DONATES services to a campaign that an excess $2,000 price tag can be put on it. I don't claim to be an expert on campaign finance law; HOWEVER, I do know something about Jeremiah Films in its present "incarnation,", e.g. Pat Matrisciano. I know how he dealt his ex-wife, Caryl Matrisciano, and quite frankly and sadly, these days I would not buy a used car from him either.
Constance
To Susanna and all the others,
ReplyDeleteHAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU, TOO. Thanks to all for blog participation in the past and for the coming year.
Constance
@6:45 PM
ReplyDeleteSo are believe China's ideology towards freedom is pure? And your base premise is that China is so strong it will not collapse? Are you aware many economists have been warning China is in the same condition the west finds itself in?
http://www.marketoracle.co.uk
/Article31735.html
Constance, there is a saying in regards to jail house snitches and criminals as sources of information.
ReplyDelete"conspiracies hatched in hell don't have angels for witnesses."
some very interesting information leaks out, when bad people get into brawls with each other.
"So are believe China's ideology towards freedom is pure?"
ReplyDeleteI neither said that nor assumed it. I am talking about China's economy, not its mentality.
"And your base premise is that China is so strong it will not collapse? Are you aware many economists have been warning China is in the same condition the west finds itself in?"
Put 10 economists in a room and you get 10 different opinions about the same economy. China is economically strong because its government does not overspend, unlike Washington which will soon run out of lenders and be forced to print money to maintain even part of the spending to which it is addicted. Look out for inflation, and I mean of such a magnitude as to wipe out savings on a timescale of a couple of years once it starts.
The weakness of the Chinese economy is that it depends to a considerable extent on its export markets. But it can weather a recession in those.
"I am talking about the government level. The philosophies that produced Hitler, and his eugenics ideas ORIGINATED in England and America. The leaders of all the countries involved were into one version of theosophical ideas or another to some extent."
ReplyDeleteNietzsche was English? Or American? Not that it actually matters where the individuals who started eugenics or gave it a philosophical underpinning came from; what matters is where those ideas were put into practice, ie by Hitler not by the governments of USA or UK. I am sick of reading stuff about how we didn't stop the Holocaust as if it were some kind of natural phenomenon, ascribing guilt to UK and USA but not to Germany.
@6:03 AM
ReplyDeleteIt's unlikely you'd get 10 different opinions. Fact is you don't know either so you've dug in they're not in the same boat with the rest of the world.
Re: China and the economy:
ReplyDeleteMao said "True power flows from the barrel of a gun".... (or something very similar).
We in the West think in terms of economic might. The Eastern powers think in terms of military might. To the extent that the economy worsens in the West, so too our military strength and readiness. Not so much in the East - if bad economic times hit there, the first thing that suffers is *not* the military.
They are warriors, we are businessmen. Who is more likely to win a shootout?
China's economic collapse
ReplyDeletehttp://articles.latimes.com/2011/nov/28/business/la-fi-china-bears-20111128
http://tinyurl.com/6psc3rj
Anon@7.13am,
ReplyDeleteFact is that I'm providing reasons for my conclusions, you are providing weblinks for yours. Come back when you have thought it through enough to express your arguments succinctly in your own words.
"Nietzsche was English? Or American?"
ReplyDeleteand another produce of the simplistic educational system heard from. Nietzsche was only part of it, an influence on Hitler and some philosophers there.
" Not that it actually matters where the individuals who started eugenics or gave it a philosophical underpinning came from; what matters is where those ideas were put into practice, ie by Hitler not by the governments of USA or UK."
On the contrary. Hitler's policies were partly shaped by policies already in play in the US. How we dealt with the Indians, the mandatory sterilization laws, the racial laws, and the Brit originated eugenics policies that Margaret Sanger was inspired by, since her stated goal was to breed a race of human thoroughbreds, encourage the blacks and browns to contracept and abort themselves out of existence and the whites to plan families in terms of spacing and health. (Not that I am against contraception, except for IUD and anything else that effectively kills a fertilized egg in the womb.)
Hitler's rise to power and consolidation of it was helped by financial and industrial interests in the US incl. companies Prescott Bush had to do with, enough to do with it that in AD 2004 a lawsuit was launched by a couple of Holocaust slave labor survivors against the Bush family
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
there is a lot more to this.
"I am sick of reading stuff about how we didn't stop the Holocaust as if it were some kind of natural phenomenon, ascribing guilt to UK and USA but not to Germany."
That has nothing to do with anything I have said. And I have never heard of anyone failing to ascribe guilt to Germany when condemning other countries for failing to take action when the information was out there. You do not remove blame from an attacker by condemning those who stand by for doing nothing to stop him.
"Fact is that I'm providing reasons for my conclusions, you are providing weblinks for yours. Come back when you have thought it through enough to express your arguments succinctly in your own words."
ReplyDeleteI am not sure who that is addressed to, and I don't care what subject is at issue, the position you take is silly at best and lazy at worst.
Links provide you the opportunity to do research on the matter, maybe find they have the wrong conclusions, and refute them, maybe find they are onto something.
The links are probably going to have more detailed information and links to still more information, than they could say in their own words, plus more proof.
Dear Christine,
ReplyDeleteI am Anon@8.26am and I was replying to Anon@7.13am with whom I was in sharp discussion about the Chinese economy. My comment was not aimed at you and I do not regard it as applicable to you, although I do stand by it in its context.
dear anon, I repeat, it does not matter who it was aimed at, or what the subject is.
ReplyDeleteto denounce referring you to links instead of using their own words, is ridiculous at best, no matter WHAT is under discussion.
below is a must see picture concerning how the end time world leader will be like, his rise to power from the coming new economic world order and how he would deceived the world with his eyes (warning:don't look at the eyes)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.novafm.com.au/photosimple_119422
"Hitler's policies were partly shaped by policies already in play in the US. How we dealt with the Indians, the mandatory sterilization laws, the racial laws, and the Brit originated eugenics policies that Margaret Sanger was inspired by, since her stated goal was to breed a race of human thoroughbreds"
ReplyDeleteHitler's crackpot views on Germans and Aryans might have had a root in eugenics, but they certainly had another root in Nietzsche (I never said that he got it *all* from Nietzsche.) Moreover, what he did to the Jews is in a tradition of oppression running all the way back to the Pharaoh of the Exodus. Hitler needed only to read the Old Testament and the sermons about the Jews of John Chrysostom and late-phase Martin Luther, or Pope Paul IV's 1555 bull Cum Nimis Absurdum, to get his genocidal ideas. It is simply not plausible that without Margaret Sanger and one or two others he would have left the Jews in peace. Had she even been translated into German by the time Hitler wrote Mein Kampf?
"and another produce of the simplistic educational system heard from"
Admittedly I am Anon and some Anons have insulted you, but I am not one of those. You have no idea what school I went to, what I have read since, or even what country I am in.
regarding Hitler, you still don't get it. Nazism was not just about the Jews, and Nietzsche was not an anti semite. In fact at one point, he suggested breeding the smartest Jews to the finest Germans to make a superman, and he said nothing about Aryans.
ReplyDeleteTHAT was the contribution of the theosophical society and similar occultic groups.
you could leave the Jews totally out of the equation, and still had Nazism. It is far more complex than you realize, rooted in European supremacy (3 categories, Nordic the highest, Alpine the second, and Mediteranean the least, then came slavs as not really good enough to qualify but those with a lot of blond nordic blood could be assimilated, and some honorary Aryans such as individual useful Jews and the Japanese warrior people and so forth. With this came some interesting occultist notions you don't find that commonly now, outside of mystical neo nazi bordering on satanist groups here and there. there was also the evolution thing hammer and tongs, social Darwinism, eugenics positive which is encouraging reproduction of the considered best, and eugenics negative aka culling aka extermination or at best sterilizaton. A lot of pure Aryans of inferior quality were sterilized or euthanized, same routine as with breeding animals.
There was some kind of historical sense and a bunch of stuff and efforts to plug into some spiritual current from the past with rituals and so forth. A spiritual force supposedly lived perhaps dormant in the blood of a people and had to be reawakened and so forth.
The only thing lacking for a hive mentality would have been full scale constant telepathy, I refer you to Dr. David Jacobs google that name for his page for an assessment of a society of that nature.
Drawing on ancient India and some other stuff, they were also rediscovering some very wierd technology. In India has been discovered an area recently that is definitely radiation soaked from some atomic war, exactly as the Mahabharata describes. And so forth.
A sense of an organic society with a near worship of the soil out of which supposedly the Aryan race arose full blown and shaped it, etc. see Constance's book Hidden Dangers of the Rainbow for more
details on the parallels between New Age gaia and Nazi mysticism in this regard.
Very expansionist and aggressive of course, very organized, machine like.
These are all things that had their fans and experiments in USA and Britain, Nazism arose out of a ferment of ideas and mysticism that was on both sides of the Atlantic.
This is something that has been ignored and downplayed in history books, and supposedly disproven by the Aktion Hess against occult orders and fortune tellers.
Actually, the Aktion Hess was not a move against superstition, even if it may have used such talk. It was more like when a government values a weapon, and wants a monopoly on it, e.g., prohibition on civilian ownership of full auto machine guns
and rocket launchers in the USA.
Claims to represent Western Christian Civilization were a deception for the Christian Germans, after the Jews the churches were to be phased out or destroyed later.
Constance,
ReplyDeleteAfter reading through some of what you've linked to here, I'm really starting to think that this may be a big piece of the coming "deception" that many, many Christians will be on board with - at least, in the beginning stages. Who wouldn't favor a just and equitable economic system? Why, even Jesus would back something like this, right? Because it's all about eliminating poverty, etc, etc. This goes all the way back to "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger" and the legitimizing of envy that such books advance.
5 years ago, I'd have told anyone they were crazy for thinking something like this would actually gain a following large enough to make any kind of difference. But now...
It's going to be an interesting year, that's for sure!
-----------
Side note: I have more and more Christian friends on Facebook and elsewhere who seem to be making their primary calling as a Christian "meeting the material needs of others", Christian or not.
Question for discussion:
What should be our main mission to the lost - to show God's love to them by meeting their material needs in every way we can, thereby showing God's love to them? Or is it to preach the gospel, pointing to the cross, and to sin, and to Christ's mission here on earth as being a *spiritual* one, meeting *spiritual* needs?
Christ said he came to seek that which was lost. He didn't say he came to feed the hungry, heal the sick, or clothe the beggar, although I'm sure he looked with favor on people doing those things (and he did those kinds of things himself). But he always focused on the spiritual ("I have water that will take away your thirst....")
I see so many Christians that are focusing more and more on meeting the material needs of the lost, and the Gospel gets shoved into the background, or is lost altogether. You can love someone all you want to, and if they do not repent of their sins, take up their cross, and follow Jesus, all you've done is make their waiting time here more pleasant before they get shoved off into hell.
[Tue, Jan. 3]
What should be our main mission to the lost - to show God's love to them by meeting their material needs in every way we can, thereby showing God's love to them? Or is it to preach the gospel, pointing to the cross, and to sin, and to Christ's mission here on earth as being a *spiritual* one, meeting *spiritual* needs?
ReplyDeleteMan has both spiritual and material needs.
We preach the gospel primarily through our actions, not our words.
When our actions are in conflict with our words (even if those words are "Jesus Christ is my Lord and Saviour", the actions are what resonates.
You seem to have a deep need to mold the Gospel to support your political beliefs. I suspect when you come face to face with Jesus you will find he is no more a fan of Market Capitalism than he is of Marxism or Socialism.
Anon. 3:49....
ReplyDeleteIn the end, we do not have material needs at all. We only have spiritual ones. If that is not the case, then what would you say of a Christian in a Chinese prison who has no material possessions? Imagine the following scenario: God provides the spiritual fortitude to this prisoner to survive for several days without food and water, so that he might witness by the words of his mouth to his guards of the love of Jesus. After witnessing, the prisoner dies and goes to heaven. Does he have any valid argument that his needs in those past few days were not met by a loving and merciful God?
When you say that Jesus is probably no more a fan of capitalism than of Marxism or communism, it seems you are trying to equate capitalism with Marxism and communism. Perhaps in a spiritual sense, they are equally bad, because none of them provides the "answer" that human beings need. That answer is Jesus.
From a completely material viewpoint, they are nowhere near close in results. Marxism and communism have been shown to be abject failures. Capitalism is still the best we've been able to come up with. That is a fact that needs no ties to the Gospel. If I left the impression that I was using the Gospel to advance a political belief, then I apologize. (Please note: the Bible and the Gospel mean two different things. One could use the Bible to promote one political scheme over another, but the Gospel is the message of Christ that has nothing to do with politics.)
Anyway, it's the New Agers who are saying that there is a better way. They try to make their views more palatable by saying that what they propose isn't an "ism". That is pure baloney. (See the article linked to in this current post.)
I watched this video in its entirety. Quite frankly, I’m left a little puzzled as to why anyone would take this obvious fraud seriously. The guy in the video claims to be representing the world’s economic elite, which has chosen him to be the messenger of the first installment in a series of messages and events that will eventually lead to a new world economic order. If you believe that one, you probably still believe in the tooth fairy. The guy couldn’t even read the “statement” without stumbling all over himself. My impression was that the entire video was extremely amateur, both in production and content, almost to the point of being comical.
ReplyDeleteWhat is really serious and interesting is that the papacy of Rome (through several popes) has repeatedly called for a new global economic order along the same lines that were enumerated in this video. The “pope” heads a “church” in which there is over one billion members. He also is a head of state and yields enormous political power and influence around the world. The papal call for a one world economic system is infinitely more ominous than the new agers’ decree, especially when one considers Rome’s historical past in applying deadly force behind its beliefs and dogmas.
Scripture prophecies, through the despotic government of the anti-Christ, that there will be the establishment of a one world economic order in the end times. With that being said, the question begs to be asked; why would the papacy of Rome be supportive of such a system?
"regarding Hitler, you still don't get it. Nazism was not just about the Jews, and Nietzsche was not an anti semite."
ReplyDeleteEr, I actually said that Hitler was into Aryan nonsense as well asa anti-semitism, and I never implied that Nietzsche was an anti-semite. The parts of Nietzsche that Hitler picked up on were (1) politics is entirely about power; (2) there will be a superior race (which Hitler took to be the Germans).
If you ascribe views to me that I didn't state or imply and then disagree with them, it has nothing to do with me.
"you could leave the Jews totally out of the equation, and still had Nazism."
You can maintain that only by using a definition of Nazism that most historians would not recognise.
It is fairly obvious why anybody claiming to lead the master race had to eliminate the Jews. The Jews really were smarter in 20th century Europe. Look at the number of Nobel Prizes that their minuscule numbers won, for instance. And Hitler got his precedent from the shameful history of European church antisemitism, and before that the Babylonians and Egyptians and Antiochus Epiphanes. These are far more potent drivers of Nazi views on the Jews than Margaret Sanger.
"In India has been discovered an area recently that is definitely radiation soaked from some atomic war, exactly as the Mahabharata describes."
ReplyDeleteHaving earlier stated that some Anons were using web references in place of logical argumentation - which if you read the *specific* dialogue was true - this comment above is exactly the sort of vague claim that cries out for backup.
A society advanced enough to create nuclear weapons would have left countless advanced artefacts which archeologists would have realised could not be fitted into their account of prehistory. Think of what we leave lying around. Nothing like that has been found despite the coverage that modern archeological techniques now provide.
The claim of nuclear war in the Mahabharata is usually related to the high radiation levels in parts of Rajasthan. Such radiation is scarcely surprising because Rajasthan is where India used to test its early nukes.
If you mean something different, please be specific enough for readers to be able to look further into it for themselves.
Anon at 2:20 PM, I completely concur with you on this.
ReplyDeleteWell said 6:14 am, old boy!!!
ReplyDeleteNational Defense Authorization Act: What it really means
ReplyDeleteOn January 2, 2012, President Barack Obama signed the "National Defense Authorization Act" basically lighting the Constitution Of The United States on fire along with the Bill Of Rights.
Must see this video, titled:
"Happy New Year: You can now be detained indefinitely!"
http://tinyurl.com/85tt7y9
Marko,PLEASE READ
ReplyDeleteMatthew 25:31-46
King James Version (KJV)
31When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:
33And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.
34Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.
37Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?
38When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?
39Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?
40And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
41Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:
42For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:
43I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.
44Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?
45Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.
46And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.
PLEASE DO NOT END UP IN HELL FOR PROMOTING THE EXCUSE OF THE GREEDY AND HEARTLESS WHICH SAYS, "HOW DARE OTHERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST SUFFERING, THEY'RE ENVIOUS, GIVE THEM NOTHING!!!"
Btw, Jesus fed the 5000 etc ..., didn't He?!!!!
@8:26 AM
ReplyDeleteFact is you have presented nothing other than your own conjecture to argue there will be no global currency. Web links at least provide evidence what the economists are providing us. You're full of hot air.
BTW, MARKO, if we have no material needs at all and only spiritual ones, then stop eating, drinking, sleeping, staying warm and sheltered, well clothed etc ...let alone needs for medicines .... no? Then you contradict yourself. Luckily, however, God does not contradict Himself and is not the author of confusion!!!
ReplyDeleteoh .. and Marko, what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.beforeus.com/indusa.htm
ReplyDeletehttp://karsewak.blogspot.com/2006/12/nuclear-weapons-in-use-during.html
and there is google. yes, there is in the recent village situation indications of some careless use of radioactive materials, and this site debunks things (for a balanced view)http://www.philipcoppens.com/bestevidence.html
But the most critical indicators of something nuclear, is the presence of vitrified stone (turned to glass by high heat and pressure) and small lakes so to speak of green glass in deserts here and there, something to be found only in nuclear test sites.
To assume that all societies ran the way we did, and that "societies" had anything to do with developing such things, instead of smart elites who ran those societies and took what they needed for their goals, and power is a drug by the way, as is "family honor" and "national glory" and stuff like that, is to think with blinders on.
There is a theory about how civilizations out to space faring would have to develop, which is as flawed as the social evolution ideas of Star Trek and Karl Marx.
Things don't all go on in the same sequence, the same way, every place and every time.
In addition, in The Bible, The Flood came because God was tired of what was going on,
violence filled the earth, all flesh was corrupt in its way or had corrupted its way or something like that.
If the "antigravity" or electrogravitis, see T. T. Townsend Brown in google and note the intense interest by the military establishment, followed by sudden silence, and then rumors that the B2 has an electrified surface, which would help with lift and so forth, and you can see where this could lead.
this is also interesting
http://www.cheniere.org/books/aids/ch5.htm though I think Bearden is off his rocker in some ways
there is more than one way to blow things up.
A long time ago, I figured out, that once you have fire and glass, anything is possible. add electricity such as the Bagdad Battery (it works see photos on the search page and articles) https://www.google.com/#pq=transmutation+chickens&hl=en&cp=9&gs_id=z&xhr=t&q=baghdad+battery&tok=JpPW0LqwelKKpTzIOmdh9g&pf=p&sclient=psy-ab&source=hp&pbx=1&oq=bagdad+ba&aq=0s&aqi=g-s2g1g-s1&aql=&gs_sm=&gs_upl=&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.,cf.osb&fp=a1bc1589ec616832&biw=944&bih=433
and a lot of other stuff, and wild stories, never mind Sitchin however he is BS http://www.sitchiniswrong.com/
and the fact I stumbled on that colchicine in the crocus bulb can induce mutations, I can't find it right now, I read this years ago in my pre Internet days in one of those primitive Bound Optically Organized Knowledge things (book),
and everything is in place for the following at some point.
offworld capability.
genetic engineering (the crudest was noted in one Bound Optically Organized Knowledge thingy about genetic engineering and its hazards, that a crude form could be done in a garage). This would mean a lot of dinosaurs and other megafauna may have been engineered as war machines to screw up the neighbors, giantism being the easiest mutation to induce,
fairly modern type optics have turned up in ruins (google ooparts
or objects out of place)
weapons whether nuclear or using electrical phenomena or both
etc. etc.
"If you ascribe views to me that I didn't state or imply and then disagree with them, it has nothing to do with me."
ReplyDeleteyou didn't have to say it, if after all I said your reaction was that we cannot blame Nietzsche on USA and UK and that their proposed policies were not implemented except in Germany (yes in a lesser degree and inspirational to the Nuremberg Laws, they WERE implemented).
Standard history blames Nitezsche and Wagner more than anything, and that is missing a lot.
"Standard history blames Nietzsche and Wagner more than anything, and that is missing a lot."
ReplyDeleteThat might be soundbite history on TV, but the mainstream of genuine historians traces Hitler's treatment of the Jews back to an antisemitic strand in the European churches, visible for example in Luther's later sermons on the Jews, Chrysostom's sermons, and papal bulls such as Cum Nimis Absurdum.
Most Germans were looking for someone who would bring stability and order after the hyperinflation and hunger, which Hitler did. They did not seize on him because of his belief that Germans were the master race. That simply came as part of the package.
"if after all I said your reaction was that we cannot blame Nietzsche on USA and UK and that their proposed policies were not implemented except in Germany (yes in a lesser degree and inspirational to the Nuremberg Laws, they WERE implemented)."
I dispute that the UK and USA ever proposed racial policies of the sort that were implemented in Nazi Germany. A few of their crackpot citizens did but that is a consequence of the misapplication of darwinian mechanisms outside their field of validity and the denial of the doctrine of the image of God. To say that the UK and USA proposed such policies is to assert that such things were discussed at governmental level with an eye to implementation. EVIDENCE PLEASE!
Anon@7.50pm,
ReplyDeleteI never said there would be no global currency, and in view of my faith in the Book of Revelation I believe that someday will be one someday. What I don't believe is that it will come in the way you confidently asserted. Even if the dollar and the euro fall to pieces, China and Russia would have no need to come on board to survive. You quoted a website showing that China would find it tough, but if China has a choice between weathering a recession and giving up fiscal independence to people it regards as enemies, which it is going to choose? China weathered far greater poverty under Mao.
I did 10 years postdoctoral research in the physics departments of three major universities and I don't have time to debunk every mad website quoted here claiming that there was nuclear war and antigravity devices in the past, but I can sssure Constance's readers that these claims are rubbish, propagated on the internet by a game of Chinese Whispers in which everybody uncritically quotes somebody else without going back to sources and resading counter-arguments.
ReplyDeleteSo the military showed extreme interest in antigravity and then all went silent? That is most consistent with the military discovering for themselves that there was nothing in a claim they strongly wanted to be true, and not wanting to look like clowns for ignoring what physicists had told them.
Any hi-tech civilisation capable of space travel and nuclear war would have left abundant traces which archeologists would have found by now.
Molten glasslike minerals are consistent with natural geological processes and/or a meteorite strike. As for radioactivity - in the part of India in question, the Indian government had performed nuclear testing and had set up a nuclear plant that was probably run to pretty shoddy standards of nuclear hygiene. Remember that you can work out how long ago a nuclear explosion went off from the relative abundances of radioisotopes in the environment, since those isotopes in the radioactive decay chain have differing halflives.
Most websites ignore these simple facts, or put up a single piece of information which conflicts with them yet for which no source is given. Ignore.
"To say that the UK and USA proposed such policies is to assert that such things were discussed at governmental level with an eye to implementation. EVIDENCE PLEASE!"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines/021500-02.htm
http://hnn.us/articles/1796.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_Integrity_Act_of_1924
http://www.academiavita.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=348%3Aij-keown-eugenics-and-the-law&catid=60%3Aatti-della-xv-assemblea-della-pav-2009&Itemid=66&lang=it
"The United Kingdom was one of the few major countries where eugenics was not effectively put into law. Yet people should not feel smug that it did not happen in Britain – because it nearly did. The United Kingdom escaped eugenics laws by the skin of its teeth, as they were backed by some of the most powerful people in the land. As far as can be seen, only one public figure waged a vigorous, and ultimately successful, campaign against the proposed Mental Deficiency Bill in 1912. That man was G. K. Chesterton."
http://www.secondspring.co.uk/articles/sparkes.htm
"I did 10 years postdoctoral research in the physics departments of three major universities and I don't have time to debunk every mad website quoted here claiming that there was nuclear war and antigravity devices in the past, but I can sssure Constance's readers that these claims are rubbish, propagated on the internet by a game of Chinese Whispers in which everybody uncritically quotes somebody else without going back to sources and resading counter-arguments."
ReplyDeleteGo study up on T. Townsend Brown and his devices, they worked. Small proof of concept thing. Military going silent means it is considered a security issue, technology worth pursuing. The trick is something to do with how some shapes of capacitor will move if not bolted down in the direction of whichever charge it was under the right circumstances I forget the details, and worked whether in a vaccuum or in an oil or air.
Never mind physics. The best bet is NOT to come up with some math and then do the engineering, just tinker around, see what works, and figure out the math later.
There was also some odd high energy research going on in the Nazi secret projects rocketry was only part of it. Read up on "the Bell,"
or "die Glocke," also "Hans Kammler," and some of those people ended up with us. Essentially, the Bell was a device that involved the same rotating pools of mercury that played a role in making flying machines fly, called Vimanas, described in detail in the Vimana Shastra. However, they took it a step farther, with opposite rotating drums involved and other stuff, and things got very wierd - and sometimes deadly side effects - later. The side effects had nothing to do with mercuery poisoning, but with exposure to the electromagnetic field it produced, at some frequencies at least.
"Never mind physics. The best bet is NOT to come up with some math and then do the engineering, just tinker around, see what works, and figure out the math later."
ReplyDeleteO boy does this show a lack of understanding of how science works! Theory and practice advance side by side. At one point a theoretician will do the math and come up with a prediction which he then asks the experimentalists to test in a machine they build. But at another time an experimentalist will come up with a result he finds anomalous and present it to the theoretician for explanation. BOTH go on.
So if the military look into something that mainstream scientists say doesn't work and then go quiet it means that they are on to something? I say it means they have found nothing and don't want to admit it. What evidence have you that the military are on to something with Townsend Brown's antigravity work? Against them is: Einstein's theory of gravity, now tested very accurately indeed and incompatible with antigravity (and with electromagnetism including capacitanc taken account of via the stress-energy tensor); the fact that Townsend Brown did his work 50 years ago and nothing has yet come out of the military which applies it - all military aeroplanes still stay aloft by having wings, and the military is notoriously leaky with tis secrets; the fact that Brown put his work in the public domain via publications and patents and nobody has built a working antigravity device despite the enormous incentive.
We don't believe everything we read in the media, do we? Junk science is no different.
Christine,
ReplyDeleteI was talking about racial policies, not what should be done with the mentally incapable.
*Reversible* sterilization of women who are mentally incapable to the extent that they are neither capable nor incapable of giving or witholding informed consent, and whose families choose to place them in the care of the State, can be argued for on the reasonable grounds that somebody is likely to take advantage of them and that any child will not have a mother capable of caring for them. That is very different from the eugenic argument that the disability will supposedly pollute the population pool. If their families choose (and it shold be a choice) to put them in the care of the State then it is right that the State should have a say in how they are cared for.
As one of the websites you quote says: eugenics was proposed by an elite in all Western countries, and made some headway; but withered in UK and USA when people understood what it meant, whereas in Nazi Germany it didn't. Does that make UK and USA better than Nazi Germany? You bet! Just because we are all sinners does not mean that we cannot compare degrees of evil. That is why there are different punishments in Mosaic Law.
theory and practice advance side by side - fine, when they do. Sometimes it is practice that forces theory.
ReplyDeleteAs for racial policies and eugenics, first, the sterilization thing soon followed by euthanasia in Nazi Germany, first targetted inferior Aryans then moved farther afield.
Sterilization might be a good thing for some people, and no it is not always reversable, depends on the kind of operation done, but it should not be mandatory.
Now, our racial policies as you may note, were such that interracial marriages were illegal in most states, and the whole procedure a la Jim Crow and a policy of looking the other way when anti black violence erupted, never got as far as extermination because there wasn't enough covert organization at the government level to do this, and not enough desire.
THESE POLICIES, WHICH ISOLATE, IDENTIFY, FORBID RACE MIXING, AND SO FORTH, were the inspiration to the Nuremberg race laws, which was part of a planned advance step by step to more severe measures.
While some Nazis advocated the Madagascar Solution, deportation of Jews to a manufactured homeland off Africa, the Final Solution was chosen instead.
Nazi Germany took barely expressed sentiments that were made into policies and laws in their lesser manifestations, here, and was able to take them the next step.
What is also important to note, is the presence within legislatures of people who would vote for them, and sterlization of the unfit, in the context of entrenched RACIAL THEORY in the USA, would have eventually led to sterlization on the basis of race alone, if it had not been knocked out of play altogether, along with racial laws.
There is a tendency to view the actions of outsiders as characteristic, and the actions of those of "our own" as aberrations.
Be assured that all the actions of our people, that we view as aberrations, are viewed as characteristic by outsiders on the receiving end, which adds to anti americanism, always has.
Now, there has been a covert policy of sterilization, without informing them, of Native American women in this country with an outrageous percentage of some tribes' women being sterilized, to the present.
In examining a country you don't just look at the laws, you also need to look at what is really going on, and when you have racist pseudo science and an upsurge of eugenic respectability (by the way, the Genome Project tracks back in the sense of organization pedigree, that is, it came from another organization that came from yet another organization, to some Nazi operation originally, through how many degrees I forget), and you have institutional and professional networks of like minded people, you have all the mechanism in place you need for anything up to another holocaust, regardless of target, restrained only by fear of lawsuits and so forth which do, thank God, tend to slow these developments.
The USA is big enough, AND CENTRALIZED ENOUGH that nothing can usually get entrenched nationwide forever, and the bad stuff in one location, raising the outrage of people in another location, can at the latter's insistence be shut down by the action of the central government, to some extent, if enough are in it that agree with the outraged outsiders to the problem location, or have other motivations to do as they want.
"Does that make UK and USA better than Nazi Germany? You bet! "
ReplyDeleteI didn't say it didn't. what I said was, essentially, that the laws and ideas and plans that sometimes didn't get to the level of law, in the US and UK especially the US were an inspiration to Hitler who borrowed and built on them.
And YES THE EUGENIC REASON NOT MERE HARMFUL INCOMPETENCE WAS THE EXPLICIT DRIVER IN MANY STATES FOR THE LAWS.
Hitler's taking it to the next level, merely made everything look very bad, and shamed the foundation level operatives back into the shadows, and the ideas fell out of favor, because now they could be pointed at as "nazi" when they cropped up. It was a PR disaster.
Anon: eugenics was proposed by an elite in all Western countries, and made some headway; but withered in UK and USA when people understood what it meant, whereas in Nazi Germany it didn't. Does that make UK and USA better than Nazi Germany? You bet!
ReplyDeleteChristine: I say it didn't.
Nuff said.
The scripture about the sheep and the goats (which could be used to support a works-based salvation) needs to be balanced with the other "separation time in the end" passage, Matthew 7:21-23:
ReplyDelete"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
True salvation brings repentance, and works follow. But works alone do not suffice.
I said that "in the end" the only thing that matters is the spiritual, because we can take none of our stuff with us. By "in the end", I mean when we stand before God. While we are here, yes, we have physical needs - to say otherwise is silly. But.... what are truly "needs" and what are "wants"? A good question, and one that I raised in my prisoner scenario.
I want to highlight two things by all that I've said so far. First is that by meeting the physical needs of people we must not ignore their spiritual needs. Second is that if we get too focused on making life good in the physical and in the here and now, then we run the risk of pulling attention away from the life to come:
Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. -- Colossians 3:2
I am NOT justifying the attitude of, as was said above, "...THE GREEDY AND HEARTLESS WHICH SAYS, "HOW DARE OTHERS SPEAK OUT AGAINST SUFFERING, THEY'RE ENVIOUS, GIVE THEM NOTHING!!!""
I merely state that some use envy to stir up a rebellious and revolutionary spirit among those who are suffering materially. This attitude is very prevalent in the Occupy groups. It will be a big part of what makes the New Age come into being everywhere. People are focused on their RIGHTS so much, and on the fact that some have more than others (Envy), and that somehow that isn't FAIR, that they will accept anything in place of the current arrangements.
I'm not saying that the current system is without fault. It has it's faults. But do not equate capitalism with greed - they are not the same. To the extent that people are greedy and envious, capitalism shows its failures. It works best among moral, selfless people, who are getting more and more difficult to find.
[Wed, Jan 4]
"To the extent that people are greedy and envious, capitalism shows its failures. It works best among moral, selfless people, who are getting more and more difficult to find."
ReplyDeleteActually communism would work pretty well among moral selfless people too. But it can't create them - its problem is that it asserts man can be perfected by social engineering rather than by divine cleansing. Also, capitalism works by incentives, making it more effective.
For advocacy and defense of capitalism on moral grounds, see Wealth and Poverty by George Gilder.
Marko at 9:07 am,
ReplyDeleteI am the poster you've just responded to. I am encouraged by your reply, and apologizee for sounding harsh and too frank. ON your point about needs and wants, however, I still say that those who have such [not necessarily sinful] wants satiated should love their neighbors as themselves and create as best possible an environment in which such can be truly acheived by all through merit and real opportunity. To do otherwise I can read as being nothing but greed, sorry. This means access to real education opportunities for all and therefore real job opportunities and earning capacities for all.
Truly equitable meritocratic principles are not incompatible with a free-market/capitalist economy.
Thanks for your calm reply and clarification.
A friend.
Anon 9:38:
ReplyDeleteThere's also a book called "Is Capitalism Christian?" which is out of print and is a collection of essays investigating that question. It is a good reference book.
Didn't George Gilder get kind of New Agey in some of his writings? Perhaps not with Wealth and Poverty, but others?
Another classic, which I have not read, but it's on my "read this eventually" list, is The Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith. This was *the* reference book of economics for generations, and was published, I believe, in 1776.
PS, I say, "not necessarily sinful" wants, in my last post because if truly equitable principles (such as those I've just indicated) are implemented then such a want, provided the thing in itself is not sinful, is not made sinful by otherwise greed and ingnorance of the suffering done to others by inaction and action.
ReplyDeleteThanks
Anon 11:20:
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind reply. In at least one important matter, we are not in disagreement, as I agree with your statement above: "What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?"
We can argue all day about the various economic arrangements that might be best implemented to achieve equity (or even if "economic equity" is something that should be attempted), but I'd like to keep focused on what we may see being advanced in the coming weeks and months that would further the New Age cause.
Constance has focused in her shows quite a bit lately about the large impediment to higher education that the cost of that education creates. This is a good example of what is broken. My suspicions, however, are that the cure is going to be worse than the disease. That, I think, is one way of describing the New Age Movement in a nutshell. They propose a cure for all of our ills.
Sin is the problem, Jesus is the cure. All other cures are only Band-Aids, and the underlying problem doesn't go away. All other cures, in the end, are spiritually fatal.
Marko,
ReplyDeleteThis is Anon@9:38am (NB I am not Anon@11:20am). George Gilder has also written, fairly recently, a fine book about the State of Israel. Whether he has written anything New Agey I don't know, but two good books is two more than most people write.
Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations is indeed the founding tome of modern economics, although Smith did not understand the concept of marginal utility - that entered the theory only in the 19th century. He continually revised it, so various editions and abridgements exist today. Smith emphasised that his work applied only in a sufficiently moral milieu, in which contract law could be enforced without corruption and you did not have to pay endless bribes to get business done. He also came out with some tart comments in later editions comparing the cost of defending the North American colonies from the French against the amount of tax revenue they paid. These commments seldom appear in US editions.
I agree with Marko as far as a
ReplyDeleteprioritization of the spiritual over
the material.
There is something else to throw into
the equation; namely that Jesus said
things like "my flesh is food indeed,
and my blood is drink indeed" and
He said: "I Am the bread of life."
And John calls him the Word of God.
And Jesus said "I have food that you
don't know of. My bread is to do
the will of my father in heaven."
When I add these things up, my
conclusion is that we should be
doing both things, but that when
we give material things we should
also make it known that we do it
in the name of Jesus.
_Just my two cents
In the end, we do not have material needs at all. We only have spiritual ones.
ReplyDeleteTry living without food, water, and shelter for any length of time and you will see that you do indeed have "material" needs, however basic they may be.
You are every bit as swaggerlingly confident in your rightwing Christianity as the Soujourners people are in their leftwing Christianity, and probably equally as well-read, but you are both wrong.
Lest you think I am calling for a "Third Way", let me be clear I am not. The only "Way" is the Way of the Cross, the essence of which is not smug contentment but sacrifice.
I thought they were going to announce they found Big Foot... what a disappointment
ReplyDeleteBTW, MARKO, if we have no material needs at all and only spiritual ones, then stop eating, drinking, sleeping, staying warm and sheltered, well clothed etc ...let alone needs for medicines .... no? Then you contradict yourself. Luckily, however, God does not contradict Himself and is not the author of confusion!!!
ReplyDeleteSo true! Some of the early gnostic sects made outrageous claims about the incarnation, including that Jesus did not digest food in the same way as ordinary humans.
Spirit and matter are not the same but in Christianity they are intricately linked. There is a great danger when Christians start separating the spiritual from matter. There is a very good book called "Against the Protestant Gnostics" which addresses this issue.
I would like to add a comment about spiritual needs and Christian obligation with respect to those needs.
ReplyDeleteThere is a story I heard once about Thomas Aquinas. Early in his career he had gained great fame not only for his scholarly brilliance but also for his personal sanctity. One time while home on vacation he was asked by one of his young relatives, "Thomas, what must one do to become holy?"
Now, when most people hear this question, they murmur the following answer with quiet confidence: "Love God."
"Love God" however was not Thomas's answer. His answer was as follows:
"WILL IT."
Going back through and reading my comments, I can see how they might be taken as being similar to the Gnostic heresies in the early church.
ReplyDeleteTo clarify, I am talking only of priorities, and am not trying to promote a position that mirrors those beliefs in any way.
Marko, I feel confident, however, that if someone asks you for water or food or shelter you will help them with that...
ReplyDeleteI also agree with Paul's '2 cents worth'
Anon 11:20
Clear back to the first post on this blog, thank you to Al Teoh for sharing that link on Prince Charles. That was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteFurther comments on the video:
ReplyDeleteRegina Meredith: More Thoughts on Global Economic Restructuring
Conscious Media Network, 01-03-2012
http://www.cmn.tv/blog/more-thoughts...restructuring/
When we were approached to post this statement, we understood that it would be like blowing smoke in the beehive of the alternative news communities but we had a gut reaction to go ahead with it.
Many of the comments about the video were concerned that we are all being conned. Perhaps. Many others were justifiably critical that there are few details involved in the statement. As far as I know, the statement was designed to simply put the concept out that our monetary and economic systems are crumbling and that something has been built underneath in its place.
As I mentioned in the video, I spent some time speaking with the person who drafted the statement and they pointed out that there would be a great deal of public education that would follow in attempting to explain this new economic/business model in which “individual meritocracy” would be the goal.
Here is the definition that was given:
“Meritocracy, as it is applied to the new system, is an ideology of the system and it is an intended, individualized result.
This is not meritocracy as that term may be understood in a political sense, but is more a type of approach to enterprise administration (economic, socio-economic, humanitarian) that provides the best tools and capital for individuals/groups/NGO’s/SME’s and so on to excel and to thrive. Individualized meritocracy is what results from this approach.
For example, the removal of capital constraints coupled with greater access to external support mechanisms can enable many people to develop, implement and fund cogent plans to achieve optimum sustainable results in their personal lives and in almost any field of endeavor. It is the achievement of the highest levels of one’s individual performance – unleashed potential.
That’s just a part of the new system by the way. It goes well beyond that.”
We can read ‘New World Order’ into this if we choose, but we have no evidence whether or not this is another of their plans to enslave humanity. I can only say that the “feeling” I got when speaking with the man was one of genuineness, pragmatism and openness. This isn’t to say I can’t be fooled, but there was no glitz, no premature promises, just a clear position of intent that he assured me is backed up by many powerful people.
We are quick to point fingers but no-one seems to be working on a viable solution other than people like Michael Tellinger and his Contributionism Party in South Africa, or Michael St.Clair’s Radiant Zones.
That people are skeptical is completely understandable particularly with a heinous act such as the NDAA that Obama signed into law the same day as this announcement. But when does the time arrive that we dare to accept that something profound, even beautiful, can happen? Are we so beaten down by fear and anger that beauty and prosperity is no longer a part of our inner yearning? We are the creators of our experience. It would certainly seem to be to our advantage to give those people behind this message time to prove it. What do we have to lose except the fear that we are being made fools of? It wouldn’t be the first time. What are we gaining in holding on to our guarded, finger-pointing, defeatist beliefs that we are being ‘controlled’ by others and will be succumbing to even more control in the future?
Nkosazana
Finishing the quote:
ReplyDeleteI have had private conversations with individuals that have intelligence from the inside that there is noticeable in-fighting within these wealthy families and within governments. We are moving into a cosmic energetic alignment that will not allow for the old patterns to continue. Listen to our interview with Jessica Murray on this.
Furthermore, I have also come to understand that the true elite, the wealthiest people on the planet, are not known to any of us. We can only guess at, and project, what their role is in this. Is it fair to assume that they all wish to see humanity suffer? That is a naive assumption on our part. Bob Neveritt speaks of this in our wild ride of an interview this month in the Radio section.
Being an admitted optimist, I personally feel a sense of change in the air. I feel as though some invisible doors have been opened to the human race for new opportunity. If the message on Global Economic Restructuring is truthful, we may just be pleasantly surprised at what life on this planet might look like in the near future. "
Nkosazana
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES: DECEIVED DECEIVERS #4 - EMBARRASSING QUESTIONS FOR JWs: "CAN DEMONS REPENT?"
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=605acMIg-VQ
Here is an additional audio statement from James’s own radio show on Jan 1. 2012 at Achieve Radio further substantiating Martinez's efforts.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.achieveradio.com/archplayer.php?showname=Cash%20Flow%20with%20James%20Martinez&sn=66&ShowURL=http://audio.achieveradio.com/cash-flow/2012-01-01--0000---Cash_Flow.mp3
Sorry it wouldn't make a tiny url
Nkosazana,
ReplyDeleteAnd the human race, which has been
morally corrupt for the last 5,000 years
is going to change it's tune now ?
And the new system won't be another
system to exploit and pervert by
the aggressive elements in the human
race ?
I could believe that you're sincere.
I could even believe that the person
that you spoke with, ( who is of
course Anonymous, ), is,
let's just say for brevitys' sake,
sincere; how much suspension-of-
disbelief are we expected to apply?
This is like going to a major
Hollywood blockbuster movie and
seeing Brad Pitt and once again
play along and believe that he's
really the character in the story and
not an actor named Brad Pitt.
You're dreaming.
There will be no peace
and the war won't cease
until He returns.
There is nothing new under the sun.
Paul I didn't speak to him...I am reporting only. The following url I put above and forgot to sign as Nkosazana...gives his follow up and explanantion..though it takes awhile for him to share it. Nkosazana
ReplyDeleteMy own feeling is we are seeing the tip of the iceberg that will turn out to be "the mark of the beast's" system. Nkosazana
ReplyDeleteEMBARRASSING QUESTIONS FOR JWs: "CAN DEMONS REPENT?"
ReplyDeleteNo doubt they got this doctrine from Shakespeare's Tempest.
Sorry Nkosazana,
ReplyDeleteI lost track of the quotation marks.
I guess my comment is directed at
the person whom you were quoting.
On another note;
Could the resident Physics PhD
please check the comments at the
end of 2 threads ago ?
Anon@1:36 p.m.
ReplyDeleteYes, spirit and matter in Christianity are linked but are still distinct.
I call it the materialist only mentality that denies anything spiritual and the other one is the spiritual only that denies anything material.
Savvy
"On another note;
ReplyDeleteCould the resident Physics PhD
please check the comments at the
end of 2 threads ago ?"
By definition, this person won't have any understanding of the issue. While a lot of BS circulates in terms of alternative stuff, there is a core of reality as shown by "it works" when it does.
Take for instance cold fusion. the Japanese are pouring money into this research, and they aren't fools. The big oil and so forth people have a track record of buying patents and keeping them from use, since the foolish inventors broadcast it would free everyone from dependence on them, and that would break their power.
The premise behind some of this, is the presence of a kind of electrically convertible to use for lack of a better phrase, field in existence - it relates to efforts to make a unified field theory, which so far has mostly failed, probably because something is being left out of the equations.
Another part of "free energy" would depend merely on tapping some already known stuff, so would be earth dependent and useless in space, except in the presence of comparable fields.
Of interest in this, is the fact, ignored by people who deplore the takedown of Tesla's transmit electrical power through the ground tower, that the thing when in operation triggered a small earthquake.
Some people have got what is called dirty electricity by plugging wires into trees and the ground. This has to be cleaned up by running through capacitors and resistors before it can be used to make anything work.
(what heavy use by everyone for all kind of appliances would do to the trees is anyone's guess, more environmental issues looming on that horizon.)
what you have to do, is get a mathematician, a physicist, and a tinkerer, to wade through Farrell, Bearden, DePalma, Valone and some others, and sort the mess (and some of it IS a mess, I don't do math well, let alone algebra and stuff like that, but I can see problems in Bearden's and other's writings not mentioned here that are real serious and border on quack, either because they are bumbling around trying to make sense of stuff or they are deliberately phrasing things to hide what they do know, so as to keep making money advising on how to make occasionally working stuff work consistently or just sound like they know stuff. "scalar waves" strike me as a bad term for whatever this is, but phased conjugate whatnot plays a role in some experiments in Russia, and in HAARP, basically you magnify, pulse, and bounce something back and forth, similar to the principle of a laser but not with light and not the same either. At this point you are moving into the zone of how to blow yourself and a lot of other people up.)
Just do the research on HAARP, and find those patents that are back of it, and you are right into the alternative energy scene again.
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.18e9e5692442aa61d7510553b5ffc14e.8b1 The UN is INDEED pushing for a global currency, to replace the existing global currency (the American dollar, no one seemed to mind or consider this a NWO issue to denounce, or a mystical wonderfulness to praise as long as it was the dollar, maybe because it has pragmatically irrelevant associations in everyone's minds).
ReplyDeleteSo however loopy a New Age source on this might seem, the issue is real.
Jehovah's Witnesses and Scary FACTS!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykKBNZLByyk&feature=related
The Watchtower Society & Occult Connections
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRvGX9XqF10
Fritz Springmeier the watch tower society and the masons 1st edition full length
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae204JlcngI&feature=related
The Watchtower Society Origins Are Right Under Your Nose
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJCijM2cQUk&feature=fvwrel
Russell's pyramid
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=56yTEriTa6Y&feature=related
Charles Taze Russell - 33rd Degree Freemason founder of the jehovah witnesses
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsU45pBvRNU&feature=related
JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES PLEASE WAKE UP!!!!!!!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KviSrV0ZMjY&feature=related
Charles Taze Russell and Pyramidology
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAECWW9oX9M
Charles Taze Russell and racism part 1
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kETvp5hQ-8
Charles Taze Russell and Racism part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t47qcfMKjI
Charles Taze Russell was the nephew of William Huntington Russell ... illuminati thug, part of the Russell ~Illuminati Bloodlines
ReplyDeleteCharles Taze Russell and Racism part 1
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kETvp5hQ-8
Charles Taze Russell and Racism part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1t47qcfMKjI
The Spirit World Guided (JW leader & successor from C T Russell) Joseph F Rutherford
ReplyDeletehttp://www.seanet.com/~raines/guided.html
Am re-posing this here from the previous thread on the, "Earth Charter in Action, occupy wall st" page, just so it's not missed.
ReplyDeleteAnon at 5:50 am
You wrote,
"Diana's death was very clearly an accident."
Nonsense! It was no accident. The French / Parisian emergency services were unavailable for about 20 minutes at the time of Diana's death. Unprecedented in any Western country.
It took approximately two hours before a doctor was allowed anywhere near Diana.
A powerful light was probably used as the cause of the crash. Unlikely to be a papparazzi camera and far stronger too. Oh... and that mysterious white Fiat never found.
There was alot of speculation as to whether any alchohol was drunk by Henri Paul at all. If Dodi and Di had booked into another hotel they'd have been followed from there too, and arrangements adapted. Moreover, only two days before the incident / 'accident' he passed a rigorous medical to renew his flying license. The medical found no signs of alcoholism. He most likely worked for the secret services, despite the coroner's unfounded denial.
Then there was the letter Di wrote about someone (she thought her husband, though I doubt it was)was going to have her murdered and make it look like a car accident.
Then there is the symbology of crashing into the 13th pillar, shining the light into H. Paul's eyes just at the right moment. The fact that the Pont de l'Alma tunnel was once the spot where a temple to the moon and the so-called goddess Diana stood.
http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/princess-dianas-death-and-memorial-the-occult-meaning/
Am re-posing this here from the previous thread on the, "Earth Charter in Action, occupy wall st" page, just so it's not missed.
ReplyDeleteAnon at 5:50 am
You wrote,
"Diana's death was very clearly an accident."
Nonsense! It was no accident. The French / Parisian emergency services were unavailable for about 20 minutes at the time of Diana's death. Unprecedented in any Western country.
It took approximately two hours before a doctor was allowed anywhere near Diana.
A powerful light was probably used as the cause of the crash. Unlikely to be a papparazzi camera and far stronger too. Oh... and that mysterious white Fiat never found.
There was alot of speculation as to whether any alchohol was drunk by Henri Paul at all. If Dodi and Di had booked into another hotel they'd have been followed from there too, and arrangements adapted. Moreover, only two days before the incident / 'accident' he passed a rigorous medical to renew his flying license. The medical found no signs of alcoholism. He most likely worked for the secret services, despite the coroner's unfounded denial.
Then there was the letter Di wrote about someone (she thought her husband, though I doubt it was)was going to have her murdered and make it look like a car accident.
Then there is the symbology of crashing into the 13th pillar, shining the light into H. Paul's eyes just at the right moment. The fact that the Pont de l'Alma tunnel was once the spot where a temple to the moon and the so-called goddess Diana stood.
http://vigilantcitizen.com/vigilantreport/princess-dianas-death-and-memorial-the-occult-meaning/
The Diana conspiratorialist at 3.26am was responding to the following comment:
ReplyDelete"Diana's death was very clearly an accident. OK, it suited the Royal Family to have her out of the way, but assassination attempts on such people have two characteristics, both for obvious reasons: (1) deniability; (2) inevitability. A good example would be expert tampering with an aircraft in which somebody is to fly. Diana's death, if deliberately engineered, certainly had plausible deniability - it could easily be said to be an accident. But it was very far indeed from being inevitable. The driver might have stayed sober. Dodi might have avoided the photographers by booking in at the Ritz where they had spent the evening, a hotel owned by his father. He might have told the driver to take a different route with a better chance of losing them. Or brazened it out. They might have been wearing the safety belts with which the car was provided. If there is a conspiracy about her death, it was in the councils of heaven (eg, Job 1,2) not on earth."
Anon@3:26am,
ReplyDeleteEverybody at this website appreciates a good conspiracy, but as has been said here many times, not all conspiracy theories are equal.
Regarding Princess Diana's death, you wrote: "Nonsense! It was no accident. The French / Parisian emergency services were unavailable for about 20 minutes at the time of Diana's death. Unprecedented in any Western country. It took approximately two hours before a doctor was allowed anywhere near Diana."
Acording to the Wikipedia page on the accident, the crash is estimated to have happened at 1223 and the first police patrol cars arrived at 1230. Given how long it must have taken for whichever pursuing paparazzo to make an emergency call, probably exiting the tunnel on foot to get radio/mobile phone reception, that is perfectly normal. A *doctor* pronounced Dodi dead at the scene at 0132, so doctors were there in at most half the time you state, probably much less, and doctors are trained to assess who is in most need of the care they can provide in view of the fact that backup is coming.
"Oh... and that mysterious white Fiat never found."
If you'd been driving it, and believed that you might be fingered for causing the death of a princess, what would you do?
"Then there is the symbology of crashing into the 13th pillar, shining the light into H. Paul's eyes just at the right moment. The fact that the Pont de l'Alma tunnel was once the spot where a temple to the moon and the so-called goddess Diana stood."
We may believe what we like about that; it has nothing to do with whether there was a human conspiracy to murder Diana in a car crash that night. But you can't consistently assert (as you do) that these things are significant and then say the crash would still have happened if they'd driven another route.
Read up on a history of assassination attempts on prominent people. The assassins do all they can to reduce uncertain factors. When they fail, it is because of further factors they hadn't considered and over which they failed to exert control. The number of uncontrollable factors if Diana's death really were deliberate was massive. That is simply not how methodical assassins work. All of the other things you quote are, rightly, couched in the language of uncertainty.
Things that no assassin could have controlled: The driver might have stayed sober. Dodi might have avoided the photographers by booking in at the Ritz where they had spent the evening, a hotel owned by his father. He might have told the driver to take a different route with a better chance of losing them. Or brazened it out. They might have been wearing the safety belts with which the car was provided.
Any assassination attempt would have taken place in a much more carefully controlled situation. Diana's death was an accident. Her own sons believe that and they would surely speak out if they believed otherwise. One of them is going to be king.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteThis is the PhD physicist. What was good in Tesla's work has long since been absorbed into the mainstream of physics, while what wasn't has been rejected (except by a few people who are not humble enough to accept that they are not experts; I don't mean you).
It is in fact rational to continue investigation of fringe physics like zeropoint energy extraction and cold fusion, simply because the stakes are so high. If you google "e-cat" then you will get a far more interesting approach to cold fusion than the 1989 one or the Japanese one mentioned elsewhere on this thread. Will it work? My present response is: "If I have to bet today then I'd bet not, but let's wait and see, as we should know in a few months."
When such things turn out not to work, they fade quietly out of the news. Trouble is that you then get people who are not trained physicists and who have a conspiratorial mindset suggesting that the military are developing it in secret, the oil companies bought the patent in order to sit on it, etc. But patents are in the public domain for every scientist in China and India to read, and they don't give a damn about Western patent law. And the military investigated antigravity (for instance) FIFTY years ago and is notoriously leaky, yet no leak or no wingless aeroplane has emerged. The conspiratorialists like to characterise mainstream scientists as closed-minded and say things like "By definition, this person won't have any understanding of the issue" (I have lifted this quote from the present thread). The fact is that we are research scientists because it is our passion to determine what is true in the physical world and what isn't (if we want money we go into Wall St instead), and every time technology improves we go back to do the crucial experiments more accurately, in some cases to accuracies of 1 in a billion. It suits conspiratorialists to make their excuses not to take physics degrees, because they get kicks by chatting over the phrase 'Just maybe' and if they got properly educated then they'd have no excuse to talk nonsense any more.
This goes all the way back to "Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger" and the legitimizing of envy that such books advance.
ReplyDeleteClaiming that those who question the quasi-religion of the free market are "legitimizing envy" is an erroneous claim. It reminds me of liberal "progressives" who cite Fred Phelps with the claim that all (or most) Christians have bigoted agenda and "hate" homosexuals.
The fact that one holds a dim view of Market Capitalism however does not mean that individual is "envious" of the rich, nor does it mean that they believe that the lazy, ill, and marginalized (those unable to find work) should have the "same" or "similar" material lifestyles as those of taxpayers.
A system such as Market Capitalism which offers material incentives, has little to offer Marko who claims the "material things" are so insignificant to a Christian. As such, his embrace of such a system as "superior" is a claim riddled with contradictions. In fact, given how the Christian Faith flourished under Communist Oppression, I would have expected Marko, with his anti-Materialist views, to embrace Marxism as the "best system" since, in his view, (a) material well-being is irrelevent to the Christian and (2) so many great saints rose up under Communist oppression.
Obviously I don't share Marko's anti-matter view of Christian spirituality, but merely raise this issue to point out the glaring contradictions his own words have revealed.
Rich Christians In An Age Of Hunger was right about the problem of hardheartedness but poor on the solution, ie government to take peoples money involuntarily as tax that then subsidises laziness and keeps people in the poverty trap. Because the book was part right, part wrong, the argument rattles on, each side making good points while ignoring the weakness in their own position.
ReplyDeleteThanks, doc !
ReplyDelete_Because I'd read somewhere that the
gigantic explosion in Siberia back in
1908 was the result of Tesla trying
( and succeeding ) to transmit power
wirelessly, but perhaps that isn't
plausible now ?
Have you any thoughts on that
explosion, or have you ever looked
into it ? I mean, it was big. Really
really big.
see: Tunguska 1908
On another note:
Like a lot of people, I've noticed that
my own ego is a preening irrational
Narcissist. I don't like it. I try to
subdue it. Yet there it is: petty,
vengeful, and spiteful. I thank God
for His Holy Spirit, which gently
and patiently tries continually to
reason with this foolish beast
inside. Over time and with Gods'
grace, maybe the little idiot will
take his rightful place down the
ladder, providing necessary impetus
to my overall system which would
otherwise be overly passive.
For instance, I've decided that things
like a PhD in physics is really an
accomplishment that takes a lot
of hard work and ought not be
marginalized or ignored if a
discussion is, say, about physics.
Good thinking, huh ?
Congratulations to me.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteI agree that we all have to fight our own pride. It comes up in the most unexpected ways.
Best inference on the Tunguska explosion is a meteor that burned up in the atmosphere. That is consistent with eye witness accounts and subsequent investigations of the damage. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunguska_event
There was some excitement when a couple of decades ago somebody maintained that reports from different eyewitnesses of its trajectory implied that it turned, and 'must' therefore have been an alien spacecraft in trouble. But closer investigation revealed that the reports were consistent with each other. (The conspiratorial mindset stops when it finds an anomaly and typically refuses to believe the reconciliation when it is pointed out.)
If you want a *real* science mystery, there's always ball lightning. Every theory of it explains all but one or two of its characteristic features, but each theory fails on a different feature. Personally I am impressed by the latest hypothesis, that the electromagnetic fields generated within 100 yards of a large multipulse lightning strike are capable of exciting the neurons in the brain that link to the optic nerve. In other words, it is an illusion, but not one that is due to witness unreliability. This suggestion can be tested in adapted MRI scan machines. There has been some work already, but more is awaited.
TONIGHT on MY PERSPECTIVE INTERNET RADIO, I will be discussing updated issues on the "COLLIDER" projects. Reporter Ron Seigel will be my guest.
ReplyDeletewww. themicroeffect.com
re RICH CHRISTIANS IN AN AGE OF HUNGER. Author was Ron Sider who had a distinctly New Age agenda. He revealed it more and more as he went, including but not limited to recommending Joanna Macy's books!
ReplyDeleteConstance
Ron Seigel is deeply against the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Europe's main particle accelerator/collider laboratory.
ReplyDeleteI am a research physicist with a doctorate from the University of Cambridge, generally accepted as Europe's top physics university, and I have undertaken a decade of postdoctoral research in the physics department there and at two other major universities.
I have googled Ron Seigel and it is fairly to me that he literally doesn't understand what he is talking about. Here are his own words:
http://truthspeaker.wordpress.com/tag/haldron-collider/feed/
http://michigancitizen.com/stop-paying-for-our-endangerment-p10630-76.htm
The LHC is a pure research project. Seigel makes one good point about that: "The project does not involve our national defense. It seems to involve nothing more than the satisfaction of scientific curiosity and perhaps the exhilaration of playing God."
Seigel contrasts the 'good' USA with the 'bad' Europe, but he seems to be unaware that a couple of decades ago the USA cancelled its own version of the LHC - even larger than the LHC - the Superconducting Supercollider (SSC) in Texas. The cancellation was for financial reasons, not spiritual or scientific ones. The great physicist Dick Feynman was once asked by a general how a particular research machine would aid US defense. Feynman replied that it would help to make the USA worth defending.
25 years ago the USA had Fermilab and Europe had CERN, friendly rivals. After the SSC was cancelled, Europe had to decide whether to fund CERN to build the next generation of particle accelerators alone. It chose to. I agree that there are political arguments why any nation should consider whether it should contribute financially to the LHC. That is a political argument involving financial priorities in which scientists are just one lobbying group. But Seigel conflates this argument with some invalid scientific and spiritual arguments. His worry that the LHC might create black holes which might swallow the earth is nonsense, as I would be prepared to show in scientific detail. He also speaks sceptically about the Big Bang. The Big Bang is the scientific account of the start of the universe, ie the universe had a beginning. It comes out of Einstein's general theory of relativity, worked out about 100 years ago. Before that, scientists generally presumed that the universe had always been there. Now look at the Book of Genesis. It opens: In the beginnihg God created the heavens and the earth. In other words the universe had a beginning. So, 4000 years after God told us so, scientists worked out the fact that there was a beginning in their own strength, and filled in some of the details. As a Christian and a physicist I find it distressing that men like Seigel deny the obvious concordance of science and scripture, presumably because they focus on subordinate issues like the meaning of the seven YOM of creation in Genesis. Let's keep perspective and put first things first.
We physicists do not play God in a manner filled with pride, as Seigel suggests. Were he to join physicists at their coffee breaks he would find the opposite, that we feel humble in the face of the laws which govern the material universe. as a Christian I believe that those laws were ordained by God the Creator, but I have no problem in working with secular colleagues who simply recognise the beauty in those laws and wish to investigate the resulting patterns more deeply. That was the motivation of the first scientists; it is not a coincidence that science arose in a Christian rather than a pagan milieu.
Quote: (The conspiratorial mindset stops when it finds an anomaly and typically refuses to believe the reconciliation when it is pointed out.)
ReplyDeleteYep.
On another note:
I hope the physicist has a chance to call in to Constance's show tonight!
Marko,
ReplyDeleteThe physicist is not, alas, in North America, and has too slow a broadband connection for audio. Also, I prefer to contend rhetorically in print, rather than in real time where a smart putdown can defeat a valid point of logic. BTW I appreciate your contributions to Constance's threads.
Rich Christians In An Age Of Hunger was right about the problem of hardheartedness but poor on the solution, ie government to take peoples money involuntarily as tax that then subsidises laziness and keeps people in the poverty trap...
ReplyDeleteAre you saying the millions of people in the third world (including children) who die of hunger and malnutrition each year simply "lazy"? Please clarify.
Anon@6.14pm,
ReplyDeleteNo. I was talking about welfarism *within* nations. As for helping the 3rd world, I approve of private charity but disapprove of Western governments sending tax revenue as aid. That is most certainly not their job.
What the 3rd world needs above all is better morality. Small businesses create wealth but you simply cannot get them going in places where you have to hand out bribes to get anything done, where your workforce will steal from your factory, where you cannot enforce contract law against defaulting suppliers and purchasers, etc etc. The third world is poor because it is immoral. So how can we give them morality? Enter Christ...
William Huntington Russell, Co-Founder of Skull and Bones , Founder of Collegiate and Commercial Institute, New Haven, Connecticut; Connecticut Legislator (1846-7); Major General, Connecticut National Guard (1862–70)
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Huntington_Russell
Of the Russell Illuminati bloodline, uncle to Charles Taze Russell, founder of the Jehovah's Witnesses
http://en.wikipedia.org/
ReplyDeletewiki/William_Huntington_Russell
Interestingly, William Huntington Russell married old mother Hubbard ... now where have I heared that name before Barbara?
ReplyDeleteAlso with a double barreled surname and Marx too boot!!
Name: William Huntington RUSSELL
Born: 12 Aug 1809 at:
Married: 29 Aug 1836 at:
Died: 19 May 1885 at:
Spouses: Mary E. HUBBARD
The Watchtower and the Masons [free e-book pdf ] by Christian political prisoner, Fritz Springmeier
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jesus-is-savior.com/False%20Religions/Illuminati/watchtower-masons.pdf
Dear Paul,
ReplyDeleteRe:On another note:
Like a lot of people, I've noticed that my own ego is a preening irrational Narcissist. I don't like it. I try to subdue it. Yet there it is: petty,vengeful, and spiteful. I thank God for His Holy Spirit, which gently and patiently tries continually to reason with this foolish beast inside.
I could not have put it better.
Overcoming my own inner "foolish beast" with the help of God's grace is key to fighting the good fight.
It is the Book of Wisdom that informs us "the corruptible body is a load upon the soul" (Wisdom 9:15).
But it was St. Francis of Asissi who wryly referred to his own body as "Brother Ass."
Pax vobiscum! :-)
Regarding the video content:
ReplyDeleteAn expansive update by James Martinez has been promised no later than Jan 14th with much more detail.
The thing I find very interesting as I have researched all this is that the endgame by Satan is a bit fragmented. I suppose that makes a certain degree of sense if there is indeed, "no honor among thieves". There seems to be at least three plans a foot...that mentioned by Martinez, and one that is identified as the Monaco agreement and one that is known as NESARA. New World order seems to be identified with the elite and old guard. And then there are some known as white hats..and the nesara bunch. Anyways, I must say I always thought of this as us against the enemy. And clearly we are often fragmented. But lo and behold...so is the enemies side. I am glad I know how this all plays out. Even so Lord Jesus come.
Nkosazana
The third world is poor because it is immoral.
ReplyDeleteDoes this principle apply to individuals or only to nations?
Are you saying that people in the first world who are poor (such as homeless families - and by "poor" I am speaking relatively, because such people are not literally starving, although some may be at risk of dying from exposure) are poor because they are not morally good?
Are you saying that the affluent in the United States are affluent because they are morally good?
How is a country that performs over one million abortions per year amd where vile pornography is a billion-dollar per year industry be deemed "morally good"?
Anon@3.37am,
ReplyDeleteIn case it wasn't clear from context, the principle that immorality breeds poverty applies at the level of nations and cultures, not individuals. The heresy of the secular Left is that causality runs the other round. But crime did not rocket during the Great Depression.
At present the West is coasting on the fruits of its past, when it was more moral than it is today, and more moral than the 3rd world is. But if Westerners do not stop perpepetrating the sins of promiscuity and hardheartedness that are wrecking family stability, the West will within a few generations be reduced to the 3rd world. See Sex And Culture by JD Unwin (1934) for a demonstration that every civilization to have moved from a chaste to a promiscuous sexuality has soon fallen. The secular explanation is because peoople learn the concepts of commitment and truth-telling most deeply within their families. As a Christian I also regard this mechanism as capable of bringing divine judgement. Should you read Unwin, separate out the evidence he provides from his own tentative explanation, which is Freudian and nonsensical. It's still a valuable book.
Today it is still possible to run a wealth-creating business in the West without paying protection money, bribes, giving up on dishonoured contracts etc, all of which make it very difficult to raise the standard of living in the 3rd world. The link between group morality and group wealth is very obvious. But for a startling snapshot of how far the West has decended since the socio-sexual revolution of the 1960s, look at how social structure fell apart and led to 3rd world levels of looting, rioting and murder in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and contrast it with how the Japanese social structure held up in the coastal areas devastated by last year's tsunami. The family remains a strong institution in Japan. What would happen if the West faced a greater test?
Althogh Ron Sider is not an approved writer around this blog, he wrote another book called The Scandal of the Evangelical Conscience which includes statistics (from Barna) showing that the divorce rate is as high in US congregations as in the USA generally. Jesus tells us that divorce is due to hardheartedness (Matt 19, Mark 10). The church in the USA is in as bad shape as the culture and is incapable of leading it morally upward unless some major repentance is done first. David Wilkerson understood that.
Yes, but Susanna,
ReplyDeleteAt least you've evolved and improved
a lot.
I'm still dragging my knuckles
and drooling. Even my feet and
hands are hairy.
( Of course, I'm only referring
to Micro evolution ).
Oh, great, my word verification
word is "prerat"
Maybe it's worse than I thought.
Anon. 6:23,
ReplyDeleteGreat explanation, but should you be feeding trolls like that? It only makes them hungrier, like sharks when they smell blood.... ;^)
Although I don't live in the third world, I can attest to the truth of your statements about the culture there providing a difficult arena for wealth-creation and growing businesses. My missionary friends tell me of constant theft, cheating, lying, and other moral deficiencies, which, as you said, are still residual here in the West. Like you said, Christ is the answer.
[Fri, Jan 6]
Dear Paul,
ReplyDeleteRe: Oh, great, my word verification
word is "prerat"
Maybe it's worse than I thought.
I think C.S. Lewis might think you were being a little too unjustly harsh on yourself.
He once wrote that whenever we think of ourselves we should think of ourselves as "small dirty objects"...that is...as "small grubby little children."
The Devil loves nothing better than to lead us into the dark caverns of despair by encouraging us to think of... OUR HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE SINS....WHICH ARE SO GREAT AND SO HORRIBLE THAT NOT EVEN GOD CAN FORGIVE THEM!!!!!!!
To think this way is to make an idol of our sins. The despair that results from obsessing over this "idol" is what the late Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen described as "pride turned inside out."
But getting back to the "prerat" idea, it is very important to know that just as the very ability to question one's own sanity is itself a sign of sanity, so too is the very ability to question one's own goodness a sign of goodness.....because one must first have a clear idea of what sanity and/or goodness is before one can be capable of questioning it in oneself.
One more thing. At the end of the day, if we feel that we must think symbolically in terms of overcoming our "inner beast," then the example of a beast of burden called "Brother Ass" is certainly much more edifying than "pre-rat" or that predator Scripture refers to as "The Great Serpent" - especially since it was an ass that Our Lord rode into Jerusalem!!!
Think about it. And be glad! :-)
We are a royal priesthood, not a set of worms (1 Peter 2:9). But we must never suppose that it is because of our own righteousness.
ReplyDeleteDear anonymous physicist guy,
ReplyDeleteYou are trying to make arguments with the Flat Earth Society. As far as this blog is concerned, global warming/climate change is a hoax. All natural disasters are caused by a machine that incorporates HAARP technology by the government (why we haven't used it on Iran or North Korea I'll never know!). The site of the Gulf Oil Spill is really an asphalt volcano destined to destroy all of North America. The Communists are still trying to take over America. The Muslims are trying to destroy America. The American dollar is destined to fall, so you better go buy all the gold you can. The moon landing was faked. 9-11 was not caused by Al-Qaeda, but planned by the Illuminati and somehow goes back to George Soros (plus, President George Bush knew it would happen all along). FEMA is planning on rounding up Americans and placing them in death camps. FOX is trusted news source that is fair and balanced. And Barrack Obama...well, there's a lot about him.
Should I go on? You're trying to make rational sound arguments here. Be gone and go set up your Harry Potter wizard school somewhere else. Well, you're welcome to still comment here, but you're not convincing anyone. (I can almost hear you calling us muggles, and that just proves my point!)
SheldonC,
ReplyDeleteAre you saying that I'm right and that I'm wasting my time here trying to correct people who never listen; or are you saying that I'm factually wrong? I'm genuinely confused as to your meaning.
If the former, it's up to me how I spend my time... if the latter, please be specific. I welcome dialogue.
The Physicist
To The Physicist,
ReplyDeleteYour presence is really a blessing here. In the past I have frequented blogs where the anti-religion bias amongst scientists is simply staggering. I've clashed with atheist-scientists who claim that no genuine scientist could be a Christian, and that anyone who belives in Christianity does not understand "basic logic" and by definition must have a low IQ.
When I have explained that many of the great thinkers (including scientists) in history were Catholic, and that there are highly educated scientists today who are believers (both Catholic and Protestant), these atheist-scientists change the subject and start to mock and ridicule me (nice diversion tactic when you cannot refute the facts)!
So please stick around! You are a breach of fresh air!
Great explanation, but should you be feeding trolls like that? It only makes them hungrier, like sharks when they smell blood.... ;^)
ReplyDelete____________________________
So Marko, if someone challenges your political bias they are considered a "troll"?
I won't call you a "troll," but you are a textbook example of the hubris that results from the conflation of Christian belief with a personal political agenda.
Anon@1.05pm,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comments. It is a little known fact that MORE scientists are believers than among the general population - see the poll in Nature magazine,3rd April 1997, vol.386, p.435. I take the explanation to be that scientists can see the order in the material world and its laws, and realise that God is the only answer to why. "Intelligent design" is a premature doctrine in biology, because we don't know enough biology to be confident that life could not have come about otherwise, and the scriptures are worded more divergently in the original Hebrew than some fundamentalists understand. (No I don't take Adam and Eve to be mythical.) But ID has a lot going for it in physics.
Marko: I am the guy who wrote the comment at 6.23am which you complimented, and I'd like to make it clear that Anon@1.09pm was not me.
ReplyDeleteMarko: I am the guy who wrote the comment at 6.23am which you complimented, and I'd like to make it clear that Anon@1.09pm was not me.
ReplyDeleteI am the anonymous commenter that Marko claims is a troll.
Marko,
I would like to inform you explicitly that your Alinsky-style tactics [in thise case, that of demonizing the opposition (in this case, the opposition being a Christian believer who does not share your political beliefs)] won't work on me.
Most readers here probably share your political views, but from what I have read here and in her editorials, Constance Cumbey, who has spoken out quite clearly against the myth of the left-right paradigm, is not one of them. Like Constance, I have the courage of my convictions about this subject and will speak up on it as and if I see fit.
So go ahead -- keep calling me names. I have a copy of "Rules for Radicals" too.
conflation of Christian belief with a personal political agenda - I can't keep track with all these anons and so forth as to what is going on here, but it seems to me that there is no one here who is not doing that to some extent anyway.
ReplyDeletefamily solidarity - it depends on what kind of family values are in play. If you view the family as a segment of a larger family which is the city and the government then all is well, but if you view it as an isolate, or as part of a slightly larger family the extended family or clan and tribe, then all hell breaks loose easily, because all who are not immediately related by blood or marriage are proper prey, and those who are related are to be prioritized over justice, loyalty oaths, laws, etc. etc.
ReplyDeletenothing is as simple as the system builders and "systematic thinkers" make it out to be.
This is not the same thing as "systems analysis," which is entirely different.
another problem with the idea that a particular morality or family pattern corellates to "greatness" of a society, and then hitching this to Christianity, betrays two (at least) unexamined premises or biasses or something.
1. The presupposition that "greatness" is desirable, and the proper goal of any society is to be an empire, or a major cog in one.
This is worldly power and glory hunger, and not Christian.
2. The reduction of events in history that were more likely brought by God's intervention to take down something He was tired of standing on its own and that was evil as hell, to a mechanistic system of events, and then give a nod (because being Christian one has to do so) to God as designer of these "principles" effectively writes God out of the game, so to speak.
The fact is, that at the height of and prior to the greatness of many civilizations, their morality was not that of Christian families but more like people in some parts of Europe and America, where it was understood that one set of rules applied regarding some people, and another set regarding others, and even in India where the caste system was not limited to four, those were major breakdowns of the system into segments, within each segment there were other segments, and a specific prostitute caste and even a criminal caste with some specialty existed.
Now the whole poverty and morality thing only works when you have easy access resources for anyone to use, OR you have and entrenched culture of sharing.
As for welfare within nations, there is not ONE SHRED of anything against this in Scripture, and in the existence of a large population you are going to have to have something like this, or you are going to have to allow begging, and a tax break for everything given to beggars (like the third year tithe was to go to the poor and you were expected to account and prove that it did), the principle is the same.
laziness is almost never the issue. and if you want to avoid an influx of wealth causing "inflation" then you put price caps on a lot of stuff.
in gold rush times, I read there was a town where a drink of whisky could be $150 because the sellers were greedy and the miners were rolling in gold or gold dust and didn't care.
This is the sort of thing the medieval church would have denounced as ungodly profits, probably said something about conspiring against your own future to go along with it, the future of your customers to charge this, and get the local governments to put a stop to price gouging.
In doing so, the church albeit Roman Catholic would have consistent with principles in Scripture.
Now, the church didn't have nearly the amount of actual control it is often depicted as having, because for instance usury (meaning ANY amount of interest however small) went on between Christians even though it was denounced and often illegal. There were times and places that were pretty anarchic.
The same spirit in the nobility led to robber barons (from which we get the nick name for unprincipled but often church going entrepreneurs of
the 1800s America).
Christine,
ReplyDeleteAs often in your posts there is stuff I agree with and stuff I disagree with...
In my comments on family stability as the basis of societal stability I meant that couples who had children stayed together at least until the children have become adult and left home. Based on the mechanism I adduced relating family and societal stability I had thought that that was clear, but I am happy to be explicit.
There is a remarkable study by the French-American Jewish scholar Emmanuel Todd, called (in translation) "Explanation of Ideology" that explores the remarkable correlation between *extended* family structure and political systems. If the author sometimes shoehorns the evidence into his scheme, there is no doubt that he is on to something in an area where nobody before him had thought of looking.
Of course, Christianity improves family stability, but authentic Christianity involves the option to reject Christ and we are told that many will do so - so you cannot greatly improve family stability by good preaching. Entire cultures that never heard of Christ have moved between chaste and promiscuous sexuality in the past. A major key to it is laws that financially promote family stability.
The only societies where prices were regulated have been communism and mediaevalism, and both were useless at raising the standard of living of their peoples, ie useless at wealth creation. No price controls, thank you. If whisky costs 150 dollars per shot then I'll cheerfully go without it.
You wrote:
"As for welfare within nations, there is not ONE SHRED of anything against this in Scripture, and in the existence of a large population you are going to have to have something like this... laziness is almost never the issue."
St Paul stated that a man who *would* not work deserved to go hungry, ie should not get charity (whether from individuals or the State). That's 2 Thessalonians 3:10. If you think laziness is not the issue then have a look further down the line than maybe the US is today, at what is going on in European welfare systems. I know, I live there.
You wrote:
"the whole poverty and morality thing only works when you have easy access resources for anyone to use, OR you have and entrenched culture of sharing"
Anybody can start a business as, say, a grocer. It was the despair of one of those on being asked for yet another bribe to set up stalls that caused him to immolate himself and begin the so-called Arab Spring (I am not discussing its outcome). But I do agree that extended family is vital in providing support for business start-up. That was a lesson in George Gilder's study "Wealth and Poverty". It was the secret to Chinese entrepreneurial success in the USA. Extended family is what has been largely absent in the black community, in which plenty of couples get married but the *extended* family is far weaker, a nasty and lasting legacy of slavery that is probably a major factor in the different performance of the Chinese.
After some reflection, I would like to apologize to 1:39 PM for insinuating that you are a troll. Since we are siblings in Christ, we can and should agree to disagree on political views, and do so in love, and my comments were not loving, so please forgive me.
ReplyDelete"Pray for us scribbling sinners now and at the hour of our death." -- Russell Kirk
Christine, you are correct that we all tend to conflate our Christian beliefs with some sort of political agenda, some more than others. I think it is preferable to minimize the amount of conflation, but God is still working on me in that regard, so let us all take to heart the following poem as we read each other's "scribblings":
--+----
Friendship - by Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
Oh, the comfort - the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person,
Having neither to weigh thoughts,
Nor measure words - but pouring them
All right out - just as they are --
Chaff and grain together --
Certain that a faithful hand will
Take and sift them --
Keep what is worth keeping --
And with the breath of kindness
Blow the rest away.
--+----
I must say that I have been less than kind at times, and can certainly identify with the same struggle that Paul and Susanna have been talking about in earlier posts.
I think for me, the whole "Is capitalism good, bad, or indifferent?" debate comes down to free will and property rights. Allow me to focus on free will for a moment.
Both Christianity and capitalism hold in high regard free will and lack of coercion. Nobody rightly forces the Kingdom of God on anyone, nor should anyone force economic decisions on anyone regarding property that they own. Therefore, capitalism (in its best-implemented form) and Christianity share a common and not insignificant characteristic - the valuation of free will in the ordering of one's life.
To the degree that capitalism diverges from that ideal, and free will is lessened, is the degree that capitalism could be said to have failed.
In light of the dangers of putting too large an emphasis on free will, it should be stated that the exercise of free will without the corresponding fetters of a Christian morality (which also respects free will - the early Christians shared all their possessions voluntarily, as they expected Christ to return very soon so why keep anything?) - can lead to all kinds of unpleasantness. That is why I mostly reject libertarianism.
The coming "New Age" will certainly espouse a pseudo-charity that tries to mimic the charity of Christianity, but it is my hunch that it will not be voluntary. In fact, the whole New Age plan of "salvation" will be about coercion - join us or else! That is one of the larger of the "hidden" dangers of the New Age Movement.
Not all coercion is bad. One coercion that is good is the activity of the Holy Spirit via our conscience coercing us into repentance and obedience to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
I believe that any political model that coerces charitable acts in the name of fairness is less desirable than the voluntary giving that arises from a heart of love for the less fortunate. "God loves a cheerful giver." I would suggest that there are fewer cheerful givers in a coercive system of charity than in a voluntary one.
I hope that clears up any misunderstandings of my political views. I certainly don't have any writings of Alinsky, and if I did, it would be to study the tactics and thoughts of an enemy of freedom.
I do not worship at the altar of unfettered capitalism, which has done much damage in the world in the last generation or so.
[Sat, Jan 7]
If you think you little people (me and you) will have more "control" over your own financial future, you are very diluded. The socialist countries (USA, Europe and alot of other countries including Australia)have purposefully broken the "capital" system just so this one world currency could be put in place. If something isn't broke, you don't need to fix it. So why has Obama borrowed more money than all of the presidents from George Washington to President George W Bush put together? To break the system so they need a new one. During his presidential campaign he said to a plumber on TV - "Re-distribute the wealth". Break the system and re-create it. Or in George Sorros's own words (the croney who broke the bank of Scotland and the major player behind this one world currency and new world order - "From top down, bottom up and inside out". He meant, breaking the current system. The return of Jesus is so close now, the one world Govt will be run by the anti Christ. He is very ready to announce himself to the world. Which side of the shepherds gate will you be going down?
ReplyDelete"As far as this blog is concerned, global warming/climate change is a hoax. All natural disasters are caused by a machine that incorporates HAARP technology by the government"
ReplyDeletehmmm. I don't recall running into this all that much here. however, here's my take on these.
Global warming - something is definitely going on, besides subsurface volcanism hot spots brewing in the Antarctic, an idea of mine to explain some melting there, which was mocked (some egroup somewhere) but then I ran into the discovery somewhere of exactly such activity detected somewhere. You can't blame melting glaciers putting future water downhill at risk in the Tibetan Massif and other places on this.
Such melt is normal and gives the water, but I am talking about glacier eradication type melt.
Wild weather incl, a mini ice age brewing in some places (with the help of the Gulf Current stalled by the Loop Current being stalled by the Deep Water Horizon Oil Spill, thanks you very much BP, I don't recall if it has gotten going again or not), is a fact.
BUT HUMAN ACTIVITY IS NOT THE CAUSE OF THIS.
There is a hoax aspect to global warming, but there is a reality as well.
I have a saying, "you don't turn up the thermostat on a hot day." It is an established fact, that dumping some chemicals into the air WILL affect temperature.
So efforts to cut these back will not cure global warming, but it may mitigate it, and the presence of such while NOT CAUSING it may EXACERBATE it.
Also, the same actions that are taken to stop global warming, are what we need to do anyway for totally different and irrelevant reasons.
HAARP - yes it has the capability, but has it been in use? Another capability if run at full power for very long, is to trigger a devastating ison cascade from the ionosphere, chewing up the ground for hundreds of miles and probably destroying the HAARP equipment as well, i.e., a stead unbroken ongoing massive lightning bolt like downstrike for an unspecified length of time once it starts.
Probably why HAARP is reputedly never run at full power. Also, HAARP is not an isolate. Norway, Russia I think, and some other countries have similar ionosphere heater operations going, though allegedly HAARP is the most powerful.
I am more inclined to blame Crustal Displacement than HAARP for stuff like the Chilean and Japanese earthquakes, both of which shifted the earth on its axis slightly.
hmmmm. shift on axis or slight overall displacement of the crust? a micro mini or whatever unnoticeable change in the length of the day would point to a rotation and maybe axis effect, but you determine where you are, on earth, relative to the stars, by comparing the surface to what you know of the latter.
A slight axis shift, and a slight overall crustal slip, would give identical visual impressions, as per the basic relativity thing (which is true enough as anyone playing with sound and trains and visual impressions of motion or lack thereof and so forth can tell you).
The tinfoil hat crowd may be onto something, but it isn't as simple as they make it out to be.
Meanwhile, while they rave about stuff that control freaks in covert ops would LOVE to be able to do, they may be giving them ideas they would be better off not having.
Paul on laziness - context was the church, and he also said that widows should not be taken into the (for lack of a better term) order of widows unless elderly already, these would be on the church dole and spend all their time in prayer and counselling, a prototype of later monastic female orders, "that the church not be burdened."
ReplyDeleteNow, in an earlier simpler time and comparable situations, you can tell who is lazy and who isn't, and the cost of living is not that great that no matter how much you struggle and shave years or decades off your life you can barely make it, except where this is true of everyone in the same boat together.
(at which point it is all the more important, lack of resources, that only the clearly disabled be supported.)
I recall a woman on welfare with three kids who could barely manage on her AFDC and I was the transportation to get her and them just about anywhere without it being a major exhausting and in some places maybe dangerous operation, and she had asthma and despite the inhalers it sometimes landed her in the emergency room.
I also (this was one of the times I had access to more money than in the panhandling days later) supplied some money, since the bulk of her welfare went to pay the rent, even with Section 8 which takes forever to get on and she only managed this by persuading her sister's landlord to become a Section 8 landlord when her sister moved out of the apartment and she took it over.
Sure there are drug addicts and alcoholics who collect welfare and "entitlements" and spend it all one way or another on getting high. And, with the cost of living so high, and the problems connected with finding and keeping a job and the pay low enough, that one sacrifices security that at least keeps a roof over your head, while you scramble for money under the table for extras like food and utilities, that you might as well not get a job, lose your financial support, and then maybe you lose the job and it is months and months before you can get on the rolls again.
Now, I am not in Europe, never have been, so I can't address what goes on there.
But a lot of stuff we call "socialism" such as poor relief, goes back before any Marxism or formal philosophy.
An extended family supporting its poor, and a nation doing likewise, is different only as a matter of degree.
As for standard of living in medieval Europe, it wasn't capitalism unlimited by regulations that improved this. A lot of it had to do with notions of cleanliness (nearly nonexistent), and technological advances.
The latter became commonplace primarily because of GOVERNMENT ACTION known as PATENT OFFICES.
The concept of the patent goes back to mercantilism, and eventually developed to the modern concept of patent on a product.
Now, in the old days, anyone who discovered or developed something, kept it secret, or in the immediate family, or in some trade guild with severe penalties for telling about it. One example was I think death sentence for smuggling silk worm eggs out of China, which was a case of this writ large, keeping China with a monopoly on silk production.
Which got broken eventually anyway.
The reason fro the secrecy was that that was the only way to make any gain off the procedure or invention.
The patent phenomenon, allows the secret to be publicized, and the method or device to be used by many and sold to many, because now anyone but the holder who does this, must pay the inventor or heirs and assigns "royalties" a terms that betrays the monarchic period of time origins of this.
have to post this separately, popsts are limited to 4600 characters I think.
ReplyDeletethe problem isn't govt. or individuals or whatever, it is (a) sin as it manifests in any of these categories, and (b) whichever one of them is more infested with problems than another.
For example. In Mexico, the wars with and between the drug cartels, are ramping up with military technology got from black markets for USA originated materials.
The police are so corrupt, that the Mexican govt. has had to throw the responsibility for dealing with the cartels into the hands of the military, because they are (so far) less corrupt. A cop even high rank, well, the cartels know where you and your family live. you can choose silver or lead, take the bribe or take the bullet. The military is harder to reach, being a tad more impersonal and the officers better protected.
Now, in that situation, the military is better than the local law enforcement. In some other places or same place another time, it could be the reverse, and regarding things other than drugs in Mexico probably IS the reverse.
There is no deist theory like divinely ordained "principle" that can be depended on to run things or to assign roles, that when observed will mechanistically automatically make everything right.
Christine,
ReplyDeleteThis is the physicist who has been on this thread. Global warming - complex issue, but I believe that the science has been distorted by the politics. Poor people in trouble deserve help, but that is a matter of charity not guilt for I do not believe that manmade CO2 is responsible for catastrophe, nor will be. HAARP is not an issue, because the amount of energy it projects into the upper atmosphere is utterly negligible compared to a single thunderstorm.
"in an earlier simpler time and comparable situations, you can tell who is lazy and who isn't"
ReplyDeleteNot really, the point is that to tell who of the unemployed is lazy and exploiting the system, and who is wholeheartedly seeking work, can only be done with personal knowledge of them. Government criteria are always going to be impersonal. That is why it should be left to charity. And that is why charity must be seen as a duty. Honour to you for the charity you provided, Christine.
"An extended family supporting its poor, and a nation doing likewise, is different only as a matter of degree."
No, the main difference is that an extended family has the choice to support one of its members or not, whereas State welfare systems take taxpayers' money by force of law.
The fact that there are a larger number of unemployed given the size of modern populations cuts both ways, because there are also more employed who are able to give charitable support.
If you look at Britain before State support for the unemployed came in, you find a myriad of small charitable concerns that assisted people in distress. It is a myth of the Left that there was nothing at all until the State stepped in like a superhero. That network, and all of the personal relationships it embodied, capable of distinguishing the workshy from genuine jobseekers, was destroyed. The effect of nationalising this relationship has been bad at both ends - it incentivises laziness and it literally de-moralises the better off who would once have practiced charity but now walk by and say it's the State's responsibility. Remember that Jesus said it is better to give than receive.
"Paul on laziness - context was the church"
ReplyDeleteAre you suggesting, Christine, that Paul's words to the Thessalonian church mean Christians should refuse charity to lazy Christians known to be lazy but extend it to pagans known to be lazy?
The point of charity and why some are blessed and others are not is for the opportunity to do good to one another on a personal level. That is why we are told to give whatever is asked of us if it is within our power (whether they are "lazy" or not). This is the reason why socialism is bad is it takes away the personal relationship that is developed between two people sharing of their substance with each other. This is how we serve our God. Socialism makes us servants of a false god.
ReplyDelete1. laziness, no, not help the exploitive and lazy of any category, but the issue was keeping the church from being burdened, even a Christian widow who was young was to be refused who applied to join the praying and supported by the church band of widows lest they "wax wanton" and marry again after having taken the veil or the equivalent back then, that the church be not burdened.
ReplyDelete2. the issue of giving to be of spiritual benefit to the giver keeps getting brought up, along with it being voluntary.
Raised also is the "relationship" between the giver and recipient.
firstly, there are TWO issues, the need of the recipient and the need for spiritual benefit on the part of the recipient, and the first keeps being ignored. That the first IS important to God along with the issue of spiritual benefit to the giver, is made very clear.
second, threat of hellfire for habitual not giving is hardly a case of voluntarism, though it is also stipulated that one needs to have charity in the heart and not merely go through charitable motions "giving to charity" etc.
thirdly, exactly what personal relationship exists between the giver and the recipient, when
the recipient is a beggar whose company you do not normally cultivate, an anonymous or semi anonymous situation,
or, where the church supplies the need and the giver has given to the church to do this, even more anonymity,
or, where the giver has given to a charitable organization, called "giving to charity" in popular lingo, even more anonymous.
answer, none, for the most part.
now, the prohibition on begging we have in laws now, originated in England some centuries ago, to deal with "sturdy beggars" who were obvious frauds and maybe even representing some oddball ideology
or cult under the radar.
that beggars should be looked down on, or begging be considered shameful, is an unbiblical concept, which in The Bible in the parable of the unjust steward is explicitly linked to the sin of pride.
now, in dealing with a beggar you do not know what exactly is going on with that person, unless you do
happen to know.
anonymity is also a good thing, because it keeps the giver from becoming an easy object of predation by frauds, it keeps the giver from becoming someone who can easily exploit the recipients and build a little empire of de facto slaves, gofers and maybe even sexual favor suppliers, and also protects the giver from the danger of being viewed as a great philanthropist and adored and they fall into the sin of pride, and doing things to be seen of men like Jesus warns against in The Sermon on the Mount.
This begging thing keeps being bypassed undiscussed. Is it because it is accepted taken for granted as okay? Or dismissed as a subhuman uncivilized unChristian phenomenon that no one here is likely to support so it can be ignored?
Remember that The Bible was written in a context of a society that had more in common with middle eastern and African tribal societies and cities, where begging is commonplace and no one sees anything odd about it except in overly westernized cities. The parable of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar depicts a situation that was extreme and obvious to the rich man, beyond the usual.
Christine,
ReplyDeleteYou wrote:
"laziness, no, not help the exploitive and lazy of any category, but the issue was keeping the church from being burdened"
That is your best guess of what lay behind Paul's words. But Paul does not actually say that, and others think he is concerned to combat the view, common in the Greek world, that work is undignified and should be subcontracted to slaves by those who can afford to. In contrast, the Jewish view held by Paul (and also the protestant view) was that manual work could and should be sanctified.
"even a Christian widow who was young was to be refused who applied to join the praying and supported by the church band of widows lest they "wax wanton" and marry again after having taken the veil or the equivalent back then"
There *was* no equivalent back then. Even the men whom Paul suggested should stay single in order to devote themselves to God (1 Cor 7) were meant to remain in the world, to act there as salt and light. How else to evangelise and stand against evil, as commanded? Faith, to grow, needs practical testing; Christians are meant to be in the world but not of the world. Since your deeds inform your prayer and your prayer informs your deeds, a monastic life of prayer without deeds is not a full Christian life. Jesus often went to the desert to pray alone, but he always came back, to do. He did not found a monastic community and he ignored the monastics of Judaism, the Essenes.
"there are TWO issues, the need of the recipient and the need for spiritual benefit on the part of the recipient [I PRESUME YOU MEAN 'GIVER' HERE], and the first keeps being ignored"
That is not an accurate picture of the present discussion. Everybody here accepts that certain impoverished people have a material need - nobody here has said Let them starve. And nobody brought up "It is better to give than to receive" until very recently in the discussion, prior to which IT had been ignored.
The issue is how the need of the impoverished should be met. Today's State-run welfare systems work to wholly numerical criteria: how many people to support, what rent is to be paid, what is the salary shortfall, etc. There is no personal moral component to this system. In contrast, in both private charity and the 3rd-year tithe storehouses in Mosaic Law, a decision about the level of support of any impoverished person who applied was then made by the administrators, who were free to gather background information about the applicant and his or her reputation in the community, eg diligent or lazy, and whether an extended family was able and willing to give some assistance. (That is what people on this thread mean by personal factors - nobody has suggested that recipient and donor are necessarily meant to get to know each other closely.) The point is that charity can be refused to the lazy, which is not the case with modern State welfare, which given fallen human nature then provides an incentive to laziness.
Also, the tithe charity was in kind - you were given food to eat, not money to blow on drugs.
Christine:
ReplyDeleteYou wrote as follows:
"laziness, no, not help the exploitive and lazy of any category, but the issue was keeping the church from being burdened"
Paul does not say that - it is your best guess. Others think that Paul's underlying motivation is to preach the Jewish worldview, that manual work can and should be sanctified, to Greek believers. The ancient Greek worldview would subcontract labour to slaves if it can afford to. Running thru most of Paul's letters is a passion to keep gentile and Jewish believers in the truth together.
"there are TWO issues, the need of the recipient and the need for spiritual benefit on the part of the recipient [I PRESUME YOU MEAN 'GIVER'], and the first keeps being ignored"
ReplyDeleteNot so, nobody has suggested that people who have fallen on hard times should not be helped.
The issue is how the need of the impoverished should be met. Today's State-run welfare systems work to wholly numerical criteria: how many people to support, what rent is to be paid, what is the salary shortfall, etc. There is no personal moral component to this system. In contrast, in both private charity and the 3rd-year tithe storehouses in Mosaic Law, a decision about the level of support of any impoverished person who applied was then made by the administrators, who were free to gather background information about the applicant and his or her reputation in the community, eg diligent or lazy, and whether an extended family was able and willing to give some assistance. (That is what people on this thread mean by personal factors - nobody has suggested that recipient and donor are necessarily meant to get to know each other closely.) The point is that charity can be refused to the lazy, which is not the case with modern State welfare, which given fallen human nature then provides an incentive to laziness.
Also, the tithe charity was in kind - you were given food to eat, not money to blow on drugs.
""but the issue was keeping the church from being burdened"
ReplyDelete"Paul does not say that - it is your best guess."
Wrong he is explicit regarding taking in widows so why should it be otherwise regarding others? It is also hardly intended to be a death sentence. Probably more like miss some meals or shape up advice to people in a community that back then was smaller.
Now as to merely numerical criteria, that is the best way to do it. Background of many can be bad to put it mildly. In today's overpriced and underpaid if employment you can handle is available at all environment, the best way to keep some people out of immoral lives including small time drug dealing is pay their rent.
Early efforts at organized charity to help the poor in big cities took this approach you desire, and since a woman who was an unwed mother or had a prior history of prostitution or of giving in a couple of times to a boss to keep her job, then repented and left, was automatically excluded, the result was hardly conducive to helping the people Christ was concerned about.
how they dealt with men with a prior history of lawbreaking I don't know, as the history in question focussed on women in the early 1800s.
Frankly, I think laziness is a myth, outside of really primitive standards to judge by, since things are too complex. Also, someone who will not do blue collar work, only white collar, could be considered either lazy or proud or greedy, possibly all. Then I know of one workaholic, who is hardly lazy, but will not work a non driving job.
how do you classify that?
In a labor intensive primitive society (anything anywhere prior to the industrial revolution) the concepts applicable there are not too applicable now. Also, in an expanding economy, with less background check and education and skills and permits requirements such as our grandparents and great grandparents grew up in, things were quite different than now.
An additional new problem on the horizon....increased prohibition on dumpster diving, I used to feed and clothe myself out of such, but those damn identity thieves have ruined it for everyone else. Too much stuff with useable information gets casually thrown out and taken and put to use.
And I might add, when you haven't eaten much and you are filthy, no one is going to hire you.
"Frankly, I think laziness is a myth"
ReplyDeleteWhen I told you that this was not a myth in western Europe where welfare is more (overly!) developed, you admitted that you were not in a position to deny it. I live there and I am in a position to affirm it.
In moving from "If a man will not work then he should not eat" to talking of congregational support for widows you have jumped from Thessalonians to Timothy, and thereby changed context.
"In moving from "If a man will not work then he should not eat" to talking of congregational support for widows you have jumped from Thessalonians to Timothy, and thereby changed context."
ReplyDeletethe context is the same, distribution of "charity" as we call physical or financial help now.
The help to be given to "widows" who were apparently an order of pray-ers on total support would have been like full scale adoption and constant life long support, so naturally a little more serious than occasional support. Some people trying to make a racket out of church welfare probably existed even then.
But right now, and even in the 1980s when my experience was, if the govt. wasn't doing a total adoption and support then individuals who can't afford it or churches would have to do so, for extended periods of time. Either move them into massive family shelters, or pay the rent and utilities etc. and the notion that your rent shouldn't cost more than 1/3 of your income, was an ideal out of the 1960s, but still the basis for welfare distribution then, and I doubt anyone whether it is rent or mortgage has this as a reality if their income isn't pretty high.
As for Europe, I am in America. I am drawing on experience of self, others, and so forth. I am also not sure what you mean by lazy. Perhaps you could tell me in detail what you have observed.
finally, how much is laziness, and how much is knowing you can't push yourself too hard and be able to handle things at home as well and don't forget dangers in big cities here that get in the way of travel to school and work and escort the kids to and from school and not crash with a heart attack or a major illness when your immune system can't handle a pathogen because of inadequate sleep and over stress is always a question.
voluntariness of charity (the verb not the noun). First off, the insistence on it being voluntary strikes me as an issue of pride.
ReplyDeleteSecond, it is not realistic. Consider the scene of the Last Judgement, where Christ says He will say to people who have always refused to help those in need, that it is the same as if they had seen Him in such dire straits and done nothing, and these people will say to Him "Lord, when did we see You" etc. and they will go away into damnation.
Now, with that hanging over your head, "voluntary" acts of charity are hardly voluntary.
IF they stem from a actual heart of caring, then they are meritorious, as Paul says in I Corinthians 13. One gets no merit for a cold heart and merely trying to win status and crowns by racking up points for action when one lacks any heart. (the heart we speak of as the seat of feelings, but the heart in The Bible is the mind, it was the liver, "reins" and bowels that were associated with feelings. the brain wasn't even thought about in ancient philosophy and so forth except as the target for a blow to put you out, I suppose. I say "heart" here in the popular modern sense. The term is also used to mean courage and determination in some quarters.)
But on the other hand, if recipients of the cold hearted charity (verb not noun, using the word like everyone does) were to offer thanks to God and prayers for the givers, even for the govt. or taxpayers who support them non voluntarily, or the believers who, looking at the threat of the Last Judgement give also non voluntarily, God might change their hearts (popular sense of the word).
There is a kind of potential feedback loop here, but not automatic, it involves God's sovereign choice to act or not to act in any given situation.
"voluntariness of charity (the verb not the noun). First off, the insistence on it being voluntary strikes me as an issue of pride."
ReplyDeleteActually it's a matter of definition. It is not charity if it's *legislated* redistribution of resources. The very meaning of 'charity' is helping someone for motives of the heart. To suggest that charity as a verb and charity as a noun is incoherent; nobody talks about State benefits to which they are legally entitled as charitable, do they?
"Now, with that [hell] hanging over your head, "voluntary" acts of charity are hardly voluntary."
That's what free will is ALL about.
Here in Britain there are entire families in which two and nearly three generations have never held a job and sign on for every State benefit they can, which in most cases gives them an adequate living because they also live in government housing, while supplementing their income by minor forms of criminality. Government ('council') housing estates concentrate the problem and produce an entire area with that subculture. There is little self-respect and, since you speak of hell, most of these people are going there because it is a far harder lifestyle to get out of than others. If you won't listen to me then listen to the few people who have managed to come out of that lifestyle. They all say that the government is, perhaps unintentionally, subsidising degradation (although socialist parties undoubtedly do so for votes too).
charity, the dole, whatever. now the people you describe also exist in the USA. And they also exist among people not on the dole either. As for free will, that is irrelevant. You can argue that a choice made under any kind of coercion is not free. now, as for self respect, any self respect that is based on I am ok because I "support myself" and you are not because you don't, is back to the sin of pride, and to pride add delusion and denial, because no one supports themselves except alone in the woods without people who are willing to employ them or otherwise deal with them (incl. buy from them).
ReplyDeleteThat subculture you describe has plenty of time on its hands. If some effective evangelism could be done, that free time could be put to full time ministry of one kind or another, while still on the dole. not a likely scenario, but the main problem there is what they put their time to. if they are ungodly then they put it to ungodly stuff. And they will do that whether earning their money to spend on this or getting it free.
A serious anti crime effort (probably needs some overhaul of excessive civil rights and crippling of police and courts like USA has) might make a dent in all this.
Exactly what is available for these people to do as work, and what exactly are their skills if any?
how violent is this subculture and why? gangs? ethnic issues? personal pride like shooting someone who looks wrong at them?
Christine,
ReplyDeleteTwo issues here.
First, it is a totally free choice, but choices have consequences and God is gracious enough to let us know what those are. Either you are accusing God of coercion when in fact He is giving informed choice, or you are saying it would be better if He had left us in ignorance of what it took to go to heaven and hell. Neither is biblical.
In a world where God supplies the weather which grows the crops which we either eat or feed to animals which we eat, it is folly for any man to say that he is self-sufficient. Just exactly *who* are you saying is proud, in this debate?
PS Feel free to ignore me, but *please* read the testimonies of those who have come out of that culture. They generally say that government handouts perpetuate the problem. Certainly the son of a friend of mine who is currently out of a job, doing his best to find one, while living in council accommodation says this - most of his friends on the estate are not even looking for jobs despite the fact they tell the government that they are. Do you approve of incentivising lying?
ReplyDeleteMy feeling is that God sends
ReplyDeletethe rain and the sunshine down
on everyone equally. That plus
the fact that, as Christine pointed
out, we are told by Jesus that when-
ever we see the poor and feed him
or the naked and clothe him, we
are essentially doing that for
Jesus himself.
If someone is ripping off the system
they will have to answer to God
for that.
Thus it's an easy thing that doesn't
require any forethought on my part.
That's what the Kabbalah tells it's
readers to do; give to a "worthy Jew".
That was the things that rang a
bell in my mind and made me
abandon it, and all the other
forms of Apocrypha. God doesn't
require us to dig into people's lives
and make judgements about their
character, and then give accordingly.
Jesus healed all sorts of people
without even asking them what
their sin was.
Just be charitable.
Let God sort them out.
You can't lose by giving.
_But how that all jibes with the
ReplyDeletenew monetary system which is
the subject of this thread, I don't
know.
"If someone is ripping off the system
ReplyDeletethey will have to answer to God
for that."
Yeah. But the debate between Christine and at least one Anon is about what the system should be.
Anon 5:30
ReplyDeleteI know that.
I was just weighing in about the
fact that we don't need to get
caught up in that debate.
Jesus didn't.
Is the student above the master ?
Christine Erickson has suggested (above) that eugenics was principally a British-American notion which the Nazis then took on board. Let's see.
ReplyDeleteDarwin was English. However, DarwinISM is far more about who survives to breed and pass on their genes when a virus passes through, than it is about murdering your neighbor for his food stash. Social Darwinism is both scientifically and morally wrong; scientific Darwinism is scientifically correct and morally neutral. In the 19th century, before the genetic basis of inheritance was worked out, there was some conflation of the two, but as scientific research progressed the two strands disentangled, and in English speaking countries the invalid social-Darwinist-eugenic strand, while responsible for some abuses of the mentally incapacitated, never progressed to a 'justification' of racism as it did in Germany. I take the difference to be a consequence of the superior public morality at the time of the English-speaking races, itself a consequence of greater adherence to apostolic Christianity. That is not a matter for pride, any more than a drowning man should be proud of grasping a lifeline that someone else (ie, God) has thrown to him.
The social-Darwinist-eugenic strand was at least as great in Germany as in Britain and America.
Christoph Meiners was a professor at Gottingen who was the first to propose African origins for mankind (he wrote before Darwin), and claimed to discern a progression from monkeys to blacks to Slavs to Germans. The Aryan myth was taken up by Schlegel, who stated that "everything [civilized] is of Indian origin" and that Germany "must be considered the Orient of Europe". Virchow made a famous study of German craniology that sought to establish a basis for racial superiority. Drs Ludwig Woltmann and Alfred Ploetz were two scholars who were explicit social Darwinists who each funded secret Nordic societies. Both served on the jury for the Krupp prize in 1900 for the best essay on State Legislation in the field of heredity.
Do you realise, Christine, that you never have anything good to say about Western culture? Please note that it does not wall its citizens in with an Iron Curtain, so if you don't see a single redeeming feature then you are free to migrate to other cultures.
never anything good to say about western societies etc. - well, partly that is because what is good is self evident, and there is a tendency to equate all good with the west in general and the USA in particular and all bad with everything else.
ReplyDeletesecond, facts are facts. The puritans were nigh on to being heretical. America has always been a mission field, full of unbelievers and church going lifestyle atheists.
As for all the strictly German producers of Nazism, without Darwin and Blavatsky they would have been nowhere, and without Darwin Blavatsky would have been nowhere.
The problem with Darwinism is social darwinism on the one hand, and writing God out of the picture on the other, either explicitly, or de facto by a near deist kind of absentee landlord clockmaker who winds it up sets some principles in motions, and leaves. (He didn't leave, we rebelled.)
The blog boss Ms. Cumbey here is I believe one of those who figures America is Babylon the Great, there is a lot to be said for this. We have been a very mixed bag of tricks from day one, and while much good has come out of here so has much evil. A lot of it of the simply fleshly type and a lot of the demonic type.
meanwhile, the equation of all social welfare with "socialism" meaning Marxism and therefore with atheism is false.
the constant equation of charitable action ignoring the now constant modern use of "charity" to refer to actions and organizations NOT feelings, with love, is also missing the point, that the actions though they SHOULD come from the heart, are mandatory anyway or face problems later.
The point about mandatoriness of giving, is that this was built in by means of required giving in Israel, which was not just personal religion etc., but a civil issue and when God gave those laws He was King as well as God so gives a model for a king to give such rules as are a foundation for any kind of welfare operations in society; "redistribution of wealth" is not the issue, because we are supposed to be helping those who have less, as we are only stewards NOT OWNERS.
NEITHER DID WE GET ALL WE GOT BY OUR OWN POWER AND SKILL AS IF WE CREATED THESE THINGS OURSELVES the myth of the self made man, and had nothing given to us in terms of ability, and did not depend on God granting some blessing so that they would be effective.
Precisely this warning was given to Israel in Deuteronomy.
Now, while some here may take all this for granted, stop and take a closer look at the language always in use in American exceptionalism and history of entrepreneurs and so forth. it is entirely lacking any such feeling. It is all about the overman as captain of industry, builder of (economic and political influence) empire, etc. etc.
I am sure that people who fought for better wages, when all employers conspired against them in the 1800s and early 1900s were accused of being for redistribution of wealth. Welfare is not about reduction of everyone to poverty, and it is not about redistribution of wealth, any more than govt. funding of infrastructure etc. is and without such overt and covert govt. funding and involvement the infrastructure credited to the tycoons of old would never have been accomplished anyway.
It is about a more efficient distribution and use of resources than what happens when only some individuals can do this, and that it isn't always done well is not the point.
And standard of living has been the product of two things, technology and government stepping in to mandate health and minimum building and waste disposal rules.
just dig through some history books that weren't written by fans of Ayn Rand, or people on the dole from JP Morgan.
"never anything good to say about western societies etc. - well, partly that is because what is good is self evident"
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't feel like your criticisms of the society you live in are made out of any affection for it. But that is of course my subjective impression. I would be delighted to be wrong.
"The puritans were nigh on to being heretical."
How, please?
"As for all the strictly German producers of Nazism, without Darwin and Blavatsky they would have been nowhere, and without Darwin Blavatsky would have been nowhere."
I see that you come down wholly on the "influential personality" view of history rather than the "process" view. I think that both views are true at once, for in the many strands of thought that came together under National socialism there is far far more than just Darwinism and the occult. A good history of 19th century German culture will reveal those further strands.
"The problem with Darwinism is social darwinism on the one hand, and writing God out of the picture on the other, either explicitly, or de facto by a near deist kind of absentee landlord clockmaker"
Social Darwinism is an abuse, not an application, of scientific Darwinism as was explained at 8.59am.
The neo-Darwinian synthesis of natural selection and genetic heritability is, like any scientific theory, an attempt to describe a facet of the creation in its own terms. We don't object that the laws of physics make no explicit mention of God, and many physicists see God as the explanation for the besauty of physical law; why not analogously in biology?
I have no problem with bioloogical facts etc. or including God in this. However, as someone recently said, the great thing about Darwin was that he made it respectable to be an atheist.
ReplyDeleteThe influenctial person, process and divine intervention usually hidden in various stages and sometimes open, are all part of the history thing.
Let's say I am rather disappointed when I find the amount of lies and so forth involved in American history and our view of ourselves.
That doesn't mean it isn't probably better, in my case at least, to be here than anywhere else.
That's assuming the move towards a fascist takeover here doesn't succeed. It started with The Patriot Act, which did not include anything inherently wrong, or indeed unconstitutional, the modern interpretations about wire tapping and so forth being based on comparisons that are invalid. The issue of the search and siezure amendment was about security of persons and papers, that one wasn't subject to violent shake down of a whole block or neighborhood on speculation the British General Warrant, in the context of which thefts and murders occurred.
(the ignorant patriot militia people complain of posse comitatus being violated by militarization of the police, when in fact that law mandates military involvement in law enforcement under some circumstances, and getting advice and technology from the military is not the same thing. Also, the police as distinct from an arm of the military, was developed MODELED on the military in the early 1800s here, maybe elsewhere also.) Search and Siezure issues were not about how wide a swath of fishing expedition could be done, it was about personal and property harm done. The Supreme Court decision that eliminated ease of surveillance explicitly drew the analogy to the General Warrant on the basis of the amount of info bugs got, and on that basis you can eliminate police infiltration or even witnesses in general at least the nosy neighbor type.
The Patriot Act was followed by the NDAA thing, which again on the face of it seems reasonable, but language was excluded that would have prevented its use against American citizens on American soil.
Now we got a law proposed to strip accused people of citizenship it seems. Any Occupy person or if the wind shifted, Tea Partier or whoever could be declassed from citizenship, and put in detention or deported to whatever country was buying slave labor from us or disappeared into some unholy laboratory somewhere.
The intentions of the people behind all this have been known from statements, preferences in international actions who to support and how, and personality types, for decades.
Meanwhile, we see one face of America here, while abroad quite another face is presented. And that other face is what is causing anti Americanism as much as anything else.
Now some people for whatever reason want to start WW 3. They cannot be ignorant of the relationships between Iran, China, and Russia, also Pakistan and China (the latter has already declared that any attack on its treaty partner Pakistan will be considered an attack on China) and some other countries. So they want to attack Iran. I wonder what stocks they are holding would be affected how by all this.
But the trouble is, the Patriot Act came about in a context used to the present concept of what is constitutional
"Now some people for whatever reason want to start WW 3. They cannot be ignorant of the relationships between Iran, China, and Russia, also Pakistan and China (the latter has already declared that any attack on its treaty partner Pakistan will be considered an attack on China) and some other countries. So they want to attack Iran."
ReplyDeleteWho wants to start WW3? Today, Ahmedinejad. 25 years ago, the Soviet Union, which we now know - no guesswork - had plans to invade Western Europe if ever the US nuclear umbrella went down. I find grotesque the inversion that says the USA wants to start WW3 when its aim is simply to guarantee stability of the oil supply through the Hormuz Strait. Granted that it is a good moral exercise to reflect on what your enemies say about you, but at the end of the day you don't have to believe every word of it. It seems to me that you wear some very strange spectacles.
I don't approve of those laws either, but how long would demonstrators against them last in Iran, China or the Soviet Union?
1. who wants start WW 3? advisors in our government. some elected, some not, and the latter probably have more information so are without excuse.
ReplyDeleteThe provocations we've been giving to Russia pale in comparison with any proposed attack on Iran, which does not have the capability to do WW 3 on its own. If it is trying to lead us into an attack so we will be taken down - AND WE WILL - by Russia, China, and support from south of the border where we have for nearly 100 years unendeared ourselves to the locals look up the term banana republic and keep looking, then our people should be smarter than to respond.
pride goeth before a fall.
we are too sure of ourselves. The end of the Cold War was probably not good news to a lot of people, who care nothing about the issues it was fought over.
2. how long would those protests go on in Iran etc.? well, they have been going on to some extent. Ask yourself, if that law to strip any suspect of American citizenship passes, how long will any protests go on here?
3. Back to global currency. Here is a link to a site that is more on topic. http://www.singleglobalcurrency.org/
I haven't read it, but the opening statement about a global world or whatever needing a global currency sticks out like a sore thumb.
Global interdependence is something that exists to some extent and tends to develop with trade. It is dangerous, because anything goes wrong in one place, it impacts the rest. As someone once said, Wall Street sneezes and the Hang Sen (Wall Street equivalent in SE Asia) gets a cold.
Global currency is even more undesirable on the face of it, even if the New Agers were opposed and Christians supporting it. Same reason. Any blip will impact everyone.
Just take the concept of disease and pandemic, and prevention, and you get the idea. Same with economics.
We ran on dollars as the de facto global currency for a long time. The Euro and some other thing is beginning to take its place. China and Japan have agreed to trade their currencies directly without converting them to dollars first.
So now, with the dollar in danger as the global currency, the banksters (that's not a typo, some people use the term to combine banker and gangster and yes there have been some odd deaths in context of investigations of banker fraud here and abroad), there is a push on for some new currency that will probably be under the same control and lead to the same problems that have already started to surface. Only this time it will be harder to beat, harder to opt out like some countries are starting to do.
I wouldn't be surprised if some telepathic agents of the people back of the federal reserve are feeding ideas to the chanellers as well. Read the Stargate Conspiracy, while the writers are New Age and pro chanelling, they spotted a CIA or other intelligence op behind "the nine."
But a global currency is as bad an idea as what is going on now, with the Federal Reserve (which is and always has been a private corporation), the IMF (which loots countries it pretends to help probably promoting a depopulation and eugenics program covertly by its austerity demands to pay back debt, while making independent currency difficult) and so forth.
here's a good reason to get away from fossil fuels, global warming or no global warming
ReplyDeletehttp://www.alternet.org/story/153717/fracking_on_shaky_ground%3A_how_our_latest_fossil_fuel_addiction_is_linked_to_earthquakes?akid=8105.253027.YqRYva&rd=1&t=5
http://www.blacklistednews.com/Who_Owns_The_Media%3F_The_6_Monolithic_Corporations_That_Control_Almost_Everything_We_Watch%2C_Hear_And_Read/17341/0/38/38/Y/M.html
ReplyDeleteAfter some reflection, I would like to apologize to 1:39 PM for insinuating that you are a troll. Since we are siblings in Christ, we can and should agree to disagree on political views, and do so in love, and my comments were not loving, so please forgive me.
ReplyDeleteHi Marko,
Apology accepted. It is apparent from what you wrote that your apology was sincere and I appreciate that.
"who wants start WW 3? advisors in our government. some elected, some not"
ReplyDeleteCan you name any specific person in the US government, elected or unelected, who "wants to start World War 3"? Because that is a shocking allegation to make about a fairly small number of people. I suspect you mean simply there are hawks there as well as doves. Just as in the Cold War, which American won without firing a shot.
In contrast Ahmedinejad really does want to start WW3, because he believes that the 12th Imam after Muhammad, born 12 centuries ago, is alive and hidden and about to return to lead the world to Islam in a cataclysm. Check Shia eschatology.
"If it [Iran] is trying to lead us into an attack so we will be taken down - AND WE WILL - by Russia, China, and support from south of the border"
You have no idea what will happen if war breaks out. Neither do I. Neither does Washington. In such circumstances, assertions made with total certainty typically say more about the speaker.
"We ran on dollars as the de facto global currency for a long time. The Euro and some other thing is beginning to take its place."
The Euro??? It will have its work cut out to survive the next year at all. Admittedly in the next decade America is going to have to learn that it is no.1 by a short head rather than by a mile, but that is hardly cause for despair.
Fracking does cause minor tremors, but geologists know where the big geological faults are and are not going to frack anywhere near those. Just build that pipeline to Canada, which does no more ecological damage than a railway line, and which will convey to the USA oil from a politically stable ally right on its doorstep, fracked in regions where nobody lives and which can be returned to their original state, and lose the US's strategic dependence on hostile regimes run by Hugo Chavez or the people who sponsored 9/11. To call this choice a no-brainer is an understatement. Only a multimillion dollar multinational corporation called Greenpeace stands in the way. Where do they get that sort of money from?
ReplyDeleteChristine:
ReplyDeleteWhat of Israel? Iran is developing nukes specifically to nuke Israel. Do you think Israel would be wrong to go pro-active against this threat? Should the US give military help?
"I wouldn't be surprised if some telepathic agents of the people back of the federal reserve are feeding ideas to the chanellers as well."
ReplyDeleteHuman beings do not of themselves have telepathic powers. This might be possible if the two persons involved both have demons that talk to each other, but I am not aware of any reliable evidence that God has ever permitted it to the extent of systematic conversations.
NB I am with you against the Fed and (for obvious theological reasons) against a 1-world currency.
Federal court blocks Oklahoma ban on Sharia
ReplyDeletehttp://www.cnn.com/2012/01/10/justice/oklahoma-sharia/index.html?hpt=hp_t3
any one person? just check on who stands where on attacking Iran, and
ReplyDeletethat will give you your answer. no one can be ignorant of the big picture here. either the individual thinks we can beat everyone or they have another agenda. the covert assassination of iranian scientists which has been going on, and possibly sabotage, if Iran is lying about the causes of some explosions is good enough.
When the USSR fell and the world's biggest fire sale went online, Iran could have gotten all the nukes it wanted, and some DID go missing from Kazakhstan, to wherever. broke and unpaid base commanders and lessers were selling all kinds of weapons.
In the early 1990s, Iran had emissaries visiting Mexico in a quest for nuclear power. They have been pursuing this a long time. They have had a relationship with Russia, being one of the BRIC nations, for nearly as long. If the purpose of the nuclear project is weapons or weapons only, and if Russia wanted to support this, they would have had nuclear missiles long ago. Ahmedinejad represents only an extreme small sect, looked on askance by other shiites and by others in the Iranian govt.
do you pay attention only to mainstream news? you need to look farther afield. In general, American media is run by 6 companies that control the rest. American media lies all the time, or at least spins and redirects. the degree of control by elements interfaced to the shadow government so to speak, is as good in effect and under the radar, as media control by govt. in Nazi Germany was up front.
Please, start digging. European media tells a lot more about what is going on, even over here. A professor I know who is Canadian originally, in his 80s and until recently a regular world traveller and consultant, comments repeatedly to me on this.
That you are reading Cumbey's books and writings shows you have made a good start. But there is more to find out there.
use some of the terms I have used in my posts as google search terms and don't limit yourself to the articles but pursue links and dig more.
Go on a fishing expedition. that much maligned practice probably got its bad reputation in law and society from the propaganda machines of bad people with stuff to hide. The point is, cast a wide net and examine all you find, and pursue some more than others.\
trust no one, there is either bad intention or bad judgement, in all of us, and agendas affect opinions and research. with experience you will develop a bs detector and learn to fish the diamonds out of the cess pool other times it is more like the bulk is good the part is bad. distinguish between facts and spin and agendas of writers. don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. follow the money.
deep politics and parapolitics are good terms to work with to start, never mind the morals or theology or political alignments of some writers, that doesn't matter. A good example is alex constantine amto fascost encyclopedia, a wealth of information. It doesn;t matter that he routinely mixes good with evil accepting the package deals of the left and progressives. get beyond that. the research links on my blog are good starters also
http://politicallyunclassifiable.blogspot.com
above all, do not accept the idea, routine on left and right, that any one position on anything, automatically implies or requires any other as a package deal break the sets each issue is a discreet issue and there are no heroes. not
in any classic absolute sense of the word.
telepathy - while the demons talking to each other and to the human minds is a good scenario and likely the case many times, that leaves out the question of how they can talk to human minds and be "heard" in the first place. back to telepathy, a much overrated ability of dubious value capable of being suppressed or enhanced.
ReplyDeletethe interesting thing about remote viewing. for stance, is that the highly disciplined Ed Dames when RVing his own past lives discovered that there IS NO REINCARNATION PERIOD. only people in the past who are doubles to us in the present, left a stamp on the atmosphere so to speak, and because of affinity we pick this trace up and think these are our own past lives in hypnotic regression.
interesting result for something manned by demons not what you would expect. also not what you would expect from someone with any scientology connection in the past also, or working with RVers ditto.
(The connection is denied but no reason to doubt it.)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adx1Me4jNdA&feature=g-all-f&context=G2035907FAAAAAAAAVAA
ReplyDeletethis guy is off the wall sometimes, and may have a shill among his inflencers, but this episode is worth watching and he always has tons of documentation, FOIA and couts docs and filings and this and that
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngzz99P-NRc
ReplyDeletebreak your left right conditioning he says I figured this out long before I ever heard of him.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66N1oiNNpk0
Christine,
ReplyDeleteThis is the physicist (again). Before my conversion, as an adult, I was also a keen Skeptic, meaning of the paranormal/supernatural - the CSICOP crew. My hero of that movement was not any associated humanist philosopher but James Randi, a stage magician/illusionist who knew how to test for fraud in nature, rather than test for subtlety as scientists do. Thankfully my total skepticism of the supernatural meant that I had no occult attachments that needed dealing with when I became a Christian.
I am still a physicist, and I now know how to preach to secular physicists - I ask them why the laws of physics are beautiful. All physicists see that beauty - it is what attracts them to the subject. This is the one question which Judaeo-Christian physicists can answer that secular physicists can't: the laws of physics were ordained by One who is into beauty.
I am no longer a Skeptic of the supernatural. Nevertheless Randi remains a hero of mine, because he scarcely philosophizes and cuts straight to the chase. He and a few of his colleagues have decisively shown that there are no reliable results indicating telepathy or remote viewing facility. All such results are due to poor methodology, occasionally the difficulty of setting the 'by-chance-alone' baseline with which to compare the results of parapsychological experiments, but most often the failure to preclude ways by which the subject can cheat.
Moreover, telepathy and remote viewing would, if a physical mechanism is involved, have to propagate information through a vacuum. Physicists know a lot about that. They have found four forces, but two are significant only inside atomic nuclei and fall off with distance so rapidly outside the nucleus that they could not conceivably be used for telepathy betwen atoms, let alone humans. Gravity dominates the universe on the largest scales but is an incredibly weak force between everyday objects - even two ocean liners passing each other experience only a kilogram or two of gravitational force. Telepathy using gravity wave emiters and detectors inside humans is therefore also inconceivable. That leaves electromagnetism. A magnetic sensor has been found in pigeons that allows them to navigate the the earth's magnetic field, but no organ capable of reception or transmission thru air or a vacuum has been found in humans. (NB electric eels depend on water to stun.) Such an organ would have to contain small aggregates of metal, as pigeons' receptors do, and none such exists in humans - it would have been found by now.
The only possible mechanism for transmission of information between humans is supernatural. Both god and Satan can do miracles. It is clear from the Bible that God does not do this kind of thing routinely. There is a possible demonic mechanism as I outlined, if both the human sender and the human receiver have demons inside them that are in spiritual communication, but I know of no evidence for any systematic communication of this sort to the extent of conversations, and I doubt that God would let it happen.
Christine,
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that reincarnation is false - the Bible says that man lies once and is then judged, in fact. But I disagree that, as you put it, 'people in the past who are doubles to us in the present, left a stamp on the atmosphere so to speak, and because of affinity we pick this trace up and think these are our own past lives'. The entire phenomenon is delusion and/or demonic.
Christine wrote: "who wants start WW 3? advisors in our government. some elected, some not"
ReplyDeleteAnon replied: "Can you name any specific person in the US government, elected or unelected, who "wants to start World War 3"? Because that is a shocking allegation to make about a fairly small number of people. I suspect you mean simply there are hawks there as well as doves."
Christine replied: "any one person? just check on who stands where on attacking Iran, and
that will give you your answer. no one can be ignorant of the big picture here. either the individual thinks we can beat everyone or they have another agenda."
What a long way of saying No!
To anonymous 7:03
ReplyDeleteSuch a beautiful and informed post. Thank you!
Constance
I repeat, all this begs the question of how any messaging between demons and us is possible in the first place, if telepathy is impossible. Some kind of broadcasting some kind of reception whether the message is rejected or not, and blocking is possible. Jesus is very good at blocking this stuff when we call on Him. In fact, proximity can play a role in some telepathy, and other times not. It definitely seems like several different phenomena are being viewed as identical and with one only possible cause or means of operation. Modern science's four forces were originally three. what else are we going to stumble on?
ReplyDeletesomewhere in that mix is stuff we do not need to get in contact with.
cutting lines of communication is important in warfare, and one theory has it that God shut down a lot of our sensitivity after The Fall for our own good.
And there are at least two kinds of telepathy, one that depends on the strength of the sender and is potentially invasive, another that depends on the sensitivity of the recipient, and the latter is most dangerous, this kind of passivity is what the New Age promotes. RV on the contrary is never passive.
I don't practice this stuff, but I have had some interesting experiences most of them not so good. I think there is a barrier capacity that is a normal part of the individual, "shielding" that
tyrants like my soul of a witch type biological so called mother couldn't stand my having, and New Agers encourage us to lose. Meanwhile, various vampires and witches and so forth struggle with building and maintaining shields, while looking down on "mundanes" who are born with the shielding they have to work on building. So who is the cripple? the arrogant sensitives, or the "mundanes"? I would say the former.
"all this begs the question of how any messaging between demons and us is possible in the first place, if telepathy is impossible."
ReplyDeleteNot so. Humans are both spiritual and material and spiritual. We can talk to each other in the same room using material, physical means; and we can hear demons if we are unlucky enough to harbor them. But there is no material/physical means by which telepathy can take place, as I explained above (an explanation you have simply ignored without refuting my reasons). So any such communication has to be spiritual. The demonic could be such a mechanism.
"Modern science's four forces were originally three. what else are we going to stumble on?"
What happened was that physics learned of gravity and electromagnetism and inferred that there had to be other forces which kicked in only at very short distances, on the scale of the atomic nucleus. That was because like charges repel, and it was known that the negatively charged electrons, which are components of an atom, orbit the positively charged nucleus. So an extra force was needed to hold the positively charged protons in the nucleus together against their mutual electrostatic repulsion. (Gravity was not strong enough to do it.) Granted it turned out that there were two such forces, but both are significant only on subnuclear scales, so that even before their number and details were elucidated their range was sufficient to rule them out for telepathy.
20 years ago there was some excitement about a fifth force, but even if it was real (it turned out to be a false alarm) it was so weak that it could not have been used for telepathy. As detector technology improves the same thing might happen again, but again it would be too weak for telepathy.
"one theory has it that God shut down a lot of our sensitivity after The Fall for our own good."
Pure speculation.
"And there are at least two kinds of telepathy, one that depends on the strength of the sender and is potentially invasive, another that depends on the sensitivity of the recipient, and the latter is most dangerous, this kind of passivity is what the New Age promotes. RV on the contrary is never passive."
Please see my comments above about how James Randi and associates have shown very clearly that this is baloney. Go to his website, and/or CSICOP's.
Regarding WW3, I believe the following commentary by Jeff Nyquist presents a highly-likely scenario for how it will unfold. It is taken from a discussion about the possibility of a direct nuclear attack from Russia. What makes it interesting here is that some have argued that we are provoking Iran, Russia, etc, by our activities, or that some handful of people somewhere are pulling the strings, to bring about WW3. I propose that the simpler answer is the better: Russia has had, and still has, a plan to destroy the West, and is going to, at some point, cash in on all that hard work spent on demoralizing and ruining our society for the last 60 years or more.
ReplyDeletePlease note what he says about conspiracy theorists in the scenario he presents (regardless of whether or not that particular scenario is the one that arises) and think it over carefully. What are the implications of what he is saying in that regard?
A surprise attack on the United States requires certain political and economic precursor events. You cannot politically survive the psychological aftermath of a nuclear attack unless you make the attack unavoidable, or attribute the blame to a Third Party or to the United States (or a combination of factors unrelated to Moscow). You must have an alibi. You must have a scapegoat. We can see these are under construction in terms of al Qaeda, North Korea and Iran. Even Venezuela may come into sharper focus here. The global economic crisis MUST worsen and America must be blamed in the court of world opinion. All these preconditions are absolute and absolutely necessary. Furthermore, an new international economic architecture must be ready BEFORE the total collapse of the dollar. Moscow and Beijing have been working on these preparations for years.
When the attack comes it will begin with terrorist nuclear strikes against cities. The real aim, in the resulting mayhem, will be a decapitation strike combined with psychological warfare operations in which anti-government extremists proclaim that the Federal Government is involved in a conspiracy to deprive the people of their liberty. Many will believe this propaganda, as millions already do. The result will be anarchy and disintegration. Conspiracy theory will then serve its intended purpose by making a frightened and paranoid country ungovernable and incapable of maintaining a credible deterrent.
In the weeks and months following the first terrorist strikes, active measures and psychological warfare will turn Americans against each other. When this reaches a critical point, the missiles from Russia and/or China will strike our decayed and unready nuclear forces -- probably with the excuse of preempting the coming to power of a dangerous right-wing dictator in the US.
Marko,
ReplyDeleteThank you for that commentary by Jeff Nyquist regarding WW3. That makes a lot of sense to me and I can see that scenario happening.
"all this begs the question of how any messaging between demons and us is possible in the first place, if telepathy is impossible."
ReplyDeleteNot so. Humans are both spiritual and material and spiritual. We can talk to each other in the same room using material, physical means; and we can hear demons if we are unlucky enough to harbor them. But there is no material/physical means by which telepathy can take place, as I explained above (an explanation you have simply ignored without refuting my reasons). So any such communication has to be spiritual. The demonic could be such a mechanism.
REPLY you have just made a point for what I was trying to say. Aside from any as yet unknown angle on physics, as you say, we are both physical and spiritual. We can communicate with each other on the material level.
Since we are also spiritual, we should be able to communicate with each other on that level also.
Additional players like demons might well be in the picture sometimes, but not necesarily. What their role more likely is, is to heighten senses long dulled - and better left dulled.
now, I know a person who has an inherited ability to see the unseen. People call this "spiritual." define spiritual. A few select questions, and it is evident that he is seeing father into the UV and IR range than normal for a human, but not for a cat or dog which animals are notorious for watching things move around we can't see, getting upset over stuff we sometimes feel and sometimes don't.
But there is a THIRD angle on all physical creatures, ignored in all this conversation so far, the soul.
Nephesh can mean the immortal part, that also provides life to the body, but separates at death, or it can refer to the whole body soul spirit spectrum. The boundary lines between these are unclear.
and it is in this zone that the energy body exists, and that most
paranormal stuff would operate.
MIND YOU I DO NOT ADVOCATE THIS STUFF ITS USE CAN ATTRACT DEMON ATTENTION. And I also strongly suspect, that many unusual powers are possible because of a sort of dislocation of the soul body that is not normal to it.
Ecclesiastes 12 I think it is describes the death process, mentioning a golden bowl being broken (septuagint in english says flower rather than bowl) and "wheel" which is what chakra means. someone with spiritual sight may have mapped the soul's denser level in those days.
BUT THE INFORMATION ABOUT WHAT THESE ARE SUPPOSED TO LOOK LIKE WE HAVE ONLINE AND MOST PLACES HAS TO BE WRONG. Because it comes from people whose bias is anti matter, anti God, and for instance they think a golden aura is a sign of spiritual greatness when in my experience this only shows on people with a demonic connection.
The gold in iconography was explained to me by a monk deacon with spiritual sight, as an attempt to describe something more pale beige than brassy gold, and finest clear gold was the best they could do, plus gold as valuable and a sign of honor. If anyone thinks their chakras need balancing, they should not get anyone to do this or try to do it using information from New Agers, because all this is infected with wrong ideas of health. ASK JESUS OF THE BIBLE TO DO IT and forget it.
"What a long way of saying No!"
ReplyDeleteI don't pay attention to WHO is in govt. I have to check who my representative or senator is to send some complaint or petition signing.
I am more on history and theory, but NO MATTER WHO IT IS UNDER DISCUSSION, DO NOT LISTEN TO WHAT THEY SAY WHEN LOOKING FOR VOTES OR GETTING VETTED BY CONGRESS, LOOK AT WHAT THEY DO.
Now you take whichever candidate for nomination it was that advocated war (those people all make me want to vomit except Ron Paul, who I originally opposed for wanting to dismantle social security, but in the present environment he can't have time to do any harm and can do a lot of good), it was that said something about being hard on Iran. Then look at who has his ear.
Among the elites, Brzinski (sp) has expressed concerns that this might be a bad idea. Probably because he has enough sense to realize that we will be biting off more than we can chew.
A hubris and delusion and expecting to use this to end the USA democracy in a republic and create the imperial dictatorship, blind to realities, would want WW3.
What such don't realize, or don't take seriously, is that a very big coalition is slowly growing against us, and one has a humongous population and if you want population reduction, well, throw as many of both sexes into combat as possible. And you can still win.
I repeat. Start learning to speak Chinese.
The future, if we do WW 3, will be one dominated by a non Communist Russia, and a centrist China. And
that domination will be on a lot of USA ex turf.
Brezinski may be one of the few who realize this, though I don't think he was explicit.
Who in government? kid you are asking the wrong question.
Ask instead, who runs the government? it ain't us. Right or left, they are sold out to big money, elites, and big oil and DO NOT represent our interests for the most part. we are only tools to get into power.
Christine wrote: "who wants start WW 3? advisors in our government. some elected, some not"
ReplyDeleteAnon replied: "Can you name any specific person in the US government, elected or unelected, who "wants to start World War 3"? Because that is a shocking allegation to make about a fairly small number of people. I suspect you mean simply there are hawks there as well as doves."
First you failed to give any names in a paragraph. Now you tell me I am asking the wrong question. It's all evasion. You made an assertion, that some advisors in the US government want to start World War 3, and you can't back up that assertion. Some advisors think it is worth sticking Uncle Sam's neck out to stop Ahmedinejad nuking Israel and keep the Hormuz Strait open. To say in hysterical capital letters that such deterrence will lead to WW3 is nonsensical. You can't know.
"A surprise attack on the United States requires certain political and economic precursor events. You cannot politically survive the psychological aftermath of a nuclear attack unless you make the attack unavoidable, or attribute the blame to a Third Party"
ReplyDeletesay WHAT?!!! the aftermath would be jubilation and WE WON! reelect the conquering hero! Where is this nut coming from? This fellow must be projecting a fantasy world of his own making.
Also there is something most don't know about. FAE, fuel air explosives. These can be of any size whatsoever, higher shock blast and lower heat than nuclear, and kilo for kilo pack more punch than a nuclear blast, without I think the concomitant EMP problems, and I think less rolling shock wave.
Just how much damage do you think people want to do to some place they want to invade?
Russia has been working with FAEs for a while now, and used the hand held grenade sized versions in the Chechnya situation.
as for conspiracy theorists, though some wierdos exist, the ones under attack are often the ones with official documentation and admissions by big players on tape when too sure of themselves, or even in biographies and articles, stated plans and goals, to back up what they say. you should look at some of this stuff.
ReplyDeleteAlso, sources cited by some of these are public information in foreign press. less controlled than the American press, which is owned by 6 companies that directly or indirectly own all the rest.