Bah, Humbug!
...With all the fuss this year about whether it is ok to say Christmas, I can't help but wonder:
...What if the buildings and monuments at our nation's capital were being built today, and somebody suggested that we display a reference to God on them? What if our coins were just now coming into being and somebody suggested that we put the motto In God We Trust on them? What if our Declaration of Independence were being issued right now, (can you imagine the congresspeople we have in Washington now coming up with a document like that? Who knows what it would say?) and somebody suggested we make reference in the document to Our Creator? Can you even imagine the fighting that would take place as a result?
...To me, that speaks loud and clear as to where we are as a nation at this point in time.
...There have always been anti-christian forces in our nation, but they have had to work more behind the scenes instead of out in the open. Now for the first time in our nation's history, it seems to me, that we as a nation are saying that we are not under God. He has no place in our nation. And I think we are beginning to see the results of that decision. When you sow the wind, you reap the whirlwind. I pray God's continued mercies upon our great nation.

12/10/05 Notes
Washington State Democrats promote anti-Christian merchandise. You've seen that fish symbol that a lot of people put on their cars to show that they are Christians? Well, it seems that the Washington state democrats had a fish symbol of their own promoted on their website. It was that fish in flames with the word 'hypocrite' on it. After a blogger picked up on it and exposed it, the symbol was removed from the democrat website. But the blogger had saved a picture of the original page just in case. Now the Democrat webpage in question just the remaining four items on it: four ribbons, each with a different slogan: 1. Don't Blame Me: Blue State Pride; 2. Support Our Environment; 3. Support Diversity; 4. Give Peace A Chance. The last one also displays what has become known as the traditional peace symbol, which by the way, is an upside down broken cross.
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National ID Card Being Considered? This week, attendees at an Infosecurity conference in New York debated the merits of a national ID card system. Mr. Tom Ridge, the former head of the Homeland Security Department, called them 'inevitable'. He said national security requirements would bring the cards into being.
...Along those lines, did you know that President Bush issued an executive order back in 2004 directing the Homeland Security department to come up with an identification system that would establish government-wide standards to identify Government employees and contractors, and that once the standard was in place, that the use of the identification would be required to gain physical access to Federal facilities and logical access to Federally controlled information systems.
...Not much to argue with there. We need security, no doubt about it. But we are going further down a road that may take us to place we didn't want to go and end up at a point of no return. Here's a prediction. The day is coming when no one will be able to access a computer system anywhere without providing identification. Computer terrorism, hacking, viruses, identify theft, online fraud, thievery, etc. all will bring about support for this initiative. All financial transactions will be handled electronically, without the need for people to carry cash or credit cards. This will help reduce crime further, I suppose we will be told, because it should reduce muggings and strongarm robberies since no one will be carrying cash. Incidentally, as you may have guessed, here's the source of that prediction: "And 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: and that no man might buy or sell, save he had that mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name." Revelation 13: 16,17.
...The apostle John was recording what he saw in a vision. He had no understanding of computers or the world in which we live. I have read many fanciful stories of how we will all either be wearing some kind of tattoos. People who say that indicate that it will somehow be considered by everybody in the world to be a beauty mark. The mainstream opinion from the end times writers I have read is that it will be some sort of chip implanted under the skin so that scanning devices can read it.
...On the other hand, I wonder if what the apostle John saw was people putting their hands into biometric scanners, or holding their heads in place in front of optical recognition retina scanners, and he assumed that there was a physical mark, not realizing that there would someday be machines sophisticated enough to positively identify a person by their unique God-given physical attributes. It seems to me that biometric scanning would be more secure (and easier to gain acceptance) than a chip that could be taken out of one person and put into another.
...Here's a section of the President's above-mentioned Executive Order that details the requirements of the ordered idenification system:
"Secure and reliable forms of identification" for purposes of this directive means identification that (a) is issued based on sound criteria for verifying an individual employee's identity; (b) is strongly resistant to identity fraud, tampering, counterfeiting, and terrorist exploitation; (c) can be rapidly authenticated electronically; and (d) is issued only by providers whose reliability has been established by an official accreditation process."
...It seems to me that is a system that could easily be expanded to include everyone else, too.
...If you are interested in reading more about this issue, here is a link that links to a lot of other sources (and countries). Apparently this issue is being debated all around the world.
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12/9/05 Quotes and notes...
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"That is a big controversy this year about calling Christmas trees, holiday trees and trying to take religion out of the holidays. I was watching one of these cable news shows about this and they had on an atheist who said they were against "organized” religion. And while they were talking, they had on the screen the name of the atheist organization. So they were against organized religion but organized atheism is apparently ok." Jay Leno, during his 12/7 monologue on The Tonight Show on NBC.
... Good point, Jay. Aethism is a religion - its adherents just reject God. Secular humanism is also a religion. And the mainstream media doesn't seem to have much of a problem helping other religions espouse their views. It's Christianity they have a problem with.
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...Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls for Israel to be moved to Europe. People aren't noticing that this seems to be a softening of his stance (tongue in cheek), since last month he issued a call to "wipe Israel off the map."
...This is an issue that has its origins in Biblical times dating back to Abraham. And it is not going to be permanently solved by an agreement, no matter how nice that would be. When one side starts from the position that the other side has no right to exist, where do you go? No amount of appeasement will satisfy what is really bothering them. That should be obvious by now.
...Have you noticed that Mr. Ahmadinejad's comments last month seemed to get less coverage in the mainstream media than Pat Robertson's suggestion to take out Mr. Chavez of Venezuela? I wish Mr. Robertson would keep opinions such as those to himself rather than share them with the world. But at the same time, I don't see why his opinion should be headline news anyway. And I certainly don't see why the voiced opinion of a televangelist who has no ability to follow through on his suggestion should garner more media attention than the call by a president of a sovereign nation that is working on a nuclear program to wipe another nation off the face of the earth. Does that make any sense?
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...Wow. I guess that's enough coffee for today, huh?
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12/08/05 more signs of the times...
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...Proposed communique from the summit of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) in Mecca. According to the article in the Bangkok Times (keep in mind Thailand is a Muslim nation), the summit urged Muslim states to fight terrorism and to develop educational curriculums to promote tolerance and understanding. Regarding political issues, the summit centered on the Palestinian situation, and called on Israeli forces to withdraw from Palestinian lands. They advised that this would help the peace process in accordance with the United Nations resolution; the Arab peace initiative; and the Roadmap peace plan.
...The summit also wants to ensure that Jerusalem preserves Islamic historical identities; to stop and dismantle Jewish settlements; and to stop construction of and to demolish the separation wall being built by Israel.
...Click the link above for an April 2003 BBC article regarding the implementation of the Roadmap peace plan, and this link for a followup December 2003 BBC article stating that the U.S. was still committed to the Roadmap peace plan, but was open to other ideas, and was talking to the architects of the Geneva Accord, a rival peace plan. The plot continues to thicken.
...The whole idea of the peace process in the Middle East is something to keep an eye on. The feuds here go back to Biblical times, and in my opinion, have great significance for our times. Both sides rightly claim Abraham as their father, although the Bible teaches that the true seed came through Isaac, not through Ishmael or Abraham's other sons via concubines.
...More to come on this later, don't have the time right now, but in brief, there seems to be two main positions (and many others, and different derivatives of these as well, I know) regarding end times: the premillennialists and the amillennialists. There are also postmillennialists, but a lot of things have happened in the past century or so to weaken the position that all is going to become light and roses and usher in the kingdom of God.
...The main branch, or at the least the most vocal so the most widespread, of the premillennial factions seem to be the dispensational premillennialists. They are the people, (i.e. Hal Lindsey et al), who teach that Christians will be raptured out of here, then the seven year great tribulation will take place. At the end of the seven years, Christ will come back, defeat satan and his minions, and set up a literal kingdom here on earth for a thousand years. At the end of the thousand years, satan will be loosed again to deceive the nations, and Christ will demolish him again, and then comes the final judgment and the eternal kingdom.
...The amillennialists generally do not believe in the literal thousand year reign of Christ on earth. Rather, they teach that the thousand years is a symbolical number relating to the period in between Christ's advent and his second coming, and that the thousand years basically refers to the church age and that the kingdom of God was already established by Jesus and is here already.
...As I said before, there seems to be a zillion variations off these themes, and on all the others. I have seen premillennialism, amillennialism, postmillennialism, pretribulationism, etc. etc. all proved beyond a doubt by learned and sincere people, all feeling that they were correct and being led to share their beliefs on the subject. I can point you to reference materials on all these viewpoints and others if you are interested, but that is not the point of this discussion.
...Rather, the point is that I think that the dispensational premillennialists and the amillennialists both miss it in regard to the physical nation of Israel.
...The dispensational premillennialists in general (I hate to keep making qualifying statements, but anytime one is talking about scriptural issues of this type there are so many alternate viewpoints and slight differences in interpretation that everyone gets bent out of shape on the wording - so if I forget, please keep in mind I am talking in wide brushstrokes and not trying to make an all-inclusive argument here.) teach that after the Christians have been raptured from earth, God will turn his attention to Israel. The nation will turn to God. They, along with the non-Christians who were left behind after the rapture, will endure the great tribulation. But at the conclusion of the seven years, Jesus Christ will return to defeat satan, bind him for a thousand years, and set up His kingdom on earth for the thousand year reign. Israel will, as Paul said in Romans, be grafted back into the olive tree. They almost seem to treat the entire Christian era as a parenthesis that occurs in between God's dealings with his real people, the nation of Israel.
...But with their emphasis on the rapture and their belief that Christians will be gone before all the catastrophes really get going, and that the peace contract brokered by the anti-Christ will take place after the rapture, I fear that they miss the significance of a lot of the events that are taking place right before their eyes. For example, any peace contracts signed now can't be the one referred to in the Scriptures because the Christians are still here - even though the rapture could take place any moment, the other endtime events that they believe follow after the rapture are obviously still to come.
...On the amillennialist side, they miss it in general in my opinion, because they believe that God broke off his dealings with Israel permanently, and that the church is true Israel, and that God is no longer dealing at all with the physical nation. So they miss the scriptural significance of the events that they see occurring in the Middle East. And they don't see the importance of another thing, among others, Jesus said in reference to Jerusalem - that Jerusalem would be trodden underfoot until the times of the Gentiles were fulfilled. So the amillennialists miss the significance of the historical fact that the nation of Israel took over control of Jerusalem, for the first time in about two thousand years, in 1967.
...In Luke 21:24, Jesus says "...and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled." And Paul writes in Romans 11:25, "For I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant of this mystery, lest ye should be wise in your own conceits; that blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles come in." And that, dear reader, is the time in which we are living now.
...More to come.

...The IRS is looking into the tax-exempt status of a church in California because of a sermon delivered there on the eve of the 2004 presidential election. Since 1954, there has been a federal law on the books prohibiting any tax-exempt organization from endorsing any political candidate, though they can speak for or against social and political issues (including Supreme Court nominees). In this case, it is a liberal church. Former rector George Regas delivered a message titled "If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush".
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...A Coptic Christian TV station is going on the air in Egypt. "Our aim is to get Christians and Muslims closer together. God is love, and we will show them our God and our love," said the station's executive director, Father Bishoy Al-Antony. You can image how well that's going over in Egypt. Tensions have been running particularly high lately, as the Muslim Brotherhood party is making a surprising showing in parts of the country.
...From what I understand, Coptic Christians differ in their beliefs from other more traditional Christians in that they adhere to monophysitism, that is the belief that instead of the divine and human natures joining to form one person in Jesus, he had just one nature in which the divine and human were indistinguishable. But anyway, in Egypt, although the nation's constitution guarantees religious freedom, a presidential permit is required to build, renovate or make even minor repairs to churches. And Copts are apparently discriminated against all throughout the society, and rarely hold important offices. U.S. lawmakers are warning that they intend to increasingly tie their funding efforts to Egypt on how well the Egyptian government protects the Copts.

12/7/05 notes...more signs of the times.
...President Bush's Santa joke... "The lighting of the National Christmas tree is one of the great traditions in our nation's capital. Each year, we gather here to celebrate the season of hope and joy – and to remember the story of one humble life that lifted the sights of humanity. Santa, thanks for coming. Glad you made it."...in remarks at the lighting of the national Christmas tree in Washington. Just seems a little puzzling this particular Christmas season. No offense intended, I'm sure, but then at the 12/6 White House press briefing, Press Secretary McClellan, when asked if the President would apologize to Christians for the remark, said the White House didn't see any problem with the remarks. "The president meant exactly what he said."
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...Egyptian police beat women voters in a precinct in Zagazig on the final day of Egypt's legislative elections. Police blocked the women's access to a polling station in the city of Zagaig, a neighborhood where the minority party Muslim Brotherhood were expected to win. According to the article, the Muslim Brotherhood wants to install Islamic law in Egypt.
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...Was it a sin in the first place? Another take on the case of Michelle McCusker, the pre-kindergarten teacher who was fired from her job at the Catholic school where she worked. The ACLU has filed a complaint on Miss McCusker's behalf, claiming discrimination against a pregnant woman in the workplace. As the author of this article points out, the situation has "sparked a debate over the constitutional rights of a pregnant woman versus the rights of a religious institution to observe and enforce moral standards in the workplace." But, as the author points out, it apparently has not sparked a debate about sin.
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...Some Jewish leaders met recently in Manhattan regarding concerns that the religious right are trying to Christianize America. The meeting was called by Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman due to his concerns about Christian groups trying to impose their religious beliefs on the nation. "There's a tone deafness in [the evangelical] community about religious freedom," said Marc Stern, who is the assistant executive director of the American Jewish Congress. "There seems to be among them a lack of awareness as to how they're crowding out others."
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...Ford pulls advertising from publications targeted to homosexuals. Ford called their move a business decision, and not a response to a boycott by the American Family Association. See the full article for comments from the combatants on both sides. Here's one from each side: "
"We are deeply dismayed by reports in the media and otherwise that the Ford Motor Co. has entered into a confidential agreement with the extremist American Family Association that requires Ford to stop advertising in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) media," reads a statement signed by 17 groups.
"If there is an agreement with AFA, we expect Ford to disavow it. We expect Ford to publicly reaffirm its historic support for our community. And, we expect Ford to meet with LGBT representatives this week to resolve these concerns."
And from the other side:
"They've heard our concerns; they are acting on our concerns," Mr. Wildmon said. "We are ending the boycott of Ford. While we still have a few differences with Ford, we feel that our concerns are being addressed in good faith and will continue to be addressed in the future.
"The dealers were very helpful in bridging a gap and opening a line of communication between AFA and Ford. The dealers are basically our kind of people who share many of our concerns." Mr. Donald Wildman, head of the AFA.
...And here's a link to another article on this same subject.

...International Red Cross Political Correctness Issue...Representatives from 192 countries gathered in Geneva yesterday to work out an agreement that would allow the International Red Cross (IRC) to use a third emblem for their insignia, and thus allow Israel to join the movement - they have been excluded up to this point. Israel has always refused to let the Red Cross equivalent work in its country, since they use either the Christian red cross or Muslim crescent. Israel has insisted up to this point on using the Star of David, so that has never worked out. The new design is to be a neutral design that could be used in countries where the cross or the crescent are deemed unacceptable.
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...Hannukah songs ok, but no Christmas carols because 'songs with dogmatic religious statements' are foribdden.
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...More religious attacks in southeast Asia, including Christian children murdered.
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...Christmas: Going, going, gone? Another article on something that seems to be cropping every day this year. Lots of Scrooges out there this year, eh?
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