Month: December 2012
The Case for Christmas ~ Lee Strobel
Lee Strobel – The Case for Christmas Audiobook ch. 1
Ex-Atheist turned Christian Lee Strobel (author of The Case for Christ, The Case for the Real Jesus, and the Case for a Creator) speaks on Christmas and defends the divinity and person of Jesus. Do we have reliable records about Jesus? Did Jesus clearly claim to be God? Did Jesus offer credible credentials to back up his claim?
David Gregory Sends Kids to School with Armed Security (1/3rd of Public Schools have Armed Guards as well)
Gateway Pundit has this:
David Gregory mocked the NRA’s Wayne LaPierre for proposing that armed guards be at every school in America. But the NBC host seems to have no problem with armed guards protecting his kids everyday where they attend school in Washington, D.C.
“You proposed armed guards in school. We’ll talk about that in some detail in a moment. You confronted the news media. You blamed Hollywood and the gaming industry. But never once did you concede that guns could actually be part of the problem. Is that a meaningful contribution, Mr. LaPierre, or a dodge?,” asked Gregory.
Later the host suggested that guns don’t prevent violence in schools (he cited the mass shootings at Columbine and Virginia Tech). “But you would concede that, as good as an idea as you think this is, it may not work. Because there have been cases where armed guards have not prevented this kind of massacre, this kind of carnage. I want you would concede that point, wouldn’t you?,” Gregory pleaded.
The NBC host would go on the rest of the segment to suggest that armed guards might not be effective in preventing mass murders at school. Which is perhaps an interesting theoretical argument.
But when it comes to Gregory’s own kids, however, they are secured every school day by armed guards.
And this as well:
Nationwide, at least 23,000 schools — about one-third of all public schools — already had armed security on staff as of the most recent data, for the 2009-10 school year, and a number of states and districts that do not use them have begun discussing the idea in recent days…
Democratic Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland Taken to the Tool Shed by CNBC
LA TRABA
Think Twice Before Getting That Water-Cooler
A Recorded Dialogue Between Some Mormon Elders and Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church (Serious Saturday)
Jeff Durbin of Apologia Church and Apologia Radio speaks on the street and gives the Gospel to a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints at the Mormon Temple in Mesa, Arizona. This is awesome audio! Listen in to this conversation that displays how to demonstrate that Joseph Smith is clearly a false teacher and how Mormonism teaches a false-god and false-gospel. This conversation is a wonderful example of apologetics and evangelism. Share this with your friends: Mormon and Christian!
Heavy Fire!
U.S. Soldiers come under fire from Taliban fighters and react with an immediate hail of suppressing fire to keep the enemies’ heads down. Once the firefight is won and the enemy breaks contact, the team does a break down of remaining ammo and supplies.
Concepts: “Free Will or Not” – That is the Question
This is a topic I know a bit about, as, it is a common feature required to make distinctions in philosophy and science (and the philosophy of science) regarding naturalism and its influence on epistemology and if we can know truth, moral truth or otherwise. As we read the article we come to a small paragraph that shows me John is traipsing into territory he knows nothing about but makes sweeping statements as if he does. We read:
- Acceptance of an assumption that there is no free will would remove everyone’s responsibility for his or her behavior, and nobody could be condemned to jail or death. Such a thesis also would deny the influence of DNA and of experience in life.
Firstly, popular culture weighs in on this idea that somehow DNA influences free-will?
- “Infidelity – It May Be In Our Genes” ~ Time, August 15, 1994;
- “20th Century Blues” – Stress, anxiety, depression: the new science of evolutionary psychology finds the roots of modern maladies in our genes ~ Time, August 28, 1995;
- “Born Happy (Or Not)” – Happiness is more than just a state of mind… It is in the genes too;
- “Born To Be Gay?” ~ New Zealand Herald, August 8, 1996;
- “What Makes Them Do It?” – People who crave thrills, new evidence indicates, may be prompted at least partly by their genes ~ New Scientist, September 28, 1996, p. 32;
- “Your Genes May Be Forcing You To Eat Too Much” ~ Time, January 15, 1996;
- “Infanticide/neonaticide is caused by an evolutionary imperative” ~ New York Times, November 2, 1997.
In a lecture from Stephen Hawkings (who holds the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics, Einstein’s chair) at a lecture given to a university crowd in England entitled “Determinism – Is Man a Slave or the Master of His Fate.” He discussed whether we are the random products of chance, and hence, not free, or whether God had designed these laws within which we are free. In other words: do we have the ability to make choices, or do we simply follow a chemical reaction induced by millions of mutational collisions of free atoms?
Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s maxim rings just as true today as it did in his day,“If there is no God, all things are permissible.” Without an absolute ethical norm, morality is reduced to mere preference and the world is a jungle where might makes right. This same strain of thought caused Mussolini to comment,
Which brings me to the finishing statement from John, “I cannot see how any society could function without assuming we do have free will.” On this we agree, even an atheistic society must borrow from the theistic worldview. In a previous response to My Huizum, I noted Sam Harris’ thinking on ultimate ethics:
- evolutionary psychology (for instance, atheist defender Sam Harris makes the Darwinian psychological statement that “…there’s nothing more natural than rape. Human beings rape, chimpanzees rape, orangutans rape, rape clearly is part of an evolutionary strategy to get your genes into the next generation if you’re a male.”)
So, let us see some popular positions taken by “evangelical” atheists:
Richard Dawkins
(h/t: TrueFreeThinker) – A Statement Made by an atheist at the Atheist and Agnostic Society:
[side note] You may also be aware that Richard Dawkins stated,
- “What’s to prevent us from saying Hitler wasn’t right? I mean, that is a genuinely difficult question.”*
* Stated during an interview with Larry Taunton, “Richard Dawkins: The Atheist Evangelist,” by Faith Magazine, Issue Number 18, December 2007 (copyright; 2007-2008)
Lewis Wolpert
Dan Barker
Take note also that leaders in atheistic thinking and philosophers of good standing deal with the determinism found in neo-Darwinian/naturalistic philosophies and evolutionary thinking. For instance, from a debate I was in many years ago, Stan said the following:
- “The brain works by firing electric charges that then release chemicals that make others fire electric charges.”
Robots and Cosmic Puppetry: The Scientific Challenge to Freedom
[….]
[….]
Which brings C.S. Lewis to mention how he was not able to connect the idea of “evil” to the world as an atheist:
William Lane Craig, who debated Sam Harris, works through this in his post, “Navigating Sam Harris’ The Moral Landscape.” One can see from Sam Harris that ethics is not something that “ought” to be adhered to. In an article and from a debate between theist William Lane Craig and Same Harris, we can zero in on what naturalism says
William Lane Craig Discusses Sam Harris’ book, “The Moral Landscape”
So we can see that even the person mentioned in John Van Huizum’s article, Sam Harris, in reality rejects his premise that free will exists. John does say though, that we must (we meaning any society, secular or not) must assume it to be true. Thus, John is borrowing from the Judeo-Christian worldview and really arguing for the coherence of it (and the incoherence of the opposite), and not of atheism… unbeknownst to him! John neglects to tell us “the rest of the story” (Paul Harvey), or more likely doesn’t know the story to begin with.
- Simple enough… as above. REMEMBER, Dr. Provine is an evolutionist… a neo-Darwinian proponent following his worldview to its logical ends/consequences.
First Muslim Killed On American Soil For Non-Orthodox Views (1990)
This is an end to a very long case that started with the death of an Imam in 1990, from Jihad Watch:
Rashad Khalifa may be the first person murdered on American soil for heretical Islamic teachings, but he will almost certainly not be the last. “Man convicted in imam’s 1990 slaying,” by Kim Smith for the Arizona Daily Star, December 20: Nearly 23 years after Rashad Khalifa was stabbed and beaten to death, the man accused of doing it has been convicted of premeditated, first-degree murder.
[….]
Deputy Pima County Attorney Casey McGinley told jurors during closing arguments Wednesday that “every piece of evidence, every witness and every analysis” pointed to Francis as the killer.
Khalifa’s body was found in the kitchen of an East Sixth Street mosque on Jan. 31, 1990. The imam had been stabbed 29 times, beaten and doused with a flammable solvent by a killer who turned on a gas stove’s burners in an apparent attempt to destroy the crime scene.
Attorneys for both sides agreed Khalifa, 54, was likely killed because of his religious teachings. After studying the Quran for years, he found a mathematical code and came to believe two verses were satanic. In his English translation of the Quran, he removed those verses. He also taught that people should follow the word of God and not that of human beings.
“His attacker was filled with anger and he was filled with rage and he was filled with the want and desire to kill,” McGinley said.
McGinley told jurors the evidence showed Francis moved to Tucson under an assumed name with the express desire to kill Khalifa. He rented an apartment, got a job and a driver’s license so he could easily join Khalifa’s congregation and get to know the layout of the mosque and Khalifa’s schedule.
Mahmoud Abib, a friend of Khalifa’s, was the first person to realize Francis might have had something to do with Khalifa’s death, McGinley reminded jurors.
Abib recalled how Francis wanted to know more about the Quran but would argue about what it says, McGinley said. Francis also knew how to pray distinct prayers and seemed more interested in the layout of the mosque than the lectures….
Daniel Pipes gives a little background to Rashad’s heresy that triggered his death from a death cult (from August 1993):
At other times, American violence involving immigrants concerns faith more than ethnicity, as showed by the tragic example of Rashad Khalifa, an Egyptian biochemist who settled in Tucson, Arizona. Khalifa studied the Qur’an in an effort to teach Islam to his wife, an American woman, and his children. Being a scientist, he turned his methodology to the Qur’an and found, though a numerological analysis by computer, that the number nineteen provides a key to its contents. (This was not new; computers had led other numerologists to the same conclusion.) Muslims initially received this conclusion amicably, indeed with considerable enthusiasm, but Khalifa then took his theory of nineteen too far when he calculated the exact date of the Day of Judgment using his formulae. Already, mainstream Muslims denounced his efforts as “a shoddily concocted hoax.” Khalifa took his next step off the beaten path in concluding that the schema of nineteens excluded the final two ayats (verses) of Sura 9 and made this worse when he published a Qur’an without those two ayats. Finally, Khalifa declared himself a prophet (nabi), just about the most serious offense in Islam, which holds Muhammad to be the “seal of the prophets.” On 27 February 1989, the 11th Majlis al-Fuqaha’ (Council of Religious Scholars) met in Mecca and branded Khalifa an infidel (kafir). A year later he was dead, murdered by unknown assailants, presumably orthodox Muslims angered by his teachings.
A Rush on Rights
This is with thanks to Firearm Blog:
This photo was taken before the rush:
This was on Monday:
Tuesday:
And another store:
And the rack that once held magazines:
America`s First School Massacre (The Bath School Massacre of 1927) Is Still Its Bloodiest ~ Larry Elder
From Video Description:
In this episode, some history and calm common sense is used to about the recent shooting in Connecticut. (Posted by: https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/) Examples from history are used (Bath School Massacre in Michigan) as well as video interview of Bernie Goldberg and the person who most likely stopped the massacre in the Clackamas Mall shooting. Columbine and other examples are used as well.
This should be combined with the three interviews of John Lott (the first three videos on this at the top of this post:
★ https://religiopoliticaltalk.com/john-lott-interviewsexchanges-listen-learn/
The interviews of John Lott on CNN show how the Left argues from emotion and the Right argues from what works
For more clear thinking like this from Larry Elder… I invite you to visit: http://www.larryelder.com/