Even though Bill Maher is anything but a conservative, he has been pushed by the Left to the center. I will again post the TWIX by Elon — CLICK TO ENLARGE:
Here is a recent monologue by Bill discussing the sexualization of our children… something I [and others] have been noting for many years.
LANGAUGE WARNING:
Bill Maher – It turns out for pedophiles in Hollywood
Originally posted November 2015… swapped out media today
The Postmodernism of Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) and Paul-Michel Foucault (1926-84)
Postmodernism is often viewed as a reaction to modernism. Some see it as a form of extreme modernism. Basically, it is a radical kind of relativism that denies absolute truth, meaning, and interpretation.
Forerunners. The premodern world (before 1650) stressed metaphysics. The modern period (1650-1950) emphasized epistemology, and the postmodern (1950—present) is focused on hermeneutics. The differences have been expressed in terms of an umpire:
The forerunners of postmodernism include Hume’s radical empiricism, Kant’s agnosticism, Kierkegaard’s fideism, Nietzsche’s atheism, Frege’s conventionalism, Wittgenstein’s noncognitivism, Husserl’s phenomenologicalism, Heidegger’s existentialism, and William James’s pragmatism. The postmodernists Jacques Derrida and Paul-Michel Foucault added to this a form of deconstructionism, in which the reader deconstructs the meaning of the author and reconstructs his or her own meaning.
The Reaction to Modernism. Postmodernism can be seen as a reaction to modernism in the following ways:
|
Modernism Unity of thought |
Postmodernism
Diversity of thought |
The Result of Postmodernism. Postmodernism is an outworking of Nietzschian atheism. If there is no Absolute Mind (God), then there is
1. no absolute (objective) truth (epistemological relativism),
2. no absolute meaning (semantical relativism),
3. no absolute history (reconstructionism).
And if there is no Absolute Author, then there is
4. no absolute writing (textual relativism),
5. no absolute interpretation (hermeneutical relativism).
And if there is no Absolute Thinker, then
6. there is no absolute thought (philosophical relativism),
7. there are no absolute laws of thought (antifoundationalism).
If there is no Absolute Purposer, then there is
8. no absolute purpose (teleological relativism).
If there is no Absolute Good, then there is
9. no absolute right or wrong (moral relativism).
In brief, postmodernism is a form of total relativism and subjectivism. At its base, it is a form of antifoundationalism. Foundationalism stressed
1. Law of Existence: “Being is” (i.e., something exists);
2. Law of Identity: “Being is being” (B is B);
3. Law of Noncontradiction: “Being is not nonbeing” (B is not non-B);
4. Law of Excluded Middle: “Either Being or nonbeing” (Either B or non-B);
5. Law of Causality: “nonbeing cannot cause being” (Non-B–/–>being),
6. Law of Analogy: “An effect is similar to its efficient cause” (B—->b).
As antifoundationalist, postmodernism rejects these basic principles of thought. With them it also rejects the correspondence view of truth—that all true statements correspond to reality. Without this foundation and correspondence, one is left in complete agnosticism.
Norman L. Geisler, Christian Apologetics, 2nd Edition (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2013), 9-10.
Dr. Norman Geisler discusses how the postmodern culture destroys the ability to evangelize (if believed). *My Vimeo account was terminated; this is a recovered audio from it. (Some will be many years old, as is the case with this audio.)
“Those who can make you believe in absurdities can make you commit atrocities”
Voltaire (1765)
This is sadly part 2 of this topic, the first is here and was inspired by the politically motivated suicide of an Air Force member:
I have always been about reality, and so I will warn you if you are sensitive:
DO NOT WATCH THIS FIRST VIDEO AS IT IS GRAPHIC…
You Have Been Warned
As a history buff of the Vietnam War, I am familiar with self-immolation
While this is said to be suicide… it is quite literally murder – as much as I think euthanasia of people are. The recent self-immolations by the Air Force serviceman and the guy yesterday were suicides… and if someone doused them with gasoline, led a trail away from them and lit the trail – that person would be facing criminal charges. Plain and simple. Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức is doused… let me repeat that… is doused with gasoline by “team monks” during a protest demonstration in Saigon, on June 11, 1963
THE ATLANTIC has an article titled “Stop Glorifying Self-Immolation“ Here are some excerpts, and, it primarily is written with the Air Force kid setting himself on fire:
In 1963, the monk Thich Quang Duc soaked himself [no, he did not – RPT] in gasoline and lit himself on fire to protest the government of the Vietnamese leader Ngo Dinh Diem. Within a few years, dozens more had killed themselves the same way. A Quaker named Norman Morrison stood outside Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara’s office, handed off his 1-year-old daughter to a stranger, and cremated himself. Back in Vietnam, a nun named Nhat Chi Mai wondered to a friend whether the tactic had lost its power through overuse. “Fasting and even self-immolation no longer wake people up,” she said. “We have to be imaginative!” She suggested they take part in a mass public disembowelment. Her friend said she’d think about it. In 1967, Nhat knelt before statues of the Virgin Mary and Quan Am, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, and stuck with Plan A. She was 33.
This past weekend, a 25-year-old U.S. Air Force enlisted man livestreamed his self-immolation in front of the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. He said he could no longer abide being “complicit” in “genocide,” and the last comprehensible words he uttered before collapsing were “Free Palestine!” Among the effects of his suicide was to disturb the many people scrolling through social media who (like me) inadvertently saw him dancing and chanting while engulfed in flames, and to inspire many supporters of the Palestinian cause to celebrate his act. The theologian and presidential candidate Cornel West praised his “extraordinary courage and commitment.” “Rest in power,” Jill Stein, the former Green Party presidential candidate, posted on X, with an image of the young man ablaze.
I won’t speculate on the dead man’s mental health. He grew up in a cult, described himself as an anarchist, and generally eschewed what Buddhists might call “the middle way,” a life of mindful moderation, in favor of extreme spiritual and political practice. In addition to being an immoderate act, self-immolation is a violent one, indeed one of the most violent, and if you dislike violence, then you should abhor it no matter your view on the war in Gaza. Self-immolators choose that method over hunger strikes, civil disobedience, marches, and a long menu of other morally exemplary tactics.
It is also a tactic that succeeds and fails depending on the situation, and whether the moment is ripe for horrific violence or (as Nhat speculated) needs violence even more ghastly than can be achieved with gasoline. Virtually no one before Quang Duc had burned himself in protest of anything. The tactic is contagious. Another man had set himself on fire in December outside the Israeli consulate in Atlanta. Already the D.C. self-immolator is being turned into a hero, and that risks compounding this tragedy for no good reason.
There is a Buddhist tradition of suicide that values the shedding of one’s body as an end in itself. About 1,500 years ago, a Buddhist monk named Daodu declared that his body was “like a poisonous plant,” and burned himself alive to get rid of it. But for nearly all the self-burnings in the modern era, the goal was more worldly: to call attention to alleged injustice and stress one’s devotion to ending it. In a letter to Martin Luther King Jr., the monk Thich Nhat Hanh said that burning oneself will “prove that what one is saying is of the utmost importance,” and demonstrate “determination and sincerity.”
The most comprehensive survey of the practice is by the Oxford sociologist Michael Biggs. He notes that some self-immolators inspired others to rededicate themselves to the immolator’s cause, and some—such as Morrison and Quang Duc—really did spur political change. (Diem’s government fell months after Quang Duc’s death.) But “most acts of self-immolation fail to generate any collective response,” Biggs writes.
[….]
I wonder if I am the only one left who would be more moved and persuaded by an absence of fanaticism.
[….]
I have serious doubts about the value of discussing anything with someone who brings a jerry can and a Zippo to the conversation. The Palestinian cause is already associated with death cultism: Hamas arrives at the conversations pre-drenched. Certain factions of the Israeli right seem excessively open to conflagration too. The tendency to celebrate and encourage this behavior, or even to be moved by it, strikes me as deeply sick. I am moved only to check the inspection certificate on my office’s fire extinguisher.
And RED STATE shows the hero worship of these potential mass killers. In my previous dealing 2-months ago, I noted this – adapted anew:
Again, Voltaire:
How did the media try and spin this? That he was a right winger… but MOONBATERY noted the following:
…He left a manifesto, which reveals an unsurprising political orientation.
Azzarello had a paranoid interest in conservative tech billionaire Peter Thiel, believed that “capitalism is unsustainable,” and fretted about fascism and climate change. He had worked for Democrat congresscritters Tom Suozzi and Ami Bera, as well as for the self-described “social justice organization” Liberty Hill Foundation. His LinkedIn photo was a picture of him standing next to Bill Clinton. He described himself as “a huge proponent of left unity” and an “anarchocommunist” — i.e., a radical moonbat of the type you might expect to do something really crazy in a public park.
Nonetheless, the media will spin his viewpoint as nonpartisan even pro-Trump if they think they can get away with it….
And the BEST post so far I have come across on the crazy guy can be found over at POST MILLENNIAL. They post readable pictures of the pamphlets the guy was touting when he burned himself. Here is one of the “political” grabs from Maxwell Azzarello’s REDDIT posts:
NOT THE BEE notes the media’s attempt to say this guy was a righty: “The media is out there right now hinting that the man who set himself on fire outside Trump’s trial in NYC is a Trump supporter himself.”
They go on to list similar points that the above sites do from his manifesto, like these:
I’ve archived Max’s Substack manifesto here in case it gets memory holed. It is clearly an insight into how people are stressed and hopeless these days, so I wouldn’t recommend reading through the whole thing unless you are able to handle the madness.
I’ll simply highlight a few things here.
When we realize that the secret fascists long planned to use new technology like computers and smart phones to pump us full of misinformation, we realize that Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey was ‘predicting’ a future that was already planned out.
So yeah, this guy was deranged.
I’m not writing this to entertain the man’s manifesto. Some of his points may sound valid to you because most insane people start with a few valid points, like elites being greedy, and get more fantastical from there.
Let’s not get sidetracked by that. The point here is to give you an idea of who he was and to dispel the idea that this man was anything close to a conservative or a Trump supporter before the CNN headlines drop….
One last thought, what rolled thru my mind when I saw him pictured with Newt Gingrich… leading some to speculate he was a Republican.
Max is wearing an “Eat the Rich” T-Shirt. I thought it was Ironic because he BBQed himself. After I thought that I thought the pain from this death into a second death — which is eternal seperation from God [more torment than mere flames] — must be unimaginable. And I praise God I do not have to imagine it.
And on that note I exit stage right.
I was amazed at Karine Jean-Pierre’s (KJP) response to Doocy. She said that Biden lying was fine because it was an emotional moment.
What!?
See RED STATE for more of Biden’s ?-?
Per Jesse Watters below, the “fact checks” were out n “full force”
JESSE WATTERS
Could you imagine if Trump “mischaracterized” a story like that? Oh-my-goodness.. the 24-hour news cycle would b cray-cray.
Here is Peter Doocey’s after thoughts:
MATT WALSH
Joe Biden invented a story about his uncle being eaten by cannibals. Unsurprisingly, he’s now being accused of cultural insensitivity for it.
FOX & FRIENDS
F&F discuss a few lies from Biden
So, I realized because of the below comment on my RUMBLE that I do not have a post dedicated to answering the charge that one “should not judge…”, often in response to critiquing cultural norms. So this comment was on my RUMBLE video titled: “You are Homophobic if You Mention How Badly LGBT People Are Treated in Gaza” — here is the comment:
I will be asking some questions when the time comes, but, for now? I am filling an apologetic pothole in my posts. So here is a short and sweet answer that stands on its own… so you could quit there. Anything after that are merely other answers from apologists that broaden the possible responses for the researcher.
Do not judge. Judging others comes far too easy for most, but in Matthew 7, what does Jesus mean when he says Judge not least ye be judged? Are we to judge not, or Judge righteously? What’s the difference? What does the Bible say about judging people? In this video Pastor Nelson with Bible Munch explains what the Bible says about Judging others to answer the questions, is judging a sin, and what does the Bible mean that we are not to judge others?
Firstly, the statement “you are not to judge” is a judgement. What do I mean? Here are a few examples of this in conversation via Frank Beckwith and Greg Koukl:
You Shouldn’t Force Your Morality On Me!
FIRST PERSON: “You shouldn’t force your morality on me.” SECOND PERSON: “Why not?” FIRST PERSON: “Because I don’t believe in forcing morality.” SECOND PERSON: “If you don’t believe in it, then by all means, don’t do it. Especially don’t force that moral view of yours on me.” FIRST PERSON: “You shouldn’t push your morality on me.” SECOND PERSON: “I’m not entirely sure what you mean by that statement. Do you mean I have no right to an opinion?” FIRST PERSON: “You have a right to you’re opinion, but you have no right to force it on anyone.” SECOND PERSON: “Is that your opinion?” FIRST PERSON: “Yes.” SECOND PERSON: “Then why are you forcing it on me?” FIRST PERSON: “But your saying your view is right.” SECOND PERSON: “Am I wrong?” FIRST PERSON: “Yes.” SECOND PERSON: “Then your saying only your view is right, which is the very thing you objected to me saying.” FIRST PERSON: “You shouldn’t push your morality on me.” SECOND PERSON: “Correct me if I’m misunderstanding you here, but it sounds to me like your telling me I’m wrong.” FIRST PERSON: “You are.” SECOND PERSON: “Well, you seem to be saying my personal moral view shouldn’t apply to other people, but that sounds suspiciously like you are applying your moral view to me. Why are you forcing your morality on me?”[1]
SELF-DEFEATING
“Most of the problems with our culture can be summed up in one phrase: ‘Who are you to say?’” – Dennis Prager. So let’s unpack this phrase and see how it is self-refuting, or as Tom Morris[2] put it, self-deleting.
This person is challenging your right to correct another, yet she is correcting you. Your response to her amounts to “Who are you to correct my correction, if correcting in itself is wrong?” or “If I don’t have the right to challenge your view, then why do you have the right to challenge mine?” Her objection is self-refuting; you’re just pointing it out.
The “Who are you to say?” challenge fails on another account. Taken at face value, the question challenges one’s authority to judge another’s conduct. It says, in effect, “What authorizes you to make a rule for others? Are you in charge?” This challenge miscasts my position. I don’t expect others to obey me simply because I say so. I’m appealing to reason, not asserting my authority. It’s one thing to force beliefs; it’s quite another to state those beliefs and make an appeal for them.
The “Who are you to say?” complaint is a cheap shot. At best it’s self-defeating. It’s an attempt to challenge the legitimacy of your moral judgments, but the statement itself implies a moral judgment. At worst, it legitimizes anarchy!
[1] Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Planted in Mid-Air (Baker Books; 1998), p. 144-146.
[2] Tom Morris, Philosophy for Dummies (IDG Books; 1999), p. 46
[3] Francis Beckwith & Gregory Koukl, Relativism: Feet Planted in Mid-Air (Baker Books; 1998), p. 144-146.
Frank Turek talks about the assertion that Christians shouldn’t judge.
So, aside from Matthew 7:1-3 ripped from it’s context, if we let it stand as is, it is self deleting. But the CONTEXT is not that you should merely “not judge… gays, murderers, pro-choice arguments, and the like.” APOLOGETICS PRESS has a great article from which I will except a bit from the meddle of it:
… In Matthew 6:1-4, Jesus instructed us not to do charitable deeds…“as the hypocrites do” (to be seen of men). In 6:5-8, Jesus told us not to pray…“like the hypocrites” (to be heard of men). In 6:16-18, Jesus taught us not to fast…“like the hypocrites” (to be seen of men). Likewise, in Matthew 7:1-5, Jesus was teaching us that judging another is wrong… when that judgment is hypocritical.
But, what if we are doing charitable deeds to be seen of God? Then by all means, “do good to all men” (Galatians 6:10)! What if our prayers are led from a pure heart and with righteous intentions? Should we pray? Most certainly (cf. 1 Thessalonians 5:17). Can we fast today, if the purpose of our fasting is to be seen of God and not men? Yes. But what about passing judgment? In Matthew 7:1-5, did Jesus condemn all judging, or, similar to the above examples, did He condemn only a certain kind of judging? Matthew 7:5 provides the answer. After condemning unrighteous judgments (7:1-4), Jesus instructed a person to “first remove the plank from your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.” He was saying, in essence, “Get your life right first. Then, in love, address your brother’s problem.” This is consistent with what Paul wrote to the church at Philippi: “Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others” (2:4). God never intended for Christians to be recluses who never interacted with those around them. Rather, He gave us the responsibility of helping others by lovingly correcting them when they sin. In Matthew 7, Jesus was not suggesting that a person can never judge. He was saying, when you judge, judge righteously (as when we pray, fast, and do good deeds—do it without hypocrisy—John 7:24). Incidentally, Jesus already had judged the Pharisees. Thus, He obviously was not teaching that we should never judge anyone.
Further proof that Jesus did not condemn all judging can be found throughout the rest of chapter 7. In fact, in the very next verse after His statements about judging, Jesus implicitly commanded that His followers make a judgment. He said: “Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces” (7:6). Disciples of Christ must judge as to who are “dogs” and who are “hogs.” Otherwise, how can we know when not to give that which is holy to “dogs”? Or how can we know when not to cast our pearls before “swine”? Jesus said we must judge between those who are “worthy,” and those who are like dogs and pigs (cf. Matthew 10:12-15; Acts 13:42-46). A few verses later, Jesus again implied that His disciples must make a judgment.
Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes from thornbushes or figs from thistles? Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore by their fruits you will know them (Matthew 7:15-20).
Question: How can we “watch out” for false prophets if we cannot make judgments as to who the false prophets are? According to Jesus, determining the identity of false teachers involves inspecting “their fruits” and making judgments—righteous judgments.
What does the rest of Scripture have to say to those who regard all judging as being wrong?
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you are gathered together, along with my spirit, with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ, deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus…. I have written to you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral, or covetous, or an idolater, or a reviler, or a drunkard, or an extortioner—not even to eat with such a person…. Therefore, put away from yourselves the evil person (1 Corinthians 5:4-5,11,13b).
Paul commanded the church at Corinth to purge a fornicator from its midst. This man’s sin was even to be addressed in a public manner. To follow Paul’s command, the church had to make a judgment. Paul also commanded the congregation to “put away” others who were living in a state of sin. When we make such judgments today, they are to be righteous judgments that are based on facts and carried out in love. Such judging should be performed in a merciful spirit (Luke 6:36-37), and for the purpose of saving souls (“that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus”—1 Corinthians 5:5). Judgments are to be made from good (righteous) intentions. But judgments nevertheless must be made.
If we never can “judge people” in any sense, as many today suggest (through the misuse of Matthew 7:1), then the above commands never could be obeyed. But, they must be obeyed! Thus, (righteous) judgments must be made. ….
Alan Shlemon of Stand to Reason answers the question: “Aren’t Christians commanded not to judge and therefore we shouldn’t judge homosexuals for their behavior?”
CARM end their article with this:
… Since the Bible does not contradict itself, what’s going on? It would seem that Jesus is talking about rash unwarranted judgments, not those judgments that are of sound consideration. This makes sense when we see what judgments Jesus made on people.
So, Jesus would not be contradicting Himself. He made spiritual judgments as did Paul the Apostle. But when we make judgments, they need to be according to Scripture and not arbitrary judgments. Here are some commentaries on Matt. 7:1.
Republicans don’t hate women….
Republicans just view it as murder….
It basically *is* murder….
— Bill Maher
Here is another by Faye Wattleton, former president of U.S. Planned Parenthood:
So, Bill Maher is all for murder based on the lie of overpopulation.
Timcast
Bill Maher Says ABORTION IS MURDER But That He Is OK WITH IT In Shocking Statement
A flashback to some better known atheists than Maher discussing being Pro-Life! More at my post as well:
HOT AIR astutely notes this about the following:
As I have argued many times in the past, ordinary people and Leftist activists don’t speak the same language or even use language for the same purposes.
Ordinary people use language to communicate with others, and hence, we work hard to ensure that what we say creates a correspondence between what we are thinking and what our interlocutors understand. People lie, of course, but generally speaking words mean the same thing to us as they do to whom we are speaking. It’s an essential part of language.
Leftists don’t use language that way. Postmodernism, critical theory, or whatever label you want to use for the ideology, holds that words are always expressions of power relationships. Speaking is as much a means of seizing power as bonking somebody over the head, and it is the most effective means of seizing power when you haven’t enough power to destroy your enemies.
It is in this context that you must understand the claims being made by “Queer” activists, and in particular the “Queers for Palestine” crowd. ….
According to Maya Mikdashi via the DAILY MAIL, Amnesty International is homophobic!
A Rutgers University professor told a seminar discussing the Israel-Hamas conflict that it is ‘violent’ and ‘homophobic’ to raise the issue of how LGBT people are treated in Gaza.
[….]
The event, entitled ‘Palestine is a Feminist and Queer Anti-Imperialist Abolition Struggle’, took place on March 20 and was co-hosted by the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Nadine Naber.
[….]
Queers for Palestine’ events and marches, which have proliferated across the US since the start of the war, have been criticized as a misguided show of support for a regime that does not support gay rights.
The Islamic Middle Eastern state follows sharia law, and as noted by Amnesty International, it is not safe for the queer community….
Originally posted July 2014 ~ small facelift today
Listening to the Dennis Prager Show the other day, Dennis said two things that caught my attention. They are:
a) he likened Jesus to other Messianic figures;
b) he said the Gospel of John was the only place Jesus called himself “Divine,” God.
I combine the Dennis Prager audio, a similar statement by Bart Ehrman, and then Josh McDowell’s rebuttal. To be clear of what is below.
While I deal with two points, the third (Psalm 110) deals both with Jesus being different than past Jewish Messiah’s, as well as showing Prager’s statement about the Gospel of John to be wrong.
So lets deal with this two fold then. I will deal with “B” first, as it is a short response, needing only one example to show Prager’s assumption to be wrong (and remember, he loves truth for truths sake). He seemingly accepts the typical attribution to the age of the books by modern Biblical critics because he accepts their premise that John is the only book Jesus claims divinity. Then, using the attributed idea that Mark is the oldest book and is itself from “Q” material, any claims of Divinity in it should be THAT MUCH MORE powerful (early).
Verses Josh Goes Over: Mark 2:1-12 & Mark 14:60-64
So, that short, succinct, recapping of a challenge I the university class room by a professor is just one example to show a clear claim to Divinity by Jesus in another Gospel other than John.
Now to the larger response, “A.” Jesus is not, was, not, like any other Jewsish pseudo Messiah, He, yes He, is much different. Why? Because he alone has fulfilled the Messianic prophecies in Scripture.
Isaiah 53
The first thing that came to mind about this comment from Prager is how Jewish people/culture have changed the book of Isaiah over time to mean something different than the earlier Rabbis believed. Here, we get into some reading, I will of course put some video to it as well… but a serious subject requires a bit of reading, and I was impacted by Chuck Smith’s and Mark Eastman’s work on the subject, “The Search for Messiah,” of which the following is from…. again, it is long (13-pages to be exact).
This post is meant for the serious student, or Dennis Prager:
In the book of Isaiah there are a group of passages called “The Suffering Servant Songs.” These four vignettes are found in Isaiah 42:1-7; Isaiah 49:1-6; Isaiah 50:4-9; Isaiah 52:13-53:12. We will focus on the fourth suffering servant song since it is the most disputed portion of Isaiah.[1]
“Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled and be very high. Just as many were astonished at you, so His visage was marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men; So shall He sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at Him; for what had not been told them they shall see, and what they had not heard they shall consider. Who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. He is despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem him. Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare his generation? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgressions of My people he was stricken. And they made his grave with the wicked; but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he has put him to grief. When You make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand. He shall see the travail of his soul, and be satisfied. By his knowledge My righteous servant shall justify many, for lie shall bear their iniquities. Therefore, I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and lie bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”
From the time of the development of the written Talmud (200-500 C.E.) this portion of scripture was believed to be Messianic. In fact, it was not until the eleventh century C.E. that it was seriously proposed otherwise. At that time Rabbi Rashi began to interpret the suffering servant in these passages as reference to the nation of Israel.[2]
One of the oldest translations of the Hebrew scriptures is known as the Targums. These are Aramaic translations of very ancient Hebrew manuscripts that also, included commentary on the scriptures. They were translated in the first or second century B.C.E. In the Targum of Isaiah, we read this incredible quote regarding the suffering servant in Isaiah 53:
“Behold, My servant the Messiah shall prosper; he shall be exalted and great and very powerful. The Righteous One shall grow up before him, lo, like sprouting plants; and like a tree that sends its roots by the water-courses, so shall the exploits of the holy one multiply in the land which was desperate for him. His appearance shall not be a profane appearance, nor shall the awe of an ignorant person, but his countenance shall radiate with holiness, so that all who see him shall become wise through him. All of us were scattered like sheep… but it is the will of God to pardon the sins of all of us on his account…Then I will apportion unto him the spoil of great nations… because he was ready to suffer martyrdom that the rebellious he might subjugate to the Torah. And he might seek pardon for the sins of many.”[3]
According to this commentary, the Messiah would suffer martyrdom, he would be, “The Righteous One” and would provide a way for God to forgive our sins. This forgiveness would be accomplished, not because of our goodness, but on account of the righteousness of Messiah. As we shall see, this is the very message of Jesus as recorded in the New Testament!
A reading from a Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah prayer book contains this passage:
“Our righteous anointed is departed from us: horror has seized us, and we have none to justify us. He has borne the yoke of our iniquities, and our transgression, and is wounded because of our transgression. He bears our sins on his shoulders, that we may find pardon for our iniquities. We shall be healed by his wound, at the time that the eternal will create the Messiah as a new creature. 0 bring him up from the circle of the earth. Raise him up from Seir, to assemble us the second time on mount Lebanon, by the hand of Yinon.”[4][5]
In this beautiful prayer, a commentary on Isaiah 53, we discover several of the ancient beliefs on the mission of God’s righteous Messiah:
1) He would apparently depart after an initial appearance: “Our righteous anointed is departed.”
2) The Messiah would be the one who justifies the people:[6] “Horror has seized us, and we have none to justify us.”
3) The Messiah would be wounded because of our transgressions and would take upon himself the yoke or punishment of our iniquities.[7]
“He has borne the yoke of our iniquities, and our transgression, and is wounded because of our transgression.”
4) By his wound we would be healed when he reappears as a “new creature.”
“We shall be healed by his wound, at the time that the eternal will create the Messiah as a new creature.”
In the Babylonian Talmud there are a number of commentaries on the suffering servant in Isaiah 53. In a discussion of the suffering inflicted upon this servant we find the following statement:
“This teaches us that God will burden the Messiah with commandments and sufferings as with millstones.”[8]
In another chapter of Sanhedrin we find a discussion on the name of the Messiah. In this remarkable portion of the Talmud we read:
“There is a whole discussion in the Talmud about Messiah’s name. The several discussants suggested various names and cited scriptural references in support of these names. The disciples of the school of Rabbi Yehuda Ha’ Nasi said ‘The sick one is his name,’ for it is written, ‘Surely he has borne our sicknesses and carried our sorrows and pains, yet we considered him stricken, smitten, and afflicted of God.'”[9]
In the Midrash we again find reference to the “Suffering Servant” of Isaiah 53. In characteristic fashion we read one rabbi quoting another in a discussion of the Messiah’s suffering:
“Rabbi Huna in the name of Rabbi Acha says: ‘The sufferings are divided into three parts: one for David and the fathers, one for our own generation, and one for the King Messiah, and this is what is written, `He was wounded for our transgressions.”‘[10]
In a portion of the Midrash, called the Haggadah (a portion which expounds on the non-legal parts of Scripture) in the tractate Pesiqta Rabbati[11] we read an interesting discussion of the suffering of the Messiah:
“And the Holy One made an agreement with the Messiah and said to him, ‘The sins of those which are forgiven for your sake will cause you to be put under an iron yoke, and they will make you like this calf whose eyes are dim, and they will choke your spirit under the yoke, and on account of their sins your tongue shall cleave to your mouth. Are you willing to do this?’ Said Messiah before the Holy One: ‘Perhaps this agony will last many years?’ And the Holy One said to him: ‘By your life and by the life of my head, one week only have I decreed for you; but if your soul is grieved I shall destroy them even now.’ But the Messiah said to him: ‘Sovereign of the world, with the gladness of my soul and the joy of my heart I take it upon me, on condition that not one of Israel shall perish, and not only those alone should be saved who are in my days, but also those who are hid in the dust; and not only should the dead of my own time be saved, but all the dead from the first man until now; also, the unborn and those whom thou bast intended to create. Thus I agree, and on this condition I will take it upon myself.'” (Pesiqta Rabbati. chapter 36)
Another section of chapter 37, Pesiqta Rabbati, says the following:
“The Patriarchs will one day rise again in the month of Nisan and will say to the Messiah: ‘Ephraim, our righteous Messiah, although we are your ancestors, you are nevertheless greater than we, for you have borne the sins of our children, as it is written: `Surely he has borne our diseases and carried our sorrows; yet we regarded him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our sins, bruised for our iniquities, upon him was the chastisement that makes us well, and through his wounds we are healed.’[12] Heavy oppressions have been imposed upon you, as it is written: ‘As a result of oppression and judgment he was taken away[13]; but in his day, who considered that he was torn from the land of the living because of the transgressions of my people?’ You have been a laughing stock and a derision among the peoples of the world, and because of you they jeered at Israel, as it is written, You have dwelt in darkness and in gloominess, and your eyes have not seen light, your skin was cleaving to your bones, and your body withered like wood. Your eyes became hollow from fasting, and your strength was dried-up like a potsherd, as it is written.[14] All this happened because of the sins of our children, as it is written: ‘And Jehovah laid on him the iniquities of us all.’ ” (Isaiah 53:6)
In these fascinating portions of the Midrash we see language which closely parallels Psalm 22.[15] he writer specifically ties together the sufferings of the pierced servant in Psalm 22 (tongue shall cleave to your mouth… dried up like a potsherd) with the servant in Isaiah 53, whose sufferings provide a way for the children of Israel to be saved. The fact that the writer of this portion of the Midrash would tie the sufferings of the servant in Psalm 22 (the pierced one) and Isaiah 53, the despised and rejected one, is nothing less than astonishing. Clearly at least some of the rabbis of the ancient Midrashim believed that the Messiah would suffer and that the sufferings found in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 belong to the same person.
In the eleventh century C.E. the rabbinical interpretation of Isaiah 52-53 began to change. Rabbi Rashi, a well-respected member of the Midrashim, began to interpret this portion of scripture as a reference to the sufferings of the nation of Israel. However, even after this interpretation took root, there remained many dissenters who still held onto its original, Messianic view.
In the fourteenth century Rabbi Moshe Cohen Crispin, a strong adherent to the ancient opinion, stated that applying the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 to the nation of Israel:
“distort[s] the verses of their natural meaning…As then it seemed to me that the doors of the literal interpretation [of Isaiah 53] were shut in their face, and that ‘they wearied themselves to find the entrance’, having forsaken the knowledge of our Teachers, and inclined after the ‘stubbornness of their own hearts’ and of their own opinion, I am pleased to interpret it, in accordance with the teaching of our Rabbis, of the King Messiah, and will be careful, so far as I am able, to adhere to the literal sense: thus possibly, I shall be free from the forced and farfetched interpretations of which others have been guilty. This prophecy was delivered by Isaiah at the divine command for the purpose of making known to us something about the nature of the future Messiah, who is to come and to deliver Israel,”[16]
Rabbi Isaac Abrabanel (143 7-1508), a member of the Midrashim, made the following remarkable declaration regarding the suffering servant of Isaiah 53:
“The first question is to ascertain to whom this prophecy refers, for the learned among the Nazarenes expound it of the man who was crucified in Jerusalem at the end of the Second Temple, and, who according to them, was the Son of God and took flesh in the virgin’s womb, as is stated in their writings. Jonathan ben Uzziel interprets it in the Targum of the future Messiah; and this is also the opinion of our learned men in the majority of their Midrashim.”[17]
Two centuries later we find the comments of another member of the Midrashim, Rabbi Elijah De Vidas, a Cabalistic scholar in sixteenth century. In his comments of Isaiah 53 we read:
“The meaning of ‘He was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities,’ is, that since the Messiah bears our iniquities, which produce the effect of his being bruised, it follows that who so will not admit that the Messiah thus suffers for our iniquities must endure and suffer them for himself.”[18]
We have also the writings of the sixteenth century Rabbi Moshe el Sheikh, who declares in his work “Commentaries of the Earlier Prophets,” regarding the suffering servant in Isaiah 53:
“Our rabbis with one voice accept and affirm the opinion that the prophet is speaking of the King Messiah, and we shall ourselves also adhere to the same view.”[19]
These remarkable references from the ancient rabbis leave no doubt that the suffering servant in Isaiah 52:1353:12 was indeed believed to be the Messiah. Even more remarkable is the fact that the suffering servant of Isaiah is connected with the suffering servant of Psalm 22. Finally, we find the ancient rabbis claiming that the suffering and death of the Messiah would have the effect of freeing us from our sins. This is in complete agreement with the Christian concept of the Messiah!
Even without these ancient references, there are several other reasons why the suffering servant in Isaiah 53 could not be the nation of Israel.
First, the suffering servant is an innocent person without sin:
“And they made his grave with the wicked; but with the rich at his death, because he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth.” Isaiah 53:9
Israel has an admittedly sinful past; the Hebrew scriptures even admit this fact. Psalm 14:2-3 says:
“There is none that does good, no not one.”
I Kings 8:46 says:
“…for there is no one who does not sin.”
Ecclesiastes 7:20 says:
“For there is not a just man on earth who does good and does not sin.”
Secondly, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 suffers on account of the sins of others.
“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, every one, to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:4)
Thirdly, the suffering servant of Isaiah 53 is willing to suffer.
“He was oppressed and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth; he was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth.” (Isaiah 53:7)
In the entire history of their nation, the Jews have never suffered willingly.
Finally, the suffering servant’s end was death.
“Therefore I will divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong, because he poured out his soul unto death, and he was numbered with the transgressors, and lie bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.” (Isaiah 53:12)
The nation of Israel has suffered much, but she has never died. In fact, the nation of Israel was re-gathered back into the land after nearly 1900 years of world-wide dispersion, an event unprecedented in world history.
“Let Israel now say; Many a time they have afflicted me from my youth; Yet they have not prevailed against me.” (Psalm 129:1)
Finally, listen to the words of nineteenth century Jewish scholar Herz Homberg;
“This prophecy is disconnected with what precedes it. According to the opinion of Rashi and lbn Ezra, it relates to Israel at the end of their captivity; the term `servant’ and the use of the singular number referring to the individual members of the nation. But if so, what can be the meaning of the passage, ‘He was wounded for our transgressions?’, etc.? Who was `wounded?’ Who are the ‘transgressors’ Who `carried’ the sickness and ‘bare’ the pains? And where are the sick? Are they not the same as those who are ‘smitten’ and who ‘bear?’ And if ‘each turned to his own way’, upon whom did ‘the Lord lay the iniquity of them all?’ The Ga’on, Rabbi Sa’adyah, explains the whole Parashah of Jeremiah: and there are indeed numerous parts of Scripture in which we can trace a great resemblance to what befell Jeremiah while persecuted by the false prophets. But the commencement of the prophecy, ‘He shall be high and exalted and lofty exceedingly’, and similarly the words ‘with the mighty he shall divide the spoil’, will not admit of being applied to him. The fact is that it refers to the King Messiah, who will come in the latter days, when it will be the Lord’s good pleasure to redeem Israel from among the different nations of the earth…and even the Israelites themselves will only regard him as `one of the vain fellows’, believing none of the announcements which will be made by him in God’s name, but being contumacious against him, and averring that all the reproaches and persecutions which fall to his lot are sent from heaven, for that he is ‘smitten of God’ for his own sin. For they will not at first perceive that whatever he underwent was in consequence of their own transgression, the Lord having chosen him to be a trespass-offering, like the scapegoat which bore all the iniquities of the house of Israel. Being, however, himself aware that through his pains and revilings the promised redemption will eventually come at the appointed time, he will endure with a willing soul, neither complaining nor opening his mouth in the siege and distress wherewith the enemies of Israel will oppress him (as is pointed out from the passage here in the Haggadah).”[20]
Here we have in the clearest term possible the belief that the prophet was speaking of King Messiah. Furthermore, Homberg states that the Messiah, when he comes, will be rejected “as one of the vain fellows, believing none of the announcements which will be made by him in God’s name.” Finally, he sees the rejection and death of the Messiah accomplishing the role of the trespass-offering for the sins of the people. The Messiah suffers not because of the sins of himself, but on account of the sins of the people. Through Messiah’s suffering and death “the promised redemption will eventually come!”
As we will see, in his understanding of Isaiah 53, Herzog has pointed out the very heart of the Christian message!
FOOTNOTES
[1] Messianically applied in Targum of Jonathan, written between first and second century C.E.
[2] See The Messianic Hope, Arthur Kac.
[3] See comments on Isaiah 53 in Edersheim, The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Appendix IX.
[4] Yinon is one of the ancient rabbinical names of the Messiah.
[5] See The Messianic Hope, Arthur Kac, The Chapter of the Suffering Servant.
[6] To justify is to make one acceptable and righteous in the sight of God.
[7] i.e. Our individual sins.
[8] Talmud, Sanhedrin 93b .
[9] Talmud, Sanhedrin 98b.
[10] The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah, Alfred Edersheim, Appendix IX.
[11] Compiled in the ninth century, but based on writings from Talmudic times from 200 B.C.E.- 400 C.E.
[12] A reference to Isaiah 53.
[13] A reference to the death of the Messiah.
[14] A reference to Psalm 22:15-16.
[15] In fact, there is no other portion of scripture that parallels the language in Pesiqta Rabbati chapter 37 as closely as does Psalm 22.
[16] A Commentary of Rabbi Mosheh Kohen Ibn Crispin of Cordova. For a detailed discussion of this reference see The Fifty Third Chapter of Isaiah According to Jewish Interpreters, preface pg. x, S.R. Driver, A.D. Neubauer, KTAV Publishing House, Inc., New York, 1969.
[17] “The Messianic Hope“, by Arthur Kac, pg. 75.
[18] ibid, pg. 76.
[19] ibid, pg. 76.
[20] From the exposition of the entire Old Testament, called Korem, by Herz Homberg (Wein, 1818).
Mark Eastman and Chuck Smith, The Search for Messiah ([Co-Published] Fountain Valley, CA: Joy Publishing, 1996; Costa Mesa, CA: Word for Today, 1996), 16-28.
Dr. Erez Soref – The Messiah Is The Purpose Of The Torah
Psalm 110:1-7 ~David’s Son and David’s Lord
THE PRIESTLY KING
A psalm of David.
1 This is the declaration of the Lord to my Lord:
“Sit at my right hand
until I make your enemies your footstool.”
2 The Lord will extend your mighty scepter from Zion.
rule over your surrounding enemies.
3 Your people will volunteer
on your day of battle.
In holy splendor, from the womb of the dawn,
the dew of your youth belongs to you.
4 The Lord has sworn an oath and will not take it back:
“You are a priest forever
according to the pattern of Melchizedek.”
5 The Lord is at your right hand;
he will crush kings on the day of his anger.
6 He will judge the nations, heaping up corpses;
he will crush leaders over the entire world.
7 He will drink from the brook by the road;
therefore, he will lift up his head.
In Matthew 22:41-46 (Mark 12:35-37; Luke 20:41-44), citing Psalm 110, Jesus said, “How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him ‘Lord’ [Messiah]?” Jesus stumped his skeptical Jewish questioners by presenting then with a dilemma that blew their own neat calculations about the Messiah “Lord”(as he did in Ps. 110), when the Scriptures also say the Messiah would be the “Son of David” (which they do in 2 Samuel 7:12.)? The only answer is that the Messiah must be both a man (David’s son or offspring) AND God (David’s Lord). Jesus is claiming to be both God and human, at the same time!
Here is the Matthew 22 verses:
41While the Pharisees were together, Jesus questioned them, 42 “What do you think about the Messiah? Whose Son is He?” “David’s,” they told Him. He asked them, “How is it then that David, inspired by the Spirit, calls Him ‘Lord’:
The Lord declared to my Lord,
‘Sit at My right hand
until I put Your enemies under Your feet’?
“If David calls Him ‘Lord,’ how then can the Messiah be his Son?” No one was able to answer Him at all, and from that day no one dared to question Him anymore.
It is bullet pointed thus:
Richard B. Gardner, Matthew, Believers Church Bible Commentary (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1991), 329.
MATTHEW HENRY notes the importance of this verse as a call to reflect on WHO Jesus is:
22:41-46 When Christ baffled his enemies, he asked what thoughts they had of the promised Messiah? How he could be the Son of David and yet his Lord? He quotes Ps 110:1. If the Christ was to be a mere man, who would not exist till many ages after David’s death, how could his forefather call him Lord? The Pharisees could not answer it. Nor can any solve the difficulty except he allows the Messiah to be the Son of God, and David’s Lord equally with the Father. He took upon him human nature, and so became God manifested in the flesh; in this sense he is the Son of man and the Son of David. It behoves us above all things seriously to inquire, What think we of Christ? Is he altogether glorious in our eyes, and precious to our hearts? May Christ be our joy, our confidence, our all. May we daily be made more like to him, and more devoted to his service.
Walter A. Elwell also notes that “Only a person who recognizes Jesus as both God and man could understand and answer the question of verse 45.”
Jesus is truly the son of David (1:1–17), but not merely so. For he is preeminently the Son of God (16:16) and thus David’s Lord. As Jesus now reveals, the Old Testament itself (Ps. 110) witnesses to Messiah’s deity, to both the distinction of person and the identity of being between God the Father (“the Lord”) and God the Son (“my Lord”). The Pharisees do not acknowledge Jesus’ messiahship, much less his deity. Only a person who recognizes Jesus as both God and man could understand and answer the question of verse 45.
Walter A. Elwell, Evangelical Commentary on the Bible, vol. 3, Baker Reference Library (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1995), Mt 22:41.
See also Hebrew University professor Israel Knohl’s supposed discrepancy with this idea and Jesus’ genealogy, HERE. Also, a great excoriation of this Psalm comes via The Rosh Pina Project, and, while it is a longer article, his opening is worth the posting here:
This is the most quoted Psalm in the New Testament (about one-third of quotes from the Tanach come from this Psalm.) For example Psalm 110:4 in Hebrews 5:6, 10; 6:20; 7:3, 11, 15, 17, 21, 24, 28). Words about sitting at God’s right hand are echoed in Mark 14:62, Acts 2:34ƒ and Hebrews 10:12ƒ.
Psalm 110 is also a very disputed psalm. There was a time when few did not consider this a Messianic Psalm, today the few are those that continue to affirm the Messianic nature of this Psalm.
Modern Liberal scholars who presume that foretelling prophecy does not exist approach this text with a bias. They say it must all speak of a contemporary situation from the time of the writer. There is some truth to the fact that this must have meant something at its time of writing. But, there is implicit in this a failure to accept the essential futuristic foretelling aspect that defines prophetic writing as prophecy.
The fact that the Psalm starts with נְאֻ֤ם יְהוָ֨ה “ne’um Adonai“, a classic prophetic phrase, firmly fixes the prophetic nature of this Psalm.
Since the Rosh Pina Project is down, see JESUS PLUS NOTHING’s post
This is as good as the “M-Word” or that Guam will tip over if too many military personnel are on one side. (Yes, that is HERE.) So here is the most recent example of stupidity in Congress.
LOLZ!
Here is the NATIONAL PULSE’s story on this:
Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) has “clarified” that she was actually asking whether or not she could live on the sun, not the moon. Her comments came after she was widely lampooned for discussing whether or not human beings could live on the moon, which, she claimed, “is made up mostly of gases.”
Speaking at Booker T. Washington High School in Houston, the Texas Congressman told her audience, “sometimes you need to take the opportunity just to come out and see a full moon is a complete rounded circle, which is made up mostly of gases,” adding: “could we as humans live on the moon? Are the gases such that we could do that?”
Jackson Lee received significant mockery for the speech, as it is common knowledge the moon is not “made up mostly of gases” and is uninhabitable. Now, however, she insists she “[o]bviously misspoke and meant to say the sun, but as usual, Republicans are focused on stupid things instead of stuff that really matters.”
“What can I say though, foolish thinkers lust for stupidity!” she added.
The sun, however, is still more uninhabitable than the moon, being a ball of gas and plasma with no solid surface, burning at around 10,000 Fahrenheit (5,600 Celsius) on its surface and 27,000,000 Fahrenheit (15,000,000 Celsius) at its center.
Any human attempting to approach the sun would be killed by its intense heat and radiation millions of miles before reaching it……
OMG!
Here s Megyn Kelly and Vitor Davis Hanson discussing it:
BUT WAIT, THE VIEW SAYS HOLD MY BEER:
Click pic to view the video.
Dennis Prager read from a couple articles showing how “the elite” that are willing to cheat in elections are in fact Democrats. Zuckerbucks is a “for instance”:
And these elites all joining forces:
SOME ARTICLES:
‘The Most Terrifying Poll Result I’ve Ever Seen’ (ISSUES & INSIGHTS)
….Given this, it’s not surprising that the elite 1 percent have great faith in government. Some 70 percent trust government to do the right thing most of the time.
Rasmussen said that this project has revealed the scariest single polling number he has seen in nearly 35 years of studying popular opinion. According to his data, 35 percent of the elite 1 percent (and 69 percent of the politically obsessed elite 1 percent) said they would rather cheat than lose a close election. Among average Americans, 93 percent reject cheating and accept defeat in an honest election. Only 7 percent reported they would cheat.
While only 6 percent of most voters have a very favorable opinion of members of Congress, 69 percent of the elite 1 percent have a very favorable view (this is almost unimaginable). While 10 percent of all voters have a favorable view of journalists, the elite 1 percent really like them (71 percent favorable). While 17 percent of all voters have a favorable view of college professors, the elite 1 percent just love them (76 percent). This tracks, because many of the elite 1 percent may be college professors.
To illustrate the scale of the gap between the elite 1 percent and the rest of the country, consider the elite 1 percent’s views on climate issues (and understand that these ideas are opposed by 63 percent to 83 percent of most Americans).
As Rasmussen noted, the degree to which the elite 1 percent think their views represent those of the average American is astonishing.
According to Rasmussen, the most radical of the elite 1 percent were educated at what he calls the “dirty dozen:” Harvard, Yale, University of Pennsylvania, Northwestern, John’s Hopkins, Columbia, Stanford, Berkeley, Princeton, Cornell, MIT, and the University of Chicago.
The elite 1 percent who graduated from these schools deeply believe in government. Fifty-five percent believe there is too much individual freedom in America and that Americans should obey government and follow government leadership.
Rasmussen’s identification of the elite 1 percent begins to explain the depth of the tension between most Americans and the tiny group of elitists who control what Vladimir Lenin called “the commanding heights,” the elements of power which control the rest.
It is the elite 1 percent who dominate the universities, news media, judiciary, intelligence agencies, giant foundations, and most major corporations. Although they are relatively few, they marry each other, their children go to the same schools, and they hire and promote each other.
Charles Murray in his classic work, “Coming Apart,” analyzed zip codes and proved that graduates from “dirty dozen” universities that Rasmussen described live, work and play in the same zip codes. They are an isolated set and create a “power aristocracy” that has no knowledge of the rest of us – and contempt for most of us. This perfectly explains Hillary Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” line.
Scott Rasmussen has done pioneering work. Every American should read “The Elite 1% and the Battle for America’s Soul” to understand what we are fighting to change.
This is a shortened, 45-minute version of an almost 3-hour talk where a Muslim woman comes to a saving knowledge of Christ on Avery’s [GodLogic Apologetics] VLOG, or livestream.
There’s Nothing New Under the Sun: Child Sacrifice Never Stopped
Infants were sacrificed to Molech for prosperity, wealth. No different than today… babies are sacrificed for careers, schooling, or just convenience. See my “Forcing Morality” post for more.
Here is a good post detailing the history of abortion.
….As Carthaginians succumbed deeper into this form of worship their self-abasement grew, along with the population, and thus, babies were plentiful. One could surmise that the gods rewarded their worship. This worship, however, gradually turned to child sacrificing, especially when times were tough, in order to appease the gods Molech and Ashteroth, the darker and more sinister gods – who demanded human sacrifice in order to grant the community “health and well being.” It started with sacrificing the firstborn, but it appears that the gods grew greedier and greedier. Eventually, and as times got tougher, i.e. during famines and disasters, they practiced massive annual sacrifices of thousands of babies and children, in order to invoke greater blessings and prosperity. It is believed that this civilization became quite sophisticated, under the caste system, and the noble class sometimes practiced substitution for their firstborns through the “ladies of the sanctuary,” or temple prostitution in order to fulfill their mandatory quotas of children for the gods.
When a mother, willingly or not, released her infant onto the down-stretched arms of Moloch’s bronze statue, the baby consequently rolled off the arms and fell headlong onto a fire-y brazier pit. Burial monuments found in Carthage and other places were inscribed with the Tanit symbol, in honor of the Phoenician goddess.
The Carthaginians were hated, and perhaps envied by other contemporary cultures for their practice of child sacrifice, and respectively their riches. Chief among their enemy was the Romans. Ironically, Rome conquered Carthage, yet the Romans later practiced infanticide themselves as well as other tortures for sport, like killing Christians. Is there some kind of progression here for doomed civilizations?
The gods Asherah, Baal, Molech and Ashteroth had also been a stumbling block for the Israelites, when they possessed the “promise land” east of the Jordan River, or Canaan. Ironically, they purged the Canaanites out, who practiced child sacrifice, and yet they too in time did the same thing. Disobeying God’s commands to purge out the idols and religious practices of the Canaanites and the Ammonites, they eventually came to commit these same spiritually adulterous and idolatrous practices. They set up the “grove,” a group of trees with graven images carved into them near the altar of Jehovah. The prophets soundly condemned the grove, and practicing the heathen religions and warned of coming judgment. Judgment did fall in Jerusalem, when the temple and the whole city was completely destroyed by the Babylonians and the kingdom of Israel was taken into captivity in 587 BC…..
Also, from Joseph M. Holden and Norman Geisler in their The Popular Handbook of Archaeology and The Bible
In 1928, a farmer (Brahim) in northern Syria accidently discovered a vault in his field. Later this area would be known as Ras Shamra due to the expedition and excavation led by F.A. Schaeffer and George Chenet. Then in 1929, archaeologists unearthed a scribal school and library adjoining a temple. The fifteenth-century BC tablets found at the location contained a script previously unknown to scholars, but it soon would be understood to be Canaanite, a language similar to Hebrew. The tablets describe the dark religious practices of the Canaanite peoples indigenous to the land prior to Joshua’s conquest. These wicked practices offer confirmation of the deities, practices, laws, and religious beliefs and customs of the heathen described in the Old Testament, which include 1) the burying alive of children, 2) child sacrifice of other kinds, 3) male and female religious prostitution, 4) the malice and jealousy among the gods, 5) absence of morality among the gods, and 6) idol worship among others.
Moreover, these tablets have provided an answer to the critical argument that denied the possibility of Moses writing a sophisticated religious law code as early as 1440 to 1400 BC. In addition, the Ras Shamra tablets have contributed to our understanding of the development of the Hebrew script from about 1500 BC to the modern day. This discovery has also dealt a blow to negative higher critics who asserted that Aramaic words included in Moses’ writings did not develop until after the exile to Babylon (sixth century BC). Several Aramaisms were found in the Ugaritic texts, which are contemporary with Moses, which refutes this notion.
(Pages 84-85)