Atheist Philosopher Criticizes Other Atheists for Dogmatism

from Rob R


A while ago when I was writing my blog topic on divine foreknowledge, I knew I might have to defend my claims about my denial of God's timelessness from the consideration of relativistic physics which many have understandably taken to reflect an eternalist picture of the universe. In that event, I searched for a link to an article written by a philosopher of science which pointed out that there were alternatives to relativity in response to the conflict of relativity and quantum mechanics that are compatible with a presentist universe.

I looked for more by the author and found his blog. It turns out that the author, Bradley Monton, is an atheist who also defends Intelligent Design as serious science (though I'm not sure if he agrees with it).

I wanted to highlight his comments he made in an interview on his views of Bill Mahr's movie "Religulous."

Maher’s supposed doubt does not go both ways. While Monton acknowledges that though he is an atheist, he is not certain about his atheism, Maher is all too certain that the totems of twenty-first century scientific materialism are beyond question. Essentially, Maher is commending doubt, disbelief actually, to religious people, and for the most part, giving a pass to himself and his fellow “rationalists”. Luskin asks Monton: “What do you think happens when a person tries to pretend that there is no reason or room for any doubt or self-introspection in their worldview?” Monton replies:

“I think that leads to dogmatism, in part, and this sort of emotional reaction to the people who are on the other side. Because, if you think that the other side has nothing going for it, you’re going to dismiss them and react badly to them… Unfortunately what I’ve been encountering lately are more atheists who seem to be completely, incredibly dogmatic about their view, and then, at least in my personal experience, I’m encountering Christians who are more sympathetic.”

Source

Review of Dan Kimball's They Like Jesus but Not the Church

I'm not done with this book; almost done. Meanwhile, what I did read is fresh on my mind.

Author/pastor Dan Kimball has much good to say that has been said in every generation at least since the 60's when I was in college and we were reading up on Christian apologetics and evangelism. "Friendship evangelism" was once a theme; "Into the Neighborhoods" was a recent thrust for my church. Angel Food ministries and Angel Arms ministries provide food and clothes at low or no cost. There are Christian homeless shelters --and the Salvation Army and Catholic Charities have always set a good example.

We've long known that we should have non-Christian friends --and most Christians do. Most have non-Christian relatives. We realize that you can't bring people into your church if you don't know any people to invite --and building relationships is important. But many people see verbal witness as ending relationships, as unwelcome and impolite; it is important to present a positive image of "Christian," and "Church." One of the best ways to do that STILL IS to bring people into the church for a visit. Where the body gathers, the Holy Spirit is present; discipling is done through teaching, preaching, and even music.

He challenges the church to be "missional." This, too, has always been a theme of evangelicals, to meet the needs of the poor, to reach out to the widow and the fatherless, relatives, neighbors, children and youth. Some have ministries at Hospice and nursing homes and to unsaved relatives. When I was a child, World Vision sought money from Christians for their global ministries to what became known as "The third world" nations. Evangelicals have always sent aid and missionaries around the world to proclaim the truth about Jesus Christ --and to be His compassionate Body in the world. When people bring us their problems, it is an opportunity to speak and practice God's principles --an opportunity to help.

He himself, as a pastor, wanted to get out of the office and minister to non-Christians more. This, too, is nothing new --but surely ministers and laymen in every generation need to be challenged on this point. Our church's ministers have always had relationships to people outside the church with good result-- or at least, good effort! He talks about meeting women and men in coffee houses and places where young people hang out--just to talk. He should be careful, however. Four decades ago,The Bourbon Street Evangelist spent time doing this, himself, and then fell into sexual sin with person(s?) he met that way.

Kimball's point is not apologetics, but about the young people's perception of the church and their fondness of Jesus but reluctance to be part of "organized religion." He published this 2 years ago and said he rarely meets anyone in his interviews and travels who admits to being an atheist. I think that is different today, with more atheists coming "out of the closet" and angrily/obnoxiously so. There are many atheist blogs, e.g. which always tie the theory of evolution into their atheistic stand.

Kimball does spend a lot of time on the issue of homosexuals and the perception that the church hates and scorns them. He rightly challenges traditionalists about their humor and privately expressed scorn for "fags" and "queers." He also joins with the church's critics to decry the fact that the evangelicals are identified as fundamentalists and political right-wingers who see homosexuals as having an evil agenda. He wants us to know that a gay pride parade doesn't really represent mainstream homosexuals. (Then why do our major corporations give them money for said parades?)

Which makes me wonder if my old friend's gay beach week events on the east coast are really a better example of the movement and the agenda which Kimball says they don't have. There's something unseemly in those photos of thousands of half-naked, primped and coiffed, overly buff men gathered together in search of hook-ups. Just as unseemly as hetero-beach weeks, for that matter, where people are willing to make temporary hook-ups based on superficial appearances and desire for sex --friends with benefits. Every Biblical prophet would decry the evils of their generation; why would the church do differently today?

I do feel sorry --as I often say --about people with GID (gender identity disorder) many of whom think like the opposite sex in their attractions. I feel sorry for those caught in the trap of sex addiction with their own sex.

However, I don't know where bisexuals deserve special compassion for something they can't help since no one who acts indiscriminately to have sex with more than one person, who can be attracted to either sex deserves a presidential honor for it, such as Obama gave them in his recent LGBT Pride Month. The bisexual is one who definitely has a choice --having sex-perimented himself into a decision that he/she is capable and willing on either side of the door.

I believe there is a sense in which everyone is bisexual --only in having buttons that can be pushed by anyone to produce a certain result. Which is why they say that having an orgasm during rape does not mean you really are guilty of consensual sex even if there was a level of arousal. I would not think very many women could be aroused by force -but I think men might --but normal men would fight first like the dickens! Likewise, arousal with the same sex wouldn't mean one was inevitably homosexual, preferring one's own sex. Arousal at the sight of same sex porn, e.g., is not indication of homosexuality--but of sexual arousal at the sight of erotic material --porn is, after all, the devil's tool --and terribly effective and addictive at making people feel their OWN sexuality. Sexual images and sexual touch arouse persons sexually.

Attraction to friendship and a niche with attractive people of the same sex is normal. It is not normal to fixate sexually and be aroused by friends of the same sex --but that doesn't mean there are not causes of this abnormality that can be prevented and remedied --always my point. We should encourage child-rearing to help kids have normal gender identity and attraction. We should help them understand that errant thoughts, sinful thoughts, are to be barred at the mind's gate --along with thoughts of incest, adultery, pedophilia, fornication, theft, murder, rape --and so on. We don't even bring up such thoughts to our children --they are "unthinkable," and so it used to be with homosexual thinking. One would not "go there" for more than a flash of thought at the possibility --but now, our youth are being made by culture to contemplate and explore the possibility that gay is ok and that they may just be gay.

Kimball, to educate us, raises the Biblical arguments used in favor of homosexuality--citing the other purity laws that we no longer keep. So far, I haven't seen any good arguments from him to the contrary --I think he's baffled, though he comes down on the Creation intention in Eden --"male and female created He them."

If keeping certain purity laws is no longer important to the church, gays argue, than how do we determine that homosexuality is still a sin? To that I would ask, how do we therefore determine ANY laws to be valid today? Why NOT steal? Why NOT lie? Why NOT murder? After all, we eat shellfish, don't we???? The argument doesn't hold. The homosexual would say, however, that he thinks he's not violating anyone else with a homosexual relationship. I believe history tells us that many young men are lured into homosexuality by older gays because they crave and were denied manly attention and affection--or because they became addicted to their kindly molestor's activities and concluded they had a homosexual orientation thereafter --or because they identified too much with their mothers over their fathers.

There seems to be a failure in his book to realize just how unseemly and abnormal and "not-expedient" homosexual behaviors are, how frought with disease, how hurtful, how addictive and risky --how contrary to God's creative design for our procreative bodies --how much in violation of the wait-for-hetero-marriage principle in scripture.

He wants us to really soften our opposition to people who are practicing homosexuals, who are also declaring gay to be OK with God. He concludes that he thinks homosexual behavior is a sin --but he speaks of people who find that they "are" homosexual --who find that these stirrings in youth are afflicting them and determine that they "are" homosexual.

I disagree that they "are" homosexual, if he means "designed or destined to be." Depends on what "are" means. They are male or female with a God-given prescription for their bio-assignment. Anything else should be shunned at the first inkling just like thoughts of pedophilia, promiscuity, incest, adultery, etc. "Guard your heart," Amy Grant sang. And "Bar the Door" to temptation, the Bible says --over and over and over again.

The more we normalize homosexual behavior in our culture, the more people will try it in their adventurous, careless, volatile, immature youth, and conclude that they "are" homosexual--and open themselves to STD's and abnormal sexual fixation. The church and parents are the last bulwark against such thinking --and Kimball wants us to mellow the message on this issue.

Yet, he talks about standing up for truth.



I am reminded of Ann Coulter's remarks --that liberal people want to make conservatives doubt their principles --and change to accommodate their critics. I see this here. We are to think the church is wrong to denounce sin with any strength lest we alienate sinners --that we should never speak of Jesus' promise to separate sheep from goats, that we should not proclaim that we are a wicked generation in need of repentance.

If only we were more loving, then more people would be saved and see the light! But he seems to want us to dim the light of righteousness of God and the necessity of repentance for sin --by agreeing with the non-Christian critics of the church.

Jesus DID say the world hated Him and would hate us --Kimball SEEMS to think there is a way to avoid receiving this hate --if we de-emphasize any concerns against communism, atheism, denying the possibility of intelligence behind naturalism in our science ed., homosexuality, shacking up, divorce, etc.

We've all known Christians who were popular --whose neighbors could each say, "He was a nice guy --never pushed his religion --and I'm still not a Christian--but he really was a Christian, because he didn't prick my conscience!! And I'm still headed for Hell and don't know it because he never told me the truth about the Gospel of Christ--since he knew I wasn't interested --and it was more important to him that he be liked by me."

I've been accused of being obnoxious in my witness on line --probably not so much in personal relationships. I surely do know some obnoxious Christians whose arguments are mainly in-house --Christian against Christian. NOw THAT's what we need a book about!!! I do have friends whose tails I avoid stepping on --but I still try to use Biblical counsel if opportunity presents itself.

I understand that self-righteousness is despised by God as is pride. I know the Church must be loving --and that we need to make friends outside the church in order to introduce them to Christ and bring them INTO the church for discipleship. But I think I hear too much agreement by Mr. Kimball with those unbelievers who love their idea of Jesus --not the biblical Jesus. Who would also think we can afford to vote for politicians who support gay marriage and abortion.

I'm not through with the book --more, later.





"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

NATURAL MOM PREVAILS OVER LESBIAN EX-PARTNER IN PARENTAL RIGHTS CASE

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Legal/Default.aspx?id=604794

The above link is to a news story in which the Alliance Defense Fund attorney defended a woman's right to her natural child, despite signed agreements made earlier with a lesbian partner. She has since converted to Christ and married a man and they are making a normal home for the child.








"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

Sharia in America --Dearborn 2009 Festival

"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

Mudrake Needs Rebuttal

Apparently a Robert Wright explained his atheistic views on Bill Moyers'Journal last night. See Mudrake's blog, here.

Mudrake, your Mr. Wright seems to gloss over the fact of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. That was 20 plus short centuries ago. I don't think the NT writers fictionalized, as he has to believe--as you apparently believe --and yet you sent some Clear Lake sand in the casket for your sister's journey--just like an Egyptian.

Faith in Christ's resurrection is a certitude for me --I feel sure the accounts of the New Testament are true.

And no Mr. Wright can take that away.

You know, there is a certain arrogance in a kid who is happy to rebut resurrection in the name of naturalism. Wright must have been a joy to his Baptist parents!

It brings to mind some thoughts on parenting for inspiring faith. Children need to see that our faith works in our family life to bring about forgiveness and harmony, self-control and other fruits of the Spirit. They need to see that love characterizes their parents personalities. They need to see that the Gospel is truly the Good News and not a killjoy --not the bad news about all the things they aren't supposed to do being Christians. They need to see that God's laws and principles are for our good and protection--for our well-being --including happiness in life.

It's also interesting that as a child, Robert Wright could see that naturalism as in Darwin's theory was an atheistic theory --as theistic evolutionists deny.

Although, granted, if evolution is ever really proven as God's way of creation, I'd have no personal problem with it --it just seems inconsistent with His nature to use death and predators as a means of progress in upward mobility of life forms --since His Word says death entered the world with man's sin --and not before.







"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

WHY CHRISTIANITY WILL SURVIVE --Children's Ministries!

Of course, any believer knows that the Church of Christ (aka Christianity) will survive because we believe prophecy.

But there's another reason: At least 150 kids came to our church's VBS (Vacation Bible School) this week. 97 was the biggest single evening attendance --this is at least 20 more than last year.

Did the atheists have such an event this summer? Granted, public school and TV can be daily secular indoctrination. But the message at VBS and other church children's ministries is unique among cultural messages and always includes the fact that Jesus Christ died for our sins that we might be forgiven and inherit eternal life. No other message can compare.

This year, we were the underground church --with a scary Roman guard lurking here and there (Mayor Yunker's son.) We had a "cave" classroom, created by Sue Conklin where Gail Hulbert Warton, dressed as a first c. Roman Christian, used power point to tell the stories of Paul, the greatest Christian missionary of the first century.

Sue also created ivy-draped "marble" Roman columns and a marketplace with "ancient" fabrics --the prize corner --prizes for bringing friends and being a visitor.

Stephanie Rohrs Hulbert directed the music, aided by her sister, Christine. These were wonderful songs, including, "They will know we are Christians by our love," "Grace Flows Down and Covers Me," "To God be the Glory" performed by the 3rd and 4th grade as puppeteers," a new song on God's Love in Jewish style, with the girls doing a Jewish folk dance and the boys playing rhythm instruments (grades 5-8), and an old standard revived, "Come into my heart, come into my heart, come into my heart, Lord Jesus....Come in today; come in to stay; come into my heart Lord Jesus." All the children learned a dance-game with a Jewish flavor. Many of the songs were taught with sign language or other motions. Stephanie also emphasized the evening's memory verse each night. There were a couple of effective puppet shows, too, by the Hulberts, Bruce, Scott, Gail and STephanie. Chrissy rattled the jail and opened the jail door for Paul and Silas --who were cute as could be in their Bible clothes.

We also had wonderful visits from Lucia and Marcus (the DeMatteos, our own acting duo) --two first c. Christians who cautioned us to be very quiet lest the guards find our church cave.

After a kids' supper for all provided by the church ladies headed by Sarah Hand, the classes rotated through the story time with Gail, a professional educator, the craft time with several ladies helping, including at least one professional education-trained Sue Conklin--they made very cute brick doorstops. They had recreation with Cory and Eva Fritch (he's a professional elem. science educator), and also Dave Simpson and John Ringger doing the jr. high recreation, and music with Hulbert and Rohrs, both professional music educators.

The Junior High had a week planned by yours truly with a Pregnancy Center RSVP (Responsible Sexual Values Program) speaker, an Afr. American lady who did a fine job with a sensitive topic. She spoke 3 days; on the first day we were in sync with the rest of the Bible School's theme and read Paul's testimony from the Bible, telling of his conversion from a persecutor of Christians to a passionate disciple. We concluded in the final session with a reflection on the persecuted church today and a Ray Vander Lann film segment that took place in the underground church in the caves of Capadocia --during the persecution by the Emperors in the early 4th century B.C. --which included quotes on the martyrs of those days. It was very moving. We also discussed why Christians are persecuted, noting that even Paul thought he was doing the right thing for Judaism by persecuting Christians --until He met Jesus on the Damascus Road. Then "he saw the light!!" And where he was once blind, now he could see!

All in all, a very enjoyable week, reinforcing faith of the faithful, and sharing the Good News of Christ with those who haven't heard.

Secular pop culture is very influential on people today --but so is the church --and we have the Holy Spirit who is greater than Satan any day --but it takes knowledge of the Word and the preaching of the Gospel to reach each future generation. We must do it.

Let us not be weary of well-doing. Next week, 19 Trail Blazers go to our church camp in Somerset, Michigan for 3 days. They will again have opportunity to hear about Christ and the challenge to run the race of faith to the finish.

It's neat to see the children of the church grow up to take their place in passing on the baton of faith. All of the VBS leaders were raised in the church and in Christian homes. We are still passing on the truth --that Jesus rose from the grave --and said all who believe this and follow Him will inherit eternal life.

Credit to Director Jenni King and her helper, Inga Wood --and all their cooperative children --8 between them --who brought many friends!

As the church loves and reaches out, so she grows!!!





"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

Evolutionists: The Vast Majority is not so Vast.

From Rob


For those who've had discussions of evolution with me, I frequently run into the demonstrably false claim that there are no scientists who doubt evolution. That's when I demonstrate to the contrary by linking to the DiscoverY Institute's Petition of Dissent from Darwinianism which has the signatures of almost 800 scientists who are skeptical of the adequacy of fully natural evolution (and other naturalistic explanations) to explain where life comes from and it's diversity.

Some people have pointed out what a very small percentage of scientists that is (like 1 percent or less). Well, the problem with this is the assumption that all of the skeptics of naturalism actually signed. I've always said that this was just the tip of the iceberg. Evidently, I was right.

It turns out that Pew research has found that the percentage of scientists in a sample of more than 25 hundred who don't believe in evolution is actually much larger. According to Popsci, Pew research has found that "87 percent of scientists polled said that life evolved over time." Leaving 13 percent (about 330) who wouldn't commit to that claim. Now, that's just of people who don't believe in evolution. Just think, that number wouldn't count all the ID theorists (Like Behe and Dembski) who do believe that life evolved over time even though they don't buy that it did so in a completely naturalistic way.

Yes, 13 percent is small, but it's not that small and if the number were to hold for for all scientstists, that still represents a huge community of not simply scientifically knowledgeable people, but people who are trained and functional in the sciences, people who have an intimate knowledge of how science works and probably some idea of it's limits.

source

TIME MAGAZINE GOLD ON MARRIAGE!

Time magazine has a cover story this week on Why Marriage Matters. Without ever mentioning the gay marriage push, author Caitlin Flanagan uses recent high profile adulteries and research findings to illustrate her point on biological parents staying married to raise their children.

Here are some quotes:

The reason for these appeals to lasting unions is simple: on every single significant outcome related to short-term well-being and long-term success, children from intact, two-parent families outperform those from single-parent households. Longevity, drug abuse, school performance and dropout rates, teen pregnancy, criminal behavior and incarceration--if you can measure it, a sociologist has; and in all cases, the kids living with both parents drastically outperform the others.

Few things hamper a child as much as not having a father at home. Sociologist, Maria Kefalas, a feminist, says, 'The mom may not need that man, but her children still do.' Growing up without a father has a deep psychological effect on a child."

Even

"children from divorced middle-class parents do less well in school and at college compared with underprivileged kids from two-parent households."

The article grants, however, that divorce, unwed and single parenting, are harder on the poor than on the rich.

So how will lesbian marriage provide that father? And how do gay couples provide the necessary mother? Not only does the article say fathers are important (and they will find that mothers are just as important,) it says that shacking up to raise children is unstable in its results. As soon as the man feels demands of parenting, he more readily exits, than if he had a legally binding ring and the prospect of divorce. However, nowhere does she imply that two men or two women married to each other will be good --since she says both biological parents IN THE HOME are optimal for children.

She says we are "increasingly less willing to put in the hard work and personal sacrifice" to have a lasting, loving marriage. She quoted Leonard Michaels who wrote, "Adultery is not about sex or romance. Ultimately, it is about how little we mean to one another."

She lambastes Sanford, Edwards, and Gosselin for wanting their personal fun and happiness at the expense of wife and children. I couldn't have said it as well (which is why she's writing for Time and I have a little blog.)

Their actions were so willful and blatantly self-centered that the two of them could have credibly fashioned themselves as rebels, possibly even as heroes, if they could have just stopped crying. They weren't a couple of tools [did she mean "fools?"] stuck in sexless marriages and making up for it with internet porn. These guys had embarked on dangerously erotic rampages with real-life, unencumbered women, women who decidedly weren't ...[their wives.] The long-suffering wives, Fun Busters in Chief.

In favor of marriage, she writes:

a lasting covenant between a man and a woman can be a vehicle for the nurture and protection of each other, the one reliable shelter in an uncaring world--or it can be a matchless tool for the infliction of suffering on the people you supposedly love above all others, most of all on your children."

In favor of bio-parents being married and staying married, she quoted Sara McLanahan, a Princeton sociologist and single mother herself, who found that

"Children who grow up in a household with only one biological parent are worse off, on average, than children who grow up in a household with both of their biological parents, regardless of the parents' race or education background."

It was intriguing that she mentioned Bill Clinton as supporting marriage policies (probably with his Republican Congress) and never mentioned HIM as adulterer or the Democrats' beloved JFK. She praised Obama for remarks made about fathering. He did author (or it was ghost-authored) a recent Father's Day article for Parade.

I do think it's high time that we returned shame to adultery --instead of letting a president stay in office for highly immoral behavior.

She quotes

sociologist Andrew J. Cherlin in a landmark new book called, "The Marriage-Go-Round: The State of Marriage and the Family in America Today. ...what is significant about contemporary american families, compared with those of other nations, is their combination of 'frequent marriage, frequent divorce: and the high number of "short-term co-habiting relationships."' Taken together, these forces 'create a great turbulence in American family life, a family flux, a coming and going of partners on a scale seen nowhere else. There are more partners in the personal lives of Americans than in the lives of people of any other Western country.'

(I do find that hard to believe, compared to Europe. I think there could be less divorce --if, in fact, there is less marriage --and we know their birth rate is lower than ours.)

But I bet we do have the highest rate of births to unwed women.

A final excerpt:

An increasingly fragile construct depending less and less on notions of sacrifice and obligation than on the ephemera of romance and happiness as defined by and for its adult principlals; the intact, two-parent family remains our cultural ideal, but it exists under constant assault. It is buffeted by affairs and ennui, subject to the eternal American hope for greater happiness, for changing the hand you dealt yourself. Getting married for life, having children and raising them with your partner--this is still the way most Americans are conducting adult life, but the numbers who are moving in a different direction continue to rise. Most notably, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported in May that births to unmarried women have reached an astonishing 39.7%

Finally, Flanagan asks,

is marriage an institution that still hews to its old intention and function--to raise the next generation, to protect and teach it, to instill in the habits of conduct and character that will ensure the generation's own safe passage into adulthood? Think of it this way: the current generation of children, the one watching commitments between adults snap like dry twigs and observing parents who simply can't be bothered to marry each other and who hence drift in and out of their children's lives--that's the generation who will be taking care of us [ed: or likely not] when we are old.

This article is support for NOT redefining marriage to include any two people who think they love each other--regardless of their sex or orientation--though it doesn't mention the issue per se.

Before you all bring it up, of course, there are exceptions to sociologists' findings. The Jackson family, while monetarily successful, while having two bio-parents raise them, has produced some strange children--who appear to have all had their noses altered I noticed at the funeral today. Just having intact parents isn't EVERYTHING to mental and economic health and personal happiness; some parents are dysfunctional and abusive as MJ said his father was--and some kids turn out mixed up regardless of how good their parents are. But the sociologists are saying that OVERALL, children raised by both bio-parents in the home are better off in every way.

So let's not re-define marriage --and let's not permit gay adoption on a par with heterosexual adoption. Keep the bio-parents as close to all children as we can --except when those parents are proveably dangerous. And let's all get back to cherishing and sacrificing personal whims, tolerating the imperfect in our mates, rejecting temptation on the internet and everywhere else, for that ideal of lifetime marriage to raise children in a home with both Mom and Dad.

That would ALSO be good for American economy, with fewer people needing Uncle Sam to be their Daddy.



"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

Inspired by Blogs

On another blog, that shall remain nameless, the Perrysburg Tea Party was highlighted by a liberal commentator who concluded that the Tea-drinkers probably voted for Bush twice.

Bush was the more conservative of the two choices when GW Bush ran for president both times. So, of course, "tea drinkers" of Perrysburg would vote for the one who would take us leftward more slowly.

Bush slipped leftward on a few occasions --but Obama is steamrolling us downhill and off a cliff on almost every issue.

Change sounded good in a recession even though there were no specifics about the nature of such change--but if this recession doesn't turn around --the changes obama is making/has made will be seen for what they are --the most calamitous decisions for the economy made in recent presidencies.

Is it true that he has spent more thus far than all previous presidents put together? I heard it. If you count his "national healthcare planless plan" the statement is surely true. He said the other night on the health care "town hall" meeting, that he didn't know if it would cost one trillion or two. Yikes! What kind of shot in the dark is he trying to pass anyway?

I predict the economy will appear to rally for awhile -because some people who still have their jobs ARE spending more right now --because of the expected inflation and the devaluing of their dollars ---a future when they won't be able to afford what they can buy now. Others will hang on to what money they can, wondering how to protect retirement from the long reach of Obama's Uncle Sam, reaching into our pockets.

My kids gave my husband a birthday card --that said there would've been presents for him but the democrats decided that people whose birthday it was not, deserved his gifts instead.

Ain't that the truth!!??






"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible

Conservatives Still Have Their Heads on Straight!!!

I caught this symposium on C-Span TV last week -- a re-run from June 3, when...

"Participants spoke about the state of the Republican Party and the future of the conservative movement. They spoke about a number of issues including the philosophical roots of conservatism, economic and social policy, and building outreach programs.

The title of the 2009 Bradley Symposium, sponsored by the Hudson Institute, was "Making Conservatism Credible Again."

A transcript is found here.

I was impressed with Rich Lowry, the youthful editor of National Review. His concluding remarks were as follows:

As conservatives,we have to believe that reality is on our side at the end of the day. We believe three things, if you want to boil them down:

(1)The market is the best way to allocate capital.
(2)The world is a dangerous place that requires a toughmindedness in confronting it.
(3)And three, you can’t have a healthy society without traditional social structures and without virtue.

And we don’t believe these things because they’re convenient or popular. They’re not always popular or convenient. We believe them because they are true, and because they are true, they will be vindicated. Eventually.

I was really pleased to hear them all speak in favor of our traditional social institutions, including strong families and the value of virtue.

Columnist Mona Charen was present and asked about the problem of 40 per cent of children being raised in single-parent homes --and how that affects culture and the future.

A response to her question by MITCH DANIELS:

Mona, first of all, you have – as you have for a long time – directed us to the number one social
problem facing the country. I tell audiences in my state – of all kinds, all the time – that if they gave me the proverbial wand, my one wish would be that every child in our state grow up in an intact family to the age of eighteen, in which
case every social pathology that tears at our hearts would diminish dramatically. We all know this.

Even after age 18, divorce of parents is traumatic for the kids and poverty-causing for women, especially --though the economic damage to divorcing men can also be considerable.

I was encouraged to see that the conservatives of the think tanks are not about to give up on their ideals as they have been encouraged to do. They don't see that conservatives need to change --though they haven't been pleased with the GOP for its waffling and weaknesses when it comes to defending core conservative principles--as they seek to widen their tent.

It will take education --better education--to teach the next generation the values of conservative --and Christian ideals.

Christian educators need to do a better job. I was astounded to hear this weekend that a certain church college even has a gay dorm. Obviously the Bible means very little to such a church-school in these days.

However, Jodi, a commenting blogger here says my source is inaccurate, since she works at that school. I'm relieved. My source was credible with connections to that church and college, but evidently had wrong info as to official dorm policy--I called the college also and they denied having any gay dorms. But I discuss in the comments below another concern I have regarding so-called Christian college dorm policies which that college DOES have.






"God is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance and have eternal life."--the Bible