The competition of ideas, as in any other arena, makes for a healthier and /or better product. Sporting events or capitalistic undertakings are given to rules that support what can be proven. Some suggest the competition of the religious/spiritual nature is often led by words based in faith and the unknown. I suggest the latter is becoming increasingly untrue.
Frances Crick, co-discoverer of DNA's double helix structure, in his book "The Astonishing Hypothesis, points to you being no more than the behavior of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. That is, your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, all crammed into a pack of neurons.
So if their is no design or purpose, what of evil? Atheists and "New Age" believers would have you believe that religion is the blame for what ails the world, "comparable to the small pox virus but harder to eradicate", as stated by Richard Dawkins, who also believed in the blind pitiless indifference of nature, where some people are going to get hurt and others get lucky. That explains why this white pack of neurons should have no problem owning and selling some other black pack of neurons. That presents a wonderful contrast and immediately disproves Dawkins.
It is in the "outcomes of living", where we can study what shows up as good and evil, where we witness the relevancy of our belief, and realize the validity of its fact. It has become obvious that this nations designation, as Christian, has come under attack. But you can not pull away from our nation it's Cristian roots, or characterize it other than that, as its traditional identity, nor can you define it apart from the words, "all men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." The diluting of Christianity will create a vacuum, where it's detractors and so called "spiritualists" will reel in hoar at what gets sucked into our land.
The Gospel speaks not only to eternal salvation of men's soals; it addresses family and education, law and economics, international relations and scientific endeavors. It condemns rebels and thugs and taught us about banking and insurance, while researching maps and roads. It shamelessly proclaimed Jesus Christ as King over every single aspect of life. Christianity was not always perfect but it had in itself the seeds of its own perfection, and wrote The Book on how to attain your own. Inspired by Whom, you might ask. Read it with an open mind without preconcieved prejudice. It will become entirely unmistakable, by Whom. B.C.
Monday, December 7, 2009
Saturday, July 11, 2009
IT'S ALL GREEK TO ME......An Acient Hope, part 2
I sit here on this Sabbath morning pondering our recent celebration of July 4th and its importance. In a way, Christians place the same kind of relevance to AD 33. Sort of, freedom day, if you will. But as Jesus walked around an occupied and fallen Hebrew nation, a country who’s history was rife with examples of being the conquered, He had prepared for those final 3 ½ years, for His great sacrifice and the culmination of the great prophesies and revelation, by a lifetime, crammed into 30 years of studying the ancients.
Why care? Why not take some specialists word for it, then, individually just start at AD 33? The New Testament is all you need for salvation. Right? Give me a break, you silly Christian! You’ll soon mirror the Jewish nation in bondage!
Look! The New Testament was written in Greek, not King James English. If you want to read what John read, the Old Testament, the Septuagint, you’ll need to understand Greek, or if not, then understand the language’s origin and from where it came before translation. To understand the New Testament, you have to understand that it was created out of great philosophical works, from Homer to Plato and Aristotle.
As I sat and reviewed the pod cast of a discussion Hugh Hewitt had with John Mark Reynolds and David Allen White, about the importance of ancient Truth, I began to realize how parochial my primary Christian education had been, and even more concerned that the portions of Greek philosophy sprinkled into it were vast, taking into account that children in secular education today are not sincerely introduced to “When Athens Met Jerusalem".
You see, when John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, he was sitting in a pagan city called Ephesus, and he was using language created by one of that city’s most famous residents, Heraclitus. You don’t have to care about Heraclitus unless you have grandkids like mine who have viewed the movie Pokohauntus, over and over and over…you get the picture. In the movie, Pokohauntus says, “You can never step in the same river twice”. She is not stating some kind of great North American wisdom. She is quoting Heraclitus. John, witting his poetic and prophetic statement of whom and what he believed the nature of Jesus and God to be, was being inspired by the very words of Heraclitus and his Greek words “en arche”, “in the beginning”, and then “en ho legos”, “was the word” Yes sir! Great Christian philosophy built right there in a pagan city on the words of a Greek philosopher. That does not diminish what John wrote. As David Allan White states it, “He was building on a language that was old and making something new of it, revealing something new to the world. It is as if he dropped an ideological atom bomb on a pagan culture, utterly destroying that culture, and replacing it with a Christian culture".
Those of us who enjoy the fruits of the greatest story ever told, whether by just tagging along, or by being one who has what some call, the fullness of faith, salvation, if you will, need to understand something important. “If you’re going to understand the fullness of time, you must understand the fullness of what the world brought to everything that made that thought possible and what occupied the minds of serious thinkers for a long while”. And that’s all Greek to me! B.C.
Why care? Why not take some specialists word for it, then, individually just start at AD 33? The New Testament is all you need for salvation. Right? Give me a break, you silly Christian! You’ll soon mirror the Jewish nation in bondage!
Look! The New Testament was written in Greek, not King James English. If you want to read what John read, the Old Testament, the Septuagint, you’ll need to understand Greek, or if not, then understand the language’s origin and from where it came before translation. To understand the New Testament, you have to understand that it was created out of great philosophical works, from Homer to Plato and Aristotle.
As I sat and reviewed the pod cast of a discussion Hugh Hewitt had with John Mark Reynolds and David Allen White, about the importance of ancient Truth, I began to realize how parochial my primary Christian education had been, and even more concerned that the portions of Greek philosophy sprinkled into it were vast, taking into account that children in secular education today are not sincerely introduced to “When Athens Met Jerusalem".
You see, when John wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”, he was sitting in a pagan city called Ephesus, and he was using language created by one of that city’s most famous residents, Heraclitus. You don’t have to care about Heraclitus unless you have grandkids like mine who have viewed the movie Pokohauntus, over and over and over…you get the picture. In the movie, Pokohauntus says, “You can never step in the same river twice”. She is not stating some kind of great North American wisdom. She is quoting Heraclitus. John, witting his poetic and prophetic statement of whom and what he believed the nature of Jesus and God to be, was being inspired by the very words of Heraclitus and his Greek words “en arche”, “in the beginning”, and then “en ho legos”, “was the word” Yes sir! Great Christian philosophy built right there in a pagan city on the words of a Greek philosopher. That does not diminish what John wrote. As David Allan White states it, “He was building on a language that was old and making something new of it, revealing something new to the world. It is as if he dropped an ideological atom bomb on a pagan culture, utterly destroying that culture, and replacing it with a Christian culture".
Those of us who enjoy the fruits of the greatest story ever told, whether by just tagging along, or by being one who has what some call, the fullness of faith, salvation, if you will, need to understand something important. “If you’re going to understand the fullness of time, you must understand the fullness of what the world brought to everything that made that thought possible and what occupied the minds of serious thinkers for a long while”. And that’s all Greek to me! B.C.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
GET OUT THE DITCH, BRO..........An Ancient Hope, part 1
You might think the world changed on July 4th, 1776. I love my country's birthday, I do. It sure is a cool spot on the historical chart. But look, I see it as a great place to be catapulted back to ancient time, not to slip forward to a sliding scale of thought that makes all things new, the value measure, and intellectual trends, foundations on sand. Christian theology was borne to a new world by those who sought out to form an environment for their children, to grow in understanding and reason, shaped by a philosophic language that was a gift from the ancients, not just passed forward to generations of a reformed Christianity, but in greater part, Western Civilization. Could they observe us today, one would see a dismayed group of Greeks, horrified at the ignorance and the shrugging off of centuries of intellectual history.
So, why do we care? Recently I listened to Hugh Hewitt discuss this very concept with two smart and valuable intellectual giants, John Mark Reynolds and David Allen White. In that conversation lies the answer. "People who care about the fact that their children and grandchildren are buying into a set of lies that are awful, that are destroying our nation and destroying our children and grandchildren, need to go to deeper causes for those lies and find viable solutions that can create the kind of culture that produces 1776 instead of 1966". A good place to start is an introduction to classical and Christian thought that can be found in a new book by John Mark Reynolds, titled "When Athens Met Jerusalem".
Today, we find ourselves treating symptoms manifested from lies, not willing to confront and educate about the core disease, to perform preventative care, if you will. The affliction is a rejection of some basic ideas bought into by the Founding Fathers, and we don't even know we have rejected those ideas. For various reasons, the modern world is obsessed with progress and obsessed with that which is new. We are heading down a road, on which, we have no idea where we are going. No guidance! No sense of where we've been! We have veered off into a ditch! Where were the guideposts? Did we see them but not understand their importance?
It is clear understanding of reason and reasonable thought, handed down for centuries by ancient philosophers, an intellectual endeavor that will lead one to Truth, capital "T" Truth, objective, outside the self, eternal Truth. There is the road map that we found less than appetizing to consume and ignored what would have kept us out of the proverbial ditch. It's clear, the Founding Fathers and most of the great minds of the past recognized the source of wisdom. It is clear we do not, by our infatuation with things constantly new and seeking constant change, have any idea how to get out of the ditch. Study to show thyself! Get out the ditch, bro! B.C.
So, why do we care? Recently I listened to Hugh Hewitt discuss this very concept with two smart and valuable intellectual giants, John Mark Reynolds and David Allen White. In that conversation lies the answer. "People who care about the fact that their children and grandchildren are buying into a set of lies that are awful, that are destroying our nation and destroying our children and grandchildren, need to go to deeper causes for those lies and find viable solutions that can create the kind of culture that produces 1776 instead of 1966". A good place to start is an introduction to classical and Christian thought that can be found in a new book by John Mark Reynolds, titled "When Athens Met Jerusalem".
Today, we find ourselves treating symptoms manifested from lies, not willing to confront and educate about the core disease, to perform preventative care, if you will. The affliction is a rejection of some basic ideas bought into by the Founding Fathers, and we don't even know we have rejected those ideas. For various reasons, the modern world is obsessed with progress and obsessed with that which is new. We are heading down a road, on which, we have no idea where we are going. No guidance! No sense of where we've been! We have veered off into a ditch! Where were the guideposts? Did we see them but not understand their importance?
It is clear understanding of reason and reasonable thought, handed down for centuries by ancient philosophers, an intellectual endeavor that will lead one to Truth, capital "T" Truth, objective, outside the self, eternal Truth. There is the road map that we found less than appetizing to consume and ignored what would have kept us out of the proverbial ditch. It's clear, the Founding Fathers and most of the great minds of the past recognized the source of wisdom. It is clear we do not, by our infatuation with things constantly new and seeking constant change, have any idea how to get out of the ditch. Study to show thyself! Get out the ditch, bro! B.C.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
DUMB DOGS
The set of laws Moses received from God in no way defined a new national structure but in it, as personal adherence to it followed, allowed a societal cohesiveness which provided God’s people the opportunity to organize into the nation of Israel. At the founding of our nation a standard was set forth to limit government. Our Constitution was put in place to be the foundation and guideline for all law thereafter. Under both mantles, your attention is drawn to God. On the tablets, the first command is; Thou shalt have no other gods before me. At the Constitutional Convention in 1787, Benjamin Franklin urged his fellow participants to call upon the “God [who] governs in the affairs of men”.
In “Twilight of the Idols”, arch-atheist Fredrich Nietzsche makes the observation that breaking one’s faith in God pulls Christian morality right out from under your feet. “Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God has truth--it stands or falls with faith in God”, he wrote. Nietzsche went on to profess, “no God, no moral imperatives; no “thou shalt”, and no “thou shalt not”. Only, “I will”. To bad that today’s atheists are not as honest or consistent as Nietzsche, enjoying the peace and tolerance derived from Christendom, all the while denying the existence of the Rule-giver.
Today we are faced with the ever-deluding definition of what is acceptable as moral behavior. Moral relativism runs rampant. There is one important factor that has promoted this problem. As individuals, assisted by the world wide web and technologies that further separate us from each other face to face, we have been pushed into a scenario of “one” and not community. This leaves each one of us as gatekeepers of our own values, without the guidance or checks and balance found in the “fear“ of God. Fewer find the importance of fellowship in the pews of Christian chapels and the seeking out of good advice and leadership. The allure to the guidance of a secular nations political class that promotes “I will” has allowed each of us to become the dumb dogs of Isaiah 56: 10-11. While we put on a good show at times (why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things I say? Luke 6:46), our actions show us to be in defiance of the First Command. Whoever or whatever might take God’s place determines the laws by which that individual or nation lives by. But Christ said, “If ye love Me, keep my commandments”. (John 14:15) He does not refer to some new age idea (Oh, it’s all about love, man) interpretation of the Ten Commands.
Our quest today should be to restore God’s law to its legitimate place on our nations mantel. To do otherwise would be to succumb to the direct assault on the Christian religion, the only belief system that puts limits on government. The dumb dogs lay sleeping, allowing biblical law to be reinterpreted, relegating God to some distant corner of the universe, or worse, redefining Him in the image of the politically empowered, emboldening government to act without any regard for a fixed moral foundation, which is, “Thou shalt have no other gods”. Will you wake the dogs, or lay down with them? B.C.
In “Twilight of the Idols”, arch-atheist Fredrich Nietzsche makes the observation that breaking one’s faith in God pulls Christian morality right out from under your feet. “Christian morality is a command; its origin is transcendent; it is beyond all criticism, all right to criticism; it has truth only if God has truth--it stands or falls with faith in God”, he wrote. Nietzsche went on to profess, “no God, no moral imperatives; no “thou shalt”, and no “thou shalt not”. Only, “I will”. To bad that today’s atheists are not as honest or consistent as Nietzsche, enjoying the peace and tolerance derived from Christendom, all the while denying the existence of the Rule-giver.
Today we are faced with the ever-deluding definition of what is acceptable as moral behavior. Moral relativism runs rampant. There is one important factor that has promoted this problem. As individuals, assisted by the world wide web and technologies that further separate us from each other face to face, we have been pushed into a scenario of “one” and not community. This leaves each one of us as gatekeepers of our own values, without the guidance or checks and balance found in the “fear“ of God. Fewer find the importance of fellowship in the pews of Christian chapels and the seeking out of good advice and leadership. The allure to the guidance of a secular nations political class that promotes “I will” has allowed each of us to become the dumb dogs of Isaiah 56: 10-11. While we put on a good show at times (why call ye me, Lord, Lord, and do not the things I say? Luke 6:46), our actions show us to be in defiance of the First Command. Whoever or whatever might take God’s place determines the laws by which that individual or nation lives by. But Christ said, “If ye love Me, keep my commandments”. (John 14:15) He does not refer to some new age idea (Oh, it’s all about love, man) interpretation of the Ten Commands.
Our quest today should be to restore God’s law to its legitimate place on our nations mantel. To do otherwise would be to succumb to the direct assault on the Christian religion, the only belief system that puts limits on government. The dumb dogs lay sleeping, allowing biblical law to be reinterpreted, relegating God to some distant corner of the universe, or worse, redefining Him in the image of the politically empowered, emboldening government to act without any regard for a fixed moral foundation, which is, “Thou shalt have no other gods”. Will you wake the dogs, or lay down with them? B.C.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
A NEW MOVEMENT
You might not have had the opportunity to tune into a telling debate between democratic political hack dog, Bob Mulholland, and Mark Meckler, private businessman and organizer of the Sacramento TEA party. It occurred on KTKZ 1380, during the Capital Hour, hosted by Eric Hogue, this past Friday at noon. If it gets archived you should hear it. It is a perfect example of leftists who don’t like to discuss their vial statements and critical labeling and distain for voters. At the end of the debate, Mr. Mulholland called Mr. Meckler, and by association, all TEA party participants, an idiot. Mulholland and big spending socialists like him, say and insinuate “you all”, irrelevant Neanderthals from the hinterlands. IT SOULD BE YOUR CALL TO ARMS!
We are a movement agreed on tax cutting and against the tsunami of taxation gimmicks, ie. cap and trade, and nearly tripling of the debt. We are disgusted by the repressive, insane penalty on productivity, and suggest that the first national conversation after we lose our entire legacy to bailouts and “stimulus” should be the tax code.
We are a movement, not practiced at the art of protest, but a silent majority finding its voice.
TEA “party goers” knew as we gathered on the streets that we would be mocked and ridiculed by the “unbiased” media and friends of Bob Mulholland. Having not been deterred, we stand in opposition to the transformation, no founder envisioned, of the “greatest nation on God’s green earth”! B.C.
We are a movement agreed on tax cutting and against the tsunami of taxation gimmicks, ie. cap and trade, and nearly tripling of the debt. We are disgusted by the repressive, insane penalty on productivity, and suggest that the first national conversation after we lose our entire legacy to bailouts and “stimulus” should be the tax code.
We are a movement, not practiced at the art of protest, but a silent majority finding its voice.
TEA “party goers” knew as we gathered on the streets that we would be mocked and ridiculed by the “unbiased” media and friends of Bob Mulholland. Having not been deterred, we stand in opposition to the transformation, no founder envisioned, of the “greatest nation on God’s green earth”! B.C.
Friday, January 30, 2009
THE CONSTITUTION IS WHOLE
On January 20, 2009, Americans celebrated a wonderful day. It was not that for the 44th time we witnessed the peaceful transition of power, a most unlikely occurrence anywhere else on God’s green earth. Nor was it the rhetorically fine speech or political slogans or the coolness of having young children in the White House. Rather, it was that the departure of the Constitution from our Declaration had come full circle, marked in our history by the struggles of all Americans.
There remain detractors and baiters, those who harbor the remnants of heart generated bigotry, where a sign still hangs in the window of a restaurant on some backwoods dirt road, population ten, or in the words of a preacher on this very day stating, "When whites will embrace what is right.” Let there be no doubt that the radical idea, birthed of a white slaveholder, became embodied in the ascent to the nations highest office of the son of an African.
A defect in our Constitution, the mending of which began with the election of Lincoln, continued through the long years of Jim Crow, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and ‘65, was completed on this unbelievable and inspiring day. As imperfect as our history depicts us to have been, no other place could have produced a day where the first black president stood to say, “We will not apologize for our way of life.”
I also will not apologize for not voting for the man. While the significance of the day will be harbored in my heart forever and the reflections and writings of my mother and father who stood to applaud those who marched from our interracially mixed church here in Oroville, who worked and toiled by our black friends, and with whose children I studied and played and fought, and by whom I was placed in the seat of a big old Lincoln Continental, to learn to drive at thirteen, to navigate the winding roads of backcountry Butte County, along with the following of the map to a receptive and open heart of a young man willing to avail his mind to truth about God and life. Jim Anderson was that man and none of this is about the individual, but the spirit and soul and the righteousness of the man. It is to that end that we will judge the success of our new President and not the color of his skin. It will be in that context that I will defend the values of this great country and it is those, which I believe he will destroy with a far left agenda and a socialist anti capitalist fervor that will dismantle the very system that led to his rise to power. God bless him while I stand against him, God help us all. B.C.
There remain detractors and baiters, those who harbor the remnants of heart generated bigotry, where a sign still hangs in the window of a restaurant on some backwoods dirt road, population ten, or in the words of a preacher on this very day stating, "When whites will embrace what is right.” Let there be no doubt that the radical idea, birthed of a white slaveholder, became embodied in the ascent to the nations highest office of the son of an African.
A defect in our Constitution, the mending of which began with the election of Lincoln, continued through the long years of Jim Crow, Martin Luther King Jr., and the Voting Rights Acts of 1964 and ‘65, was completed on this unbelievable and inspiring day. As imperfect as our history depicts us to have been, no other place could have produced a day where the first black president stood to say, “We will not apologize for our way of life.”
I also will not apologize for not voting for the man. While the significance of the day will be harbored in my heart forever and the reflections and writings of my mother and father who stood to applaud those who marched from our interracially mixed church here in Oroville, who worked and toiled by our black friends, and with whose children I studied and played and fought, and by whom I was placed in the seat of a big old Lincoln Continental, to learn to drive at thirteen, to navigate the winding roads of backcountry Butte County, along with the following of the map to a receptive and open heart of a young man willing to avail his mind to truth about God and life. Jim Anderson was that man and none of this is about the individual, but the spirit and soul and the righteousness of the man. It is to that end that we will judge the success of our new President and not the color of his skin. It will be in that context that I will defend the values of this great country and it is those, which I believe he will destroy with a far left agenda and a socialist anti capitalist fervor that will dismantle the very system that led to his rise to power. God bless him while I stand against him, God help us all. B.C.
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