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| After reading the inaugural address it struck me how logical a path heathens take after basing their primary presupposition on a sin, and how that path emulates God's own thinking. As Christians we are part of the body of Christ, with Jesus Christ as our head. The body is in submission to the head, it obeys the head, cherishes, respects, and follows the head. It does all of this out of love for the head. In the case of Christ because the head first loves the body.
Obama is now the head of our government, and rightly so can demand respect and obedience from the government as his powers provide. However Obama did not run for president to lead the government, but rather has constantly affirmed he is a man of the people, and from his inaugural address, I gather he now expects to be the head to the body of American citizens. In the coming years he will demand more and more of his supposed body. Rather than being the securer of freedom for the people, he will force the "freedom" of the mind on us. "Hard work and honesty, courage and fair play, tolerance and curiosity, loyalty and patriotism," are the virtues every american will have to display, not for their own benifit, but for the benifit of the nation.
"We remain a young nation, but in the words of Scripture, the time has come to set aside childish things. The time has come to reaffirm our enduring spirit; to choose our better history; to carry forward that precious gift, that noble idea, passed on from generation to generation: the God-given promise that all are equal, all are free, and all deserve a chance to pursue their full measure of happiness." -Barack Obama He starts by quoting God, but the childish things he speaks of is our freedom. The enduring spirit he talks of is a government supported enduring spirit, not a spirit supported by Christ. The history he chooses is one of an America that wasn't created on the principals of biblical thinking. Then the blasphemy. Misrepresenting God's covenants and assuming that men deserve anything but hellfire makes God a liar, and elevates man over God. He also is misrepresenting the founding fathers who said that all men are "created" equal. This equality can best be described as fallen, however free from the rule of other men, and only subject to the law of God. Then to say that God has promised that all men deserve a chance to persue happieness is appalling. First notice he can't say God promises to give all men a chance, as that would be immedietely known to be false. So instead he makes a moral declaration in God's name that people deserve happiness. Barack Obama's god is not my God.
Obama has sinned the first sin, and has set himself up as a god. Now we the people have set him up as head over the body of our nation. He will attempt to dominate in his headship as Christ dominates in His, except without perfect knowledge, truth, or love. Welcome to the body of Obama.
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| In the eighth year of George Bush, President of The United States of America did Barack Obama the son of Barack Obama reign over The United States of America in Washington eight years.. And he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, as his fathers had done: he departed not from the sins of George Bush the son of George Bush, and Bill Clinton son of William Clinton, and Franklin Roosevelt son of James Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson son of Joseph Wilson, and Abraham Lincoln son of Thomas Lincoln, and John Adams son of John Adams who made The United States of America to sin. | | |
| First, I completely forgot how to post, it took me more then a minute to find the big button that got me here. I'm sorry I didn't read East of Eden, I've recently lost the copy I bought for the book club, well, less "lost" and more "burned" it. It was an accidental burning though. I have nothing against Steinbeck; ok maybe a little something against him.. I'll drop by the bookstore tomorrow and see if they have anymore used copies in, although I just started a new book, so maybe I'll start East of Eden next week. Of course school starts next week, and I don't know if that will give me more time for reading in between classes and such, or less time. Less time for WoW that's for sure, but then that has less to do with school and more to do with being bored with it (thanks matt and tj).
I think I'm on Secondly... the actual purpose for this post was to get some thoughts out on Atlas Shrugged. I think 1200 pages deserves a few sentences of commentary. I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing, me writing this without the book in front of me, but if I wrote it with the book as a reference it would take me many hours to stumble from thought to thought, and most likely it would end up with little coherence. So I'll pick one theme that popped into my mind a minute ago.
Atlas Shrugged is the bible, if the bible contained no Love. I consider the bible to be probably 83% love written by an author who happens to be 100% love by definition. So I don't know how much that statement is really saying. There is something innately good about the issues and details of how Ayn Rand thinks, and something horrifyingly evil. John Galt sums up his philosophy in the words "I will never live for the sake of another man,
nor ask another man to live for the sake of mine." This is an ideal I have a hard time disagreeing with. This is how man would live sans the fall, each self sufficient in his own perfect image of God. But we are fallen. That statement coming to fruition in this world means the death of the disabled in our practical world, and the death of all men in the spiritual world. Thank God Jesus didn't ascribe to this saying.
However Rand was right in one respect to Galt's philosophy; it is evil to force one man to bear the burden of love for another. Brotherly love is a byproduct of love for God, and it must be given freely in God's name to bear the name love. You cannot force one man with excess to give to another in need. That is theft and evil in the site of God. Its aim is to create utopia by taking the virtue of the great and feeding it to the unvirtuous. Only God can distribute virtue as he pleases. Handing out the spoils of one man to feed 10,000 may keep them alive, so long as that one man permits the theft of his own virtue. One of Rand's great points is that it is not evil for the victim to stop producing virtue that is stolen and given to others. I believe this is the root of Communism, Socialism, Liberalism, whatever you wish to call it. These people believe they are entitled to the fruit of the minds of the virtuous. They are bitter of God's distribution of the blessing of the mind. If they can't redistribute the power of the mind, they will redistribute the goods produced from it. The goal of social welfare, affirmative action, universal healthcare is not the equality of persons standard of living, but is rather aimed at destroying God's will in the blessing and cursing of whom he chooses. It always runs counter to whatever God's wishes are and manifests itself in the cursing of those who God temporally blesses, and blessing of those God temporally curses.
The cure for the ailments of these wicked people we usually call freedom. But the freedom that is truly important isn't the people's freedom to live their lives as they see fit, it is God's freedom to bless whom he will without forced interference by man, or more specifically, government. It is when man doesn't fight against God's will that man becomes prosperous and blessed. However it is in man's nature to hate God, and so man will continue to fight God's will until every one is called. Firefly said it best:
"They'll swing back to the belief that they can make people better. And I don't hold to that." and neither do I.
P.S. It was a great book. Very well written, with a great mysterious plot. I understand now why Mr. Johnson skipped the three hour speech by John Galt. It feels a little forced compared to the rest of the story. You just have to be able to see through the BS, otherwise it becomes a trap.
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| First I don't know what TJ is talking about, we agree about near everything, he just likes putting stuff in stupid ways to try to confuse me. Exactly!
1. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller
Who doesn't want to read a book once banned in America!?! So, it's supposed to be lewd and obscene, it's also hailed as a wonderfully written book. Who knows it might have some redeeming quality. It's rated as the 50th greatest book of the 20th century by the Modern Library. Plus I want to see what George and Jerry were so worked up about.
2. Point Counter Point by Aldous Huxley
I've always meant to read A Brave New World but never got around to it, and I'm guessing other in the group have read it. So Here is Huxley's somewhat lesser read novel which I'm hoping no one has read yet. "His characters decry the dangers of sacrificing humanity for intellectualism". Sounds like an interesting topic.
3. Descent Into Hell by Charles Williams
I read another of William's novels when I was taking a class that introduced me to his work. It was enjoyable and thought provoking, though I wish I had someone to discuss it with at the time. This is supposed to be his best novel, described as a "theological-thriller". Comon, it's got a succubus in it!
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| Most self described Christians still don't believe in self
government; or at least think it's easier to let government do it for
them. Also most believe it's the FEDERAL
governments job to enforce Christian law, which is a terrible idea. My
opposition to this idea (which I believe is consistent with the
constitution and the founding father's opinion) is that this is the
opposite of what the federal government is supposed to do. It's not
supposed to dictate to us what marriage is, what is good or bad to put
in our body, or even when life starts (unless in an amendment to the
constitution).
Some Christians would probably even favor federal legislation
banning bad music lyrics or blasphemy. I myself at first supported the
war in Iraq because I agreed with the motives and proposed outcome of the war:
killing murdering Muslims and removing an evil man from power. It took
time for me to look past my personal desires and look at the war from
the perspective of what our military was created for... defense. As
much as Saddam deserved to die, and as good as democracy would be in
Iraq, he was not a threat to us, and we should mind our own business
and try to convince people to be like us through diplomacy and by
leading a good and successful example.
This plan of attack should sound familiar... it's the Christian way
of apologetics. We don't want to become like Constantine and force
others to be like us. It doesn't work and it makes it harder to tell
who our true allies are.
The constitution gets name dropped a lot, but few understand how it
is supposed to be used. The bill of rights was almost never put into
the constitution because many founding fathers thought there was no
reason. The constitution already stated everything the federal
government was to have jurisdiction over (that being very little), so
why bother stating congress can't do something when it already wasn't
given that power in any of the articles. Further, why enumerate
certain rights when people already had these rights. But the addition
of the bill of rights made the 9th amendment necessary. "The
enumeration in the Constitution,
of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others
retained
by the people." Since the constitution didn't take any rights away
from the people, the 9th amendment basically is just saying, "we
highlighted some rather important rights that everyone already had".
The Constitution only establishes how the federal government is
supposed to work and how the states relate to one another. It was
never intended to legislate the rights of the people, this matter was
left to the states. Let's remember that meaning of the word "state" in
1791 was "nation". What the constitution originally meant is long
gone, and I fear we won't ever see it's original intent in action
without a violent revolution. | | |
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