The Madness of Liberalism

The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness
Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr, MD
Monday, December 04, 2006
Dr. Lyle H. Rossiter, Jr.,a forensic psychiatrist, explains the madness of liberalism in his new book The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. You can read an excerpt below, and read more at his website libertymind.com.

Like all other human beings, the modern liberal reveals his true character, including his madness, in what he values and devalues, in what he articulates with passion. Of special interest, however, are the many values about which the modern liberal mind is not passionate: his agenda does not insist that the individual is the ultimate economic, social and political unit; it does not idealize individual liberty and the structure of law and order essential to it; it does not defend the basic rights of property and contract; it does not aspire to ideals of authentic autonomy and mutuality; it does not preach an ethic of self-reliance and self-determination; it does not praise courage, forbearance or resilience; it does not celebrate the ethics of consent or the blessings of voluntary cooperation. It does not advocate moral rectitude or understand the critical role of morality in human relating. The liberal agenda does not comprehend an identity of competence, appreciate its importance, or analyze the developmental conditions and social institutions that promote its achievement. The liberal agenda does not understand or recognize personal sovereignty or impose strict limits on coercion by the state. It does not celebrate the genuine altruism of private charity. It does not learn history’s lessons on the evils of collectivism.

What the liberal mind is passionate about is a world filled with pity, sorrow, neediness, misfortune, poverty, suspicion, mistrust, anger, exploitation, discrimination, victimization, alienation and injustice. Those who occupy this world are “workers,” “minorities,” “the little guy,” “women,” and the “unemployed.” They are poor, weak, sick, wronged, cheated, oppressed, disenfranchised, exploited and victimized. They bear no responsibility for their problems. None of their agonies are attributable to faults or failings of their own: not to poor choices, bad habits, faulty judgment, wishful thinking, lack of ambition, low frustration tolerance, mental illness or defects in character. None of the victims’ plight is caused by failure to plan for the future or learn from experience. Instead, the “root causes” of all this pain lie in faulty social conditions: poverty, disease, war, ignorance, unemployment, racial prejudice, ethnic and gender discrimination, modern technology, capitalism, globalization and imperialism. In the radical liberal mind, this suffering is inflicted on the innocent by various predators and persecutors: “Big Business,” “Big Corporations,” “greedy capitalists,” U.S. Imperialists,” “the oppressors,” “the rich,” “the wealthy,” “the powerful” and “the selfish.”

The liberal cure for this endless malaise is a very large authoritarian government that regulates and manages society through a cradle to grave agenda of redistributive caretaking. It is a government everywhere doing everything for everyone. The liberal motto is “In Government We Trust.” To rescue the people from their troubled lives, the agenda recommends denial of personal responsibility, encourages self-pity and other-pity, fosters government dependency, promotes sexual indulgence, rationalizes violence, excuses financial obligation, justifies theft, ignores rudeness, prescribes complaining and blaming, denigrates marriage and the family, legalizes all abortion, defies religious and social tradition, declares inequality unjust, and rebels against the duties of citizenship. Through multiple entitlements to unearned goods, services and social status, the liberal politician promises to ensure everyone’s material welfare, provide for everyone’s healthcare, protect everyone’s self-esteem, correct everyone’s social and political disadvantage, educate every citizen, and eliminate all class distinctions. With liberal intellectuals sharing the glory, the liberal politician is the hero in this melodrama. He takes credit for providing his constituents with whatever they want or need even though he has not produced by his own effort any of the goods, services or status transferred to them but has instead taken them from others by force.

It should be apparent by now that these social policies and the passions that drive them contradict all that is rational in human relating, and they are therefore irrational in themselves. But the faulty conceptions that lie behind these passions cannot be viewed as mere cognitive slippage. The degree of modern liberalism’s irrationality far exceeds any misunderstanding that can be attributed to faulty fact gathering or logical error. Indeed, under careful scrutiny, liberalism’s distortions of the normal ability to reason can only be understood as the product of psychopathology. So extravagant are the patterns of thinking, emoting, behaving and relating that characterize the liberal mind that its relentless protests and demands become understandable only as disorders of the psyche. The modern liberal mind, its distorted perceptions and its destructive agenda are the product of disturbed personalities.

As is the case in all personality disturbance, defects of this type represent serious failures in development processes. The nature of these failures is detailed below. Among their consequences are the liberal mind’s relentless efforts to misrepresent human nature and to deny certain indispensable requirements for human relating. In his efforts to construct a grand collectivist utopia—to live what Jacques Barzun has called “the unconditioned life” in which “everybody should be safe and at ease in a hundred ways”—the radical liberal attempts to actualize in the real world an idealized fiction that will mitigate all hardship and heal all wounds. (Barzun 2000). He acts out this fiction, essentially a Marxist morality play, in various theaters of human relatedness, most often on the world’s economic, social and political stages. But the play repeatedly folds. Over the course of the Twentieth Century, the radical liberal’s attempts to create a brave new socialist world have invariably failed. At the dawn of the Twenty-first Century his attempts continue to fail in the stagnant economies, moral decay and social turmoil now widespread in Europe. An increasingly bankrupt welfare society is putting the U.S. on track for the same fate if liberalism is not cured there. Because the liberal agenda’s principles violate the rules of ordered liberty, his most determined efforts to realize its visionary fantasies must inevitably fall short. Yet, despite all the evidence against it, the modern liberal mind believes his agenda is good social science. It is, in fact, bad science fiction. He persists in this agenda despite its madness.

Copyright © 2008 Salem Web Network. All Rights Reserved.

http://townhall.com/columnists/LyleHRossiterJrMD/2006/12/04/the_liberal_mind_the_psychological_causes_of_political_madness

More about the book:

The liberal agenda’s basic principles are not only antithetical to our most cherished liberties; they are also directly contrary to all that is good and noble in the human enterprise. The Liberal Mind is the first work to explain why modern liberalism appeals to the irrational tendencies of the human mind. It is the first work to explain how liberalism can be defeated.

In the course of this analysis, Rossiter asks and answers the following critical question: Why would anyone want a political system that restricts personal freedom instead of enhancing it; denounces personal responsibility instead of promoting it; surrenders personal sovereignty instead of honoring it; attacks the philosophical foundations of liberty instead of defending them; encourages government dependency instead of self-reliance; and undermines the character of the people by making them wards of the state?

The Liberal Mind contains the elegant solution to the problem of modern liberalism; it is a systematic, fact-based analysis of why the left’s collectivism not only does not work but cannot work.

The Liberal Mind explains:

The two major goals of the modern liberal agenda: the Modern Parental Society and the Modern Permissive Culture, and why they violate the basic principles of freedom.

How the modern liberal agenda attacks the moral and legal foundations of individual liberty.

How the modern liberal agenda violates the defining characteristics of human nature and ignores the essential realities of the human condition.

How the modern liberal agenda corrupts the character of the people by appealing to their base instincts and undermining the constraints of conscience.

How the modern liberal agenda’s ideas and goals are self-contradictory and logically inconsistent.

Why the liberal mind believes in the irrational principles of the liberal agenda -- and what it takes to effect a cure.

The Liberal Mind is the most comprehensive, intellectually-coherent analysis of political psychology ever published. The Liberal Mind will empower you to understand why the political madness of modern liberalism is destroying individual liberty in all corners of the world.

http://www.libertymind.com/index.php?page_id=1

Why Does It Matter?

We were discussing American History, or rather, the deconstructionists were busy trashing the Biblical and Godly origins of America's foundational ideology.

sevenseas at CARM writes: "Something that has always bewildered me is the question of why does it matter? Why do you want the U.S. to be considered a Christian nation?
[cathy's edit: no, I am not concerned that "the U.S. is to be considered a Christian nation" at all, the point is not perception or how many Christians there are, etc. but the point is to acknowledge and understand the reality of the nation's ideological origins.]
After all, I hear a lot of negative comments on this board, in church and elsewhere about "Europe" and even though it's technically incorrect phrasing to most Brits, people generally mean England when they say Europe. England is a Christian nation. The Christian religion, denomination Anglican, is the official religion there! So, if anyone has claim to being a Christian nation, they do, yet some people complain that they are also socialist and have a myriad of moral breakdowns. So, if Britain is the model for a Christian nation, why do you seek the same status? Isn't it enough to conclude that most of the American populace gives at least lip service to Christianity and the concept of God, and that for many people it's a serious and important part of their life?"



Why does it matter?
For me, it is primarily a matter of intellectual integrity. Honesty.

I hate and despise liars, manipulators of the truth, dishonesty in any form.
At the top of the list is the shameless revisionist who would disembowel
truth, rewrite history, and promote a lie to set an agenda.

Historical revisionism is evil. It is practiced by those who deconstruct truth
for their own purposes, which are always evil.

My God is a God of truth, the essence, the author, the champion of truth.
The first lie told in history was uttered by a serpent:
"surely you won't die"...

... and every lie since then has emanated from the same place.

The Father of Lies is a harsh and evil task-master. Once an individual or a
people start down his path they are doomed to madness. Ask Nietzsche in
his padded cell whether truth is absolute or not. He died in his insanity,
a victim of his own contempt for reality and truth.

Truth is not to be tinkered with.
History is not to be tinkered with.

Secondly, ideology matters. No, it more than matters it is the
central core and crucial consideration in pondering the origins of the first
nation ever founded on the Biblical principles with the idea that God created
humanity, and created humanity to be *free*, that it is a *self-evident*
(needing no further explanation) TRUTH.

To deny the origin of freedom: Our Creator
is to deny the origin of our nature, and our nation.

To deny the Founder's plea to Providence, and their stated
dependence on God's good wishes for success
is to deny the reason why we should depend on Him always.

To deny the Founder's gratitude to God
is to deny the origin of our power and success as a nation.

The preamble of every single State's Constitution acknowledges and thanks
God for their creation. That is the truth. We deny it at our peril.

Just as we deny God's sovereignty over all things at our peril.
This is what the Founders knew. This is what the Founders taught us.


.........
.........

Aftermath

....

Watch this please:

Aftermath

I HEART Alonzo Rachel!

America IS worth fighting for!

Okay I transcribed the first (audio only) part:

AFTERMATH

America:

You're worth fighting for.
You are a mighty nation under Almighty God.

Your promise that I can stand or kneel on your soil to give thanks and praise
to the Almighty who blessed us with it, is worth fighting for.

The country that none of us chose to be born in yet more of us more than anyplace else choose to stay in until the day we die in
is worth fighting for.

A country that was once as low as its foundation built by slave labor now towers over all nations for she has set them free -
is worth fighting for.

This country, that has given far more to the world than she has taken
for she has given more of her money, and more of her blood
than any other nation -
is worth fighting for.

America is accused of being a bully because she pulls true bullies off the backs of the truly oppressed -
she is worth fighting for.

Though I receive sharp and hateful criticism for supporting our military no word makes me flinch when I consider the sharp and hateful discharged bullets and shrapnel our military faces to protect us -
and they're worth fighting for.

This country that allows women to share the twinkle in their eye and the sparkle in their smile with us, instead of being forced to hide it -
is worth fighting for.

Citizens of many other countries live in fear of expressing hatred for their country, yet here in America often now we live in fear of expressing love for our country. Haters will quickly and belligerently criticize the patriot, and the fact that the haters are so tolerated in this country is the testament of our nation's incomparable patience for those who don't know any better. And that makes America
worth fighting for.

Though real tyranny exists in other countries where a person is beaten to death or beheaded for believing in Jesus Christ, *this* country is worth fighting for because the closest thing to tyranny the haters can accuse us of is the effective patriot act or the possibility that a woman can lose her right to kill her unborn child. If that's what you call "tyranny" then you might want to get on your knees and start thanking God, and recognizing that -
this truly is a country worth fighting for.

We are made up of the beautiful people of the world, but you can't look at everybody here, and call them "asian" "nubian" or "european" -- but you CAN look at anybody here and call them an American.

May God continue to bless you
and bless the United States of America
and remember: it's not because we're better than anybody else
it's because we ARE everybody else.

Righto!

--Transcribed from Alonzo (ZO) Rachel's YouTube entitled Aftermath.

God's Word is the Final Word

God bless our new POTUS.

My friend Double-G at CARM posted these words of wisdom:

Regardless of those who do or don't like Obama, some things that're NOT options on the issue:

1 Timothy 2:1-4
2:1 First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, 2 for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3 This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Romans 13:1-7
13:1 Let every person be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God. 2 Therefore whoever resists the authorities resists what God has appointed, and those who resist will incur judgment. 3 For rulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, 4 for he is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer. 5 Therefore one must be in subjection, not only to avoid God’s wrath but also for the sake of conscience. 6 For because of this you also pay taxes, for the authorities are ministers of God, attending to this very thing. 7 Pay to all what is owed to them: taxes to whom taxes are owed, revenue to whom revenue is owed, respect to whom respect is owed, honor to whom honor is owed.

1 Peter 2:13-17
13 Be subject for the Lord’s sake to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, 14 or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good. 15 For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people. 16 Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. 17 Honor everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the emperor.
Titus 3/Titus 3

Doing What is Good

1Remind the people to be subject to rulers and authorities, to be obedient, to be ready to do whatever is good, 2to slander no one, to be peaceable and considerate, and to show true humility toward all men.

3At one time we too were foolish, disobedient, deceived and enslaved by all kinds of passions and pleasures. We lived in malice and envy, being hated and hating one another. 4But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, 5he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy. He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, 6whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Savior, 7so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. 8This is a trustworthy saying. And I want you to stress these things, so that those who have trusted in God may be careful to devote themselves to doing what is good. These things are excellent and profitable for everyone.


For those who can’t obey these refuse to submit to the Lordship of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Welcome to our next Commander and Chief and lets pray for the last few months of our current one.

"Powerful Civilian Security Force"? WTF for?

...
Obama sez:
"We cannot continue to rely on our military
in order to achieve the national security objectives we've set.
We've got to have a civilian national security force
that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."
Will someone, anyone, explain to me please exactly WHY "we cannot continue to rely on our military" for national security?
???

Will someone, anyone, explain to me please the need for a
powerful
civilian
national
security
force
????


And just WHO would have control over these "civilians" who will be
just as powerful
just as strong
just as well-funded
as the military
???

spooky, spooky, creepy, and altogether ignored in the media.

This is NOT business as usual.
This is NOT something to be ignored by the average citizen.
This is NOT even Constitutional.

We have the military - which has always supported conservative candidates; most in the military are intensely patriotic and believe in the Constitution.
The same can be said about most local police forces.

Now B.O. is saying we need a "new security force" -- W H Y.

It makes absolutely no sense.

I Want a Big Change - From These Democrat Screw Ups

Disclaimer: Personally I hate the Democratic Party for their increasingly radical anti-Constitution socialist leanings and anti-American ideology. I hate the Republican Party equally, because Barack Obama is as much their creation as the far left's - while having the "bully pulpit" they pandered too much to liberals, at times abandoned conservatism for political gain and failed to decrease the size of government when they had the chance.

However: I do my homework and we have to give credit where it's due if we are to remain intellectualy honest. Anyone who seriously is looking for positive change would *not* vote for Democrats based on their performance in Congress. Here is why:

The Obama/Biden ticket's entire campaign theme is based on "the last eight years." Maybe we should really look at "the last two years," or the time period when both the House and the Senate were run by Democrats.

In December 2006, after six years of Bush and the last month before the Democrats took over both houses of the national legislature, a snapshot of our economy looked like this.

*Unemployment stood at 4.4%.

*Real GDP growth over the previous four years (under a Republican President, House and Senate) averaged 3% per year.

*A gallon of regular gasoline cost $2.30.

*The S&P 500 stock index stood at 1418, or 84% above its post-911 low and more than 7% higher than when Bush took office.

*Every year of Bush's Presidency, real (inflation-adjusted) disposable income per person went up.

*By the end of 2006, the average person was making 9% more in real terms than before Bush became President .

If you recall, that 2006 election was considered a referendum on Iraq. The people wanted change, so they threw out the Republicans and replaced them with Democrats. Welcome Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi.

Here is how they handled Iraq once in office: Harry Reid told us that the Iraq war was "lost" and the surge was not "accomplishing anything." Senator Obama introduced legislation that would have prevented the surge and would have taken all US troops out of Iraq by March 2008 (that would be seven months ago, as you read this) .

Were they right?

Barack Obama now admits that "the surge succeeded." So much for that change. And as the surge succeeded, Congress's approval ratings plummeted. The latest CBS/New York Times poll has it at 12%, well less than half of the already low level it stood at when the Republican Congress was being tossed out in 2006.

What Congress would not investigate was anything about Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. In fact, they fought against such investigations and cast aspersions against anyone who would even doubt the soundness of those institutions. Here is what Barney Frank said:

These two entities, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.

You can also see on YouTube how Democrats treated the regulators trying to reign in Fannie and Freddie.

On the other hand, here is what the New York Times had to say in 2003

The Bush administration is rightly pushing for the Treasury Department to regulate the two giants, along with the network of federal home loan banks. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae provide financing to lenders by creating a secondary market for mortgages. All told, these two institutions' debt portfolio exceeds more than $1.5 trillion. Their current regulator is ill equipped to keep tabs on Freddie's and Fannie's sophisticated hedging strategies and the other financial moves they use to manage their huge investments.

And here is what John McCain said on the Senate floor:

For years I have been concerned about the regulatory structure that governs Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac... I join as a cosponsor of the Federal Housing Enterprise Regulatory Reform Act of 2005, S. 190, to underscore my support for quick passage of GSE regulatory reform legislation. If Congress does not act, American taxpayers will continue to be exposed to the enormous risk that Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac pose to the housing market, the overall financial system, and the economy as a whole.

On the other hand, who supported the surge? George W. Bush and John McCain.

Who tried to strengthen the oversight and regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? George W. Bush and John McCain.

In the case of the surge, Bush and McCain got their way. The result? Apparent victory in Iraq, a country that is now a democracy, at peace with its neighbors, no longer a WMD threat, no longer a terrorist sanctuary, and no longer filling hundreds of mass graves with hundreds of thousands of its own citizens.

In the case of Fannie and Freddie, Bush and McCain did not get their way - Barney Frank did. The result? The failure of Fannie and Freddie, law suits against their executives and the spark that sent banks failing and stocks falling across the globe to the point of threatening a Great Depression. -- American Thinker Randall Hoven

"Let's vote for change. Let's undo what we did in 2006."
---------------------------------------

Hat tip to Dr. Sanity who said:

"Just yesterday I was watching Huckabee on Fox when he interviewed Joe the Plumber. After the interview, they took questions from the audience and one questioner stuck in my mind. She identified herself as a Canadian and asked a question that I think captures the essene of the issue:

Why, she asked (and I paraphrase), are Americans so down on President Bush? Since 9/11 he has managed to keep your country from being attacked again and taken the battle to the enemy...he was right about the surge and now your troops are coming home victorious after freeing the Iraqi people from oppression? And, during all those years when the Iraq war was not going well, he and the Republicans persevered under difficult circumstances AND kept the economy of your country doing well.

And now, (she went on) you seem to be ignoring the fact that the Democrats have controlled Congress for the last two years and since they took over, the economy has totally tanked. Why are you blaming Bush for that?

Excellent question.

And, an even more pertinent question is why John McCain is getting blamed for it by the Democrats? Isn't that a classic case of 'guilt by association' according to the Obamacrats own standards?" -- Dr. Sanity

"So on the big things, the surge in Iraq and the failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to our recent financial mess, the Democrats were wrong. Dead wrong. One hundred eighty degrees out wrong." - Randall Hoven

While the Republicans were in power, the economy prospered.
The surge worked. Thanks to a Republican President
We have been safe since 9/11 - the terrorist war is on M.E. soil where it belongs. Thanks to a Republican President
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have created devastation - thanks to the Democratic social engineering via the likes of Barney Frank and Nancy Pelosi.
And now the Dems want to make things worse by "spreading the wealth around" and pushing us over the brink into socialism. And they are not above using deplorable tactics like demonizing nice, ordinary people to get there.

Democrats? Again? No. Thanks.

Really I'm almost hoping Obama wins - if having a marxist in office would cause the right to become energized enough to return to our Constitutional roots and ideology, and support *effective* and *articulate* candidates in the future.

As always when it comes right down to it I'm

Trusting in Him,
imtheonlycathy!

We are (or were) a Constitutional Republic, not a Democracy

It seems some people think the United States is a democracy, that the original Constitution is either a "living document" to be changed at will or no big deal in the day to day workings of government. Some seem to think that the expansion of powers given to the Federal government beyond what was allowed in the original Constitution is a good thing.


The United States is one of the oldest Constitutional Republics in existence.

A constitutional republic is a state where the head of state and other officials are elected as representatives of the people, and must govern according to existing constitutional law that limits the government's power over citizens. In a constitutional republic, executive, legislative, and judicial powers are separated into distinct branches and the will of the majority of the population is tempered by protections for individual rights so that no individual or group has absolute power. The fact that a constitution exists that limits the government's power makes the state constitutional. That the head(s) of state and other officials are chosen by election, rather than inheriting their positions, and that their decisions are subject to judicial review makes a state republican.

Constitutional Republics are a deliberate attempt to diminish the threat of mobocracy thereby protecting dissenting individuals and minority groups from the tyranny of the majority by placing theoretical checks on the power of the majority of the population. The power of the majority of the people is checked by limiting that power to electing representatives who, theoretically, are required to govern within limits of overarching constitutional law rather than the popular vote having legislative power itself (even though such representatives are elected by said majority, creating a definitive conflicted interest). The United States of America is one of the oldest constitutional republics in the world.

John Adams defined a constitutional republic as "a government of laws, and not of men." Also, the power of government officials is checked by allowing no single individual to hold executive, legislative and judicial powers. Instead these powers are separated into distinct branches that serve as a check and balance on each other. A constitutional republic is designed so that "no person or group [can] rise to absolute power."

Alexander Tsesis, in The Thirteenth Amendment and American Freedom: A Legal History says, to him, a constitutional republic means "a representative polity established on fundamental law, each person has the right to pursue and fulfill his or her unobtrusive vision of the good life. In such a society, the common good is the cumulative product of free and equal individuals who pursue meaningful aims."

We're not a democracy, we're not a mobocracy, and the Constitution has been thrashed to within an inch of its life while "we the people" have looked the other way and allowed special interests and social engineers to dominate. What has kept us alive in the past is this: Our representatives are sworn to represent the people by upholding the Constitution. When they fail, our country is weakened. The actions of Congress last week took a giant step away from our origins as a Constitutional Republic, and toward a malignant socialism via nationalization of vast corporate assets, a move which is well beyond the bounds of the Constitution.

In other words, the interests of a few have been allowed to dominate the interests of the people via unfettered and anti-Constitutional legislation. It appears none of our representatives care about the ideological principles the nation was founded on, but instead vie with each other to find loopholes through which to shove their favorite pet pork projects.

Disgusting.

===========================
Now on to the discussion

This comment set me off on an even longer rant:

Documents such as the constitution are, in practice, nothing more than pieces of paper

Sigh.

Okay. Here we go, hang on a sec. My response:

How sad to think the Constitution is viewed as nothing more than a piece of paper.

You can toss the Declaration of Independence into that same trash bin I suppose.

But for those who pledged "their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor" this new form of government "of the people, by the people, and for the people" was everything they were willing to literally die for.

So to translate for the uninformed: It is an ideology, a worldview, a point of view, upon which this country was founded. Of course that means little to some I suppose.

and I suppose the flag is just bits of cloth sewn together.


Ignorance and greed have sold what they fought for rather cheaply, imho. In the end our government will never work again, unless people are (1) willing to dismantle the constitution completely and admit they want and will vote for a new democratic socialist state or (2) go back to where we came from with a simplified and strictly constitutional government, handing power back to the states, though I doubt this could ever happen.

Why? Without the conventional checks and balances in place, we are uniquely vulnerable now, more than ever before in the nation's history. The power of special interests have nearly broken the back of the Constitutional Republic and replaced it with a counterfeit that clearly isn't working for the people. Intelligent people understand that government-subsidized anything equals eventual graft and corruption.


We are in the middle of a crisis, and it isn't the economy that's in danger it's the people's trust and confidence in their government.


Our federal government was not meant to be a money-gathering apparatus, which would be in strict opposition to its original purpose. This is precisely why our original Constitution was simply constructed -- to keep the federal government lean and mean and thus keep greed's fingers out of "we the people's" money, (and therefore limiting the federal government's power as well) while focusing on a very few central tasks and a core ideology stressing individual liberty.


Welfare translates into welfare fraud.
SSDI translates into disability fraud.
Subsidized housing turns into subsidized landlords.
Nationalization of assets is practically the definition of fraud.
etc.


Funny. The more I read by the founders the more I realize many of them, having experienced tyranny in their own lifetimes and having been ardent students of the history of politics and government, never really expected it to last *this* long without perhaps another revolution or two along the way.

Thus the emphasis over and over on individual responsibility and individual liberty. Witness the 1st and 2nd Amendments. With the first we are given the message - Always retain the freedom to shoot off your mouth. With the second: and if that doesn't work be prepared to shoot off your weapons.



What we were given with the Constitution was an opportunity to retain freedoms fought for and won by others, and then to live in a peaceful and orderly society where the *united* states would provide national security, leaving the day to day operations of government to local purview within each state. Those days are long gone having been replaced by an intrusive, dictatorial, confiscatory body having no resemblance to its ancestor. Centralized government means loss of opportunity for local oversight, and increased opportunity for graft and corruption.


What a lot of people don't realize as well is this: once that door of subsidy (in the name of helping the poor) is opened, there are those who will make it their business to purposefully and deliberately target and overwhelm that program beyond its breaking point, on purpose, in order to eventually destroy the infrastructure. It's so easy, it's been done to almost every public institution. Welfare. Education. Housing. Mortgage lending. Investment banking. Even our national security at the borders has been compromised in the interests of supposedly helping the poor.

Helping the poor (disenfranchised, disabled) became the magic door-opener through which organized corruption might enter, enabled and supported by guilt-inducing propagandists and lying idealists who expressed not much more than a lack of trust in the public's motives to help privately, and by which those professing to champion those interests moved into positions of power through emotional, political and litigious blackmail. The public can't be trusted. Therefore their income must be confiscated, and redistributed as the kindly, overseeing "government" sees fit.

To disagree even softly equals hate-speech or bigotry. The gun to the head is wielded by "community activists" chanting slogans, backed by powerful coalitions, supported by useful idiots in the media and on campus, and many are in reality themselves only pawns in a more lucrative game of power mongering.


Is all of this a major shift, from the central core ideology of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution? Oh how I wish they knew....


The death knell came through the Progressives on Feb. 3, 1913 when the 16th Amendment was passed. Really it was all downhill from there. October 3rd was merely a giant leap in the same direction.

------------------/rant

and I could have gone on, but I won't. if you care, do your own research into the downfall of the Republic, 'kay?

Why Have They Manufactured This Crisis?

FOR THINKERS ONLY

Barack Obama and the Strategy of Manufactured Crisis

In an earlier post, I noted the liberal record of unmitigated legislative disasters, the latest of which is now being played out in the financial markets before our eyes. Before the 1994 Republican takeover, Democrats had sixty years of virtually unbroken power in Congress - with substantial majorities most of the time. Can a group of smart people, studying issue after issue for years on end, with virtually unlimited resources at their command, not come up with a single policy that works? Why are they chronically incapable?

Why?

One of two things must be true. Either the Democrats are unfathomable idiots, who ignorantly pursue ever more destructive policies despite decades of contrary evidence, or they understand the consequences of their actions and relentlessly carry on anyway because they somehow benefit.

I submit to you they understand the consequences. For many it is simply a practical matter of eliciting votes from a targeted constituency at taxpayer expense; we lose a little, they gain a lot, and the politician keeps his job. But for others, the goal is more malevolent - the failure is deliberate. Don't laugh. This method not only has its proponents, it has a name: the Cloward-Piven Strategy. It describes their agenda, tactics, and long-term strategy.

READ the rest of the article and the links, please.

Those of us of an age to remember will recognize the fingerprints of The Communist Manifesto. I realize this is too much to absorb for most who are unfamiliar with the "progressive" agenda.

Consider this:

The Strategy was first elucidated in the May 2, 1966 issue of The Nation magazine by a pair of radical socialist Columbia University professors, Richard Andrew Cloward and Frances Fox Piven. David Horowitz summarizes it as:

The strategy of forcing political change through orchestrated crisis. The "Cloward-Piven Strategy" seeks to hasten the fall of capitalism by overloading the government bureaucracy with a flood of impossible demands, thus pushing society into crisis and economic collapse.

Cloward and Piven were inspired by radical organizer [and Hillary Clinton mentor] Saul Alinsky:

"Make the enemy live up to their (sic) own book of rules," Alinsky wrote in his 1989 book Rules for Radicals. When pressed to honor every word of every law and statute, every Judeo-Christian moral tenet, and every implicit promise of the liberal social contract, human agencies inevitably fall short. The system's failure to "live up" to its rule book can then be used to discredit it altogether, and to replace the capitalist "rule book" with a socialist one. (Courtesy Discover the Networks.org)

Newsmax rounds out the picture:

Their strategy to create political, financial, and social chaos that would result in revolution blended Alinsky concepts with their more aggressive efforts at bringing about a change in U.S. government. To achieve their revolutionary change, Cloward and Piven sought to use a cadre of aggressive organizers assisted by friendly news media to force a re-distribution of the nation's wealth.

In their Nation article, Cloward and Piven were specific about the kind of "crisis" they were trying to create:

By crisis, we mean a publicly visible disruption in some institutional sphere. Crisis can occur spontaneously (e.g., riots) or as the intended result of tactics of demonstration and protest which either generate institutional disruption or bring unrecognized disruption to public attention.

No matter where the strategy is implemented, it shares the following features:

The offensive organizes previously unorganized groups eligible for government benefits but not currently receiving all they can.
The offensive seeks to identify new beneficiaries and/or create new benefits.
The overarching aim is always to impose new stresses on target systems, with the ultimate goal of forcing their collapse.

Consider this:

ACORN

Obama has spent a large portion of his professional life working for ACORN or its subsidiaries, representing ACORN as a lawyer on some of its most critical issues, and training ACORN leaders. Stanley Kurtz's excellent National Review article, "Inside Obama's Acorn." also describes Obama's ACORN connection in detail. But I can't improve on Obama's own words:

I've been fighting alongside ACORN on issues you care about my entire career. Even before I was an elected official, when I ran Project Vote voter registration drive in Illinois, ACORN was smack dab in the middle of it, and we appreciate your work. - Barack Obama, Speech to ACORN, November 2007 (Courtesy Newsmax.)

In another excellent article on Obama's ACORN connections, Newsmax asks a nagging question:

It would be telling to know if Obama, during his years at Columbia, had occasion to meet Cloward and study the Cloward-Piven Strategy.

I ask you, is it possible ACORN would train Obama to take leadership positions within ACORN without telling him what he was training for? Is it possible ACORN would put Obama in leadership positions without clueing him into what his purpose was?? Is it possible that this most radical of organizations would put someone in charge of training its trainers, without him knowing what it was he was training them for?

As a community activist for ACORN; as a leadership trainer for ACORN; as a lead organizer for ACORN's Project Vote; as an attorney representing ACORN's successful efforts to impose Motor Voter regulations in Illinois; as ACORN's representative in lobbying for the expansion of high risk housing loans through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac that led to the current crisis; as a recipient of their assistance in his political campaigns -- both with money and campaign workers; it is doubtful that he was unaware of ACORN's true goals. It is doubtful he was unaware of the Cloward-Piven Strategy.

Fast-forward to 2005 when an obsequious, servile and scraping Daniel Mudd, CEO of Fannie Mae spoke at the Congressional Black Caucus swearing in ceremony for newly-elected Illinois Senator, Barack Obama. Mudd called, the Congressional Black Caucus "our family" and "the conscience of Fannie Mae."

In 2005, Republicans sought to rein in Fannie and Freddie. Senator John McCain was at the forefront of that effort. But it failed due to an intense lobbying effort put forward by Fannie and Freddie.

Consider this:

According to another City Journal article titled "Compassion Gone Mad":

The movement's impact on New York City was jolting: welfare caseloads, already climbing 12 percent a year in the early sixties, rose by 50 percent during Lindsay's first two years; spending doubled... The city had 150,000 welfare cases in 1960; a decade later it had 1.5 million.

Consider this:

ACORN, the new tip of the Cloward-Piven spear

In 1970, one of George Wiley's protégés, Wade Rathke -- like Bill Ayers, a member of the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) -- was sent to found the Arkansas Community Organizations for Reform Now. While NWRO had made a good start, it alone couldn't accomplish the Cloward-Piven goals. Rathke's group broadened the offensive to include a wide array of low income "rights." Shortly thereafter they changed "Arkansas" to "Association of" and ACORN went nationwide.

Today ACORN is involved in a wide array of activities, including housing, voting rights, illegal immigration and other issues. According to ACORN's website: "ACORN is the nation's largest grassroots community organization of low-and moderate-income people with over 400,000 member families organized into more than 1,200 neighborhood chapters in 110 cities across the country," It is perhaps the largest radical group in the U.S. and has been cited for widespread criminal activity on many fronts.

Voting

On voting rights, ACORN and its voter mobilization subsidiary, Project Vote, have been involved nationwide in efforts to grant felons the vote and lobbied heavily for the Motor Voter Act of 1993, a law allowing people to register at motor vehicle departments, schools, libraries and other public places. That law had been sought by Cloward and Piven since the early1980s and they were present, standing behind President Clinton at the signing ceremony.

ACORN's voter rights tactics follow the Cloward-Piven Strategy:

1. Register as many Democrat voters as possible, legal or otherwise and help them vote, multiple times if possible.
2. Overwhelm the system with fraudulent registrations using multiple entries of the same name, names of deceased, random names from the phone book, even contrived names.
3. Make the system difficult to police by lobbying for minimal identification standards.

In this effort, ACORN sets up registration sites all over the country and has been frequently cited for turning in fraudulent registrations, as well as destroying republican applications. In the 2004-2006 election cycles alone, ACORN was accused of widespread voter fraud in 12 states. It may have swung the election for one state governor.

ACORN's website brags: "Since 2004, ACORN has helped more than 1.7 million low- and moderate-income and minority citizens apply to register to vote." Project vote boasts 4 million. I wonder how many of them are dead? For the 2008 cycle, ACORN and Project Vote have pulled out all the stops. Given their furious nationwide effort, it is not inconceivable that this presidential race could be decided by fraudulent votes alone.

Recipe for Survival: BLACK POWDER AND ALCOHOL

Market plunges, European banks nationalized, bailout rejected



what to do? what to do?


BLACK POWDER AND ALCOHOL

CHORUS:

Black powder and alcohol,
When the states and the cities fall,
When your back is against the wall;
Black powder and alcohol.



Gimme charcoal to the measure two:
Send the bullet where you want it to.
Gimme sulphur to the measure three:
Make the powder gonna keep you free.
Gimme saltpetre, measure fifteen:
Sweetest shooting that you've ever seen! (chorus)


Gimme water, yeast, and veggie-trash:
Leave it sitting in the slurry-mash.
When it's ready, put it in the still:
If you can't heat it, then the sunlight will.
Draw the alcohol away, and then
Put the slurry back, and start again! (chorus)

Booze'll clean your cuts, or run your car.
You can make it anywhere you are.
Black powder in your cartridge shell
Will send the robbers running clean to Hell.
You can make them if you just know how.
So kids, remember what I tell you now! (chorus & repeat
chorus)

--Leslie Fish


There is your Tennessee hillbilly recipe for survival in dire times.

You heard it here first!

And remember: if tribulation comes, we are all in the same boat with the Master at the helm. Keep your eyes on Him, and don't panic.

God bless you all,
XXXOOO
Cathy


--
Job 12:6-8 - But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish of the sea inform you.

A Brief Return to Sanity

DH decided it was time to get the old lady out of the house so we fired up the new wheels and took off. Shortly after having exited the driveway however, DH realized the OL had once again left the tank on empty. (oops) This was a particularly bad thing to have done because (a) when I returned from my trip to Columbia, I was whizzing past big signs on the I40 yelling $3.35 a gallon and ignoring them because I just couldn't wait to get home and I hate getting gas, and (b) Hurricane Ike was on this particular day threatening Texas so all those big refineries were buttoned up tight and (c) gas in our town jumped from $3.88 at the WalMart to $4.69 at the Citgo and so (d) there were long lines at all the ones below $4.69. oops. So we waited in line and for a reward, the Food City pumps were all out of regular, but gave us Premium for $3.88 anyway. Nice.

The drive to Greeneville was all beautiful farmland, forests, and occasional winding rivers, interspersed with breathtaking panoramic views spread beneath us. The town itself is a bright little gem (although much larger than what we are used to lately) with plenty to see in the way of old residential and commercial architecture. I noticed quite a few large tobacco warehouses and a huge co-op. There were some beautiful monuments around the town, which was the home of Andrew Johnson, our 17th President and the first to endure impeachment. He was acquitted, and rightfully so. He was a staunch defender of the Constitution -- we could have used him in this century, I think. We visited the Andrew Johnson National Cemetery where he is buried.





So we visited his gravesite at the top of a fairly steep incline (Signal Hill) and were struck dumb by the beauty and majesty... the very air breathed 'this is a sacred place'... we had it all to ourselves.

It was so quiet, as we read all about him I kept glancing at the humble spot of lawn beneath the towering granite monument and thought: there he lies, wrapped in the flag, a copy of the Constitution beneath his head, Defender of the Constitution. Could he ever have hoped for a more noble epitaph? I'll not soon forget this day of peace, carved out of the current stream of madness and hatred swirling over this country.

The contrast was shocking. We have much to be grateful for and I wonder, how long will there be those who try to remember or understand the people that built this place?

Another shocking tidbit: Andrew Johnson never attended one day of school in his life. Yet I have no doubt he could have wiped the debate floor with the likes of our current crop of celebutards, effete intellectual Marxist educators, and of course the fake "statesmen" who inhabit sacred places and tread hallowed halls they will never fully appreciate.

*sigh* Well thank you Andrew Johnson, for your service to what is left of a great nation.

Never Forget

Jack from Daily Pundit said:

Well, the annual weep-fest has begun. Can you feel it? Can you feel the sadness in the air? The sniffling remembrance shows on television, each shot carefully crafted to generate the proper tearful response, the proper feeling of sadness and respect for ‘first responders’(we used to call them firemen, cops, paramedics). We are shepherded into a nice crying jag, cathartic and safe.

We need a different version of this day.

We need a day in which we show the planes slamming into the buildings. Over and over. Intersperse it with the Muslims who danced with joy–some even in NYC. Intersperse it with the rhetoric from the left, the rhetoric from Muslims in this country, that blame us. Read off the names, and after each one say ‘This person was murdered by radical Islam, this person was murdered by terrorists. Never Again.’. And then start in on naming more terrorist attacks–from ALL terrorist sources.

Forget the weepy speeches. We need rousing speeches. We need speeches that tell our people that those who died in on 9/11 did not do so in vain, that we will hunt down their killers, that we will pursue every terrorist in the world and slaughter them. We will show the world that engaging in terrorist activity hurts the cause terrorists support more than anything else. We need to speak to our enemies. We need to tell them that they will abandon the ideology that commited this evil–or they will die. We need to speak to the nations that support the terrorists. We need to tell them that this stops NOW. Or we will destroy you. You, your people, and everything you care about will be scoured from the face of the Earth unless this stops now. Every terrorist. Every terrorist supporter. No matter what their ’cause’.

We need to stop thinking about weepy ‘memorials’ and start thinking about resounding victory–the only memorial that will let the victims of this act–and all terrorist acts–truly rest in peace.

Amen.

Sarah Palin, first female POTUS

If the hysterics are any indication, we may just be watching history unfold with the addition of Sarah Palin to McCain's ticket.

Fair to note: at least one dyed in the wool feminist will be voting the Republican ticket:

The rank bullying of the Clinton candidacy during the primary season has the distinction of simply being the first revelation of how misogynistic the party has become. The media led the assault, then the Obama campaign continued it. Trailblazer Geraldine Ferraro, who was the first Democratic vice presidential candidate, was so taken aback by the attacks that she publicly decried nominee Barack Obama as "terribly sexist" and openly criticized party chairman Howard Dean for his remarkable silence on the obvious sexism.

Concerned feminists noted, among other thinly veiled sexist remarks during the campaign, Obama quipping, "I understand that Sen. Clinton, periodically when she's feeling down, launches attacks as a way of trying to boost her appeal," and Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen in a television interview comparing Clinton to a spurned lover-turned-stalker in the film, "Fatal Attraction," noting, "Glenn Close should have stayed in that tub, and Sen. Clinton has had a remarkable career...". These attitudes, and more, define the tenor of the party leadership, and sent a message to the grassroots and media that it was "Bros Before Hoes," to quote a popular Obama-supporter T-shirt.

Previously disenfranchised, the Heartland has opened up its considerably capacious arms and embraced her, and the Republican party in one move has made its amends. You can bet there will be a large number of white working class Independent and Democrat females making a statement in the privacy of the voting booth come November.

Here is the:
Text of Sarah Palin's speech

The True Value of FREE Grace

okay here is a biggie ... we were discussing the definition of Grace (and as with everything one must be extremely careful to define actual terms when dealing with Mormons, as in their zeal to deceive themselves and others they have become adept at the art of Twistianity). So what is "grace" as defined in the "Gospel"? (there is also much confusion as to what is the "gospel", but that is for another day)...


Originally Posted by (mormon) "Zemah"

You have thus reduced the Gospel to “saved by grace through faith”, since, if something “is not necessary to obtain salvation, it is not part of the Gospel”.

So really the Bible is a great excess of words since the only thing you need for salvation is faith in His grace. You should really start your own church and profess this simple truth.

After all didn’t Jesus forgive everyone when he walked the roads of the holy land? Didn’t he cure all the leapers, didn’t he heal all the sick, and recue all the impoverished, and bestow peace to all the inhabitants? Why should those that actually came to him be rewarded and not those that believed but moved not?

What about those that stood by the shores of the Jordan watching John baptize? If they professed that they believed in the Messiah or the grace of God but repented not and refused to enter the waters, shouldn’t they also receive a remission of sin?

Sorry folks it does not work that way. Faith requires action. Faith requires obedience. Faith is a journey not a statement. Faith in Christ starts with a water baptism unto repentance for the remission of sin. No cutting corners off of the Gospel.

You say faith is a gift from God; well I say the LORD has given me a larger portion because my faith did not stop with the first spoon full. My faith did not stop with faith in His grace. It marched onto repentance, and baptism, and the receipt of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands; it grew in the acceptance of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods; it was magnified in the Temple by doing ordinance work for the dead who are prisoners of Satan no more. The faith He gave me lead me to Israel to receive a patriarchal blessing that in death I have a family to return to in Jerusalem.

And my faith marches on in a promised Fatherhood in Christ; it lives forever in the creation of spirit children that will be my own; it never stops for all time and eternity because there is no end to love in God.-Zemah

Ah, now we are getting down to brass tacks. The Gospel of FREE GRACE is not enough for those like Zemah. And Zemah admits that he thinks we believe and THEN repent - which is BACKWARDS.

He seems to assume that the Free Grace position thinks it "easy" for proud, unregenerate, spiritually blind, absolutely depraved, self-righteous man to trust an unseen, crucified, and resurrected Jesus alone for eternal life!

In reality, the Christian believer in FREE GRACE acknowledges that trusting in Jesus Christ alone is hard.

For pompous man to admit his sinfulness and cast all his confidence upon the work done in his behalf by an unseen Substitute is a task of the greatest magnitude. Indeed, it is an impossible task without the humbling, convicting work of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, "easy believism" is a label tossed at us by mormons that cannot be accurately attached to Free Grace. FREE GRACE does NOT equal "easy" grace.

Paul makes it clear that God gave the Law for one purpose: to convict (bring the sinner to the realization that he IS a sinner) - wherefore we are convinced of our bankruptcy and inability to save ourselves through the keeping of the Law. We repent, but it will never be enough. We repent again, still it will never be enough. We repent through eternity - it will never pay the price. We finally realize: THE LAW DOES NOT SAVE. The Law does not save. The LAW CONVICTS, convinces, confirms reality OF OUR ABJECT POVERTY. We see this, we know it, we acknowledge it, and are lost. Who will pay the price? Who will Redeem us? What will save us?

It is only when we are reduced to the bare facts of our poverty and inability before the Lord, when the saving grace of Christ's atonement is seen to be of value, is this not true?


TRUTH: that is the heart, beginning of real repentance- KNOWING we can never be righteous or redeem ourselves and admitting our poverty, our bankruptcy before God.

Unregenerate stiff-necked pharisees will never get to that point, because they are too busy trying to work the law to their salvation. They will not therefore bend the knee to admit their bankruptcy before the Lord, repent, and acknowledge He alone is worthy to be praised, He alone saves, He alone works salvation, He alone gives freely. We can only receive. We can ONLY receive. The only righteousness belongs to Jesus, He ALONE imputes this righteousness to us, to those who belong to Him. We deserve nothing. We earn nothing. We are bankrupt before Him.

No, Zemah does not understand THE PRICE of free grace. We must deposit our pride at the foot of the cross, move to the point of abject hopelessness, admit our total unworthiness, and submit. THAT IS HARD. That involves losing all pride. That involves admission of a complete lack of righteousness: we have NO redeeming value.

Grace alone, faith alone, Christ alone can save.

We were discussing.... Cheap Grace

"Great post, (imtheonlycathy). I can't stand when people have the notion that because Grace is FREE it is either "cheap" or "easy".

Most of these same people can understand the concept of a marriage between a husband and wife. They understand that when they strip everything away, what it comes down to is each spouse pledging their love and commitment to the other. That's it. Neither one has to pay the other, neither one has to earn it or meet certain criteria or "rules" for it. All that matters is that they at some point pledge their love to each other and make that commitment.

Does a husband have to buy his wife anniversary or birthday gifts? Does a wife have to cook and clean? Does a husband have to have a job and support them both? Does a wife have to have a job and support them both? Does a husband have to spend time with his wife? Does a wife have to take care of the bills and finances of the household? Does the wife have to make herself attractive for her husband?

Does either spouse HAVE to do anything beyond remain committed?

Technically, NO. People can stay married and not buy each other gifts, and not spend much time together, and not try to look good for each other, and not support each other financially, and there are many, many other thins that they don't HAVE to do. All they HAVE to do is honor their commitment and love each other. That's it.

However, if they are NOT spending time with each other, buying each other gifts, supporting each other financially (or emotionally or in any other way), taking care of each other, etc. then what kind of marriage is it really? What is the value of their commitment and love for each other? If they do none of those things, does that mean they are not truly committed to each other?

Nobody knows. They know in their own hearts, but even there they can fool themselves. For all anyone knows, the husband that never buys his wife a gift or spends a lot of time with her really DOES love her. It's unlikely, and it's unusual that someone who loves another would not show it through his actions, but it's possible.

The point is that the ACTIONS of a spouse don't make the love happen; the actions are a RESULT of the love that was given FREELY. Does that mean love between spouses is "cheap" or "easy"??? No, it is a lot of work that both parties put in. But it's not a work that HAS to be done for love to be earned, it's a work that is done out of love and as a RESULT of love.

So many of these mormons know this and live this in their relationships with their spouses, and even their relationships with others. (Even a business relationship, you have to make a move to trust the other person just to do business with him or her, and that trust is a freely given commitment, and all the work done in the business relationship thereafter is resultant from that initial mutual trust.) They live their lives by this.

But when it comes to our Lord Jesus Christ, they reject the notion that He could be as graceful as humans even can be to each other, and that He is going to make us earn what He gives us. When their spouses give them gifts, they accept it and don't try to "earn" it or "pay" for it, as they know how that would be an insult. They each accept the gift to honor the grace the spouse has shown.

But when Jesus Christ gives His own LIFE as a GIFT to us, they choose to slap Him in the face and insult Him and call Him a liar, and insist that it's not a gift and must be earned, and that if they are wrong and it IS a truly Free gift, then it must be cheap and not worth anything.

Can you imagine this scene:
Mormon Husband: Hi Honey, I have a little anniversary gift for you here...
Mormon Wife: Oh wow, what is it? (opens box) DIAMOND EARRINGS!!! WOW, thank you honey!!!
MH: Yes, I got them at the new Salt Lake City Creek LDS Shopping Mall!
MW: Well they are BEAUTIFUL!
MH: I'm glad you like them, honey!!
MW: Well, let me start by making you some filet mignon for dinner, and what I'll do is detail your SUV for you this week, and then I'll go out and buy you a nice gift to help make up for this.
MH: What do you mean?
MW: lol, honey, I'm not stupid, you know... I realize that a gift like this doesn't come without having to be earned somehow.
MH: No, dear, it's a GIFT! I got it for you JUST because I love you!
MW: Oh sweety, that's such a nice thing to say, but come on, don't take me for a simpleton! I'll make sure I look these up online and see what they cost so I get you appropriate gifts and do enough work to offset the cost for you.
MH: But, sugarplum, if you do that, that defeats the purpose... These earrings are a GIFT to you. FREE. You don't have to do ANYTHING.
MW: Look, you're being silly. How can you say such an elaborate gift is FREE??
MH: Well, it IS! And to be honest, I think it's a little offensive that you can't accept a gift from me, your own husband!
MW: Oh yeah? Well first of all, I'm no fool, I know that earrings like this don't come FREE to anyone. Of course the only exception is if they're cheap, crappy knock-offs like the ones they sell down on Canal Street out of the back of a truck. The cubic zirconias...
MH: No, those are NOT cubic zirconias!!!
MW: Oh really? I suppose you're just giving away REAL diamonds for FREE? Come on, don't be so stupid to think anyone would believe THAT. Obviously these were cheap and you came by them very easily. They're garbage.
MH: Fine, you don't want it, don't accept it.
MW: Fine, take your crappy cubic zirconias back. I'm going to go out and detail cars for a few months and buy my own REAL diamond earrings at the Salt Lake City Creek LDS Mall.
MH: Yeah go ahead. Should be interesting considering you don't know how to detail a car correctly.
MW: Well I was just going to get you to help me...
MH: Dream on!!! Give me back those earrings now


That's how stupid mormonism is."

POSTED by my dear Armenian Orthodox friend "JerseyJohnny" at CARM.

We were discussing.... The Bride of Christ

We were discussing.... The Bride of Christ

Jesus of course is the husband
His Bride is ... us.

Jesus enters the house, his beautiful gift in hand. All is dark, dank, and smells of death.

He finds her lying on the floor as He always knew He would, broken at last by sin and conquered by death. Unhearing, unseeing, dead. Even knowing what he would find does not ease the pain of seeing her so - He weeps, as his tears fall upon her unlovely face He cries:

O how I have longed to gather you in my arms, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not!

He places the perfect sparkling diamonds in her ears, washes her with his tears, covers her with his pure white righteousness, and yet she sleeps... for a little while longer. There is more to be done, and His spirit groans within.

He faces the Enemy who slayed her, the smiling evil face that has been waiting for him in the darkest corner, waiting patiently for what it thinks is this, its most triumphant moment. The voice of evil rasps: there is still a price to be paid...

Take me, He says.

Three days later, she arises to His touch on her hand, clothed in His righteousness, cleansed by His blood and tears, she kneels and weeps at His feet crying 'My Lord and My God, you have saved me, saved me'. Gone are the shackles that bound her to sin and death. His righteousness covers her like a beautiful gown; His cross falls over her heart, her face; his Truth shines from Her eyes and overflows from her lips...

There is no thought of repayment in her mind, only of His sacrifice, and the Gift, and the Love He pours over her night and day. There is no thought in her mind but of Him, and no desire in her but for His face, and to serve Him only.



... and that's how beautiful the Gospel is.

disclaimer-
(my desperate apologies because I know that all analogies fail somehow but it sprang into my dark little mind like a beacon so I had to share it with you)

Forgiveness

    

 Dr. Charles Stanley was Mom's favorite TV preacher, and I like him too.  He's the real deal.

He said when he first started his ministry, he noticed how many of his counseling sessions uncovered underlying truths, especially with those who had an inability to forgive someone.  

After many years he now says over 90% of all the problems he sees are due to someone not being able to forgive.  Sometimes the offending person doesn't even know they hurt you.  Sometimes the hurt happened years and years ago, without ever being mentioned.

It took twice as long for me to forgive my ex-husband as the length of our actual marriage.  Think about it!  It took me 12 years to forgive someone who was only with me for 6 years!  Incredible.

That doesn't mean I never tried.  It means the hurt was so deep it had to be peeled away like an onion.  I would think I had forgiven, only for something to resurface and cause pain, and I'd have to forgive all over again.

The point is, lack of forgiveness hurts you more than it hurts anyone else.

Letting go doesn't mean everything will be the way it was before the hurt took place, or even being around the person if that's not appropriate.  Letting go just means allowing a sore to scab over and heal rather than picking at it every day.  Letting go means allowing God to take over in your life and that person's life to the point where you don't have to carry the burden of it anymore.

Forgiveness is not dependent upon the other person repenting or even asking forgiveness.

Forgiveness is a personal decision to let go of a hurt once and for all, let God deal with it, and move on.

Forgiving doesn't mean you have to see the person again, let alone stay in a relationship with them.  As a matter of fact, if a relationship is toxic because someone keeps hurting you, it's your responsibility to cut them loose to prevent the dynamic from ruining your life in a perpetual cycle of being hurt and having to forgive.

We all know from experience, it takes a lot more energy to be angry, hurt or sad, than it does to let go and forgive an offense, and move on.

It's a new day.  Rejoice in that, and make happiness happen.  And I am saying that to myself and anyone who may ever read this.  Life is short, and too precious to waste on anger.

 

Some Day!

some day I will tell you about a young mother at the end of her rope, and how Jesus made her laugh. out loud. at herself. and cured 2 years of severe depression in one minute.

some day we will get to see it all, every moment of it. It's going to be better than IMAX, we will actually get to stand in the crowd and listen to him preach, watch him break the bread, wash the feet of the Apostles.

My dream? To gaze on His face and look into His eyes for a thousand years, then paint a portrait of what I see. To listen to his voice for a millenium, then compose a sonata for piano to express my joy.

To touch His wounded feet, wash them in my tears, and dry them with my hair.

The Onion of Secrets

At age 12 when attending catechism class at our Lutheran church, the pastor took many opportunities to teach us about "the lure of the Secret Clubhouse".

Basically that wise, kind, generous man inoculated three generations of children against the appeal of all such organizations by contrasting what Christ taught with what masons, mormons, the Elks, "boys only/no girls allowed", social cliques, the corporate ladder, and any other excusivism-based societies teach.

He began by asking if any of us ever felt excluded or left out, or attempted to make others feel that way. Then he gave examples of how harmful exclusivism can be to individuals, families, and society. He carefully described secret rituals and initiation rites of clubs and religions, and asked us what we thought they might mean. Almost all of them just sounded silly, and he explained them to us for what they are... simply a grown up extension of the stupid meaningless rituals kids use in their little clubhouses "for members only". The secret rituals are designed to engender a dark sense of the hidden or "mystery" (that usually disappoints on closer inspection) leading to "now I'm IN - and they're not", iow an appeal to a prideful sense of superiority.

Only to discover (once again) -- there is even a clique of "in" people on the inside! Another layer beckons, another inner circle you are excluded from and want to get "in" to...How the yearning to be "on the inside" can be a useful tool for manipulating people into doing things they would never otherwise even think about.

Pastor G. even urged us to forsake sororities and fraternities in college. He made it clear why our church prohibited membership in secret societies. He spoke about these things from the pulpit occasionally as well. I owe him a debt of gratitude. I found myself in high school and college and the workplace as the champion and supporter of those left-out losers everyone shunned. I'm no respecter of persons, and that's one thing I can thank my pastor for to this day. I rejected God not long after my confirmation. But. Later there were many times in my search for God that I could easily have fallen prey to a cult. But red flags always went up when I sensed "The Onion of Secrets" -- layers one has to go through to be really on the inside...

Anyone who has read C.S. Lewis' 3rd novel in his science fiction trilogy "That Hideous Strength" will know what I'm talking about.

It's all nothing more than the devil's first temptation, or the tower of Babel, tarted up and trotted out in a stinking filthy shroud of "dark mystery" to lure the ignorant outsider into the inner sanctum of prideful arrogance separated from the Light of God.

The Secret Onion has you working from the outside to get in.

The Light of Salvation is poured freely on all who accept it, drenching all who claim Jesus as their Lord and Savior with unconditional acceptance and love.

big difference.

We were discussing.... Polygamy!

In a recent flurry of propolygamy anti Texas fervor, morbots have taken their cries of "freedom from oppressive intrusive government" to the boards. In one recent kick butt slam dunk, I silenced quite a few with one response to a fruitcake calling itself Citrus. Here's the summary:

Citrus: I am for freedom from oppression.
Me: WHAT A JOKE.


okay okay there was a lot more to it, here you go -

Me:
Did you know there are different kinds of polygamy?

Citrus:
Yes. They occur in the natural world all of the time. Polandry and Polygyny are the two main categories of polygamy. Many bird species are polyandrus while most, but not all, of the mammal species that practice polygamy tend to be polygynous. Naked mole rats are one exception to this general rule.

Me:
The polygamous practices of early mormonism were endogenous, marrying within families, on purpose, including incestuous marriages between first cousins, half siblings, fathers and daughters.

Citrus:
I never suggested these types of relationships were a good idea. It is interesting that you have a problem with people intentionally avoiding answering direct questions, but you have no problem suggesting that I support things I've never mentioned. Both strike me as dishonest.

Me:
Exogenous polygamy vs endogenous polygamy is what I was referring to. Endogenous polygamy as practiced by most cults in the U.S. is particularly damaging to the gene pool. Of course it would do well to limit the conversation to humans.

In either type the practice within cults is most often incorporated as a handy means to enhance leadership power, and as such lends itself naturally to abuse of women and children. There is nothing new under the sun. Those who instituted polygamy laws in this country had good reason for doing so, and I for one thank God they did. Thus my previous comments.

note: it is possible to be so open minded as to allow one's brains to fall out.

Citrus:
but again you have no problem suggesting that I support things I've never mentioned, and that strikes me as dishonest.

Me:
Here's what strikes me as dishonest.

Any ********* who allows their brain to be washed to such an extent that they can foist off an imaginary woman out there yearning for her husband to marry and have sex with other women, as their ideological support for legalization of polygamy. When in the real world such a creature would be, appropriately, adjudged by normal women as clinically insane or at the very least having major dependency / inferiority issues and in urgent need of consciousness-raising, counseling, or medical help.

So you can drop the stupid fake hypothetical, we aint' buyin the premise. Neither did our lawmakers, thank God in Heaven.

Polygamy has proven itself throughout history to be an immoral practice, impractical, genetically dangerous, a vehicle for gross corruption and disempowerment of the weak and dependent particularly women and children.

Cult leaders TYPICALLY (including Strong City's messiah Michael Travesser, Warren Jeffs, David Koresh, the list goes on and on) institute polygamy specifically to intimidate men and control women.

So when you get on your soapbox of political correctness and demand legalization of polygamy, proclaiming "I am for freedom from oppression" and I say WHAT A JOKE it is precisely because

POLYGAMY = OPPRESSION. GET IT?

~finis~

ah my dear friends, the ensuing silence was sweet, very sweet.

My Uninhibited Joy In Watching the Grass Grow

Early Saturday morning, my husband urged me to rouse myself from the comfort of a cozy warm bed.

What kind of moron would do such a thing I ask you, especially when my coziness was further enhanced by the presence of several furry behbehs cuddling snuggling on or about my person? What kind of wild-eyed maniac would do something so ... so utterly devoid of human compassion, when a soft breeze was playing with the curtains, and the sweet chirping of meadowlarks afar was coming through the window borne on the gentlest of new sun's rays, beside said bed? When visions of heaven, starry sweeps of far off joy, and God knows whatever other ineffable images of contentment and homecoming were as yet being played out in the depths of my sleeping brain... quickly fading, never to be seen... come back! Come back! He'll go away, oh.....

Cathy, love of my life, you have to come see! Come see! Come on, I can't believe it! {he is gently tugging, misplacing all sorts of animal life mixed up with bedding, tossing pillows and tugging, tugging me to my feet}

There are several good reasons for not having a loaded pistol in my nightstand, which we can discuss later.

Having succeeded in his nefarious scheme to rob me of all peace and comfort, my husband proceeded to manhandle me to the front porch, whispering persistently in my ear
"look! Look! can you see it! Look!"

Fully expecting to witness at the very least an alien starship landing in the meadow beyond, I was looking up the hill for signs of extraterrestrial life when he pointed my head down, at the sad brown dirt we had recently covered with bits of hay....

and then I SAW IT! Gasp! The tiniest of hopeful blades of bright green baby grass, poking their heads out looking me straight in the face.

I hope our geriatric happy dance gave some measure of amusement to the neighbors down the road, i saw them look at me funny later. But come to think of it, they look at me funny every time i see them.

But to get back to the real point: We have Grass! Since that memorable moment the days have been punctuated by Sightings of the Green. Oh look! there's some over there! Can you see it? No? Oh well here's some!

We periodically walk out the front door, arm in arm, proud parents of an army of tiny blades (few and far between, but we were so skeptical they would ever appear we had already started scraping together errant nickels and dimes, wondering what the neighbors would think of us laying down two or three little strips of sod at a time, figuring we could get it all covered by, say, 2010).

Oh, life is gooood people. Life is good when a body got GRASS. Uh huh, uh huh, doin the grass happy dance.

Pop Quiz for Mormons

CARM's BrianH offers this handy LogikTool:

Here is a pop quiz for Mormons. Please try to answer with honesty and integrity, or just move on to some other thread.

Here is your quiz:

1.) If the Book of Mormon was a total and complete hoax, the product of Joseph Smith's fevered little con artist brain, how much historical evidence would we rightly expect to discover representing the "Nephite" civilization in the historical record? For example, how many BoM cities would we find? How much Hebrew DNA would there be in the Native American genome? How many chariots, coins, steel mills and Hebrew and or "Reformed Egyptian" textual evidence would we expect to find?

A.) Tons
B.) Some
C.) None

2.) If the Book of Abraham was a total and complete hoax how much of the text on the Sensen papyrus (the original "Book of Abraham" allegedly the autograph penned by the hand of Abraham himself) would we expect to correlate to the content of the Book of Abraham "translation" in your Quad?

A.) All of it
B.) Some of it
C.) None of it

3.) If Joseph Smith was a total and complete fraud as a "prophet" and was doing nothing more than extending his career as a con artist in claiming to have received revelations about future events from God, how many of his prophecies would we rightly expect to see fulfilled?

A.) All of them
B.) Some of them
C.) None of them

4.) If the Mormon church was NOT the "restoration" of true, authentic, apostolic Christianity, but instead was the evolving brain child of Joseph Smith and his crew, how much evidence should we find of the distinctive doctrines of Mormonism in the New Testament, the writings of the earliest church-leaders (the Ante-Nicene Fathers) and the art and artifacts of the ancient Christian world?

A.) It would be all over the place
B.) There might be some
C.) Zip

5.) If you had been deceived by a Satanic cult masquerading as "the one true church", how would you be able to tell?

A.) By the test of my burning boosom
B.) By carefully comparing its claims to God's deliberate revelation of himself in his word
C.) I wouldn't know, because it is the nature of deception that the deceived cannot tell they have been duped

6.) If you are afraid to answer these questions, or working to find ways of being clever in avoiding what you know to be the correct answer, or refusing to answer the above questions with honesty and integrity, or are seeking some way to attack the Bible or otherwise change the subject here, what does that rightly tell us about your state of mind?

A.) It tells you I am in a state of denial
B.) It tells you that if you will pray and seek God he will show you the truth of the LDS religion
C.) Uh dunno...

Thank you for participating.

The correct answers will be posted soon and you can check your score!

-BH

.

__________________
"God is Dead" - Nietzsche, 1882
"Nietzsche is Dead" - God, 1900


WOW, imtheonlycathy is indebted to you Brian!
again many thanks to CARM's BrianH (whose signature is da bomb).

We were discussing... the Bible

The Bible offers us a "revealing" (revelation) of God's nature, our nature, our position as sinners before God, in a panorama stretching through the ages that is consistent and which confirms itself as well as the very existence of God. Scripture doesn't contradict scripture, and has a beginning, middle and ending. It answers clearly every question most vital to our souls (why are we here? Is there a God? Can I know God? Why is there evil in the world? What happens when I die?) Throughout scripture we discover prophecies fulfilled, and mirrors of events to come, author after author, prophet after prophet, all with the same purpose and theme. All pointing towards the same place on the horizon, the same hope, the same promise.

Then in a wonderful display of love and mercy God reveals His love for us, bringing the Savior promised through the ages, God Himself provides the answer to our dilemma of sin and death, God gives all to save us and bridge the gap, revealing more of Himself and His nature in the process, and even more so by "insuring" and unitiing the Body through the gift of the Holy Spirit given to each believer.

The Bible is awesome read just as a book. It has all the ingredients: tragedy, love, death, violence, drama, suspense, hope: and delivering a happy ending way beyond what we could have anticipated. Of course the good guy wins

God's Word appeals to the very faculties, gifts and even the needs endowed by a gracious Creator: our inquisitive nature, our thirst for knowledge and truth, logic, love, understanding, and reason while at the same time answering the need He placed in our souls to know Him.

Without God, there is no truth. Without Christ, there is no salvation. The Bible is His word, produced by God the Holy Spirit Himself. And while it speaks to our minds and hearts, it's confirmed within the Body, and remains the promise fulfilled, the bulwark and foundation of a solid faith.

Like everything He creates, the Bible holds his unmistakeable signature.

Why April 2nd Should Be a National Holiday

April 2 is, aside from being the day after April Fool's Day,
historically significant. In so many, many ways:

on April 2, 999 Gerbert of Aurillac was elected as the 1st French Pope!
in 1416, Alfonso V succeeds his father as king of Aragon!!
April 2, 1877 1st Easter egg roll held on White House lawn!!!

not to mention:
1989 Wrestlemania V at Trump Plaza, Hulk Hogan beats "Macho Man" Savage
1978 TV show "Dallas" premieres on CBS
1956 Soap operas "As the World Turns" and "Edge of Night" premieres on TV
1954 Plans to build Disneyland 1st announced
1945 1st U.S. units reach east coast of Okinawa
1931 Teenage girl strikes out Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig in an exhibition game in Chattanooga, Tennessee
1921 Albert Einstein lectures in New York City on his new theory of relativity
1917 Jeannette Rankin becomes 1st women member of U.S. House of Representatives
1917 President Wilson asks Congress to declare war against Germany
1902 1st motion picture theater opens in Los Angeles
1884 London prison for debtors closed
1845 H L Fizeau and J Leon Foucault take 1st photo of Sun
1827 Joseph Dixon begins manufacturing lead pencils
1819 1st successful agricultural journal ("American Farmer") begins
1800 1st performance of Ludwig von Beethoven's 1st Symphony in C
1792 Congress establishes Philadelphia mint
1792 U.S. authorizes $10 Eagle, $5 half-Eagle and 2.50 quarter-Eagle gold coins and silver dollar, dollar, quarter, dime and half-dime
1745 Austria and Bavaria sign peace
1645 Robert Devereux resigns as parliament supreme commander
1595 Cornelis de Houtman's ships depart to Asia through Cape of Good Hope
1590 States-General appoints earl Mauritius, viceroy of Utrecht
1559 England/France signs 1st Treaty of Le Cateau-Cambresis
1513 Florida discovered, claimed for Spain by Ponce de Leon

April 2, 1947: sailorpb meets the world
April 2, 1951: imtheonycathy makes her grand entrance

Others sharing our birthday:
Chalemagne born in 742
Casanova, 1725
Hans Christian Andersen, 1805
Emile Zola, 1840
Walter Chrysler, 1875 (yes he made the cars)
Max Ernst, 1891 (founder of surrealism)
Buddy Ebsen, 1908
Alec Guinness, 1914 (Bridge on the River Kwai)
Jack Webb, 1920 (Dragnet)
and Jenny Craig,
Rodney King, and Emmylou Harris

Well even if it's NOT a national holiday, we can all still

CELEBRATE PARTY DOWN GET CRAZY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, US!

How Christians study the Bible:

we were discussing a certain cult's propensity for extracting obscure verses from the Bible, twisting, torturing and reinterpreting them to come up with *voila* a "scriptural foundation" for various blasphemies. Such as baptism for the dead, celestial polygamy, eternal progression, blah blah blah. It turned into a minutae glutted linguistic slugfest and bickering session. Here is my final post.


TEXT: Christ Resurrected appears to the Twelve

John 20:19 On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being shut where the disciples were, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." 20 When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. 21 Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you." 22 And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained." 24 Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. 25 So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord." But he said to them, "Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe." 26 Eight days later, his disciples were again in the house, and Thomas was with them. The doors were shut, but Jesus came and stood among them, and said, "Peace be with you." 27 Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here, and see my hands; and put out your hand, and place it in my side; do not be faithless, but believing." 28 Thomas answered him, "My Lord and my God!" 29 Jesus said to him, "Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe." 30 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."

1. Do we believe John when he says: "these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in his name."
2. If John was telling the truth, we can be assured that even if we had this and ONLY this Book of the New Testament it would be sufficient for us to believe in Christ, and receive eternal salvation.
3. Scripture never contradicts scripture. Is there any doctrine or belief in the Bible that contradicts John?
4. Add to that, our previous conversation about the thief on the cross and Christ's words: 43And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

We begin to get a glimpse of the true glory, which is the beauty and simplicity of God's plan of salvation for us.

There was only, is only One Way of reconciliation.

On the cross, Christ forgave those who tortured him.
On the cross, Christ redeemed a sinner.
After resurrection, Christ reassured his followers with "peace be unto you".
He blessed Thomas for believing, he gave the disciples the Holy Spirit.
He blessed US when he said "blessed are those who have not seen, yet believe".

What did Jesus' persecutors do to earn his forgiveness?
What did the disciples do to earn his blessing of peace?
What did the disciples do to earn the gift of the Holy Spirit
What did Thomas do to earn his salvation?
What did the thief on the cross do to earn his salvation?
What have we done to earn our salvation?

Do you see and believe that everything depends on Christ alone?

This is the heart and soul of the Gospel.

We are powerless to help ourselves. Rituals cannot save us, water cannot save us, chanting cannot save us, producing signs and wonders can't save us, even resurrecting the dead and healing the sick can't save us. Membership to a church can't do it either. Our obedience is weak and pathetic and has no power to save. Our ability to keep the commandments and live a perfect life is beyond our grasp, for the bible teaches that no one is worthy, no not one. Our strength is in the Lord. Only. Period. End of story.

this is the way God PLANNED it and wants us to see it clearly, as it is recorded in scripture over and over: the only glory given, is to be given to God. Our only strength is in Him, not in our ability to follow prescribed rituals, pray five times a day, repent, or tithe, for our ability to do those things is unreliable. The only thing we can say of ourselves with any assurance is that we are sinners in need of a Savior. Christ's ability to save is forever constant and reliable.

Our only hope is in Him. He wants us to be humble and dependent. He wants us to forget about ourselves, our rituals, our human edifices, our good works, our worldly "sacrifices" and to focus on Him and what he has done for us. How else are we to remain humble, in all things praising and thanking him for all HE has done?

He will not honor our prentensions! He will not honor our laughable attempts to show him how good we are! I can only imagine how angry he is at our religiosity and rituals, which focus our minds and hearts on works rather than on Him.

Now, I'd call that plain and precious truth wouldn't you?

Meditation:
Do you know the joy of the resurrection? The Risen Jesus revealed the glory of his resurrection to his disciples gradually and over a period of time. Even after the apostles saw the empty tomb and heard the reports of Jesus' appearance to the women, they were still weak in faith and fearful of being arrested by the Jewish authorities. When Jesus appeared to them he offered proofs of his resurrection by showing them the wounds of his passion, his pierced hands and side. He calmed their fears and brought them peace, the peace which reconciles sinners and makes one a friend of God.

Jesus did something which only love and trust and can do. He commissioned his weak and timid apostles to carry the gospel to the ends of the earth. This sending out of the disciples is parallel to the sending out of Jesus by his Father. Jesus fulfilled his mission through his perfect love and perfect obedience to the will of his Father. He called his disciples, and he calls us to do the same. Just as he gave his first disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit, so he breathes on us the same Holy Spirit who equips us with power, grace, and strength.

The last apostle to meet the resurrected Lord was the first to go with him to Jerusalem at Passover time. The apostle Thomas was a natural pessimist. When Jesus proposed that they visit Lazarus after receiving news of his illness, Thomas said to the disciples: "Let us also go, that we may die with him" (John 11:16). While Thomas deeply loved the Lord, he lacked the courage to stand with Jesus in his passion and crucifixion. After Jesus' death, Thomas made the mistake of withdrawing from the other apostles. He sought loneliness rather than fellowship in his time of adversity. He doubted the women who saw the resurrected Jesus and he doubted his own fellow apostles. When Thomas finally had the courage to rejoin the other apostles, the Lord Jesus made his presence known to him and reassured him that he had indeed overcome death and risen again. When Thomas recognized his Master, he believed and exclaimed that Jesus was truly Lord and truly God!

Through the gift of faith we, too, proclaim that Jesus is our personal Lord and our God. He died and rose that we, too, might have new life in him. The Lord offers each of us new life in his Holy Spirit that we may know him personally and walk in this new way of life through the power of his resurrection. Do you believe in God's word and the power of the Holy Spirit?

"Lord Jesus Christ, through your victory over sin and death you have overcome all the powers of darkness. Help me to draw near to you and to trust in your life-giving word. Fill me with your Holy Spirit and strengthen my faith in your promises and my hope in the power of your resurrection."
AMEN.