Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/StarParker/2009/09/07/our_tragedy_of_the_commons

No doubt that senator Kennedy was seeking the approval of men, and modern liberalism thrives on class warfare and perpetual dependency making it the easiest way to salve a conscience and justify the use of public funds.

The senator may also have been working his way to heaven. Like all men under the covenant of works, he kept a ledger of his sins on one side and what he perceived as his good works on the other. The thinking is that if my works out weigh my sins, then that is my ticket to heaven. After all God is merciful; He will overlook my sins in the face of all my works.

This is the broad way that leads to death, and those that teach it are storing up wrath against the day of wrath.

The halls of political power and religiosity have forsaken the good news of grace and the forgiveness of sins in exchange for a social gospel that contradicts the words of Christ and denies His power to build His church and clothe her with His righteousness…

“Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness…” [Matthew 6]

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/KenConnor/2009/09/06/blinded_by_the_light_of_discovery

Bacon speaks of the redemptive nature of the gospel and the right use of the arts and sciences that exalts the image of God in man and discovers the works of God in creation.

Man as the image bearer of his creator was given dominion over the earth. Pursuing the arts and sciences is fulfilling his purpose.

Religion and faith can be abused by man to pursue a righteousness that exalts the works of man rather than the grace of God. So also, autonomous reason can corrupt the sciences into a denial of the Giver and Sustainer of life for the irrational discovery of a world void of purposeful design. Even so, the arts are corrupted by pursuing the things of the flesh rather than the things that edify.

Fallen man in his depravity will always pursue corruption, and in his pride he will always pursue autonomy because that is his nature. What greater autonomy is there than to reduce the flaws of man to DNA errors and then manipulate human genetics to fix his faults? Will man reverse the physical effects of sin in the world by use of neo-science?

We are told that liberty is the result of the age of Enlightenment and the rise of autonomous reason independent of the Bible. But look at the fruit of it in the French Revolution compared to the American Revolution. Lost is the truth that man's reason is evidence of the reasonable God, whose image we bear.

Now we who enjoy the heritage of a culture built on Reformation thought are throwing it away in exchange for a secularism based on vain philosophy that man is a product of the mindless arrangement of matter and energy without purposeful design. The irrational leads us away from liberty and back towards tyranny.

Liberty depends on truth, and Christ has declared the truth…

“If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” They answered Him, “We are Abraham’s descendants, and have never been in bondage to anyone. How can You say, ‘You will be made free’?” Jesus answered them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, whoever commits sin is a slave of sin. And a slave does not abide in the house forever, but a son abides forever. Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed.” [John 8]

These findings present a dilemma for evolution theory and its practitioners.

Given the fact that organic materials like blood vessels are prone to rapid decay with respect to geologic time, how could these soft tissues exist? How could blood cells possibly be preserved for 65 million years?

These soft tissues have met with hard resistance from mainstream neo-scientists, and some have even discounted or ignored them. Paleontologists insist that something is fundamentally wrong with laboratory data on biochemical decay rates. In turn, biochemists are confident of their decay rate measurements.

To try to get around the hard facts of soft tissues, some have even proposed that the blood vessels and red blood cells in question were bacterial slime. This was thoroughly refuted, however, by research showing that the dinosaur tissue contains a collagen protein that bacteria do not produce.

The peer reviewed data shows that original molecules persist in some Cretaceous dinosaur fossils and that biochemical decay rates demonstrate that soft tissues would have returned to dust.

Why is there a dilemma? Why was it necessary to confirm the reality of the soft tissues to an incredulous scientific community?

We were told that the sediments that contain these fossils have been radiometric dated to confirm their age. The geologic column is a fraud. Neo-science and the religious practice of naturalism is a fraud, and the faithful know it.

Where is the media hype that Darwin has been proven wrong yet again? Now let’s see if the neo-scientists will admit their fraud or continue in a greater fraud. I hope this new evidence will cause some to start to question. For the faithful, there is no evidence that will turn them, because it is not a matter of evidence. They are driven by their enmity toward their Creator and Judge.

            Everyone is given to covetousness;
            And from the prophet even to the priest,
            Everyone deals falsely.
            They have also healed the hurt of My people slightly,
            Saying, ‘Peace, peace!’
            When there is no peace.
            Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination?
            No! They were not at all ashamed;
             Nor did they know how to blush. [Jeremiah 6]

My people do not know the judgment of the LORD.
            “How can you say, ‘We are wise,
             And the law of the LORD is with us’?
             Look, the false pen of the scribe certainly works falsehood.
            The wise men are ashamed,
            They are dismayed and taken.
             Behold, they have rejected the word of the LORD;
             So what wisdom do they have? [Jeremiah 8]

But we hear the objection, "Didn't Jesus forgive those who crucified Him, even as He was on the Cross?” [Luke 23:33-34]  By praying for them, He demonstrated an attitude of forgiveness. He prayed that those who crucified him would experience forgiveness through the gospel means of personal repentance and faith.

Now, on the face of it, a secular view of history misses the significance of Christ’s coming, misses the significance of the New Covenant Church in the world and denies the influence of these things. History is Jesus Christ, and His Revelation is a philosophy of history. To borrow from the medical, secular history treats the symptoms while ignoring the cause.

The alternative reality gives no reason for righteousness, self denial and the pursuit of virtue, no matter what your politics.

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/EvaLorraineMolina/2009/08/28/where_have_all_the_ladies_gone

Constitutionalism was born from the view of reality that the self-revealed God has spoken and given finite man a reference to the infinite and absolute; in the Bible man has truth in the areas of morals and law and truth about his origin and condition.

Conservatism is that which seeks to conserve constitutionalism.

Rather than a personal God making man in His image, the alternative view of reality holds to the irrational belief that the personal nature of man originates from the impersonal, whether it be matter or energy, apart from purposeful design.

This view has no basis for truth in the areas of morality or law except what autonomous man thinks is right. It believes that the progress of man is hindered by the constraints put on him by the Bible.

The article uses language to describe the behavior of a conservative that is the same language found in the NT that describes the behavior of a Christian. This behavior requires a change of heart ‘for out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man…’ [Proverbs 4:22, Matthew 15:19].

Is man the measure of all things or is he a creature far above all other creatures because he is an image bearer of the Personal Infinite God? Are their absolutes according to the moral nature of God or is right determined by man and relative to societies of men? Is man a moral being accountable to his Creator or does man define his own morals?

If there is no purposeful design in life, then man is the measure of all things and this life is all there is. Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die; Biblical Christianity is nonsense and foolishness because Christ and the Bible are frauds.

But if there is purposeful design in the universe, then we must begin to ask questions. These are the questions that autonomous science and the religion of naturalism would deny us. Why is there something that exists rather than nothing? Why is there life? Who is the designer? Why did he create? How can man ask such questions?

If we consider these questions, we might ask the next question. Since man is a finite being, his knowledge is limited. How can he know ultimate truth? Is it reasonable that the creator would reveal himself to man in order to give him a reference point outside his sphere of knowledge?

Re:http://townhall.com/columnists/MattTowery/2009/08/27/british_release_true_savage_while_continuing_to_ban_savage_talk_show_host

They know that the American people will not abide with who they are and what they stand for when they are exposed. They must hide who they really are, although lately they are out in the open for all to see.

They are not satisfied with most of the media being their mouth piece for state talking points, aka propaganda to smear their opposition and lie about their agenda; they want all of it.

The first amendment is a problem for them because it was instituted to protect the people from a lawless state. A free media is a safeguard against state tyranny; it is a vital guardian of liberty by helping to contribute to a well informed people, rather than a people characterized by group think.

A media cooperative with the state that refuses to expose the expected state infringements against the law of liberty is a reproach to a free people. 

Lincoln’s War was the beginnings of federal abuse of federalism. He declared open war on the sovereign States that formed the Confederacy. Obama continues the war, but now on the whole country with a more subtle tyranny. There are no more sovereign States. The tenth amendment in practice has been repealed, as has the checks and balances instituted to prevent a runaway centralization of unconstitutional federal power. The Constitution restrains honorable men from abusing their power; it is merely an obstacle in the way of the tyrant to be overcome, for nothing will restrain him.

Negotiation with the Southern States could have prevented or ended the war and eventually ended slavery. Lincoln forced the hand of honorable men like Robert E Lee and Stonewall Jackson to defend their sovereign States against a covenant breaking federal government.

Many conservatives agree with the liberals that Lincoln was a great President. He trashed the Constitution, effectively ending federalism in order to save the Union. We can understand why the liberal statists admire him. But what does it say about today’s flavor of conservatism? We have lost the concept of covenant because we have lost the doctrines and beliefs associated with covenant theology.

The LORD will open to you His good treasure, the heavens, to give the rain to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand. You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow. [Deuteronomy 28:12]

For a nation that is in decline it is said that the lending nation is the head over the debtor nation…

The alien who is among you shall rise higher and higher above you, and you shall come down lower and lower. He shall lend to you, but you shall not lend to him; he shall be the head, and you shall be the tail. Moreover all these curses shall come upon you and pursue and overtake you, until you are destroyed, because you did not obey the voice of the LORD your God, to keep His commandments and His statutes which He commanded you. [Deuteronomy 28:43-45]

What does this say about his use of the Bible when he uses this passage to justify any plan of state administered rationing of health care? And what does it say about Obama and the religious community he is appealing to for support?

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/StarParker/2009/08/24/health_care_struggle_is_about_freedom

Moral obligations are hard to define for those who hold to moral relativism. A morality that binds the conscience originates from the Creator of the conscience. This Law was given to Moses on tablets of stone and is now written on the new heart in the age of the New Covenant. A doctrine based on the words of Cain hardly merits a moral obligation.

Cain questions the Lord in Genesis 4 when asked of his brother, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” This is a response that carries with it the accusation from a lawless man. Can’t my brother care for himself, or isn’t that the Lord’s business? Obama says that he is his brother’s keeper, implying that the state is obligated to provide its brand of ‘one size fits all’ health care and to moralize and coerce its citizens into compliance. This is the stuff of tyrants.

All men are image bearers of personal God; therefore individual men are responsible to love their neighbor as themselves. This is their moral obligation, and each of us is accountable to the Judge of all the earth. Benevolence is not the role of the state, because the impersonal state knows nothing of compassion, nor can it be a substitute for the church.

The state is accountable for its own sins of promoting lawlessness and dependency. The writers of our founding documents understood that governments tend toward authoritarianism. History informs us that the state cannot deliver what it promises and that liberty is always sacrificed at the altar of expanding government. Why some look to it with anything other than skepticism is a fault of man common to rich and poor, ignorant and educated, churched and unchurched. This fault will cost us dearly, for liberty once lost is not easily regained.

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/DavidHarsanyi/2009/08/21/what_would_jesus_do_ask_obama

Is the handling of the sacred text by the self-avowed atheist any less disingenuous than Obama’s? They both blaspheme what you do not know. The Ten Words should involve fear in men, for based on these Words the whole world lies condemned in sin, and every mouth will be stopped by the righteous judgment of God.

By invoking the commandment, Obama testifies his agreement with God that truth telling is righteous. In doing so he condemns himself as a liar with his own words.

Mr. Harsanyi on the other hand appeals to the words of a man, who rightly derived his views of man from the sacred text. And what does Mr. Lewis have to say of the rationality of the atheist?

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/SteveChapman/2009/08/20/an_odd_silence_on_gay_marriage

The other view of reality is that of a personal and living God that has revealed truth to His image bearers; truth about God, our world, our depravity and our need of redemption. In this reality there are absolutes because the Infinite Personal I AM has spoken. His Word stands against all idolatries invented by man. This is the origin of rule of law and representative, constitutional government. We agree with the Founders that this view of reality leads to personal, religious and civil liberty as demonstrated by the existence of America.