Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/MarvinOlasky/2009/08/19/is_social_justice_just_ice

“Why did Jesus Christ not succeed thus far in moving the world to do what He has said?...I come with a practical plan to perform His purposes.” [Woodrow Wilson, 1918; at the beginning of his second term as President]

President Wilson states the liberal view of the kingdom. Jesus Christ is a failure and His promises cannot be trusted. The state is here to implement a ‘practical’ plan to bring in the kingdom of God on earth. Obamaism and the ‘social justice’ gospel is nothing new, just the next step down the wrong path…

With the prevalence of Marxist thinking, it no surprise that there are attempts at a synthesis of Marxism and Christianity. The resulting perversion of the Gospel is called ‘liberation theology’. Obama was schooled in this for 20 years under the likes of Jeremiah Wright. Much of this stuff is built on the concept of Man being basically good, linked with the idea that his great need is to be released from economic chains. This is utopian, because Man is not basically good, bound only by social, economic and political chains. Man is fallen.

The perfectibility of Man was the basis of much of the Enlightenment and of the French Revolution. It was a basis of the Marxist Revolution in Russia. Where this view of Man has been acted on it has led to tragedy, to political chains and to the loss of humanness. Every attempt to put this utopian concept into practice has led to failure because it is based on a false view of Man. He is not intrinsically unselfish, corrupted only by outward circumstances. Man is fallen; he is not what he was created to be. [Schaeffer’s Christian Manifesto]

The amino acid glycine, a fundamental building block of proteins, has been found in a comet for the first time, bolstering the theory that raw ingredients of life arrived on Earth from outer space, scientists said on Monday.

[Presupposition 1: Life did not originate on earth; ‘raw ingredients of life arrived on Earth from outer space’ say the neo-scientists.]

Microscopic traces of glycine were discovered in a sample of particles retrieved from the tail of comet Wild 2 by the NASA spacecraft Stardust deep in the solar system some 242 million miles from Earth, in January 2004.

Samples of gas and dust collected on a small dish lined with a super-fluffy material called aerogel were returned to Earth two years later in a canister that detached from the spacecraft and landed by parachute in the Utah desert.

[Good data on collection of sample; no presuppositions here.]

Comets like Wild 2, named for astronomer Paul Wild, are believed to contain well-preserved grains of material dating from the dawn of the solar system billions of years ago, and thus clues to the formation of the sun and planets.

[Here we go again. Presupposition 2: comets date from the dawn of the solar system billions of years ago, and they contain well preserved materials. What? This is more preposterous than the well preserved 65 million year old dinosaur tissues and blood cells. And these folks think they have a clue about the formation of the sun and planets?]

The initial detection of glycine, the most common of 20 amino acids in proteins on Earth, was reported last year, but it took time for scientists to confirm that the compound in question was extraterrestrial in origin.

[Presupposition 1 affirmed; the glycine is ‘extraterrestrial in origin’. But how did they determine that?]

"We couldn't be sure it wasn't from the manufacturing or the handling of the spacecraft," said…the principal author of the latest research.

She presented the findings, accepted for publication in the journal Meteoritics and Planetary Science, to a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Washington, D.C., this week.

[If this stuff is peer reviewed, then what does that say about the peers? They must all be neo-scientists. The important claim of ‘extraterrestrial in origin’ is not addressed here. Extraterrestrial fits better with their theory, therefore it must be right.]

"We've seen amino acids in meteorites before, but this is the first time it's been detected in a comet," she said.

Chains of amino acids are strung together to form protein molecules in everything from hair to the enzymes that regulate chemical reactions inside living organisms. But scientists have long puzzled over whether these complex organic compounds originated on Earth or in space.

[The neo-scientists ‘have long puzzled over whether these complex organic compounds originated on Earth or in space’. They are puzzled because amino acids do not occur naturally but are associated with living things. DNA occurs naturally too, around living things. The neo-scientists have taken on a big problem in trying to refute bio-genesis, but they are well funded and working hard on a solution.]

The latest findings add credence to the notion that extraterrestrial objects such as meteorites and comets may have seeded ancient Earth, and other planets, with the raw materials of life that formed elsewhere in the cosmos.

[There it is: There is nothing special or unique about earth; life was seeded here with raw materials of life that formed elsewhere in the cosmos. How does this thinking help the neo-scientist with his theory? They still have no explanation for the origin of life elsewhere in the cosmos. The Biblical revelation is essential for man to know his origin. When it is suppressed the best that autonomous man can devise is panspermia and macro-evolution.]

"The discovery of glycine in a comet supports the idea that the fundamental building blocks of life are prevalent in space, and strengthens the argument that life in the universe may be common rather than rare," said…the director of the NASA Astrobiology Institute in California, which co-funded the research.

[Another leap of faith: glycine in comets implies amino acids are prevalent in space and therefore life is common. Comets are associated with the solar system; they orbit the sun. So why are we looking for life outside the solar system, if comets are the bearers of life? Shouldn’t they be asking how glycine happened to be riding on a comet? Why not consider that comets originated from earth? Welcome to neo-science where irrational presuppositions from an irrational theory leads to irrational group thinking.]

Thanks to Steve Gorman for some comic relief.

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE57H02I20090818?feedType=RSS&feedName=scienceNews&rpc=22&sp=true

The future of constitutionalism depends on its original Reformation base. Here are Schaeffer’s words from 30 years ago from his book, A Christian Manifest. Christians must recognize that we are engaged a cultural warfare and that the future of the culture is at risk…

We are not excused from speaking, just because the culture and society no longer rest as much as they once did on Christian thinking. Moreover, Christians do not need to be in the majority in order to influence society.

John the Baptist raised his voice, on the basis of the biblical absolutes, against the personification of power in the person of Herod, and it cost him his head. In the Roman Empire the Christians refused to worship Caesar along with Christ, and this was seen by those in power as disrupting the unity of the Empire; for many this was costly.

If we as Christians do not speak out as authoritarian governments grow from within or come from outside, eventually we or our children will be the enemy of society and the state. No truly authoritarian government can tolerate those who have a real absolute by which to judge its arbitrary absolutes and who speak out and act upon that absolute.

To make no decision in regard to the growth of authoritarian government is already a decision for it.

There have been yard signs, T-shirts and a mass student protest during graduation ceremonies this spring on behalf of Pace High School Principal Frank Lay and school athletic director Robert Freeman, who will go on trial Sept. 17 at a federal district court in Pensacola for breaching the conditions of a lawsuit settlement reached last year with the American Civil Liberties Union.

"I have been defending religious freedom issues for 22 years, and I've never had to defend somebody who has been charged criminally for praying," said Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, the Orlando-based legal group that is defending the two school officials.

“Nothing is more certain in modern society than the principle that there are no absolutes.”-former Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court, Frederick Vinson (1890-1953)

As sociological law has moved away from the original base of the Creator giving ‘inalienable rights’, it is inevitable that there is a move away from the Constitution as written; inalienable rights are replaced by the new rights derived from sociological law.

Secularism militates against both religious liberty and against personal freedoms because secularism does not recognize the existence of a ‘higher law’ and it tends toward a pragmatic public policy unrestrained from constitutional safeguards. The reason for the constitutional checks and balances is lost because the secular view of men in power over other men is one of tyranny, rather than service.

The concept of reality assumed by radical naturalism could never have produced the form and freedom in the American culture and other Reformation cultures. But now it has arrogantly supplanted the historic Christian consensus that provided the foundations on which liberty and prosperity was built. Those who disdain our heritage should look at the fruits of secularism.

It is impossible to mold a natural ethic strong enough to maintain moral restraint and social order without the support of supernatural consolations, hopes and fears. If rationalism wishes to govern the world without regard to the religious needs of the soul, the experience of the French Revolution is there to teach us the consequences of such a blunder. [Will Durant, edited]

The Blue Brain project, led by computer genius Henry Markram, director of the Centre for Neuroscience & Technology and the Brain Mind Institute,  has for the past five years been engineering the mammalian brain, the most complex object known in the Universe, using some of the most powerful supercomputers in the world.

And last month, Professor Markram claimed, at a conference in Oxford, that he plans to build an electronic human brain 'within ten years'…By far the most complex problem of all is how you make a machine think…This problem is one of the central questions of modern philosophy and goes to the very heart of what we know, or rather do not know, about the human mind.

This is a question that has troubled scientists and philosophers for centuries. The traditional answer was to assume that some sort of 'soul' pervades the brain, a mysterious 'ghost in the machine' which gives rise to the feeling of self and consciousness.

If this is the case, then computers, being machines not flesh and blood, will never think. We will never be able to build a robot that will feel pain or get angry, and the Blue Brain project will fail.

But very few scientists still subscribe to this traditional 'dualist' view, because it assumes 'mind' and 'matter' are two separate things.

Instead, most neuroscientists believe that our feelings of self-awareness, pain, love and so on are simply the result of the countless billions of electrical and chemical impulses that flit between its equally countless billions of neurons.

So, if you build something that works exactly like a brain, consciousness, at least in theory, will follow.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1205677/Are-brink-creating-human-brain.html [credits to Michael Hanlon]

Since the mind exists and it wasn’t created by supernatural agency, then it must have evolved and somehow consciousness followed. This is what we mean that neo-science is irrational.

Would these people think about what they are saying? Intelligent men admit that the brain is the most complex system known to man, and supercomputers are being used in the analysis and modeling of its functions. Now we are to believe that it is nothing more than a complex biochemical machine that came to being apart from a supernatural designer and without a designed purpose?

There is skepticism because it is known that such biological structures and molecules have a life span measured in thousands of years. They could not possibly survive the million years required by the evolutionary explanation of the geologic column. Therefore, in the world of neo-science, where the theory is used to interpret the data, the data must be wrong. Consideration that the theory may be wrong is anathema because Creation and Genesis Flood explanations cannot be considered by the neo-scientists.

Multiple attempts have been made to debunk Schweitzer’s findings. Over the last 15 years, alternate explanations for the soft dinosaur tissue include contamination in the field or in the lab, bacterial activity producing the illusion of blood vessel remains, and the possibility that protein signatures derived from the tissues are actually just statistical artifacts.

In an effort to answer these objections, Schweitzer’s team implemented sterile excavation procedures and had an independent third party analyze their results. They confirmed that the soft tissues could not have come from bacteria. Bacteria do not manufacture products in the shape of vertebrate blood vessels, nor can they produce the kind of collagen found in the dinosaur bones. There is every indication that the dinosaur soft tissues are real biological leftovers from their once-living hosts.

Three options exist for the presence of molecules and blood vessels in creatures that purportedly lived 65 million years ago. Perhaps the soft tissue is some kind of mistake; it isn’t really organic material. Or perhaps there is an entirely unknown natural process that could have preserved soft tissue for millions of years. Third, perhaps the soft tissue, and therefore the sedimentary rock that encased it, are thousands of years old, rather than millions.

[credits: Brian Thomas; http://www.icr.org/article/4819/]

These things violate the constitutional protection of the God given right to life. The lawless magistrates are accountable to the people. The state religion disguised as science is accountable to truth. As in past generations so it is now, the churches that hold to the Scriptures are the pillar and support of truth. Cultural reform can only come from the churches preaching sound doctrine attended by the Spirit and power.

The Bible stands against the taking of innocent life by the hands of lawless men. The Bible says no to common descent and immorality; it says men are more than animals ruled by natural selection; all men are made in the image of God with an immortal soul of infinite worth.

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/StarParker/2009/08/09/obamacare_meets_twitter

We know that the serpent is referred to as the father of lies and from the beginning a subtle liar. Therefore, let’s refer to Obama as he really is…a tyrant given to lawlessness and deception. He and his drones continue to flaunt their disdain for the constraints of the constitution that separates the American people from tyranny. There is no limit to their lawlessness because there is no limit to depravity. He will go as far as we the people allow him.

No doubt, some who use this argument are sincere. They are only repeating what they have heard their pastor and other religious leaders say. On the other hand, some who use this argument are indifferent, and Romans 13 is their escape from responsibility.

For the benefit of those who are sincere about the authority of Scripture, yet ignorant of church history and how this passage has been understood by our Protestant forefathers, let's examine Romans Chapter 13. Here is the text from the Authorized King James…

"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For he is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for he beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also: for they are God's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour." [Romans 13:1-7]

Do those who use these verses to teach that we should not oppose America's political leaders really believe that civil magistrates have unlimited authority to do anything they want without opposition? Rather, is it that we in America assume immunity from the tyrant? Having generations that have lived under the protection of constitutionalism, we have a false assurance that our elected leaders possess integrity and will always honor their oath of office, prohibiting them from lawlessness and acting against the consent of the people.

To illustrate by extreme example, what if our President decided to resurrect the old monarchal custom of Law of First Night? That was the old medieval custom when the king claimed the right to sleep with a subject's bride on the first night of their marriage. Would our sincere Christian brethren sheepishly say, "Romans Chapter 13 says we must submit to the government"? Would any of us respect any man who would submit to such a law?

The objection is that this is a clear violation of the seventh commandment. Well, what about the other commandments? Shall I enumerate the lawlessness of the Obama administration?

Limited Civil Authority

By the same token, a civil magistrate has authority in civil matters, but his authority is limited and defined. Observe that Romans Chapter 13 clearly limits the authority of civil government by strictly defining its purpose…

"For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil . . . For he is the minister of God to thee for good . . . for he is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil."

Notice that civil government must not be a "terror to good works." It has no power or authority to terrorize good works or law abiding citizens. God never gave it that authority. And any government that oversteps that divine boundary has no divine authority or protection. This is a basic principle of Natural Law. All of America's legal documents, including the Constitution are founded upon the God-ordained principles of Natural Law.

The apostle clearly states that civil government is a "minister of God to thee for good." It is a not a minister of God for evil. Civil magistrates have a divine duty to "execute wrath upon him that doeth evil." They have no authority to execute wrath upon him that doeth good. So, even in the midst of telling Christians to submit to civil authority, Romans Chapter 13 limits the power and reach of civil authority.

Did Moses violate God's principle of submission to authority when he killed the Egyptian taskmaster in defense of his fellow Hebrew? Did Elijah violate God's principle of submission to authority when he openly challenged Ahab and Jezebel? Did David violate God's principle of submission to authority when he refused to surrender to Saul's troops? Did Daniel violate God's principle of submission to authority when he disobeyed the king's command to not pray audibly to God? Did the three Hebrew children violate God's principle of submission to authority when they refused to bow to the image of the state? Did John the Baptist violate God's principle of submission to authority when he publicly scolded King Herod for his infidelity? Did Simon Peter and the other Apostles violate God's principle of submission to authority when they refused to stop preaching on the streets of Jerusalem? Did Paul violate God's principle of submission to authority when he refused to obey those authorities who demanded that he abandon his missionary work?

Remember that every apostle of Christ (except John) was killed by hostile civil authorities opposed to their endeavors. Christians throughout church history were imprisoned, tortured, or killed by civil authorities of all stripes for refusing to submit to their various laws and prohibitions. Did all of these Christian martyrs violate God's principle of submission to authority?

Conscience and Civil Authority

Paul also makes it clear that our submission to civil authority must be predicated on more than fear of governmental retaliation. Notice, he said, "Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake." Meaning, our obedience to civil authority is more than just "because they said so." It is also a matter of conscience. This means we must think and reason for ourselves regarding the justness and rightness of our government's laws. Obedience is not automatic or robotic. It is a result of both rational deliberation and moral approbation.

Constitutionalism

Beyond that, we in the United States of America do not live under a monarchy. We have no king. There is no single governing official in this country. America's "supreme Law" does not rest with any man or any group of men. America's "supreme Law" does not rest with the President, the Congress, or even the Supreme Court. In America, the Constitution is the "supreme Law of the Land." Under our laws, every governing official publicly promises to submit to the Constitution of the United States. Do we understand the significance of this distinction?

This means that, in America, the "higher powers" are not the men who occupy elected office; they are the tenets and principles set forth in the Constitution. Under our laws and form of government, it is the duty of every citizen, including our elected officials, to obey the Constitution. Therefore, this is how Romans Chapter 13 would be read and understood by Americans…

"Let every soul be subject unto the [U.S. Constitution.] For there is no [Constitution] but of God: the [Constitution] that be [is] ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the [Constitution], resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation. For [the Constitution is] not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the [Constitution]? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same: For [the Constitution] is the minister of God to thee for good. But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid; for [the Constitution] beareth not the sword in vain: for [the Constitution] is the minister of God, a revenger to execute wrath upon him that doeth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For this cause pay ye tribute also: for [the Constitution is] God's minister, attending continually upon this very thing. Render therefore to all their dues: tribute to whom tribute is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honour to whom honour."

Furthermore, Christians, above all people, should desire that their elected representatives submit to the Constitution, because it is constitutional government that has done more to protect Christian liberty than any other governing document ever devised by man. This is true because constitutionalism is founded on Biblical principles and Natural Law, standing against the autonomous wisdom of men.

The problem in America today is that we have allowed our political leaders to violate their oaths of office and to ignore the Constitution. Therefore, if we truly believe Romans Chapter 13, we will insist and demand that our civil magistrates submit to the Constitution.

For the most part Christians in America have not had to face the painful decision to "obey God rather than men" and defy their civil authorities. The lawless elected official knows no restraint; he is a law unto himself. There is no limit to his lawlessness because there is no limit to his depravity. He will continue in it as far as ‘we the people’ allow him to go.

Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God

Prior to the late sixteenth century, few would dare to utter that idea; yet, for Jefferson this was an especially meaningful maxim. Serving on a committee appointed on July 4, 1776, to recommend a symbol for the new nation, Jefferson had proposed this theological motto for the official seal of the United States. Back in Virginia retirement, he chose to seal his personal letters with a stamp commending resistance to unjust government as a positive religious duty.

Since this motto was so readily adopted by one of the most famous founding fathers, it must surely bear some special import. Part of its meaning is that the founders of America owed a larger debt to an earlier Swiss reformer’s theology than most realize. Jefferson was no Calvinist, but he was able to see the contribution Calvinism had made in the cause of liberty.

This thinking is lost in our day. Many are unable to recognize our current President as a tyrant breaking free of the restrains of law. Can the thinking behind constitutionalism be recovered? Since the future of liberty depends on it, let’s review the history of Geneva and its influence on the West and see the origins of Jefferson’s motto…

Re: http://townhall.com/columnists/StarParker/2009/08/02/beer_summit_should_have_been_about_freedom

Dr. Sproul writes, “A decline from statehood to statism happens when the government is perceived as or claims to be the ultimate reality. This reality then replaces God as the supreme entity upon which human existence depends.”

“Throughout our history, America has promoted the idea of separation of church and state, which was originally intended as a check against an aggressive state asserting itself as autonomous and supreme. The founders realized that human nature is such that tyrants will abuse power and use the authority God gave them for evil purposes, harshly subjugating their citizens for their own selfish gains, instead of promoting good and punishing evil. As a result, our founders implemented checks and balances against such abuse. It was in this context that the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ was first coined.”

But, this very concept that was originally intended to prohibit the abuse of statism, is now being used to accomplish that very thing.

“In America, we have a long history of valuing the concept of the separation of church and state. This idea historically referred to a division of labors between the church and the civil magistrate. However, initially both the church and state were seen as entities ordained by God and subject to his governance. In that sense, the state was considered ‘under God.’ What has happened in the last few decades is the obfuscation of this original distinction between church and state, so that today the language we hear of separation of church and state…communicates the idea of the separation of the state from God. In this sense, it’s not merely that the state declares independence from the church, it also declares independence from God and presumes itself to rule with autonomy.”