Tuesday, June 30, 2015

women clergy bad idea even if biblical

I won't make the biblical and historical case for women's
ordination. some others have done this, in some cases
flawed in other cases well. I agree with this picture, but
I oppose ordaining women. why?

Something can be biblically allowable but not a good
idea in a given context. Even if a woman priest were
doctrinally orthodox, even a traditionalist old calendar
no pews etc. priest or even bishop, even if she had the
mind of a man (as 1800s critics of women speaking in
public said some really sharp woman had), even if she
was of perfect virtue and humility, was post menopausal
so no disruption of service by periods or childbirth
and   40  days after that could occur,  there is one major
problem. the fact that she is female, and the message
this sends.

The move towards women's ordination has been primarily
one of moving with cultural trends that infect the church.
The typical seeker or recipient of ordination in the
protestant/evangelical and now episcopal scene, argues
for and satisfies the desires of those who think in terms
of, political and gender representation reasons.

A woman priest who does NOT think in these terms
is going to have to constantly denounce them and make
the case for her role instead of focusing on the Gospel
and lives of saints as examples for us and so forth,
because her presence in the altar is catering to such
feelings, and seeming to be a triumph of them.

Because of the packaging of women's rights with all
kinds of wickedness, such as "sexual freedom" that
no man should have either in fact fornication by a man
is a sin that was subject to penance in ancient times
and St. Paul said was grounds for what would later
be called excommunication. Now the idea is, that
the double standard is wrong (it is) and that women
should be as free to be sluts as men are sluts (no,
men should be forced to be chaste, by various legal,
ecclesiastical and social measures). Abortion is
another issue packaged as "women's rights" and
somehow the perverts get their rights listed as women's
rights because the female of the  pervert crew, the
lesbian, and the male to female transgender (who
is really just a eunuch and a fraud) are women, so
their "rights" or "issues" that wouldn't be an issue
if they weren't perverts, becomes "women's issues"
just because they are women.

So a woman priest  would be supporting all this
that she opposed (if she opposed it), because the public
mindset packages all these together.

Until this packaging can be broken up, and they are
all seen as they are, SEPARATE ISSUES, a woman
should not be ordained. this though done because of
her value in that role  for NOT her "feminine
qualities" but her priestly or episcopal quality,  what
this LOOKS like and AGREES WITH UNINTENTIONALLY
is modernism and reverse sexism and lesbian and
abortion "rights" and the tired old capitalism vs.
Marxism argument can even be dragged into the mind
of the person observing her, when in fact these things
are both frauds.

So I do not support female ordination. Not only does
this send a wrong message even unintentionally, by
doing so it strengthens those who would modernize
things even more and gradually doctrine is chipped
away at. This is not inherently one package, but since
it is often presented this way, with gender neutral bible
translations for instance, and other things which perhaps
originated as an effort to add to the ranks of a movement,
the presence of female clergy regardless of what they
teach, gives a support to this kind of thinking, and the
next ordained woman may not be of priestly or
episcopal quality and may be shaky on doctrine and
down the road it is heresy.

This is SOLELY because of the social and political
context that any such female ordination would occur
in, if it happened today. Not because women inherently
bring this and that with them, but because  the mindset
around them does package them together.  Thus
loosening doctrine may be a situation some women
may find more helpful to get ordained in.  but in an
orthodox doctrinal scene, her presence giving an okay
to the  incoherent mentality of most people (it seems),
would make it easier to undermine doctrine later.

Sunday, June 28, 2015

existentialist nonsense

"Sartre posits the idea that "what all existentialists have in common is the fundamental
doctrine that existence precedes essence", as scholar Frederick Copleston  explains."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existentialism
This is patently absurd. of course there are many meanings or applications of the
term "essence" but in terms of the essence of a thing, what it is, this neither precedes
nor comes after existence but comes into existence with the thing that exists. Sure
you can have an idea of some invention you want to make, but that idea is merely
descriptive of the essence of it, that essence doesn't really exist until the thing does.

Existentialism also posits that "the individual's starting point is characterised by what
has been called "the existential attitude", or a sense of disorientation and confusion in
the face of an apparently meaningless or absurd world." (same link.)

now, I suppose a child waking up to its new environment at birth may feel like this
at the sudden transition, but it adapts quickly unless there is something wrong with
the environment. As it develops consciousness in the womb it probably doesn't have
confusion about anything. It just floats along. The sense of meaninglessness or
absurdity probably requires a prior sense of meaning and rationality that has been
disrupted,  a rapidly changing social and political environment would do this, and
this was going on when these ideas got going. One eventually meets the reality of
death, usually someone else's or an animal's death before one's own. This may raise
questions. A kind of gut level knowledge of God may exist also. Converting all
this into verbally expressable thoughts is when you get philosophical speculation.

One can just take it on faith that there is a bigger picture, just assume it as part of
your core ideas, or you can base the sense of meaning and rationality on short term
issues like family and nation and world current events, and then if there is a
disruption you will get a sense of meaninglessness and absurdity.  

The disruption of death may raise questions. but the existential despair is a product
of external conditions. your sense of "meaning" you had before may merely have
been a sense of certainty that  dinner will be served on time. granted if you have
worked at planting a garden and a tornado (or runaway herd of animals) tears it up
you may feel it was all for nothing, but a little more thought and you can see it was
not nothing while it lasted, you can try again and so forth. what is this "meaning"
everyone blithers about? seems to not even be defined the same way by everyone,
especially since some seek it in drugs, drugless drug trips (meditation) and crazy
ideas.  Perhaps it adds up to a sense of being okay, which in fact may be a delusion.

Seek God and resist sin and don't give into it, take note of Ecclesiastes whose end
conclusion was, fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole of life.
Do all for Jesus Christ, and if some garden gets torn up, or if after you die, you think,
the next owner of the property will tear it all up to make a parkinglot, while the
garden lasted God was hopefully happy with it, and remembers it.

Saturday, June 13, 2015

refutations of myths of the militia/patriot movement

http://www.armedwithreason.com/militia-myths-why-armed-populations-dont-prevent-tyranny-but-often-lead-to-it/

from the article: (for links in it, go to the linked page itself)

the idea that Militias are in anyway necessary or good for a free State has no historical justification, especially in the modern era. ... A historical analysis reveals that Militias are typically the gateway to tyranny, not the safeguard against it. ...
  1. Our own Revolutionary War shows militias are effective at protecting liberty.
  2. Militias promote liberty.
  3. Armed populations deter tyrants while unarmed populations are defenseless.
  4. Disarming a population is the gateway to genocide.
All of these arguments are false. Let’s first look at our own Revolutionary War.
The idea that militias are the bulwark against tyranny typically begins in a faulty reading of American History. The Revolutionary War was not won by Militias, but rather the Continental Army with considerable help from the French. While it is probably an exaggeration to suggest that the Militia was completely worthless during the War, that is far closer to reality than the myth promulgated by some pro-gun advocates. And the Militias that did significantly contribute to the cause were organized by the states and represented a well-disciplined, cohesive fighting force that mirrored the Continental Army, not the minutemen of lore.
Moving to the modern era, Militias have a terrible history of creating tyranny, even when fighting against foreign powers. Militias that have been successful in warding off foreign aggression overwhelmingly opposed democratic rule. A few examples are Vietnam, Afghanistan, Cuba, Somalia, Iraq, and southern Lebanon; in none of these countries did the militias promote a free State. Add to this list countries where militias have ripped apart society in tribal states or civil war (such as Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Mali, Colombia, and the Palestinian Territories) and we can form an even clearer picture of militias. ...
... Every democratic country, with the exception of Costa Rica, has a standing army to defend it, not militias.
For examples closer to home, we can easily see that the Klu Klux Klan, Neo-Nazi elements, and the Black Panthers (all of which are or were unregulated militias) have done little to promote a free society. Perhaps the best example in America of the influence militias have on society is “Bloody Kansas” during the 1850s. Pro-Northern and Southern settlers, armed to the teeth, streamed into Kansas in order to sway whether the state became free or slave. The constant skirmishes killed 56 settlers, out of a total population of 8,000. It is safe to conclude that the sudden explosion in the number of armed men did not contribute to a democratic process.
... Yemen is currently the second most heavily armed country in the world (per capita), and it is currently a battlefield between a Western dictatorship and various Jihadist organizations who have no love for a free State. Saudi Arabia and several other Arab countries are heavily armed, with what can only be described as tyrannical governments. Iraq before the 2003 US invasion is perhaps the best example. Saddam Hussein falls under any definition of a tyrannical dictator, yet the Iraqi people were very heavily armed with a gun culture mirroring that of the US. How armed a population is appears to have no empirical bearing on how free that society is.
.....

Hitler took the guns

If only to affirm Godwin’s Law, the most frequently used example of gun control leading to genocide is that of Nazi Germany. At a superficial glance, gun advocates do appear to have a point. After all, didn’t Hitler praise gun control? Hitler clearly lays out his beliefs here: “This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!”
However, like many widely circulated pro-gun quotes, this attribution is fake. There is no evidence that Hitler actually made these remarks. In reality, Hitler was relatively pro-gun. Most of the strict gun control was implemented by the Weimar Republic in direct response to rising street violence and to prevent an armed coup from either the Nazis or Communists. And to a small degree it was successful, as it prevented Hitler from seizing power by armed insurrection. The “gun control” law implemented in 1938, when the Nazis were fully in power, actually loosened restrictions on gun ownership. If the “armed populations prevent tyranny” maxim held, the Germans could have removed Hitler from office with relative ease.
When presented with these facts, gun advocates typically reply that their theory still holds, as Hitler did do his utmost to prevent Jews (as well as Gypsies, homosexuals, Slavs, communists, and Jehovah’s Witnesses) from owning weapons. Therefore, if they had been armed, genocide could have been averted. However, the notion that small groups of armed Jews could have succeeded where the entire Polish and French armies failed is completely inane. It took the combined might of the US, Britain, Russia, and our allies to finally defeat Hitler and his allies. Comparing this reality to the Red Dawn narrative of armed resistance gun advocates offer highlights how little merit the “guns prevent tyranny” hypothesis has. The few instances of armed resistance such as the Warsaw uprising were quickly annihilated.

Stalin took the guns

The hypothesis that a heavily armed Russian population could have stopped Stalin and communist rule completely overlooks the massive civil war (1917-22) that culminated in the triumph of communist forces. Lenin and Stalin didn’t need gun control. They simply annihilated any domestic threats to their rule. As Omer Bratov, a historian from Brown University, explains about Stalin, “the very idea of either gun control or the freedom to bear arms would have been absurd to him. His regime used violence on a vast scale, provided arms to thugs of all descriptions, and stripped not guns but any human image from those it declared to be its enemies. And then, when it needed them, as in WWII, it took millions of men out of the Gulags, trained and armed them and sent them to fight Hitler, only to send back the few survivors into the camps if they uttered any criticism of the regime.” It also defies logic that where the military might of Nazi Germany failed, scattered bands of Russian resistance could have somehow succeeded.

The Turks took the guns

It is true that the Ottomans/Turks seized the weapons of many Armenians. But the Turkish government also took the Armenian’s right to speech, property, livelihood, etc. Anything the Turks could take, they did. Seizing their weapons was simply one of many tools used by the Turks to carry out genocide, not the cause. The idea that a better armed Armenian population would have stopped the genocide is naïve. Although some Armenians were able to hold out versus the government (with the help of the Russian military or French naval forces), most batches of armed resistance were annihilated with artillery bombardment and overwhelming military force. As the Armenian National Institute explains, while the armed resistance was noble, it was ultimately the International awareness and pressure on Turkey that saved the remnants of the Armenian population.

Mao took the guns

Like the Russian case, the idea that Mao’s gun control allowed him to commit genocidal acts completely overlooks how Mao gained power in the first place: a massive civil war. If guns could have stopped Mao, they would have then, not at the height of his power. It also overlooks the fact that any type of gun laws would have had only a negligible influence of gun ownership as the vast majority of Chinese peasants (those bearing the brunt of Mao’s disastrous policies) were too poor to even consider owning a gun. Gun policy shouldn’t enter any meaningful discourse on Mao’s rule.

Guatemala took the guns

The rationale for Guatemala’s wanton slaughter of the Mayan population was to eliminate the threat of Marxist rebels by removing their support base. Guatemala’s genocidal acts were a response to an armed threat, not an opportunistic assault to take advantage of a recently disarmed population as some gun advocates suggest. The tactics to remove this armed resistance, unfortunately, involved the slaughter of unarmed civilians, and was spurred by decades (if not centuries) of pent up racial tensions. It was the presence of armed resistance, not the absence of it, which led to further atrocities.

Idi Amin took the guns

... Had the population not been “disarmed,” the people of Uganda could have stopped the reign of terror. However, this analysis completely overlooks two very basic facts. First, the gun law implemented in 1970 was mostly an extension of a colonial firearms law dating back to 1955, meaning the number of gun owners would not have changed substantially. Second, the idea that the gun law was stage one of genocide is not viable, as the law was implemented in 1970 and Idi Amin did not seize power and begin killing people until 1971.

Pol Pot took the guns

The claims of Cambodian gun control leading to genocide is, like the Uganda case, a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy that conveniently ignores the fact that there was a massive five year civil war from 1970-75 in which the Republican forces protecting the “one million educated people” were decisively defeated. As Robert Spitzer, the author of “The Politics of Gun Control” states the idea that gun control led to genocide in Cambodia and the other countries mentioned represents “a cartoonish view of the complex events” and the people touting these ideas “don’t know comparative politics, they don’t know international relations, they haven’t studied war.” ....

Takeaways:

  • Militias were largely ineffective in our own Revolutionary War.
  • Militias in the modern era have overwhelmingly fostered tyranny, not liberty.
  • Liberty and the degree of gun ownership in a society are uncorrelated.
  • Even if they were positively correlated, the idea that gun control leads to tyranny is a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy.
  • Even if this thought process wasn’t fallacy ridden, the historical examples gun advocates supply don’t hold up under closer scrutiny.
  • Even if the historical cases displayed what gun advocates contend they do, the argument would still fail as applying the lessons from the examples to the US overlooks massive cultural and socio-economic differences.

Saturday, June 6, 2015

for all you antisemites out there who think "the Jews" is a monolithic term.....

From Constance Cumbey's blog comments section today

Anonymous said...

Not that I expect it will be remembered beyond this post itself, it is pretty obvious that readers know little about Jews and Judaism more than what they are given to think about, primarily by those who need someone to blame for all of the troubles in the world. http://www.jewishboston.com/Ask-A-Rabbi/blogs/6883-ask-a-rabbi-how-is-the-jewish-community-organized

When it comes to the religion of Judaism, there are basic lessons based on the Bible, known to Christians as the Old Testament. From there on it's commotion. Utopians knew the religion would be hard to remove from having an effect on morality started to destroy it from the inside in the late 1780s. Until then the Jewish community was held together by what is now called Orthodox Judaism. They began by pulling Jews away from the main group under the label Reform. When that didn't work they started another branch called Conservative. All this can be found in the books written by Rabbi Antelman. Well Jews, being a stiff-necked people, didn't want to give up leadership. Now we have many different religiously bound together groups in the Orthodox community as well as the liberal ones with names like Reconstructionist, Humanist, etc.

t's interesting that the site comes out of Boston where there is a famous doggeral.
And this is good old Boston,
The home of the bean and the cod,
Where the Lowells talk only to Cabots,
And the Cabots talk only to God.[2][3]

Like Christian Protestants, many of the Jewish groups think they are the only ones who speak to God, that their interpretations are the best of all. The Orthodox, the very conservative religious and political group, don't associate much with the other groups. The Reconstructionists, it seems to me, are very New Age, even though they adapt the customs and garb or the Orthodox. Their formation came out of a very, very liberal political group. Since Jews stay among thinkers similar to their own ideas, they have no idea what is going on among other groups of Jews. Only when ugly antisemitism rears its head to they start to band together.

Then those who want more information can go to http://www.jewishboston.com/community_directory where 615 secular organizations are listed by their interests. There are larger organizations composed of groupings, but there is no one overall group where all groups belong. It's laughable when one Jew is expected to answer for all Jews when attacked for being a Jew. No one would expect a Southern Baptist to explain and defend all Catholic beliefs for instance, yet this is what all Jews are expected to do regarding other Jews.
10:37 AM

Monday, June 1, 2015

Here's what I think about several things......

Khazar 13th tribe theory - maybe true, but irrelevant because
of Jewish blood acquired by intermarriage since then and
the issue of effective adoption.

pretrib rapture - false. Matt. 24:29,  2Thess 2:1-3 (repudiates
a secret Second Coming some thought had happened and
they had missed so effectively repudiates all secret rapture
and pretrib stuff and says the Second Coming won't be
until AFTER the antichrist appears, which is after or at
the latter phase of a great general apostasy, which may or
may not indicate a much greater worldwide acceptance
of Christianity) vs. 7 "taken out of the way" does not mean
removed but moved aside from a blocking position.
vs. 8 Jesus will destroy the antichrist when He comes back
"with the brightness of His coming," nothing secret about
it and not human armies from earth either or aliens.

Daniel 7:21,22 little horn aka antichrist will make war
with the saints until Jesus comes back, scene seques into
the Last Judgement so this is NOT about the statue dream.

Events are probably around 500 years hence, here's why.

Daniel 7:1 the dream is in the first year of Belshazzar
king of Babylon. vs. 16,17 Daniel asked the angel for
the meaning of the four beasts dream/vision, and was
told "these great beasts, which are four, are four kings,
which shall arise out of the earth."

Now, this was said during the time of the head of the
statue dream, Babylonia. if the four beasts were a
rehash of this the angel would have said one king
present and THREE which were to arise. But he said
FOUR. The statue dream ends with the rock cut without
hands out of a mountain that beats the statue to pieces,
that in the days of those last kings of the legs and feet,
the eternal kingdom would be set up. This was done at
the first coming of Jesus Christ, His Incarnation Atoning
Death and Resurrection and Ascension. It is brought to
fulfillment in the Second Coming. The statue dream
shows no Judgement scene. The four beasts dream/vision
does show a Judgement scene.

If the four beasts are Britain-America-NATO and Russia
and China the fourth beast is an empire that does not
exist yet. Typically empires last several hundred years
or at least a few. And to be in prophecy, you have to be
a major player in the Middle East, either IN the Middle
East or directing events there in a major way.

So from whenever Russia and China become permanent
fixtures in the Middle East, military and political
presences there, you might expect the situation to go on
for another 350 years or more.

When the fourth beast arises, it will have ten rulers likely
in sequence. Or it might be ruling over ten regions, each
with its own region, the result of conquest by one ruler
who organizes things in ten but then when he dies while
the rest are alive the little horn who has flattered his way
into control displaces three of them takes over and rules
the rest.

It seems more likely, that they will be ten sequential
kings, except that in the days of the eighth king the whole
will be ruled by a triumvirate. The vile person will gain
great power by flatteries perhaps become a second in
command under them, and then will strike down the
triumvirate and take charge himself.

At that point, he will rule for seven years, and in the
middle of the fourth year, i.e., at 3 1/2 years, he will begin
the 3 1/2 year persecution of Jews and Christians, which
will be ended by Jesus Christ coming back, Who will lift
believers out of the way of the wrath of God which will
be poured out on the antichrist and on those who have
worshipped him since we are not appointed to wrath, and
the tribulation is not the wrath of God. Confusion between
tribulation and wrath of God is the core driving error of
pretribulationism.

Now if you figure 350 years plus 5 or 10 from now to
establish the situation the fourth empire destroys, and
maybe 30 years apiece for the rulers for seven rulers and
a few years of the triumvirate then the seven last years,
and you get 577 years or less. The length of the rule of
each of the last empire's rulers would bring it down to
500 or 487 or maybe even higher than 577. Also it might
take longer than 5 or 10 years or the 350 might be a
wrong estimate.

Prov. 31 depicts a woman who is the support of her husband
thus keeping him from temptation economically and he is
proud of her, and who is an aggressive businesswoman and
physically strong like a man. So much for "biblical" roles
and nature of the sexes.