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Archive for the ‘Politics’ Category

White House Soteriology: Praying daily makes one a Christian

19 Aug
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"The president is obviously a Christian. He prays everyday."

In an attempt to redirect attention from recent polls about up to 25% of Americans believing President Obama is a Muslim and less than 40% believing he’s a Christian, the White House declared:

“The president is obviously a Christian. He prays everyday.”

If the statement was just “The president is obviously a Christian,” that would have been the error of mere assertion: Merely because you assert something is true, that doesn’t make it so. Luckily, they offered a proof: “He prays everyday.”

There’s a few problems of course:

  • Not everyone who prays everyday is a Christian. Muslims pray every day, for example.
  • One isn’t a Christian on the basis of how much one prays.

While prayer is part of being a Christian, you’re not a Christian because you pray. By “Christian” I mean someone who is following the biblical model of following Jesus.

Becoming a follower of Jesus has to do with living out one’s belief that Jesus is master (Lord) of your life. It is evidenced by what grows out of your life, what actions you exhibit. It has nothing to do with being perfect except that a Christian will, over time, change on issues as (s)he lives more as Jesus as their master.

While Obama’s family is Muslim, and while he has Muslim names, anyone who believed he was a Muslim for those reasons already thought so during the election, and that doesn’t explain the dramatic increase in those numbers. That has to do with Obama’s actions:

This isn’t necessarily new to Obama – there have been questions about previous presidents faiths. Whether or not Obama is a Muslim isn’t the point of my writing. The point here is the flaw in reasoning and the glaring misconception of faith.

Praying daily does not make it obvious that someone is a Christian. Saying so makes it obvious that you have no idea what you’re talking about.

Clearly White House overall has no idea of what it means to be a Christian. No wonder they misunderstand Christians so much!

How do you feel about the White House defining Christianity this way?

Another issue here is that the media are declaring the state of a person’s soul – the article linked to above states:

The number of Americans who believe — wrongly — that President Obama is a Muslim has increased significantly since his inauguration and now accounts for nearly 20 percent of the nation’s population.

Can you imagine an article beginning: “The number of Americans who believe –wrongly — that the Tea Party movement contains extremists…”?

Why is it necessary for reporters to be inserting this commentary? Even the punctuation around “wrongly” makes it the word that stands out most. This isn’t reporting. This is commentary.

“The president is obviously a Christian. He prays everyday.”

 
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Posted in How to Fail at Arguing, Politics, Spirituality

 

Media Slant: LA Times Hates Ray Bradbury

18 Aug

Ray Bradbury, Farenheit 451I enjoyed reading the LA Times article about Ray Bradbury, author of Farenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and other books. The article includes a few quotes of Ray Bradbury:

First, about President Obama:

“He should be announcing that we should go back to the moon… We should never have left there. We should go to the moon and prepare a base to fire a rocket off to Mars and then go to Mars and colonize Mars. Then when we do that, we will live forever.”

Second, about the size of government:

“I think our country is in need of a revolution… There is too much government today. We’ve  got to remember the government should be by the people, of the people and for the people.”

Here Bradbury agrees with many (most likely the majority of) Americans, and the founders of the country. These are not words to be written off as words of a crazy old man. Yet the LA Times titled the piece:

Ray Bradbury hates big government.

The headline – the part of the article that more people will read than any other – simply labels Bradbury a hater. He’s expressed a differing opinion, therefore he can be lumped together with Fox News, Sarah Palin, the tea party movement, and everyone else labeled those who hate – also known as those just as easily called sexist, intolerant, xenophobic, homophobic, racist, and bigoted.

All of these words have been hollowed out of their meaning and redefined to simply mean “hateful.”

Then again, Bradbury didn’t say anything hateful. In the end all of these slanderous labels simply mean: “someone who disagrees with the Left.”

Take note, if someone disagrees with the Left, the LA Times and often the personalities on “progressive” talk radio and television news networks show how to handle them: Call them a name and never respond to their arguments.

 
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Posted in Media, Politics

 

The Democrat’s Phony Diversity, Part 1

17 Aug

DNC DonkeyThis is in response to the article “The Jesus Litmus Test” by Peter Beinart. Peter Beinart is a senior political writer for a website, author of a recently published book, contributor to Time magazine, and an associate professor of journalism and political science. I’m sure he is more well-read, a better writer and must have more time on his hands to write up articles about politics… as it’s his job.

The DNC has the same old rallying cry: Diversity!

Yet the democrats were pro-choice for slavery until the Republican Party was established to fight the Democrats and overthrow slavery when they got Lincoln into office. They were the party of Senator Byrd, recruiter for the Ku Klux Klan. Yet the DNC claims to be the party of diversity.

The party of Reid, Pelosi and Obama has relied on gender, racial and religious profiling, such as giving special aid on the basis of skin color instead of need and support from and for organizations like the National Organization of Women and the NAACP.

The right judges people on the basis of their character, the left judges people on the basis of their race, gender, religion, etc.

That’s why Harry Reid could say last week, “I don’t know how anyone of Hispanic heritage could be a Republican, OK. Do I need to say more?” Reid was saying that they shouldn’t be treated differently because of their heritage, but then he treats them differently because of their heritage. This doublethink (believing two contradictory ideas at the same time) is what makes up the left’s view of diversity.

Most on the Left assume everyone thinks and acts the way they do. It’s more difficult to think in this closed-minded way on the Right, because the media, public schools, and state universities tend to veer strongly Left, so the Leftist worldview is unavoidable. Thus, when a conservative criticizes someone on the basis of character, it is incomprehensible to most on the Left. The Leftist assumes that the  Conservative must judge the same way she does, on the basis of race, gender, religion, etc. The Conservative is called racist if the person is of an ethnic minority, sexist if the person is female, homophobic if the person practices homosexuality, and bigoted if nothing else sticks.

That’s why anyone who didn’t vote for Obama is a racist. Anyone who doesn’t want a redefinition of the millennials-old term “marriage” is homophobic. The ethics investigations of two Democrats is racist.

The Democratic Party has been in the business of labeling and profiling people on the basis of a variety of demographics. They divide people by category and they have told everyone in every category that they must belong in the Democrat party or they are a Judas to their own kind.

We are all welcome, of course, as long as we do not bring our own distinctives with us. You’re welcome as a minority American, as long as you don’t bring your cultural family values with you. What they want is your skin color, not your heritage. You’re welcome as a Catholic as long as you reject the Catholic worldview. They want your label – leave your beliefs at the door.

You are welcome as long as you behave. Do what you are told to do. Believe what you are told to believe. Democrat politics trumps all religious belief. The party this takes over the place of your God. You lose the right to practice your own religion or to hold your own worldview.

There cannot be any real diversity because the worldview of the DNC conflicts with every religious system and traditional value system. The DNC must take priority over your faith, your worldview and your traditions. The only diversity allowed in the DNC is a facade without substance. It is as genuine as a fake city backdrop on a movie set. The appearance exists without substance.

Fake City Backdrop on Movielot

 
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Posted in Politics, Spirituality

 

Enviro-Narcissism

08 Aug

Suddenly we’re all Captain Planet? Because we allow the hotel to save money by not hiring as many employees to wash our linens?

We certainly do foster a culture of narcissism.

Posted from my BlackBerry.

 
6 Comments

Posted in Culture, Politics

 

How to Fail at Arguing #6: As others do to us

28 Jul

A 15 story mosque and Islamic community center has been approved within blocks of the site of 9/11. Naturally many New Yorkers and others are outraged because this is the site of a national tragedy and those who attacked civilians there did so in the name of Islam. Planting a mosque at the site seems incredibly insensitive and offensive to the memory of those who died on 9/11. The leader of the mosque project has said 9/11 was America’s fault and at least somewhat justified, refuses to call Hammas (not to be confused with hommus) a terrorist group, and the project is being funded from Islamic groups in Islamic countries. There’s a lot of reasons people are concerned.

That’s the story, here’s the argument I keep hearing:

We’ll let mosques be built anywhere when every Muslim country lets churches and synagogues be built freely.

Mosque at Ground Zero Protesters

Image from article on Politico.com

Whatever the right thing is, it is not to lower our standards, as a country that champions religious liberty, to those of countries to not allow religious liberty.

By justifying your actions by those of another, you’ve walked away from your own principles. If the above argument is all you have, you’re saying you want to belong to an anti-freedom country, though you condemn them.

This failure in arguing happens frequently, thanks in part to the short length of political terms (though it isn’t limited to politics).

That Democrats manipulated Republican primary elections is not, in itself, reason for the Republicans who champion ethics and character to manipulate elections. That liberals expand government is not justification for “conservatives,” who champion smaller government to expand government.

If you violate the principles you claim as your own, you lack character. Your choices are not justified by comparing them to those who don’t claim to hold the same principles you do.

There are legitimate reasons for wanting this Mosque moved to another location. But the more conversations and airwaves are filled with poor arguments like this, the less likely real dialog is possible.

Edit: Added new image and fixed some typos. (8/18/2010 – Second Jon)

 
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Posted in How to Fail at Arguing, Politics, Spirituality

 

Jello is Racist Part 2: And so are you! (The Shirley Sherrod story)

26 Jul

Yesterday’s post, Jello is Racist, was a response to the name-calling frenzy of the NAACP, the White House, and Howard Dean. Here’s what happened. Later this week with what this means for US culture and politics.

Photo of racist jello

Part 1: NAACP overreacts without basis: calls tea party racist

  • July 14: The NAACP officially condemns “racist elements” within the Tea Party Movement and the “Tea Party’s continued tolerance for bigotry and bigoted statements.”
    Keep in mind that there has never been any documented bigotry or bigoted statements within the Tea Party movement. This was simply the NAACP, without evidence, calling a large segment of the US population racists. Meanwhile, the Tea Party members have never tolerated racism or bigotry, and routinely repudiate it.
  • July 14: Various groups of Tea Party members responded.  The “St. Louis group fired off to the NAACP the statement demanding the organization withdraw its “bigoted, false and inflammatory” resolution.”

Part 2: NAACP video released

  • July 19: Andrew Breitbart, conservative Internet journalist released a video he had on file of a woman being cheered on as she told a story of withholding help from a white man who asked for it, sending him instead to one of his own kind – a white person to help him. NAACP audience members cheer her on for what she did, but she goes on to say she later learned it’s not about race, it’s about class warfare. Here’s the video – you can skip to about the 1 minute mark:
    YouTube Preview Image
    She’s not the problem here. She went on to learn and change – now she’s a Marxist not a racist. I still don’t agree with her, but she’s not the one cheering for racism. It’s the NAACP members that are. While there’s no documented evidence that people associated with the Tea Party movement are racist, this is evidence that the NAACP’s charges are true of themselves!

Part 3: NAACP, White House overreact without basis: Fire & Condemn Sherrod

  • July 19: The White House decided that instead of reacting to the true story – the racism within the NAACP, they’d make Sherrod the fall guy, and their demanded her resignation.
  • July 19: The NAACP harshly condemned Sherrod. Here’s an exerpt

Her actions were shameful. While she went on to explain in the story that she ultimately realized her mistake, as well as the common predicament of working people of all races, she gave no indication she had attempted to right the wrong she had done to this man.

Unlike the tea party, there was actually documented racist reactions from people in their organization. Did they condemn themselves and their continued tolerance of this? No. They said, “The reaction from many in the audience is disturbing. We will be looking into the behavior of NAACP representatives at this local event and take any appropriate action.” Their own actions pale in comparison to what they demanded the tea party do.

  • July 19: After the White House had fired Sherrod and the NAACP condemned her, Fox News Channel first reported on the story.

Part 4: NAACP, White House reverse course, overreact without basis: Blame Fox – They’re Racist too!

  • July 20: Glenn Beck first reports on the story on Fox News, and takes Sherrod’s side.
  • July 20: In a full reversal, the NAACP changed their minds. They say they were “snookered by Fox News.”
    The full video showed that she had learned over time not to be racist – but they already knew that, as they had written it into her condemnation the previous day. Also, remember – the condemned her after  the White House demanded her resignation. They acted BEFORE Fox News Channel reported on it.
  • July 22: The New York Times blames Fox News.
  • July 22: Shirley Sharrod blames Fox News, and says she was fired because the Obama administration was afraid that she might appear on Fox News.
  • July 25: On Sunday Howard Dean, former DNC chair, appeared on Fox News parroting the talking point: It was Fox News’ fault, and they’re “absolutely racist” too. When asked by the fox host Chris Wallace if he knew that Fox didn’t even report the story until after she was fired, he just pressed further, calling people racist.
 
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Posted in Politics, Reason

 

Jello is Racist, Part 1

25 Jul
Photo of racist jello

A sample photo of the racist dessert.

The NAACP, the Obama administration and former DNC chair Howard Dean “wholeheartedly condemned” gelatinous desserts today*. The NAACP issued a statement calling on “Jello and Jello-salads everywhere to condemn the racist elements within Jello.”

Obama’s press secretary issued a statement that read in part, “We will not be bamboozled by Jello in this silly season of politics. All gelatinous foods have been removed from the congressional cafeteria since several Democratic congressmen clearly heard racist remarks spoken by Jello in recent weeks.”

Jello is “absolutely racist,” former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean charged on Sunday. “Not one gelatin-based dessert has apologized to me or the congressmen whose feelings were hurt, nor did they apologize for the video shown regarding the Shirley Sherrod controversy. And I’ve been listening to a lot of Jello lately. We’ve got to stop being afraid of Jello!”

The rest of the story tomorrow.

* This piece is entirely satirical. If there’s something about Jello that actually is offensive, I’m not aware of it, and you should probably get over it.
 
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Posted in Politics

 

Ayn Rand Part 1: Ayn Rand, John Piper and Christian Objectivist Love

23 Jul

This is Part 1 of a 1956 Ayn Rand interview with Mike Wallace. This was, according to the Youtube video description, her first television interview.

I watched it for the first time today, and would be interested in your thoughts.

Below are some excerpts from the end of this video and related thoughts.

YouTube Preview Image

Wallace: What’s wrong with loving your fellow man? Christ, every important moral leader in human history has taught us that we should love one another. Why then is this kind of love in your mind immoral?

Rand: It is immoral if it is a love placed above one’s self. It is more than immoral, it’s impossible.  Because when you are asked to love people indiscriminately, that is to love people without any standard, to love them regardless of the fact of whether they have any value or virtue, you are asked to love nobody.

Wallace: … isn’t the essence of love that it’s above self-interest?

Rand: Well, let me make it complete for you. What would it mean to have love above self-interest? It would mean, for instance, for a husband to tell his wife if he were moral, according to conventional morality that “I am marrying you just for your own sake. I have no personal interest in it, but I am so unselfish that I’m marrying you only for your own good.” Would a woman like that? … In love, the currency is virtue. You love people not ofr what you do for them or what they do for you. We love them for their values, their virtues which they have achieved in their own character. You don’t love causes. you don’t love everybody indiscriminately. You love only those who deserve it…

Wallace: … There are very few of us then, in this world, by your standards, who are worthy of love.

Rand: Unfortunately, yes. Very few. But it is open for everybody to make themselves worthy of it, and that is all that my morality offers them: A way to make themselves worthy of love, although that is not the primary motive.

But Rand’s illustration of a husband and wife does make sense. At minimum, many types – perhaps the strongest types of love are not devoid of self-interest. You’d be dead inside if you got nothing out of your love for a spouse, or a child. Per Rand, love isn’t love if you get nothing out of it.

This objectivist view of love stands in total opposition to the current political moves that declare love means each of us should make sacrifices of ourselves for “the common good,” even when we get nothing out of it. We are to be completely devoid of self-interest.

Is this love? Can love ever be devoid of self-interest?

My initial reaction is opposed to the objectivist idea – what about the good Samaritan? What about loving your neighbor as you love yourself? If people have to make themselves worthy of love, how can we love children? What about a child born with Down’s Syndrome? What about an elderly person with Alzheimer disease? This has always left me wondering if any form of objectivism can be merged with a Christian worldview*. Perhaps the answer is in the order of Jesus’ commands: Love God, and love your neighbor. Perhaps loving our neighbors is not the purpose in itself, but we love them because we love God. Loving strangers is, then, be part of loving  God.

But what about loving God? Is our love for God devoid of self-interest, or do you get something out of our love for God as we do from loving your spouse?

Question 1 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:

Q. 1. What is the chief end of man?
A. Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever.

This basic statement of the purpose of humankind declares we are purposed to get something from God – our own enjoyment.

John Piper builds off this in what he calls “Christian hedonism,” in his book Desiring God: Meditations of a Christian Hedonist, and through his ministry.

Piper seems to agree with Ayn Rand! About Love for God, Piper writes:

Hebrews 11:6 teaches, “Without faith it is impossible to please [God]. For whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” You cannot please God if you do not come to him looking for reward. Therefore, faith that pleases God is the hedonistic pursuit of God.

Ok, what about loving our enemies? While we are to expect nothing earthly in return, Piper writes that “we are given strength to suffer loss by the promise of a future reward.”

Throughout the Bible we are in fact commanded to store up for ourselves treasures in heaven. To seek God who will give us the desires of our heart – who rewards those who seek him.

Ayn Rand’s view actually aligns with the biblical idea of following God, loving our neighbors and even loving our enemies. The politics of socialism do not.

* Ayn Rand does state in this interview that she is opposed to the Judeo-Christian traditions and opposed to churches, but that doesn’t mean that everything she thinks is wrong or that everything she thinks is incompatible with Christianity. While I haven’t studied Rand at lengths, she believes that reality is objective, and our moral guide is to use reason. If objective reality is Christianity – if biblical Christianity has the most reliable truth-claims and is the most reasonable view of reality, then Christianity and objectivism could work together.

 
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Posted in Culture, Politics, Reason, Spirituality

 

Popular Mechanics: “Green” Consumers more likely to lie and steal

22 Jul

Summarizing a March 2010 study, “Do Green Products Make Us Better People,” by Psychological Science, the August 2010 issue of Popular Science writes:

It turns out that just being exposed to green products-seeing a TV commercial or walking by an organic store-creates a “halo effect” that makes people more charitable and trusting. But actually buying green products was like ghetting a license for hypocrisy: After a purchase, the green consumers were more likely to lie and steal.

First, a practical tip: if you ever find yourself talking to people on the street, hang out near an organic store, but don’t bother talking to the people who actually shop there.

Perhaps the reason for the connection between buying green products and immorality is the exaltation of treating the environment as holier than humans. Ie, doing a good for the planet outweighs doing a good for a person. This way a person feels they stockpile righteousness to cover their sins against other people.

This certainly is the pattern. Evironmentalism is often linked to immorality toward people. Due to a junk-science film wrongly saying DDT could be bad for the environment, we’ve outlawed DDT and in effect killed millions of people whose lives would have been saved.

Posted from my BlackBerry.

 
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Posted in Culture, Politics

 

Obama: “My Policies That Got us Out of This Mess” Part 1

16 Jul

:Edit:
Just a quick note: The article has been removed from all archives of the Associated Press and all of Google’s records by The Ministry of Truth. Perhaps this retroactive censoring of news from 1984deserves it’s own post.  (8/17/10 Second Jon)

President Barack Obama said in an NBC interview that the 2010 elections are “a choice between the policies that got us into this mess and my policies that got us out of this mess.”

Good news everyone, Obama’s policies “got us out of this mess”!

I’ve previously written about how the unemployment rate stayed low until Speaker Nancy Pelosi, then-Senator Barack Obama, and others in the Democrat party were running the legislature. Then unemployment skyrocketed.

But that started when Obama was just in the party writing the laws. Let’s look at some information about the impact of his major economic policy accomplishment: The stimulus.

Obama's stimulus and Americans who have left the workforce

Obama's stimulus and Americans who have left the workforce

From Ed Morrissey’s July 10 article, this chart represents “the gross numbers of able-bodied workers outside the workforce and no longer looking for jobs.  The red star indicated when Barack Obama’s stimulus was passed, and we can see the effects or lack thereof on the workforce afterward.  Not only has the unemployment rate gone up and the number of jobs continued to drop since February 2009, Americans are increasingly leaving the workforce instead of joining it.”

There you have it – we’re out of the mess. We can thank Obama’s policies for nearly doubling the amount of Americans who have left the workforce.

 
7 Comments

Posted in Politics

 
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