NOVATOWNHALL

What do Bush, Clinton, Reagan, Hitler, Stalin, Ghengis Kahn, Lenin, Pol Pot, Amin, and Tut all have in common? They all are under the rule of the same King that raises up and brings low all nations.

God raised up and brought low Nebudchadnezzar … who slaughtered the people of God deported them and scattered the rest. He ruled over Pharoah, when Moses was born and had ordered all males of Israel to be killed at birth. He ruled over the towns of Sodom and brought Lot out in mercy. He rules over the heart of Obama. There is no sub-atomic particle in the universe that God does not ordain. He was not caught off guard, he was not confounded. His plan is still unfolding as he planned it.

That plan may be to bring low this country, and those who serve him might have to be Daniel in a foreign land. But those that are faithful may see the rising of this kingdom, the fall of it, the rise of the next (arms of silver), and its fall, the rise of yet another (thighs of bronze) and fall and then the rise of yet another (legs of iron). It is impossible to say what the future will hold … other than it will be accomplished according to the plan God ordained.

Listen here.

First, I want to say that Islam is nowhere near homogeneous. There are modern Muslims that look at Islam in much the same way that nominal mainstream churches look at Christianity … it is viewed not as all encompassing, and they reject the idea that the Koran is anything more than just the writings of men without any infallible truth. I would posit that is a minority position at this point. There are others on the opposite extreme who would just as soon slit your throat if you were not a Muslim as look at you. There other others in between. If only 5% of Muslims are of the “slit your throat” variety, that means there are millions of people out there willing to slit your throat.

Educate yourself about those that do intend you harm … make sure you understand them. They are here (i.e., this country). Radical Islam is not a “nice neighbor” but an inflitration of those who would undermine our constitution. Radical Islam does not accept any religion as tolerable. In the long run, they will even not tolerate themselves (any faction different in even the smallest way from “their own”).

I highly recommend you look at what is the practice of jihad by these countries. TryThe Third Jihad as a start. Look at what Islam teaches its children. Here, teaching children to hate and desire being a martyr would be called child abuse. While I believe there are Muslims that are just as secular as any mainline church member, I know there are others that would want to lull us into thinking all Muslims are peaceful.

Carried over from this morning’s post: Boy, this topic just riles EVERYONE up.

I still think it’s a strange verbal slip. And note that Stephanopoulos had to correct Obama when he said “my Muslim faith.”

Some of you disagree with my contention it is significant: Ok. That’s why I contribute to this blog, so I can write stuff and get yelled at for it.

You can read the transcript of that exchange here. Obama was not talking about his faith - he was talking about smear campaigns and saying he did not think McCain was behind accusations that Barack Obama is a Muslim.

For the record, I do not think Barack Obama is a secret Muslim. But I think he has the practice of Islam, to some degree, in his past.

So let’s shift the discussion to what might be a more interesting aspect of the controversy.

“My faith” is one of those phrases I would think it hard to muff. How many “faiths” do you have? It’s not like mixing up your brown shoes and black shoes. Actually, this is more analogous to mixing up your brown shoes with someone else’s black shoes. “MY” faith is personal and unique. So I don’t see how you end up attributing a foreign faith to yourself. Unless, of course, you’re talking about something you had in the past.

But this is just supposition. Let’s look at some facts, all from the mainstream media:

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s a strange verbal slip to make, isn’t it?

What I mean is, if you are talking about your “faith” giving it the wrong name does not exactly roll off the tongue.

Like for instance this afternoon, even if I was dog tired, I cannot imagine myself saying “I am psyched to see the Redskins win today.” It ain’t gonna ever come from my mouth because it is part of the core of my being that the Cowboys are supposed to triumph over the Redskins.

So how does someone accidentally label their faith wrongly?

UPDATE: This has brought up some new, possibly better, discussion items. See the new post at the top of the page.

HA! My wife notes what I very guiltily must admit is a pet peeve of mine.

And having a pet peeve about how people pray tells you everything you need to know about ol’ Joe’s temperament and wretched spiritual state.

That may as well have been the title for this article by Susan Jacoby.

[Lack] of education correlates both with poverty and with simplistic types of faith. The Deep South is still the most religious area of the country, and it is still the area of the country with the poorest education–measured by everything from high school test scores to the proportion of college graduates.

Perhaps we should not ask why the poor turn to religion — after all, most we brought up in the faith.  No, we should ask why those with an “education” (i.e., schooling) turn away from the religion in which they were raised.  The Bible answers this question, too: hubris.  They think they got where they are by their own merits, not by the Grace of God.  “Professing to be wise, they became fools.”  (Romans 1:22)

“Better is the poor who walks in his integrity, than one who is perverse in his lips, and is a fool. “  (Proverbs 9:1)

“Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.” (Proverbs 26:12) 

“Never let your schooling interfere with your education.” –Mark Twain

Sometimes, bad is just bad. Shooting up a church, for instance. Anyone arguing there is a political angle on this which should be taken seriously is missing the forest for the trees.

Politicizing evil, in the grand scheme of things, diminishes it. Nobody even mildly respectable from the left or right would even stoop to argue the righteousness of murder - in a church no less.

David Waters makes the case well in the Post:

Obviously, there was a lot more going on inside the Knoxville shooter’s head, heart and soul than hatred of liberals. Police said his ex-wife once was a member of that church, that he was having trouble finding a job, and that his food stamps had been cut.

Angry, hateful and deranged people kill Amish school girls and Virginia college students and shoppers at a Nebraska mall. They kill Christians, Jews and Muslims, atheists and humanists, conservative and liberals, Republicans and Democrats, unitarians and trinitarians.

But there’s a whole lotta ugly out there, coming at us from a never-ending parade of stupid. It doesn’t need any encouragement.

“Encouragement” in my view consists in redefining deviancy as politics, which even the intelligent among us are prone to do. Blaming this blog for a shooting in Tennessee, for instance. It just goes to show how twisted people’s perceptions can get.

This is way too cool.

More Here.

Someone let me know if you can find where to order the CD.

The liberals are screwing up the country and things look very bleek on the horizon.  Things are going black and I thought of the Amish (isn’t this considered natural progression of thought?)  I was looking at the similarities between the two and was astounded.  Let me give you some examples.

The Amish immigrated from Switzeland to Pennsylvania because of intense persecution.

Liberals migrated to the cities for the same reason and to avoid recognition.

The Amish are high on humility and reject pride, arrogance and haughtiness.

Liberals do the same-only backwards!

Amish minimize contact with the outside world to avoid corruption.  Basically work from home.

Liberals work from home and avoid contact with conservatives so that they may make contact with the outside world with the purpose to corrupt.

The Amish shun their own when they do not become members of the church.

Liberals shun their own because they want to and can.

Amish believe in large families and consider themselves accountable to the Lord for the spritual welfare of their children.

Liberals like large families also because it adds to the tax base.  They feel accountable (as well as social services) for the overall welfare of YOUR children.

The Amish minimize the needs and ownership of modern technologies except for emergencies.  This way they are not being held hostage by technologies nor is there the opportunity to “out do” your neighbor.

Liberals are always trying to out do their neighbors and would love to throw us all back into the stone-age.  Except when they consider something as an emergency.  Then they will take action as long as they can blame it on someone else.

Some communities  of Amish allow internet usage if it is for the operation of a business.

One liberal invented the internet while another liberal doesn’t know anything about it.  Sorry John!  All liberals are still trying to figure out how to TAX it!

Amish are into plain dress and use suspenders because they don’t allow belts.

Liberals take everything away so that they live lavishly and you are looking for something to hold your pants up with.

Amish are a small population and usually only marry within the community.  This confined strain allows for disease and malformity because of a lack of greater gene pool.

Liberals are inbred but not for the same reasons. 

The Amish self school within the community and the schooling usually doesn’t go past the 8th grade.  Although their standards are higher and you get a better education, no more is necessary to do the work as is the Amish lifestyle.

Liberals act as if they know everything but in reality, an 8th grade education would be a blessing just so that you could have some form of cognisant dialog with the morons!

Amish are nonresistant.  They rarely if ever defend themselves and allow bodily harm and abuse from others.

Liberals are nonresistant and will run away after giving up everything to avoid bodily harm and abuse.

“Contrary to popular belief, some of the Amish vote, and they have been courted by national parties as potentially  swing voters: their pacifism and social conscience cause some of them to be drawn to left-of-center politics, while their generally conservative outlook causes others to favor the right wing”

Liberals are confused also.  They mostly just like to swing!

I found those similarities to be fascinating.  You know and I know that the Amish would never fess up to the liberal sect or order.  The Amish are all about community whereas liberals are all about the collective-like the Borg.  Everyone equal.  No Amish will be reading this as it is something contrary to their beliefs but just to cover my bases I want to apologize for possibly defaming the name of the Amish by associating them to liberals.  I’m on your side, guys.  All you want is to be left alone and the same goes for conservative Americans.  Hey!  Maybe I should do a sequel on the likeness to conservatives!
 

In the communist Post today was a story about faith based drugstores starting to crop up around the states.  One will actually be opening soon in Chantilly.  This is nothing more that an alternative to your society stores that also carry the profanity magazines as well “other” sexual aids.  Here in part is the article.

“The United States was founded on the idea that people act on their conscience-that they have a sense of right and wrong and do what they think is right and moral” said Tom Brejcha, president and chief counsel at the Thomas More Society, a Chicago public interest law firm that was fined and reprimanded for refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control pills.  “Every pharmicist has the right to do the same thing,” Brejcha said.

But critics say the stores could create dangerous obstacles for women seeking legal, safe and widely used birth control methods.  “I’m very, very troubled by this,” said Marcia Greenberger of the National Women’s Law Center, a Washington advocacy group.  “Contraception is essential for women’s health.  A pharmacy like this is walling off an essential part of health care.  That could endanger women’s health.”

Say WHAT?  This is liberal speak for ” we got to ban guns because they are a public health risk.”  Yeh, I get it.  Here’s more.

Some pro-life pharmicies are identical to typical drugstores except that they do  not stock some or all forms of contraception.  Others also refuse to sell tobacco, rolling papers or pornography.

Some critics question how such pharmicies justify carrying drugs, such as Viagra, for male reproduction issues, but not those for women.  “Why do you care about the sexual health of men but not women?” asked Anita L. Nelson, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA.  “If he gets his Viagra, why can’t she get her contraception?”

Viagra is a contraceptive?  Oh, please tell me it’s not soooooo!

“in general, I think product differentiation expressive of differing value is a very good thing for a free, pluralistic society,” said Loren E. Lomasky, a bioethicist at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville.  “If we can have 20 different brands of toothpaste, why not a few different conception of how pharmicies ought to operate?”

Others maintain that pharmicists, like other professionals, have a responsibility to put their patients’ needs ahead of their of their personal beliefs.  “If you are a health care professional, you are bound by professional obligations,” said Nancy Berlinger, deputy director of the Hastins Center, a bioethics think tank in Garrison, N.Y.  “You can’t say you won’t do part of that profession.”

Excuse me?  You mean that anyone that takes the hippocratic oathe should violate the oathe and their own beliefs so that you could, say, have an abortion because it is legal to do so?

What is being said from the opposition is that they want it their way.  How dare we try to have any morals or seek to cater to a specific group.  Get this:

Critics also worry that women might unsuspectingly seek contraceptives at such a store and be humiliated, or that women NEEDING the morning-after pill, which is most effective when used quickly, may waste PRECIOUS time.  “Rape victims could end up in a pharmacy not understanding this pharmacy will not meet their needs,” Greenberger said.  STOP!  What is a rape victim doing in a pharmacy?  They should be at the hospital or police station.  Rape is a crime-not a wound in need of some antiseptic and a band-aid! Continue.  “ We’ve seen an alarming developement of pharmicists over the last several years refusing to fill precriptions…”  (What kind of prescriptions would that be?)

You get the gist.  Now let the fun begin.  I say if you’re Chik-filet and you don’t want to do business on Sunday for religious reasons then GOD bless you!

…how many  legs does a dog have?

Four.  You can call a tail a leg, but that does not make it a leg.

Barack Obama may call himself a Christian, but that does not make him one.

This article by Cal Thomas questions Obama’s belief in the core belief in Christianity:

Mr. Obama can call himself anything he likes, but there is a clear requirement for one to qualify as a Christian and Mr. Obama doesn’t meet that requirement. One cannot deny central tenets of the Christian faith, including the deity and uniqueness of Christ as the sole mediator between God and man and be a Christian. Such people do have a label applied to them in Scripture. They are called “false prophets.”

Be that as it may, what is perhaps more interesting to me is this:

Mr. Obama’s campaign for the conservative Christian vote, which has largely gone to the Republican presidential candidate in recent elections, has been dubbed the “Joshua Generation Project.” Joshua, Moses’ successor, led the Israelites into the Promised Land.

Joshua did more than that.  He led, at God’s command, the nearly complete destruction of everything and everyone in the Promised Land.  “They devoted the city [Jericho] to the LORD and destroyed with the sword every living thing in it—men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.”  (Joshua 6:21)  “When Israel had finished killing all the men of Ai in the fields and in the desert where they had chased them, and when every one of them had been put to the sword, all the Israelites returned to Ai and killed those who were in it.  Twelve thousand men and women fell that day—all the people of Ai.  For Joshua did not draw back the hand that held out his javelin until he had destroyed all who lived in Ai.”  (Joshua 8:24-26)

Only Gibeon was spared, because the Gibeonite messengers tricked Joshua into a treaty by telling him their city was far away.  As for the rest:

 28 That day Joshua took Makkedah. He put the city and its king to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it. He left no survivors. And he did to the king of Makkedah as he had done to the king of Jericho.

29Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Makkedah to Libnah and attacked it. 30 The LORD also gave that city and its king into Israel’s hand. The city and everyone in it Joshua put to the sword. He left no survivors there. And he did to its king as he had done to the king of Jericho.

 31Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Libnah to Lachish; he took up positions against it and attacked it. 32The LORD handed Lachish over to Israel, and Joshua took it on the second day. The city and everyone in it he put to the sword, just as he had done to Libnah. 33Meanwhile, Horam king of Gezer had come up to help Lachish, but Joshua defeated him and his army—until no survivors were left.

 34Then Joshua and all Israel with him moved on from Lachish to Eglon; they took up positions against it and attacked it. 35They captured it that same day and put it to the sword and totally destroyed everyone in it, just as they had done to Lachish.

 36Then Joshua and all Israel with him went up from Eglon to Hebron and attacked it. 37They took the city and put it to the sword, together with its king, its villages and everyone in it. They left no survivors. Just as at Eglon, they totally destroyed it and everyone in it.

 38Then Joshua and all Israel with him turned around and attacked Debir. 39They took the city, its king and its villages, and put them to the sword. Everyone in it they totally destroyed. They left no survivors. They did to Debir and its king as they had done to Libnah and its king and to Hebron.

 40 So Joshua subdued the whole region, including the hill country, the Negev, the western foothills and the mountain slopes, together with all their kings. He left no survivors. He totally destroyed all who breathed, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had commanded. 41Joshua subdued them from Kadesh Barnea to Gaza and from the whole region of Goshen to Gibeon. 42 All these kings and their lands Joshua conquered in one campaign, because the LORD, the God of Israel, fought for Israel.

(Joshua 10)

Is this what Obama wants for those who do not follow him?

Important new article in TNR: Al Qaeda’s days may be numbered.

This is the question the parents and community around St. James Catholic School in Falls Church are presently dealing with. There is a petition among local residents who want to stop the Hilton from developing this project.

Someone with an interest in the issue e-mailed me with the following:

The parents are concerned that with the development being built so close, during the initial construction phase, it’s going to be very loud and disruptive for the kids in class, and potentially there’s going to be a lot of dust and other stuff that could affect air quality in the immediate area.

On a long-term basis, they’re concerned about increased traffic around the school (with all the attendant risks to pedestrians), and the possibility of the hotel attracting prostitution and drugs.

Here are some recent news stories on the controversy:

Video 1 on St James Catholic School
Video 2 on St James Catholic School
Video 3 on St James Catholic School

More news stories and the petition at Too Conservative.

The situation of the polygamist Mormons in Texas in disgusting.  This is religious persecution, pure and simple.  The Washington Compost reports that the anonymous call that precipitated the raid was a hoax.  It is for precisely this reason that an anonymous call is not sufficient justification for a search and seizure.  Having found no evidence of abuse, the state “will say that the culture of the church, which encouraged girls to marry and bear children in their early teens, was a danger to any child immersed in it.” 

Such a theory is ridiculous.  It seems to me that encouraging people to delay marriage, contrary to the God-given sex drive which comes in one’s early teens, and teaching the “safe sex” lie rather than celibacy outside of marriage, which is the standard liberal line, is far more of a danger to children.  Despite condoms and other means of protection, pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases are still a threat to teenagers who have sex.  (Abortion is not risk-free to the mother — to the child, of course, it is fatal.  Having a baby out of wedlock is a ticket to poverty for mother and child.)  But if women only have sex with their husbands, and husbands only have sex with their wives, there are no such dangers. 

Young marriages, and arranged marriages, have been the norm around the world for a very long time.  Only now, in our Western culture, is it considered bad.  There’s that cultural arrogance that the liberals are so fond of point out.  Where is the vaunted liberal tolerance when it comes to religious conservatives?  Oh, yes, that is reserved for those religious conservatives who hate America and are not White.

Oddly enough, even Texas Law allows young teens to get married.  If it is allowed by state law, how can the state argue that it is a danger?  The worst possible prosecution for an actual crime might be that they did not get a marriage licenses — which is only a misdemeanor.

But here is the crux of the state’s dilemma: it must argue that minors’ getting married is harmful enough that it must be controlled by the state, but minors’ having sex outside of marriage is not.

If you think that the propaganda espoused by the homosexual community saying they don’t want to impose their views on others, read this.
The idea that a person cannot have a constitutionally protected right to freedom of religion in the face of this “right” to freedom of behavior is just plain outrageous. Telling someone they cannot determine they don’t want to do something which violates their religious convictions (by aiding someone to do what they consider immoral) is violating their 1st amendment rights. Forcing people to do what they consider wrong. I would protest someone telling a member of PETA to do a commercial for a butcher, even though they don’t have any religious beliefs on the line. If the Huguenins don’t want to do business with someone, they should have that right regardless of the reason. Someone doesn’t want to do business with anyone that should be their choice. Any business should be able to set their own moral standards and should not be forced to violate those standards. Not in this country. Next thing these people will want is to become the pastors of churches … oops, already been there.