Update on that last post. The Arizona Daily Star published an article on 9-17-09 in regards to several comments made by the Arizona Governor Jan Brewer. In it she is quoted as saying that "God has placed me in this powerful position as Arizona's governor". In addition she detailed to the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, "As with past challenges, tragedies or problems that I've had to confront, I first and foremost relied on my faith to guide me through, for I believe in the power of prayer," she said. "And I firmly believe that God has placed me in this powerful position of Arizona's governor to help guide our state through the difficulty that we are currently facing." "And that has caused me, of course, to be grateful that we are a country of Christianity," she said.
"I don't think under the circumstances that anybody's in the position of living at this turbulent time, these terrible, critical times of our nation, can possibly get through without asking for help and guidance from Jesus Christ and from God," the governor told the ministers.
"For those of us who have lived it and practiced it, we just know that,"
Mandate from god? Guidance from Jesus Christ? The hijackers of 911 had a mandate from god. The Crusaders of the middle ages had a mandate from god. Even Hitler felt he had a mandate from god. Even our beloved President, George W. Bush, who told the French President Jacques Chirac “Gog and Magog are at work in the Middle East.... The biblical prophecies are being fulfilled.... This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people’s enemies before a New Age begins.” How much blood must be split as a result from a mandate from god?
Most mainstream Christians believe that we are living in the "end times". These end times they are referring to directly relate to an interpretation of The Book of Revelation. In it it details the end of the world as we know it in a great battle between good and evil, the outcome of which will be a 1000 years of peace with Christ as master. In addition all Christians ascend to heaven and to eternal paradise before this war takes place, leaving the rest of humanity to eternal suffering. Truly, why on earth would you want to not bring about your progress to eternal paradise? According to modern biblical scholars, the end times will start with a nuclear war in the middle east and spread through out the world. In addition, this new form of Christianity, the one you see in the "Family" In Washington D.C. and in the Az Center for Policy, believe that the United States is that Kingdom of Christ.
Lets recap, shall we? These people believe that they have a mandate from god to bring about a nuclear war and make the United States a religions dictatorship? Far fetched?
A recent poll showed that Fully 59% of Americans say they believe the events in Revelation are going to come true. This includes Our Governor Brewer, Ex Presidents Bush, and Senators and Congressmen too numerous to post here.
You know, just before my Grandmother died we got a chance to sit and talk about her life. About how she saw her country ripped away from her, first by the Nazis, then by the Communists. She saw her friends and family hung publicly for treason. Family whisked away in the dead of night, taken to concentrations camps never to be see again. She told me after watching the news one night, "you don't know how quickly it happens, one day you just wake up, and everything, it is gone. Be careful".
Friday, September 18, 2009
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
I recently had the opportunity to view the Center for Arizona’s Policy you tube video titled “Standing with Arizona Policy”. For those of you that don’t know, The Center for Arizona Policy is a very powerful Christian lobbying group in Arizona that skirts the rules for 501(c)3 organizations with great skill. They were recently responsible for the passing of House Bill 2564 and Senate Bill 1175, effectively tightening abortion laws. This post is a rebuttal to some of the more, provocative statements in this video.
The video can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDe_WBLp78I&feature=player_embedded
What follows are timestamps and quotes from the above video.
0:25 “Awake and Arise”
Keywords used to link to the organization Awake and Arise. This organization follows the teachings of the “Prophet” Patriot Ezra Taft Benson. Also a reference to “Awake Arizona”, A conference recently held in Mesa by the group “Bridge Builders” Cindy Jacobs who ran the conference, bills herself as ''Prophetess to the nations.'', co-founder of Generals International an organization devoted to training in prayer and spiritual warfare. She has written several book the most popular of which is "Possessing the Gates", on Militant intersession. Vocally anti gay and is quoted name checking Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. “We’re not going to give Satan any rest,” she cried. “We’re not going to give city councils any rest. We’re not going to give legislatures any rest.”
0:39 “ How threatened our religious freedoms is in our nation today and in our state”
Exactly whose religious freedoms are we talking about here? The Constitution and Bill of rights of the United States of America very clearly protects everyone’s religious beliefs. I suspect that what they are talking about here is there “right” to impose their dogmatic religion on the rest of us. I challenge them to show me one example of how their religious “rights” have been infringed upon. Can you say the same for the Islamic population of Arizona?
0:47 “”We are trying to protect religious freedom in courts. But also pass legislation that pro actively preserves our rights”
Once again their rights, as all of ours, are already protected in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. This is a classic example of the use of buzz words. They are intentionally using phrases like “protect religious freedom” and “preserves our rights “, in order to gain a reaction. Not only is it misleading, but it is false. It was used here to get a knee jerk reaction from fellow Christians.
1:06 “As long as there are differences of opinion we will always have somebody bringing something that is anti family to the legislature”
Differences of opinion lead to anti family? Let’s clarify; differing from their opinion will always lead to anti family laws being passed. Scare tactics.
1:19 “We virtually look at every bill that’s been introduced in the legislature to see if this is going to impact our families, is this going to impact our religious freedom”
Again they are using the phrase “religious freedom” as if Christianity in this country is somehow threatened. And once again I need to point out that their rights are already protected. So if they are not taking about rights what are they talking about? They have demonstrated that they wish to pass legislation that reinforces their dogma, with no regard to any other belief system. They don’t want religious freedom; they want to change the law in this country so that we have no religious freedom, only their religion.
1:54 “What is seen at times in the legislature is the idea that parents don’t know what’s best for their children”
2:38 “We work to make sure that home schools and private schools wont be regulated”
So, no school standards? No standards for homeschooling? No, sure they want standards, their standards. I suspect that this is a result of the science vs. religion debate. The United States ranks 29th out of the 47th most industrialized nations in the world when it comes to science education by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It measures student literacy in science, math, and reading (focusing this year on science) among 15-year-olds, and is an often-cited reference for policymakers sounding the alarm bells about the state of education in the United States and its implications for the ability of Americans to secure jobs in a global economy.
2:43 “Parents have the right to opt their children out of school activities that are offensive to their religious or moral beliefs”
Let’s make no mistake; they are referring to the Evolution/ Creation debate happening in schools right now. Evolution is science, creationism is religion. I have no problem teaching creationism in a religious studies class; please keep it out of science classrooms. You don’t teach astrology in science do you? Do you teach geology in theology? Accepting the world as the evidence shows us, even if conflicts with their scripture are rational and sane.
3:09 Abortion
I won’t go into the ethics’ of abortion here. Instead let’s look at some legislature that this group just had pass in our state government. The House Bill 2564 and Senate Bill 1175, create a 24-hour waiting period to get an abortion, require physicians to perform the procedure, and require that parents provide notarized consent for their minor children to get abortions. All right, but it also states that pharmacists and other health-care professionals can refuse to provide contraception. What? It is a focus of this group to promote abstinence-only education instead of traditional sex education among teens. No less than three studies in the past five years were done to determine the effectiveness of abstinence in teens. All the studies showed that those taking the virginity pledge engaged in intercourse just as often as those who did not take the pledge . Pledge takers also were found to be less frequent users of condoms and other forms of birth control. Therefore, those youngsters who took the virginity pledge were not only just as likely to have intercourse; they ultimately were more likely to take part in sex in an unsafe manner.
5:00 Marriage-“The goal of our opponents- is to so redefine marriage as to marriage means nothing”
Lets see, The United States leads the world in divorce, with 4.95 per 1,000 people divorcing. There is no evidence that gay marriage has any different divorce rates than straight divorces. The law in this country has already reduced the religious concept of marriage to effectively a civil union, protecting the rights of both parties. It has taken it out of the hands of religion. The argument that allowing gay marriage will reduce their concept of marriage to mean nothing is absurd. It already means nothing according to the statistics. Perhaps they need to look at why the divorce rate is so high in a purely straight population.
6:23 “one man married to one woman is absolutely crucial. We see the effects when you don’t have that in society, we see it in the jails every day”
What the hell is this? I’m not sure what they mean here. Perhaps they are trying to say that homosexuality leads to more crime in our societies? There are no very compelling statistics here, but it is fairly clear that this is an inflammatory comment targeting fear.
7:00 “The truth Project” -“To help us think more critically”
Focus on the Family has launched "The Truth Project," a curriculum designed to reintroduce Christians to a biblical worldview of science, law, and other fields of knowledge. Even other Christian groups have attacked the Truth Project as a mis use of scripture. If anything the, last chapter, on science, shows such a lack of BASIC understanding of science that it is hard not to laugh out loud at some of their assumptions. The largest hole in their approach is that all they say is evolution is wrong. Not so much why creation is right. Not to mention, they never give scientific proof for their reasons.
http://www.planetisaac.com/2009/04/truth-project-science-critique.html
http://hopwoodhopper.blogspot.com/2009/01/wariness-of-truth-project.html
http://mrhackman.blogspot.com/2007/09/truth-project-part-1.html
7:48 “In all these areas and many others we see a great conflict between good and evil and if Christians do not rally to support and encourage those who are trying to bring an influence for good in civil government they leave a vacuum and the influence that is contrary to the standards scripture, and contrary to the purposes of God in the world, and contrary to the advancement of the gospel, that influence is going to become stronger and stronger.”
Ah there it is the truth. To them this is a war between good and evil. Let’s take a look at some of their goals as stated in this last bit.
They wish to conform government to the “standards of the scriptures”. I’m sorry but do we really need a law that puts those of us to death that works on the Sabbath? (Exodus 35:2) Or perhaps destroy everyone in Iraq? (Deuteronomy 7:1-2) or reinstitute slavery? (Ephesians 2:18). The Old Testament clearly gives a mandate for these and other atrocities. They have stated repeatedly that they believe in the bible as the “infallible” word of god.
They want to conform the government to the purposes of God. Who’s god again? And who exactly speaks for God? The Prophetess Cindy Jacobs? The same woman who held a prayer vigil at the stature of the bull on Wall Street to bring her wealth?
Advance the gospel in Government. Again, to what end?
In this video one can find endorsements from Az Representatives Kirk Adams and Steve Yarbrough, State senator Linda Grey, US Congressman Trent Franks, and US Senator Jon Kyl.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights of these United States are very clear about this.
Thomas Jefferson wrote “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
And John Adams wrote and codified into law within the Treaty of Tripoly "The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
I am deeply offended and disgusted by this not just from an intellectual viewpoint but from a moral one as well. It seems to me that this was designed as a scare tactic directed toward Christian moderates. Not only is it rife with inaccuracies, it is filled with sensational buzzwords and is intentionally misleading. This is the worse form of propaganda, trying to manipulate through fear.
If you will, remove the religion from the argument for a moment. Pretend that they are purely a secular organization trying to change policy. What are we left with? One could argue, a radical group that wants to dismantle the Constitution and replace it with their form of a fascist state. Why would that be tolerated in our society? It would not, and yet moderate Christians do almost nothing to prevent this insanity.
This isn’t an argument over the existence of god or even of religion; this is one group trying to impose their dogma on the rest of society with no regard for any other belief system or reality. I have to question whether society would be so tolerant if this was a secular group, or I dare say an Islamic one?
The video can be found here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDe_WBLp78I&feature=player_embedded
What follows are timestamps and quotes from the above video.
0:25 “Awake and Arise”
Keywords used to link to the organization Awake and Arise. This organization follows the teachings of the “Prophet” Patriot Ezra Taft Benson. Also a reference to “Awake Arizona”, A conference recently held in Mesa by the group “Bridge Builders” Cindy Jacobs who ran the conference, bills herself as ''Prophetess to the nations.'', co-founder of Generals International an organization devoted to training in prayer and spiritual warfare. She has written several book the most popular of which is "Possessing the Gates", on Militant intersession. Vocally anti gay and is quoted name checking Martin Luther King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. “We’re not going to give Satan any rest,” she cried. “We’re not going to give city councils any rest. We’re not going to give legislatures any rest.”
0:39 “ How threatened our religious freedoms is in our nation today and in our state”
Exactly whose religious freedoms are we talking about here? The Constitution and Bill of rights of the United States of America very clearly protects everyone’s religious beliefs. I suspect that what they are talking about here is there “right” to impose their dogmatic religion on the rest of us. I challenge them to show me one example of how their religious “rights” have been infringed upon. Can you say the same for the Islamic population of Arizona?
0:47 “”We are trying to protect religious freedom in courts. But also pass legislation that pro actively preserves our rights”
Once again their rights, as all of ours, are already protected in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. This is a classic example of the use of buzz words. They are intentionally using phrases like “protect religious freedom” and “preserves our rights “, in order to gain a reaction. Not only is it misleading, but it is false. It was used here to get a knee jerk reaction from fellow Christians.
1:06 “As long as there are differences of opinion we will always have somebody bringing something that is anti family to the legislature”
Differences of opinion lead to anti family? Let’s clarify; differing from their opinion will always lead to anti family laws being passed. Scare tactics.
1:19 “We virtually look at every bill that’s been introduced in the legislature to see if this is going to impact our families, is this going to impact our religious freedom”
Again they are using the phrase “religious freedom” as if Christianity in this country is somehow threatened. And once again I need to point out that their rights are already protected. So if they are not taking about rights what are they talking about? They have demonstrated that they wish to pass legislation that reinforces their dogma, with no regard to any other belief system. They don’t want religious freedom; they want to change the law in this country so that we have no religious freedom, only their religion.
1:54 “What is seen at times in the legislature is the idea that parents don’t know what’s best for their children”
2:38 “We work to make sure that home schools and private schools wont be regulated”
So, no school standards? No standards for homeschooling? No, sure they want standards, their standards. I suspect that this is a result of the science vs. religion debate. The United States ranks 29th out of the 47th most industrialized nations in the world when it comes to science education by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). It measures student literacy in science, math, and reading (focusing this year on science) among 15-year-olds, and is an often-cited reference for policymakers sounding the alarm bells about the state of education in the United States and its implications for the ability of Americans to secure jobs in a global economy.
2:43 “Parents have the right to opt their children out of school activities that are offensive to their religious or moral beliefs”
Let’s make no mistake; they are referring to the Evolution/ Creation debate happening in schools right now. Evolution is science, creationism is religion. I have no problem teaching creationism in a religious studies class; please keep it out of science classrooms. You don’t teach astrology in science do you? Do you teach geology in theology? Accepting the world as the evidence shows us, even if conflicts with their scripture are rational and sane.
3:09 Abortion
I won’t go into the ethics’ of abortion here. Instead let’s look at some legislature that this group just had pass in our state government. The House Bill 2564 and Senate Bill 1175, create a 24-hour waiting period to get an abortion, require physicians to perform the procedure, and require that parents provide notarized consent for their minor children to get abortions. All right, but it also states that pharmacists and other health-care professionals can refuse to provide contraception. What? It is a focus of this group to promote abstinence-only education instead of traditional sex education among teens. No less than three studies in the past five years were done to determine the effectiveness of abstinence in teens. All the studies showed that those taking the virginity pledge engaged in intercourse just as often as those who did not take the pledge . Pledge takers also were found to be less frequent users of condoms and other forms of birth control. Therefore, those youngsters who took the virginity pledge were not only just as likely to have intercourse; they ultimately were more likely to take part in sex in an unsafe manner.
5:00 Marriage-“The goal of our opponents- is to so redefine marriage as to marriage means nothing”
Lets see, The United States leads the world in divorce, with 4.95 per 1,000 people divorcing. There is no evidence that gay marriage has any different divorce rates than straight divorces. The law in this country has already reduced the religious concept of marriage to effectively a civil union, protecting the rights of both parties. It has taken it out of the hands of religion. The argument that allowing gay marriage will reduce their concept of marriage to mean nothing is absurd. It already means nothing according to the statistics. Perhaps they need to look at why the divorce rate is so high in a purely straight population.
6:23 “one man married to one woman is absolutely crucial. We see the effects when you don’t have that in society, we see it in the jails every day”
What the hell is this? I’m not sure what they mean here. Perhaps they are trying to say that homosexuality leads to more crime in our societies? There are no very compelling statistics here, but it is fairly clear that this is an inflammatory comment targeting fear.
7:00 “The truth Project” -“To help us think more critically”
Focus on the Family has launched "The Truth Project," a curriculum designed to reintroduce Christians to a biblical worldview of science, law, and other fields of knowledge. Even other Christian groups have attacked the Truth Project as a mis use of scripture. If anything the, last chapter, on science, shows such a lack of BASIC understanding of science that it is hard not to laugh out loud at some of their assumptions. The largest hole in their approach is that all they say is evolution is wrong. Not so much why creation is right. Not to mention, they never give scientific proof for their reasons.
http://www.planetisaac.com/2009/04/truth-project-science-critique.html
http://hopwoodhopper.blogspot.com/2009/01/wariness-of-truth-project.html
http://mrhackman.blogspot.com/2007/09/truth-project-part-1.html
7:48 “In all these areas and many others we see a great conflict between good and evil and if Christians do not rally to support and encourage those who are trying to bring an influence for good in civil government they leave a vacuum and the influence that is contrary to the standards scripture, and contrary to the purposes of God in the world, and contrary to the advancement of the gospel, that influence is going to become stronger and stronger.”
Ah there it is the truth. To them this is a war between good and evil. Let’s take a look at some of their goals as stated in this last bit.
They wish to conform government to the “standards of the scriptures”. I’m sorry but do we really need a law that puts those of us to death that works on the Sabbath? (Exodus 35:2) Or perhaps destroy everyone in Iraq? (Deuteronomy 7:1-2) or reinstitute slavery? (Ephesians 2:18). The Old Testament clearly gives a mandate for these and other atrocities. They have stated repeatedly that they believe in the bible as the “infallible” word of god.
They want to conform the government to the purposes of God. Who’s god again? And who exactly speaks for God? The Prophetess Cindy Jacobs? The same woman who held a prayer vigil at the stature of the bull on Wall Street to bring her wealth?
Advance the gospel in Government. Again, to what end?
In this video one can find endorsements from Az Representatives Kirk Adams and Steve Yarbrough, State senator Linda Grey, US Congressman Trent Franks, and US Senator Jon Kyl.
The Constitution and Bill of Rights of these United States are very clear about this.
Thomas Jefferson wrote “Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
And John Adams wrote and codified into law within the Treaty of Tripoly "The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
I am deeply offended and disgusted by this not just from an intellectual viewpoint but from a moral one as well. It seems to me that this was designed as a scare tactic directed toward Christian moderates. Not only is it rife with inaccuracies, it is filled with sensational buzzwords and is intentionally misleading. This is the worse form of propaganda, trying to manipulate through fear.
If you will, remove the religion from the argument for a moment. Pretend that they are purely a secular organization trying to change policy. What are we left with? One could argue, a radical group that wants to dismantle the Constitution and replace it with their form of a fascist state. Why would that be tolerated in our society? It would not, and yet moderate Christians do almost nothing to prevent this insanity.
This isn’t an argument over the existence of god or even of religion; this is one group trying to impose their dogma on the rest of society with no regard for any other belief system or reality. I have to question whether society would be so tolerant if this was a secular group, or I dare say an Islamic one?
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