Does your faith need strengthening? Are you confused and wondering if Jesus Christ is really "The Way, the Truth, and the Life?" "Fight for Your Faith" is a blog filled with interesting and thought provoking articles to help you find the answers you are seeking. Jesus said, "Seek and ye shall find." In Jeremiah we read, "Ye shall seek Me, and find Me, when ye shall seek for Me with all your heart." These articles and videos will help you in your search for the Truth.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Anchored in Me!- Jesus


By Jesus, speaking in prophecy

Download Audio (9.18MB)

Regardless of the world’s economic state and financial upheaval, My promises to you are just as true as ever, and as good as money in the bank.

You take care of My business, and I’ll take care of you. It’s as simple as that. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and His righteousness; and all these things will be added unto you.”1

*

I have given you many promises of supply, and they all hold true today, just as much as they ever have. The future isn’t clear, and you don’t know where I will lead you, or through what ways and means I will supply for you. Regardless, My promises are as good as gold.

So many entrepreneurs make investments and take risks when starting business ventures without a guarantee that they will be successful. But I give you the guarantee that as you do your best to obey and follow Me, I will provide for you, prosper you, make you successful, and care for you.

*

I made the world. I made you. I know your past. I know your future. There is nothing you will encounter in life that I haven’t foreseen or that I’m incapable of handling. Life may seem random at times, but it’s not. Every factor in your life is under My control, and you won’t encounter anything you are incapable of overcoming with My help. I’m not only in control of eternity, but I’m in control of your future.

*

I don’t ask for perfection before I will intervene for good in your life. You don’t have to be perfect. Our relationship is that of a weak and error-prone child, and his strong, capable father. Whatever you bring to Me in faith, saying, “Jesus, I can’t take care of this myself, and I really need Your help,” I will handle for you. I can’t resist the faith-filled cry of your childlike heart. You are weak and imperfect, confused and often wrong—which makes My perfection and strength so much more necessary. I know you have nowhere else to lean, so you lean on Me, and I will save you.

*

There is never a right time to stop believing in Me and My promises. There is nothing—no hardship, no problem, no adjustment trials, no personal battles, no questions—that should cause you to give up your faith that I will work out everything. Everything is going to be all right. Trust Me through all the bumps in the road that you experience. Keep your eyes focused on the road ahead, and know that I have gone before you to prepare the way, and to show you exactly how to get to your destination.

*

If you’re tempted to think that I won’t take care of you, remember that I even cause the sun to shine on evil people and send the rain on the unjust.2 Think then of what I can do for you who have given of your lives in faithful service to Me, you who love Me and others and are doing your best to follow Me wherever I lead.

*

I want to lift the weight of uncertainty from your shoulders, and ask that you hold on to your faith and trust in My promises. I want you to hold on to the knowledge that no matter how dark or impossible something seems, I have never failed My children, and I am in control. These are things that will never change. No matter what the test or difficulty or impossibility that you or others are facing, I am there, and I give you My song of victory, My promises of sufficient grace, My unfailing power to overcome all obstacles. I will enable you to go forward with My peace of mind and assurance that I do all things well.

*

Even if everything and everyone seems to pass you by, when the world fails, when there is nothing left for you to hang on to, you still have Me, and I am all that you need. Even if those you care for and are concerned about were to lose everything that the eye can see, they will always have Me, and I am everything. There is no permanent loss for My children, because I am everything.

I am the healer and the restorer of broken hearts, broken hopes, broken dreams, and broken lives. I never leave My children abandoned or destitute. I am there to supply every need. Yes, the answers and supply sometimes come through unexpected avenues, or by a different route or longer timetable than hoped or prayed for, but I always answer. I do not leave My children in want.

*

No matter what happens or what seems to go wrong or to fail, no matter who it seems has failed, I will never fail, and I am always there. I will not leave My children behind, but I will carry them and tend to them, as a loving and patient Father. There are answers and miracles and promises and supply available in great abundance, for I love to bestow good things on My faithful children.

*

The trials and tests are difficult now; sometimes you wonder how you will make it through or if you can handle anything more. You feel like you’re going through the flood, the fire, and the trial all at once, but I am with you, and you will overcome and stand triumphant in spirit.

Even now, you stand tall because you are holding My hand. You feel small and weak, but I am raising you up, I am carrying you, and you will make it through.

*

Your future is bright and glorious, and I ask you to keep holding on. In fact, I am trusting you to keep holding on to Me. What that means is holding on to your faith in My promises and supreme ability to come through for you no matter what, to always be there for you, regardless of what seems to fall or fade away.

Even if you were to come to the end of this current part of the race, and feel as though you have nothing left, you will still not have experienced loss as those who have no hope do, because you still have Me. You will always have Me. It’s the bottom-line truth that so many great saints of old, faithful men and women of God, strong and unsung Christian heroes, learned throughout life, that no matter what came their way or was given or taken away, even if it was sometimes the most precious things of their life, I was enough. They had Me, so it was well with their soul.

I am not saying that you will suffer the type of extreme loss that some of those dear souls did, but you can still glean the full value and power of the principle of “Jesus is enough” through this time of change and uncertainty. You can come to the same realizations and receive supernatural strength; you can experience the same peace and fullness of spirit they did at those times when they came to the end of themselves, to the end of all they knew and loved and held dear, and had only Me to cling to, and yet had everything.

*

I am with you at every moment. I will make good on My promises to give you sufficient grace, rest of spirit, and the peace of God that passes all understanding. No matter what is going on around you, you can be at peace when you are anchored deeply in Me. Deep down, underneath the waves and tossing and turning, the waters are still and peaceful. Like the song says, “Still waters run deep.” As you go deeply into Me, you will find that stillness of spirit, the calm, the quiet, the rest, the trust, the faith, the understanding, and the strength that you need.

Originally published February 2010. Excerpted and republished May 2012.
Read by Maria Fontaine. copyright@thefamilyinternational


1 Matthew 6:33.

2 Matthew 5:45.

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Moods, Emotions, and Feelings!



Moods, Emotions, and Feelings, Oh My!
Why, What, and Whom You Listen to Matters
Authored by Tomoko Matsuoka
May 29, 2012

Do you ever pause to wonder why you’re in a certain mood? Do you suppose that your emotions and moods just happen? Or could it be that you, yourself, instigate whatever you are feeling? And have you ever wished that you had better control of your moods and emotions?

Recently, I read about a study that was conducted in 1996, called Automaticity of SocialBehavior,which broadened my understanding of how our thoughts influence our behavior. Here’s an excerpt from an article on what happened:

John Bargh, Mark Chen, and Lara Burrows [New York University] had [psychology students] complete a scrambled-sentence task, rearranging the order of words to form sentences. For some of the participants, the task was based on words such as aggressive, rude, annoying, and intrude. For others, the task was based upon words such as honor, considerate, polite, and sensitive. The goal of these two lists was to prime the participants to think about politeness or rudeness as a result of constructing sentences from these words (this is a very common technique in social psychology, and it works amazingly well).

After the participants completed the scrambled-sentence task, they went to another laboratory to participate in what was purportedly a second task. When they arrived at the second laboratory, they found the experimenter apparently in the midst of trying to explain the task to an uncomprehending participant who was just not getting it (this supposed participant was in fact not a real participant but a confederate working for the experimenter). How long do you think it took the real participants to interrupt the conversation and ask what they should do next?

The amount of waiting depended on what type of words had been involved in the scrambled-sentence task. Those who had worked with the set of polite words patiently waited for about 9.3 minutes before they interrupted, whereas those who had worked with the set of rude words waited only about 5.5 minutes before interrupting.1

[And that’s the end of the excerpt.]

Did you catch how simply thinking about words related to rudeness actually caused those students to behave in an influenced way? Continuing in the same vein, the researchers wanted to see what effect words that evoked both the positive and negative aspects of old age would have on participants. Here is what happened, taken from a report of their findings:

We constructed two versions of the scrambled sentence task: one elderly prime version, which contained words related to the elderly stereotype, and another, neutral version. For the elderly prime version, the critical stimuli were worried, old, lonely, grey, careful, sentimental, wise, stubborn, courteous, bingo, withdraw, forgetful, retired, wrinkle, rigid, traditional, conservative, knits, dependent, ancient, helpless, gullible, cautious, and alone. These prime words were obtained from previous research that examined the components of the elderly stereotype. In the neutral version, the elderly prime words were replaced with the words unrelated to the elderly stereotype (e.g.,thirsty,clean,private).

Participants were informed that the purpose of the study was to investigate language proficiency and that they were to complete a scrambled-sentence task. Each participant was instructed to write down a grammatically correct sentence using only four of the five words given.

After the participant completed the task and notified the experimenter, the experimenter told the participant that the elevator was down the hall and thanked him or her for participating.

Using a hidden stopwatch, a confederate of the experimenter, who was sitting in a chair apparently waiting to talk to the professor in a nearby office, recorded the amount of time in seconds that the participant spent walking a length of the corridor starting from the doorway of the experimental room and ending at a broad strip of silver carpet tape on the floor 9.75 m away.

Participants in the elderly priming condition … had a slower walking speed compared to participants in the neutral priming condition as predicted. [Neutral priming would be where the participants are given words with no “old age” related priming.]2

What do you think this study suggests? And what meaning does it have when relating it to our everyday lives?

Looking at these experiments, and thinking about some of my own emotional triggers, I’m coming to understand just how much words and images can affect how I feel and, as a result, even how I behave. As the study above showed, if you read material that highlights rude and aggressive people, or words that put you in a frame of mind that you’re old, or even if you’re simply reading words that have that tone, and if you are unaware of how such words are affecting you, such words can prime your mind into reflecting the mood or the underlying thoughts that you have just read.

However, there’s good that can be concluded from this, too. Back to the study: one group of participants was told exactly what the experiment was about, and therefore they knew to be aware of the effect that certain words could have on their minds. These participants did not display any of the tendencies that those unaware of the impact the words they were reading were having on them showed.

The apostle Paul had a good understanding of what modern research is now discovering about the way thoughts impact us. “Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”3 He seemed to know that if we were thinking about good things, this would directly affect our behavior. Really, the safest place for your mind to be is fixed on godly things. Consider this verse in Isaiah: “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”4

Words and the way that they can affect our moods surrounds us continually. This is happening even when we are unaware of the connection between our behavior and our input. In the space of one day you might do a number of the following: listen to a podcast; do schoolwork; watch a YouTube clip; read Facebook status updates; get IMs from a friend; chat with your parents, sibs, and friends; read a novel; watch a TV series; read up on your current favorite pop person, and the list can go on and on.

This is not to say that we should be paranoid about input and external influences. Speaking from personal experience, that becomes unproductive in the long run. As humans, we are social beings: we need people, and we are happiest when we have some level of connection to others. Even introverted people are happier with close family and friends in their lives than without. It’s not realistic to try to build a safe and high tower for yourself or pretend that you are impervious to the influence of words. We areallinfluenced, and fortunately, quite often in happy and positive ways. Even this podcast is influencing you, hopefully in an informative and wholesome way.

Now, what can you do with the information from studies like this? Say for instance, you’re feeling negative. Read a favorite devotional or something else from God’s Word that has been tried and proven for you. Feeling lethargic? Read something peppy, funny, or that will motivate you. Feeling discouraged? Ask for encouragement from a friend.

And try to become aware of how you got into that mood in the first place. What were you watching? What were you listening to? What was the tone of your last conversation? Tried and proven tip from me: if you don’t want to feel depressed, take a break from reading news about environmental pollution, political corruption, or whatever puts you in a bad mood.—At least until you know you’re able to channel those feelings in a healthy way. Instead, read material that will make you happy and feel good about yourself and others.

Watch yourself. Be aware of when you’re heading into a slump, and try to catch yourself before you throw yourself headlong into the abyss of gloom or the center of a pity party. Or if you aren’t able to catch yourself before—be aware in hindsight, and avoid such things that make you feel negative in the future.

Right now, make a list of all the things that you love or that are sure to put a smile on your face. Watch how your mood and your feelings change as you do so. Lastly, share with us in the comments those things that are making you smile right now. Spread the joy!

Footnotes:
1 Predictably Irrational,Dan Ariely. (HarperCollins, 2008).
2 Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action, John A. Bargh, Mark Chen, and Lara Burrows,excerpts.
3 Philippians 4:8 (ESV).
4 Isaiah 26:3 (ESV).


Copyright © 2012 by The Family International

Irena Sendler- uma cristã verdadeira!

Uma história de amor ...de coragem, de fé.

Nem sempre o prêmio é atribuído a quem mais o merece...

Uma senhora de 98 anos chamada Irena Sendler faleceu há pouco tempo.
Durante a 2ª Guerra Mundial, Irena conseguiu uma autorização para trabalhar no Gueto de Varsóvia, como especialista de canalizações. Mas os seus planos iam mais além... Sabia quais eram os planos dos nazistas relativamente aos judeus (sendo cristã e alemã!).

Irena trazia crianças escondidas no fundo da sua caixa de ferramentas e levava um saco de sarapilheira na parte de trás da sua caminhoneta (para crianças de maior tamanho). Também levava na parte de trás da caminhoneta um cão a quem ensinara a ladrar aos soldados nazis quando entrava e saia do Gueto. Claro que os soldados não queriam nada com o cão e o ladrar deste encobriria qualquer ruído que os meninos pudessem fazer.
Enquanto conseguiu manter este trabalho, conseguiu retirar e salvar cerca de 2500 crianças.

Por fim os nazistas apanharam-na. Souberam dessas atividades e em 20 de Outubro de 1943 Irena Sendler foi presa pela Gestapo e levada para a infame prisão de Pawiak, onde foi brutalmente torturada. Num colchão de palha encontrou uma pequena estampa de Jesus Misericordioso com a inscrição: “Jesus, em Vós confio”, e conservou-a consigo até 1979, quando a ofereceu ao Papa João Paulo II.

Ela, a única que sabia os nomes e moradas das famílias que albergavam crianças judias, suportou a tortura e negou-se a trair seus colaboradores ou as crianças ocultas. Quebraram-lhe os ossos dos pés e das pernas, mas não conseguiram quebrar a sua determinação. Já recuperada, foi no entantocondenada à morte. Enquanto esperava pela execução, um soldado alemão levou-a para um "interrogatório adicional". Ao sair, gritou-lhe em polaco: "Corra!".

Esperando ser baleada pelas costas, Irena contudo correu por uma porta lateral e fugiu, escondendo-se nos becos cobertos de neve até ter certeza que não fora seguida. No dia seguinte, já abrigada entre amigos, Irena encontrou o seu nome na lista de polacos executados que os alemães publicavam nos jornais. Os membros da organização Żegota ("Resgate") tinham conseguido deter a execução de Irena subornando os alemães, e Irena continuou a trabalhar com uma identidade falsa.

Irena mantinha um registo com o nome de todas as crianças que conseguiu retirar do Gueto, que guardava num frasco de vidro enterrado debaixo de uma árvore no seu jardim.
Depois de terminada a guerra tentou localizar os pais que tivessem sobrevivido e reunir a família. A maioria tinha sido levada para as câmaras de gás. Para aqueles que tinham perdido os pais ajudou a encontrar casas de acolhimento ou pais adotivos.

Em 2006 foi proposta para receber o Prêmio Nobel da Paz... mas não foi selecionada. Quem o recebeu foi Al Gore por sua campanha sobre o Aquecimento Global. (sem comentários)

Não permitamos que alguma vez esta Senhora seja esquecida!!
Estou transportando o meu grão de areia, reenviando esta mensagem. Espero que faça o mesmo.

Passaram já mais de 60 anos, desde que terminou a 2ª Guerra Mundial na Europa. Este e-mail está sendo reenviado como uma cadeia comemorativa, em memória dos 6 milhões de judeus, 20 milhões de russos, 10 milhões de cristãos (inclusive 1.900 sacerdotes católicos ) 500 mil ciganos, centenas de milhares de socialistas, comunistas e democratas e milhares de deficientes físicos e mentais que foram assassinados, massacrados, violados, mortos à fome e humilhados, com os povos do mundo muitas vezes olhando para o outro lado.
Agora, mais do que nunca, com o recrudescimento do racismo, da discriminação e os massacres de milhões de civis em conflitos e guerras sem fim em todos os continentes, é imperativo assegurar que o Mundo nunca esqueça. Gente como Irena Sendler, que salvou milhares de vidas praticamente sozinha, é extremamente necessária.

A intenção deste e-mail é chegar a 40 milhões de pessoas em todo o mundo.
Una-se a nós. Seja mais um elo desta cadeia comemorativa e ajude a distribuí-la por todo o mundo. Por favor, envie este e-mail às pessoas que conhece e peça-lhes que não interrompam esta cadeia.. "A razão pela qual resgatei as crianças tem origem no meu lar, na minha infância. Fui educada na crença de que uma pessoa necessitada deve ser ajudada com o coração, sem importar a sua religião ou nacionalidade."- Irena Sendler

10 Questions That Create Success!



10 Questions That Create Success

Posted: 25 Jan 2012 04:18 AM PST

By Geoffrey James, Inc., Jan 23, 2012

Think that success means making lots of money? Think again.

Pictures of dead presidents have never made anybody happy. And how can you be successful if you’re not happy? And buying things with that all money isn’t much better. A new car, for instance, might tickle your fancy for a day or two–-but pride of ownership is temporary.

Real success comes from the quality of your relationships and the emotions that you experience each day. That’s where these 10 questions come in.

Ask them at the end of each day and I guarantee that you’ll become more successful. Here they are:

1. Have I made certain that those I love feel loved?

2. Have I done something today that improved the world?

3. Have I conditioned my body to be more strong flexible and resilient?

4. Have I reviewed and honed my plans for the future?

5. Have I acted in private with the same integrity I exhibit in public?

6. Have I avoided unkind words and deeds?

7. Have I accomplished something worthwhile?

8. Have I helped someone less fortunate?

9. Have I collected some wonderful memories?

10. Have I felt grateful for the incredible gift of being alive?

Here’s the thing. The questions you ask yourself on a daily basis determine your focus, and your focus determines your results.

These questions force you to focus on what’s really important. Take heed of them and rest of your life—especially your work—will quickly fall into place.

Dr. Werner Gitt-

"There is no known law of nature, no known process, and no known sequence of events which can cause information to originate by itself in matter."

"When its progress along the chain of transmission events is traced backward, every piece of information leads to a mental source, the mind of the sender."

 From his book: In The Beginning Was Information


However, even confronted with these facts, hardcore evolutionists will seek out a saving device. In this case, I have heard Richard Dawkins say that mankind was "seeded from aliens." So, therefore, the information must have come from them. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see! Or as the Bible puts it, "They are willingly ignorant!" 2 Peter 3:5 and in 2Thessalonians 2:10-11 says "...Because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie."

73-Year Old Woman Scales Mt Everest!



73-year-old woman scaling Everest proves you can age well


By Janice Lloyd, USA TODAY, May 27, 2012

Swimmer Dara Torres, 45, is still sprinting in the pool; she aims to qualify for her sixth Olympics.

Pitcher Jamie Moyer of the Colorado Rockies, 49, is still dominating batters; he recently became the oldest pitcher to win a game in the majors.

Not bad, right? Now add more than 20 years.

Japanese mountaineer Tamae Watanabe, 73, is still climbing; she set a world record May 19 by becoming the oldest woman to scale Mount Everest, the tallest mountain in the world. She broke her own record set when she was 62.

Exercise experts say we should expect to hear more examples like these—exceptionally healthy adults who are transforming our image of aging.

“My guess is that as more people ‘age up’ who have been active their whole lives and are really committed, we will see more interesting things from people in the 60 to 80 age range,” says Michael Joyner, a Mayo Clinic anesthesiologist and a specialist in exercise science in Rochester, Minn.

And maybe, he adds, they will inspire a nation where many lifestyles are defined by being sedentary or sitting in front of a computer.

Few of us will ever come close to their level of success at any age, but what stops so many of us from staying fit and staying in our games as we grow older? Exercise physiologist Barbara Bushman says 24% of adults over age 65 are totally inactive, and fewer than 40% meet the baseline recommendations for exercise.

“The short answer is that most of society is not pushing themselves hard enough, but there is a subgroup that clearly is,” Joyner says.

“What I find interesting about so much of this is that there is a fitness and physical activity/inactivity crisis in the developed world. However, at the same time there is this emerging subgroup or subculture of fit or super fit middle-aged and older people who are redefining things.”

When Janet Evans, 40, started her comeback last summer after taking 15 years off from Olympic-level swimming, Joyner said, “This is the whole new normal emerging.”

Watanabe is still climbing in the foothills of the Himalayas and hasn’t commented on her accomplishments, but Ang Tshering, the sherpa who coached her, shared some insights with the Daily Telegraph.

She lives at the foot of Mount Fuji, Japan’s tallest mountain, he said. She led a team of four on the assault on the northern face of Everest, setting out from their last high-altitude camp (27,225 feet) late at night on May 18 and climbed all night. They reached the 29,035-foot summit the next morning.

“She’s a very strong climber and has always been very active,” Tshering said. “She has always loved the mountains and has been climbing in the Japanese Alps and around the world for many years.”

And Watanabe wants to break the Everest record again in her 80s, he said.

“In all of this, motivation and resilience are the key,” Joyner says.

But in a society where obesity is an epidemic, what kind of extra motivation do we need?

“Regular physical activity can favorably influence a broad range of body systems and thus may be a lifestyle factor that discriminates between those who experience successful aging and those who do not,” says Bushman, a professor in the department of kinesiology at Missouri State University.

Some scientists go so far as to say exercise actually slows aging. A 1990 study comparing masters athletes and sedentary people shows that people who continue to engage in regular vigorous exercise show one-half the rate of decline in maximal aerobic capacity as the sedentary subjects. Recent research even shows aerobic activity is important for healthy cognitive functions. Regular exercise eases the stiffness and pain of arthritis.

Most of us begin to notice physical decline in our mid-30s, but it doesn’t have to be all or nothing, says Bushman. Far from it. Evans, who follows the latest research on training methods, says she has to take better care of herself, including getting more sleep, shedding a few pounds and giving herself more time to recover between workouts compared with when she was younger.

While Evans hasn’t suffered any career-threatening injuries, Torres and Moyer haven’t been as lucky. Moyer missed the 2011 season after having ligament replacement surgery, and Torres has had multiple surgeries, including an innovative procedure after the 2008 Olympics on her left knee to regenerate cartilage. Prior to that she couldn’t walk without a limp and the muscles in her leg were atrophying.

“There have been isolated examples of exceptional athletic feats by people in their 40s and 50s for many years,” says Joyner, who notes that a 38-year-old woman became the oldest woman to win the Olympic marathon in 2008.

When Bushman heard about Watanabe, she laughed and said, “Now that is successful aging.”

And Watanabe is not alone out there on the icy slopes. At the same time she was making her record climb on Mount Everest, a 72-year-old woman was also on the mountain, waiting to make her climb and hoping to become the oldest woman to reach the summit. Watanabe just beat her to it.

“Although not everyone has interest or ability to achieve a feat like climbing Everest, people of all ages can take steps today to develop a complete exercise program,” says Bushman, co-author of the American College of Sports Medicine’s Complete Guide to Fitness and Health.

“No one is too old, or too young, to invest in their future health.”

Quotations on Democracy


Quotations on Democracy- A.F.Tytler-Wikipedia

In his Lectures, Tytler displayed a cynical view of democracy in general and representative democracies such as republics in particular. He believed that "a pure democracy is a chimera," and that "All government is essentially of the nature of a monarchy." In discussing the Athenian democracy, after noting that a great number of the population were actually enslaved, he went on to say, "Nor were the superior classes in the actual enjoyment of a rational liberty and independence. They were perpetually divided into factions, which servilely ranked themselves under the banners of the contending demagogues; and these maintained their influence over their partisans by the most shameful corruption and bribery, of which the means were supplied alone by the plunder of the public money."[4]

Speaking about the measure of freedom enjoyed by the people in a republic or democracy, Tytler wrote, "The people flatter themselves that they have the sovereign power. These are, in fact, words without meaning. It is true they elected governors; but how are these elections brought about? In every instance of election by the mass of a people--through the influence of those governors themselves, and by means the most opposite to a free and disinterested choice, by the basest corruption and bribery. But those governors once selected, where is the boasted freedom of the people? They must submit to their rule and control, with the same abandonment of their natural liberty, the freedom of their will, and the command of their actions, as if they were under the rule of a monarch."[5]

Tytler dismisses the more optimistic vision of democracy by commentators such as Montesquieu as "nothing better than an Utopian theory, a splendid chimera, descriptive of a state of society that never did, and never could exist; a republic not of men, but of angels," for "While man is being instigated by the love of power--a passion visible in an infant, and common to us even with the inferior animals--he will seek personal superiority in preference to every matter of a general concern; or at best, he will employ himself in advancing the public good, as the means of individualdistinction and elevation: he will promote the interest of the state from the selfish but most useful passion of making himself considerable in that establishment which he labors to aggrandize. Such is the true picture of man as a political agent."[6]

That said however, Tytler does admit that there are individual exceptions to the rule, and that he is ready to allow "that this form of government is the best adapted to produce, though not the most frequent, yet the most striking, examples of virtue in individuals," paradoxically because a "democratic government opposes more impediments to disinterested patriotism than any other form. To surmount these, a pitch of virtue is necessary which, in other situations, where the obstacles are less great and numerous, is not called in to exertion. The nature of a republican government gives to every member of the state an equal right to cherish views of ambition, and to aspire to the highest offices of the commonwealth; it gives to every individual of the same title with his fellows to aspire at the government of the whole."[7]

Tytler believed that democratic forms of government such as those of Greece and Rome have a natural evolution from initial virtue toward eventual corruption and decline. In Greece, for example, Tytler argues that "the patriotic spirit and love of ingenious freedom ... became gradually corrupted as the nation advanced in power and splendor." Tytler goes on to generalize: "Patriotism always exists in the greatest degree in rude nations, and in an early period of society. Like all other affections and passions, it operates with the greatest force where it meets with the greatest difficulties ... but in a state of ease and safety, as if wanting its appropriate nourishment, it languishes and decays." ... "It is a law of nature to which no experience has ever furnished an exception, that the rising grander and opulence of a nation must be balanced by the decline of its heroic virtues."[8]

Alexander Fraser Tytler- Famous Quotation


AUTHOR: Alexander Fraser Tytler (1747–1813)

QUOTATION: A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

ATTRIBUTION: Attributed to ALEXANDER FRASER TYTLER, LORD WOODHOUSELEE. Unverified.
:

Faith in the Leadings of Others


By Christina Vernier

I was praying for a friend who has been fighting a long-term sickness, and I was burdened about the number of methods she had tried and the prayer and healing seminars she had attended. I wondered why she hadn’t gotten healed as soon as she was prayed for.

I was asking myself, “Are we trusting in different methods and different faith healers instead of having simple faith in the Lord?” As I was pondering this, the Lord pointed out to me that I was being judgmental. The Lord leads us all differently in our walk with Him. It’s best for me to just trust that this friend has sought the Lord. If the Lord is leading her in this way, it doesn’t matter how many methods or healers she’s tried. He leads us all differently. He leads some of us to go in circular routes, some in triangular routes, some in zigzags, while some of us travel in a straight line, seemingly heading straight to the will of God. None of these ways are right or wrong; it’s just that He’s leading each of us differently. Therefore, we need to respect how the Lord leads each of us, even if it seems to us that the way the Lord is leading someone is unusual or particular.

It’s such a good lesson for me, as I tend to observe different situations and draw my own conclusions; whereas the Lord sees each person’s heart, and how He leads them will always be the best way.

It goes along with the scriptures in 1 Corinthians 12:4–7, 18, 20, 25–26:

Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. … But now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him. … But now are they many members, yet but one body. … That there should be no schism in the body; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honored, all the members rejoice with it.

David mentioned a similar lesson in the Letter “Diamonds of Dust”:

“The rays were many different colors—all showing a different color of His light—but the same light; different gifts, but the same Spirit, each one reflecting in his own way the light of God, each one letting his light shine, showing his particular kind of works to cause men to glorify the beauty of God.”

I pray I’ll learn this precious lesson, and continue to uphold my brothers and sisters in the spirit and prayer, learn to have compassion for others, and faith in their leadings from the Lord.

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God’s going to call you to do new things! God’s going to call your friends to do new things. God’s going to call you to do old things in new ways, or new things in old ways, or things you’ve been doing all along with a new twist! You need to be prepared for that! God’s going to call some [people] to do things they’ve never done before.

What should your reaction be to all of this change and newness? Your reaction should be one of excitement and praise. Thank God people are following Him! Praise God they’re willing to step out and try something new! You should be so grateful that they’re not stuck in a rut, that they’re willing to do what the Lord is asking them, even if it seems a bit risky.

I’d rather [people] try and fail than to never try at all. Of course, we know you will have success too if you’re following God, but we don’t expect every venture to be a success. Failure is not bad. Failure can be a stepping stone to success.

Some new ventures will explode and be miraculously fruitful right off the bat. Others will take some time to get off the ground, but for those who stick with it and follow the Lord through the slow start, they will be tremendously fruitful. Others will be flops and not pan out quite so perfectly. But we can’t let that scare us or stop us or even slow us down. We’re not keeping score of every mistake or venture that didn’t work as well as we had hoped, or keeping track of how long it takes to bring about the fruit, and neither is the Lord. So make sure that you don’t judge others, either, by the new and different things that they do, or even by their failures or mistakes.—Peter Amsterdam1

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Not only do you need to have faith in yourself—faith in God in you personally—but you need to have faith in the Lord in others.

Maybe you’ve failed, and others have failed, at a number of things in the past. It doesn’t matter. When God’s Spirit falls, it sweeps away the past—past mistakes, past mindsets of what could or couldn’t be done. God’s Spirit brings the new, the fresh, the miraculous, the possible, the doable, the successful.

You have to speak faith and think faith in yourselves and in others. When you read the Lord’s promises about what He wants to do through you or others, picture Him doing just that through you and your co-workers. Picture how it’s going to play out, and ask the Lord to give you the faith that it can be done.

The Lord believes in you. You can fulfill God’s will. God can and will use you. He will also use others. And if you show others that you have faith in them and that you believe in them, it reminds them that God believes in them, and it helps them to believe in themselves.

God believes in every one of His children. He believes in all those who don’t know about Him, or who do know about Him and have gone astray. If God has faith for them, why can’t we?

One of the greatest gifts you can give someone is your faith in them. Everyone needs someone to believe in them! Let’s give this gift out liberally, shall we? Everyone needs it. You need it. So give it, and it shall be given unto you.—Peter Amsterdam2


1 Originally published November 2007.

2 Originally published December 2008.

copyright@thefamilyinternational

Dr. Georgia Purdom-Commencemnet Talk

Commencing in Atlanta
Published on May 29, 2012 in Education and Ministry.

This past weekend it was my privilege to be the commencement speaker for the graduation ceremony at North Cobb Christian School in Kennesaw, Georgia. I challenged the graduates with the actions of Mary pouring costly oil on Jesus and wiping his feet with her hair (found in John 12:1–8 with parallel passages in Matthew and Mark).

Mary showed her total devotion and glorified Christ by giving Him her best—very costly oil (worth a year’s wages) and wiping his feet with her hair, her crowning glory, which Jewish women did not let down in public. Mary went against the expected, the norm, and the popular. The disciples were very vocal about their displeasure with her. They wanted to sell the oil and feed the poor. Their focus was on the temporal. Jesus turned their attention, as He had done many times before, to the eternal—Himself and His glory. He praised Mary for her actions and stated that wherever the gospel was preached, what she had done would be told in memory of her.

I challenged the graduates to remember Mary’s devotion and sacrifice to bring glory to Christ and to do the same. I told them that what they believe about God and His Word meant that many times what they thought, said and did would go against the norm, the majority, and the popular. The secular world and even some of the Christian world would try to convince them that their time, effort, talent, and intellect would be wasted if they stood on God’s Word as truth. I exhorted them to focus on the eternal, the heavenly reward (Matthew 5:11–12) and the commendation by Jesus one day in heaven when He says to us, “Well done, good and faithful servant. … Enter into the joy of your lord.” (Matthew 25:21). From the comments I received afterwards, I could see that the Lord was able to use these words to encourage the teachers, graduates, and their families.

Treasures of Darkness


By Jesus, speaking in prophecy

Download Audio (6.75MB)

Here it comes—the black cloud. Sometimes it’s triggered by an unpleasant event; sometimes it descends when the drudgery of life seems unbearable; sometimes it looms suddenly for no apparent reason. Despair. Hopelessness. Depression. It rolls in and out like a fog, sometimes lifting, sometimes settling; sometimes misty, foggy, and gray; other times dense, dark, and black. Sometimes it churns and swirls and you feel you’re being sucked under into a deep, dark well, and may never be able to come up for air.

When you feel overwhelmed, defeated, and like there’s no point in even hoping or trying; when it seems that no amount of faith or prayer or positiveness is going to do you any good, think of the sun setting for the night behind the clouds. Though you can’t see the sun, and will not see it for some time, it’s still there. It still warms the earth. It still gives life. It will rise again. Hope is similar. There is always hope. At times it is hidden behind the clouds of despair, but it need never be lost.

Faith in Me is the only substantial source of hope, which is the secret of the human spirit’s ability to find happiness. There is no space too small for the soul to grow, nor any cell too dark for the spirit to flourish. For you, My child, there is always a ray of light, a ray of love, a ray of hope, reaching out, shining down upon you. Sometimes you can’t see it because you’re looking down. Other times you can’t see it because the dark, black clouds are descending and hiding it from you. But it is always there. You can always rest assured you will see it again.

You can also learn to discern the coming of the dark clouds, and you can learn through My Spirit and power to hold them back. They will always pass over you, casting their shadow, but they need not engulf and encircle you. If you cry out to Me for help—for comfort, for hope, for faith—then you can drive away the black clouds of depression and despair. I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.1

Hold on to Me. Hold on to faith. Hold on to hope. Don’t let go, or you will be overwhelmed by the darkness. Yet even when you are, remember that the sun rises again every morning and hope will always return to the heart that seeks it.2

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There is a power to lift you up, to encourage you, to give you a brighter outlook on life that is stronger than all of the powers that try to pull you down.

Despair is a deep, dark pit that threatens to swallow up your joy of life. Negativity is like a magnet that pulls you into that pit. But I am stronger than any power of man, of the mind, of the heart, or of your surroundings. I am joy when all is sadness. I am light when all is darkness. I am hope when all is despair. I am peace when there is fear all around.

Always think on the positive. If you find yourself thinking a negative thought, try to turn it into something positive. It won’t be easy at first, because when negativity surrounds you, it’s difficult to find anything good in life, in your situation, or even in your future. But think of yourself as living in a deep, dark mine. Life seems hopeless, it seems that there are no perks, but deep in the walls of this cavern are jewels of great price. There are diamonds and opals and gems of inestimable value.

When you’re overwhelmed with the dark dankness of your situation, think of yourself as a miner. Dig deep into the rocky walls and find that sparkling treasure—the positive. In the Bible I talked about the treasures of darkness: “I will give you the treasures of darkness and hidden riches of secret places, that you may know that I, the Lord, Who call you by your name, am the God of Israel.”3

You will find that your determination to discover joy in sorrow, happiness in pain, and your will to turn negative thoughts into positive thoughts will be the keys to your sanity. Positive thoughts are your “treasures of darkness” and your “hidden riches in secret places.”

It’s easy enough to be happy and cheery when everything is going well. When you’re healthy, have your loved ones beside you, and are in a good situation, it’s not a triumph to keep your chin up and stay positive. But when you can look on the bright side of things when everything around you seems dark and gloomy, when you can find those diamonds and jewels in the dark rocks of your “mine,” that shows great strength of character.

You are the victor when you learn to turn bad into good, sorrow into joy, despair into hope, through the power of positive thoughts, faith, and dependence on Me. And you won’t have to do it alone, because I will help you.4

Originally published 2006. Updated and republished May 2012.
Read by Simon Peterson. Copyright@thefamilyinternational


1 John 14:18.

2 This hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the Presence behind the veil.—Hebrews 6:19 NKJV.

3 Isaiah 45:3 NKJV.

4 For You will light my lamp; the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.—Psalm 18:28 NKJV.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Afghanistan--We Forgot History and Repeated It!


Eric Margolis, May 26, 2012 


Santayana’s famous dictum about those who forget history being condemned to relieve it is nowhere better observed than in the mountains of Afghanistan.

One of my favorite artists was the superb Victorian painter Lady Jane Butler who captured in oil the military triumphs and tragedies of the British Empire.

Her haunting painting, “The Retreat from Kabul, (also known as “Remnants of an Army,”) shows the sole survivor of a British army of 16,500 during the first Anglo-Afghan War in 1842, Dr. William Brydon, struggling out of Afghanistan. All the rest of the British occupation force were killed by Afghan tribesmen after a futile attempt to garrison Kabul.

This gripping painting should have hung over the NATO summit meeting last week in Chicago to remind the US and its allies that Afghanistan remains “the graveyard of empires.”

The western forces that occupied Afghanistan in 2001 have failed to achieve their military or political objectives and are now sounding the retreat.

All the empty oratory in Chicago about “transition,” Afghan self-reliance, and growing security could not conceal the truth that the mighty US and its dragooned western allies have been bested in Afghanistan by a bunch of mountain warriors from the 12th Century.

The objective of war is to achieve political goals, not kill people. The US goal was to turn Afghanistan into a protectorate providing bases close to Caspian Basin oil, and to block China on a strategy level. After an eleven-year war costing $1 trillion, this effort failed as dismally as the much ballyhooed “liberation” of Iraq.

The US dragged its NATO allies into a war in which they had no business and lacked any popular support. The result has been a serious weakening of the NATO alliance, raising questions about whose interests it really serves. The defeat in Afghanistan will undermine US geopolitical influence over Western Europe.

Claims made in Chicago that the US-installed Afghan regime will stand on its own with $4 billion of aid from the west were pie in the sky. Once US support ends, the Karzai regime is unlikely to survive much longer than did Najibullah’s Afghan Communist regime in Kabul after its Soviet sponsor withdrew in 1989. Or the US-run South Vietnamese regime that fell in 1975.

The current 350,000-man Afghan government army and police are mercenaries fighting for money supplied by the US and NATO. Many are ethnic Uzbeks and Tajiks, blood foes of the majority Pashtun. Taliban and its allies are fighting for nationalism and faith. History tells us who will prevail.

All Afghans know the western powers have been defeated. Those with sense are already making deals with Taliban. Vengeance being a cherished Afghan custom, those who collaborated closely with the foreign forces can expect little mercy.

Air power is the key to US control of Afghanistan. Warplanes and helicopter gunships circle constantly overhead to defend western bases and supply routes. Reduce this hugely expensive deployment of air power, as will likely happen after 2014, and remaining US troops will be in peril. Pakistan’s temporary closure of NATO land supply routes to Kabul and Kandahar provides a foretoken of what may occur. Currently, the US must rely on Russia for much of its heavy supplies.

Already there are worries about getting most US and NATO troops out of Afghanistan by the end of 2014. The US pullout from Iraq was deftly executed. But Afghanistan will be a greater challenge. Much will depend on the good or ill will of the angry mountain tribesmen who comprise Taliban and its nationalist allies.

France’s new president, Francoise Hollande, wisely reaffirmed his pledge to withdraw all French troops this year. French had become fed up with former President Nicholas Sarkozy’s neoconservative ambitions and eagerness to please Washington. Other NATO members are wishing they could do the same.

No one wants to have their soldiers be the last to die in a futile war that everyone knows is lost.

To wage and sustain the Afghan War, the US has been forced to virtually occupy Pakistan, bribe its high officials, and force Islamabad to follow policies hated by 95% of its people, generating virulent anti-Americanism.

Washington intends to leave garrisons in Afghanistan after the 2014 announced pullout date, rebranding them “trainers” instead of combat troops. Their mission will be to keep the pro-US Afghan regime in power. But neither the US nor NATO will come up with the $4 billion promised in Chicago.

The retreat from Kabul will not be easy, but hopefully not as fraught and bloody as that of the British in their Afghan wars.

Not All Israeli Citizens Are Equal!


By Yousef Munayyer, NY Times, May 23, 2012 


I’M a Palestinian who was born in the Israeli town of Lod, and thus I am an Israeli citizen. My wife is not; she is a Palestinian from Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Despite our towns being just 30 miles apart, we met almost 6,000 miles away in Massachusetts, where we attended neighboring colleges.

A series of walls, checkpoints, settlements and soldiers fill the 30-mile gap between our hometowns, making it more likely for us to have met on the other side of the planet than in our own backyard.

Never is this reality more profound than on our trips home from our current residence outside Washington.

Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport is on the outskirts of Lod (Lydda in Arabic), but because my wife has a Palestinian ID, she cannot fly there; she is relegated to flying to Amman, Jordan. If we plan a trip together—an enjoyable task for most couples—we must prepare for a logistical nightmare that reminds us of our profound inequality before the law at every turn.

Even if we fly together to Amman, we are forced to take different bridges, two hours apart, and endure often humiliating waiting and questioning just to cross into Israel and the West Bank. The laws conspire to separate us.

If we lived in the region, I would have to forgo my residency, since Israeli law prevents my wife from living with me in Israel. This is to prevent what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once referred to as “demographic spillover.” Additional Palestinian babies in Israel are considered “demographic threats” by a state constantly battling to keep a Jewish majority. (Of course, Israelis who marry Americans or any non-Palestinian foreigners are not subjected to this treatment.)

Last week marked Israel’s 64th year of independence; it is also when Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” during which many of Palestine’s native inhabitants were turned into refugees.

In 1948, the Israeli brigade commander Yitzhak Rabin helped expel Lydda’s Palestinian population. Some 19,000 of the town’s 20,000 native Palestinian inhabitants were forced out. My grandparents were among the 1,000 to remain.

They were fortunate to become only internally displaced and not refugees. Years later my grandfather was able to buy back his own home—a cruel absurdity, but a better fate than that imposed on most of his neighbors, who were never permitted to re-establish their lives in their hometowns.

Three decades later, in October 1979, this newspaper reported that Israel barred Rabin from detailing in his memoir what he conceded was the “expulsion” of the “civilian population of Lod and Ramle, numbering some 50,000.” Rabin, who by then had served as prime minister, sought to describe how “it was essential to drive the inhabitants out.”

Two generations after the Nakba, the effect of discriminatory Israeli policies still reverberates. Israel still seeks to safeguard its image by claiming to be a bastion of democracy that treats its Palestinian citizens well, all the while continuing illiberal policies that target this very population. There is a long history of such discrimination.

In the 1950s new laws permitted the state to take control over Palestinians’ land by classifying them “absentees.” Of course, it was the state that made them absentees by either preventing refugees from returning to Israel or barring internally displaced Palestinians from having access to their land. This last group was ironically termed “present absentees”—able to see their land but not to reach it because of military restrictions that ultimately resulted in their watching the state confiscate it. Until 1966, Palestinian citizens were governed under martial law.

Today, a Jew from any country can move to Israel, while a Palestinian refugee, with a valid claim to property in Israel, cannot. And although Palestinians make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population, the 2012 budget allocates less than 7 percent for Palestinian citizens.

Tragically for Palestinians, Zionism requires the state to empower and maintain a Jewish majority even at the expense of its non-Jewish citizens, and the occupation of the West Bank is only one part of it. What exists today between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea is therefore essentially one state, under Israeli control, where Palestinians have varying degrees of limited rights: 1.5 million are second-class citizens, and four million more are not citizens at all. If this is not apartheid, then whatever it is, it’s certainly not democracy.

The failure of Israeli and American leaders to grapple with this nondemocratic reality is not helping. Even if a two-state solution were achieved, which seems fanciful at this point, a fundamental contradiction would remain: more than 35 laws in ostensibly democratic Israel discriminate against Palestinians who are Israeli citizens.

For all the talk about shared values between Israel and the United States, democracy is sadly not one of them right now, and it will not be until Israel’s leaders are willing to recognize Palestinians as equals, not just in name, but in law.

Jewish Aspirations for the Temple Mount Include Rebuilt Temple!


By Jeremy Sharon, Jerusalem Post, May 17, 2012


As points of religious contention go, the current status of the Temple Mount is one of the most potentially explosive issues for competing faiths anywhere in the world.

For Jews, it is the holiest place on Earth, from where the world was created, the site of the Binding of Isaac and the location of the First and Second Temples.

For Muslims too, al-Haram al-Sharif (noble sanctuary), has become a crucial place of worship and pilgrimage, where there stands a monumental shrine—the Dome of the Rock—and the al-Aqsa Mosque, a site of great importance in Islam.

This reality, combined with the Temple Mount’s physical location at the heart of contested territory, has given it a unique geopolitical combustibility not to be found anywhere else on the planet.

Ariel Sharon’s visit to the site in September 2000 prompted large-scale riots that eventually escalated into what became the second Palestinian intifada.

In 1969, a fire started in the al-Aqsa mosque by a mentally unstable Christian evangelical from Australia caused extensive damage and led to mass demonstrations in east Jerusalem and the West Bank. The event was also one of the motivating factors in the creation in 1969 of the Organization of the Islamic Conference, an international body devoted to safeguarding Muslim interests.

But inter-religious and political concerns aside, there is another, less prominent but nevertheless bitter dispute currently being waged, this one between different Orthodox Jewish groups regarding the permissibility of going up to Judaism’s holiest site.

The divisions among different rabbinic leaders are sharp; some outlaw ascent to the Temple Mount in absolute terms on pain of spiritual excommunication; others see the refusal to go up and insist on the Jewish right to pray at the site as a deviation from Torah law.

And although access for Jewish Israelis (and foreign tourists) is currently subject to tightly restricted, time-limited slots, this has not impeded the prosecution of a tough war of words and a struggle over the contested battleground of what is and is not permitted according to Jewish law.

OUTSIDE of a religious desire to visit and pray on the Temple Mount is another driving factor for those who are so insistent on Jewish access to the site.

There is also something Messianic in the efforts of those who ardently seek to restore a Jewish presence on the Temple Mount. The Temple Institute has devoted huge sums of money into constructing and producing the vessels, implements and garments required for the Temple, using the exact instructions set out in the Torah. Among the vessels constructed is a fully working golden menorah, which cost $2 million and is ready for use in the Temple.

Yisrael Ariel, the founder and director of the Temple Institute, who was among the soldiers who conquered the Old City of Jerusalem in 1967, certainly felt at the time that the re-establishment of Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount was a harbinger of the very imminent arrival of the Messiah.

Dr. Motti Inbari, an expert in Jewish fundamentalism at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke, cites an interview with Ariel in his book, Jewish Fundamentalism and the Temple Mount. In the interview, conducted in the Or Hozer journal of yeshiva high schools, Ariel vividly describes his emotions and experiences upon the capture of the Temple Mount and states that he thought that “these are the days of the Messiah.”

Rabbi Richman and the institute insist that the Temple will not “descend from the heavens,” as some believe, but will have to be constructed by men here on earth, as evidenced by their efforts to reconstruct the Temple vessels.

Asked if it is time to re-build the Temple, he responds “We’re 2,000 years late in doing so.” He insists, however, that it is not the intention of the institute to start rolling out the tape measure on the Temple Mount and start building.

Other groups, such as the Temple Mount Faithful, led by Gershon Salomon, are clearer about their ultimate goals. This organization says unabashedly that its goals include “the building of the Third Temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem in our lifetime in accordance with the Word of God and all the Hebrew prophets” as well as “the liberation of the Temple Mount from Arab (Islamic) occupation.”

The homepage of the Temple Institute website currently bears a line from the well-known movie Field of Dreams: “if you build it, he will come.” The long-term goal, as stated on the website, is to do “all in our limited power to bring about the building of the Holy Temple in our time.”

Journalist and author Gershom Gorenberg, who wrote The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount, sees a strong nexus between Jewish messianism and aspirations for the Temple Mount.

“The place has always elicited strong messianic symbolism and exerted a magnetic attraction for anyone awaiting the Messiah,” he told the Post. “For those who find it unbearable that we haven’t rebuilt the temple, there is an urge to bring about a redemption by human means, forcing God’s hand, as it were.”

For those opposed to increased Jewish activity at the Temple Mount, Gorenberg continues, although it’s generally wrapped in technical objections of a political or halachic nature, the subtext is that rebuilding the Temple is beyond the ability of human hands and effort and must await the arrival of the Messiah.

“In Jewish history, people who were certain they knew how to bring the Messiah ended up being disastrous for the Jewish people,” he concludes.

Regardless of the longer-term aspirations of the various groups, the current debate surrounding whether or not Jews can and should visit and pray at the Temple Mount will continue because of the activities of organizations like the Temple Institute.

According to the Chief Rabbinate, the reason they have recently re-iterated their ban on Jews going to the site is because of increased organized visitations, a growing phenomenon that it would like to stamp out.

But the political and spiritual desire among some who want to insist on their right to pray at Judaism’s holiest site is still very much alive. The nature of that desire highlights both the very deep-seated Jewish attachment to this revered place and the huge potential it has to spark intra-religious dispute along with political conflict.

Sunday, May 27, 2012

Saturday, May 26, 2012

Summary of A Philosophy of Science and Belief in God



 A Philosophy of Science and Belief in God – by Dr. C. Matthew McMahon


Introduction to the Writings of Dr. Gordon Clark
The following article is a summary of the book, “A Philosophy of Science and Belief in God”.
A Summary of Gordon Clark’s Book:
“A Philosophy of Science and Belief in God”
By Dr. C. Matthew McMahon

It has always been the case that some philosophers and scientists have used scientific conclusions to attack Christianity, and religion in general. There are men at various ends of the spectrum that deny miracles but allow the existence of God, and others who are completely naturalistic and deny any “god” whatsoever. To a certain extent, the theologians who reply to these attacks are at a disadvantage. When a scientist or philosopher argues against religion, he almost never has enough information about that religion, and knows little about it. It is not as though a scientists has made a life-long study of all the world’s religious beliefs and then says that science rules them all out. Rather, he simply uses science as a sounding board for what he believes is right. The theologians, on the other hand, must know quite a lot. He is suppose to have enough knowledge to discuss space, time, motion, energy, the solar system, natural law, quantum theory, relativity and other scientific ideas. However, when dealing with the refutation of a naturalistic science, really, one does not need to go into all of that. Rather, a person only needs to be able to prove how science cannot explain the simplest of things – like a marble rolling across the table, or the fact that when one picks up one end of a pencil, the other end comes along with it.

Science begins with a study of motion. If there was no motion there would be no need for science. Nothing would materially exist. Everything, in one-way or another, in this universe has motion. Plants grow, birds fly, volcanoes erupt, the earth rotates, and motion is seen all over the planet.

Zeno begins scientific history with a quaint little puzzle about motion. If point “A” to point “B” is five feet, and a person was going to walk from point A to point B would this be possible? Is movement an illusion or is it real? Suppose the distance is divided in half? It should be self evident that the person walking must get to the halfway mark before they reach the end. But what if we divided each half into quarter, and then each quarter into eights and so on? How could the person walking actually move through an infinite number of points before getting to the end? Is motion illusionary? Well, the answer to the puzzle is a bit more complex than some think. How could a person pass through each point and actually move from one point to the other? Think about that for a moment. After thinking that through the reader should make the connection that none ever passes through one point at a time, rather, they pass through them all in one step. It is not that each point is considered, rather, they are all considered. Zeno confused a collective “all” with an individual “each.” The puzzle actually is a logical fallacy.

How does Zeno’s puzzle help science? It really does not. It only serves to state that motion has always been contemplated. If all things change and are in a constant state of change, then what follows this change? Is there anything? Does science have an answer? Aristotle said, rightly, that if all things are changing, then nothing really exists and knowledge would be impossible. Thus, going back to a first cause, Aristotle came up with the unmoved mover. All motion requires a subject that remains unchanged while that which is affected moves. Motion presupposes an unmoved substratum. But, how does one know that there is motion and that there is an unchanging substratum? Motion must be defined if the truth is going to be known. Aristotle used the undefined terms “potentiality” and “actuality” to define motion. Something not actual is potential, whatever that means. Aristotle actually says potentiality cannot be defined (it seems he is going in a vicious circle). Motion is never really, or helpfully defined.

During the Renaissance the scientific method emerged. Hopefully the scientific method can use some of what Aristotle came up with, but give a helpful definition of what motion is really about, and for that matter, what life is about. Newtonian science emerged to help Aristotle understand why a falling body falls. Why does motion happen? Bodies fall because they are heavy. Is this adequate? Bodies fall faster when they have more time to fall. Now there are more problems to consider. What makes them fall faster? This is where Newton’s laws of inertia came into play. Planets move. This was not denied by anyone. Some, like Copernicus said that certain planets move certain ways – like the earth revolving around the sun. But it really makes no difference which plant revolves around any other since the question remains as to how planets move at all. What makes the planets move? It seems that Newton’s “discovery of gravity” was the answer. But then, what causes gravity? Because in looking at the universe through a telescope, there are these anomalies called comets that zig zag about the universe with no path, and no rotation. What makes them move? It may be that all this seems a bit confusing. But think of this way: if someone says “Why does this rock fall to the ground when I let it go?” And another answers him by saying “Gravity,” has that person really answered him? What makes the stone fall to the ground instead of it just sitting in mid air? This is where science meets philosophy. The scientists can say how a stone falls – thirty-two feet per second – but cannot tell anyone why it falls.

Whenever one asks “why” to a “how” they are asking about significance. Science must be able to offer significance to its claims if it is to be trusted at all. This is where scientific philosophy must take over. Science must have a philosophy of life. If it does not, then it cannot furnish anyone with any real information about anything at all. A statement of fact is not an explanation. It is the very thing that needs to be explained. In this way, science explains nothing at all.

Scientists have attempted to rid themselves of the dilemma that science explains nothing. Some embraced the mechanistic model to cover their tracks. This taught that the universe worked a certain way and as a result of this “mechanistic” model, universal laws could be established. However, can science establish the truth of anything? W. K. Clifford said, “it is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone, to believe anything upon insufficient evidence.” If this is true, then how can science possibly ascertain the sum total of a given “thing” (whatever that “thing” may be) in order to verify it? If science is contained in a laboratory setting, how can it possibly give universal laws of nature an absolutism? How can they possible describe how nature works as a whole? Actually, the scientists knows he cannot, but he gives his best guess. Guess? Yes, just a guess. Theories. Even in mathematical equations about a given “fact” the actual weight of an object or length of a measurement is never perfect. It is always plus or minus some amount, no matter how small that measurement may be. So science is never working with a perfect environment, not a universal environment. Can science tell men anything? Not really. Scientists simply choose from an infinite number of possibilities what they think is best for the situation at hand. If mathematical equations alone could describe nature, for instance, the chance that the scientist will choose the correct formulation is one in infinity (or zero). Therefore, in reality, all the laws of physics are false.

Because of this great conundrum of absolutes, science does not claim to have “absolute truth.” This is especially true of the 21st century secular thinker. If earlier scientists would have claimed to found absolute truth, and it was verified in some way, then science today would not continually be revamping laws and ideas to suit new information. Einstein’s law of relativity now replaces Newton’s law of inertia. Mechanistic determination, then, is not, nor ever was, based on scientific observation, but on some other a priori idea. This sounds more like philosophy 101 than science 101.

So science attempts to creates laws that are not really true to justify itself while it investigates the universe. Yet, even in these temporary ideas, the laws of physics, for example, do not describe how nature goes on. It just supplies men with some facts (some guesses) about what is going on right now. Operationalism attempted to prove the laws of nature and to erect scientific principles of nature and religion upon them. But as the mechanistic theories collapsed, so does Operationalism under the hard facts of guessing science. Really, all science does is lead to skepticism about everything.

Science leaves men guessing about the nature of the universe, and as a result, the philosophy of science collapses immediately. Operationalism is offered as the best guess science can offer. But this is nothing more than asking people to believe what some hope to be true, and cannot prove it, or ever prove it. Science, then, can never determine its own value because it cannot make any universal judgment about ultimate reality. Science does make “things” possible. Men have nuclear missiles to blow up other men. That is possible. But science cannot offer any explanation on why one should blow up other men or not. Can science determine that life should be extended as something good? Not at all. The only answer that is really available, since no empirical scientific conclusions can be made about anything, is to turn to a Christian philosophy of theism.

Even in the early Genesis narrative, culture has adopted agriculture, the arts, and industry. This is part of the cultural mandate to dominate the world for the glory of God. Science has its place in Christian theism, but it is subservient to the goal of humanity which is the glory of God. God demonstrates His power in the world through the message of His word and its affirmation in the miracles surrounding the ones He sends to proclaim that word. Science, offers no refutation, no satisfactory refutation, to exclude miracles. There is no scientific basis for the rejection of miracles at all. Any anti-Christian sentiments that rely on science will in a few years or decades be discarded for new one. This demonstrates the irresponsibility of science in its attempt to simply overthrow the Christian faith. If scientific laws really overthrew the Christian faith, then those laws (like Newton’s) would not crumble, ever. Whether or not science believes something now does not mean it will ever believe it in the future. How can science possibly be trusted? Anything that scientists find are not findings at all but simply formulations. Formulations mean nothing without objective truth behind what the formulations are trying to prove. Experimentation, then, never discovers how nature works. Einstein rightly said, as a secular scientist, “We know nothing about it [nature] at all. Our knowledge is but the knowledge of school children…We shall know a little more than we do now. But the real nature of things-that we shall never know, never.” From this point alone, Einstein would be right in stating that science can never disprove Christianity as false; never. Since science is always tentative, it has no basis for ultimate reality. Why do people hold to science then? Science, for secularism, attempts to fill a void that can only be spiritually filled by faith with something that they think is provably tangible. That is because most scientists are not philosophers and do not take time to figure out that science has no answers. Regardless of what science can do, it has no justifiable cause to do it. If it creates something that aids in human life, it has no reason, no basis at all that it should be used. Or if it synthesizes something that would be the destruction of mankind, like a super virus, it has no justification as to why it ought not to be used first on the inventor, and then on the rest of the populace. Science can never speak about ethics. They are putting the cart far before the horse!

Is science helpful? To those blessed by divine revelation who have all the non-contradictory and consistent answers to ultimate reality, of course it is. Laws do not need to be completely true in order to be useful. Newton’s laws gave birth to other laws. Newton’s laws were ultimately overthrown by newer “laws”. They were helpful, but in error.

Science is forever incapable of producing valid arguments against the existence of God. It is simply not in a secular humanist, or secular scientists power to do so. They have no valid arguments for arguing against miracles, supernatural revelation, or life in heaven or hell. Science is always false, but is often useful.

Review of Gordon Clark´s The Philosophy of Science and Belief in God

John W. Robbins

Gordon Clark is easily one of the most brilliant phi-losophers of the twentieth century. One of his best known works is, of course, his philosophy textbookThales to Dewey. His other works are less well known, but more important than Thales to Dewey, for they outline a philosophy so radically at odds with the thought of this or any other recent century that Clark demands a hearing.

Clark is a Christian, to be specific, a Calvinist. He is as thorough-going and as consistent a Christian as this writer has ever read. Those who are apt to dismiss Christian thinkers with a smirk as “mystics” or “whim-worshippers” or any other of a number of emotive words currently in vogue, commit what Ayn Rand has called the “argument from intimidation.” That argument, as Rand explains it, consists in saying that only those who are morally evil (or altruists, mystics, or Attilas) can fail to see that X’s work is nonsense or evil. Of course, the fact that Rand continually commits this fallacy is no reflection upon the astuteness of her observation that it is a fallacy.

The Philosophy of Science and Belief in God is a short and devastating book, devastating, that is, if one has placed one’s faith in science, not God. Itconsists of three chapters: “Antiquity and Motion,” “Newtonian Science,” and ‘‘The Twentieth Century.” In the first, Clark begins with Zeno’s paradoxes and discusses the various solutions attempted. The chapter concludes with Aristotle’s attempted solutions of the problems of motion in Physics (III, 1) and Metaphysics (Delta and Theta), all of which Clark exposes as circular. The failure of the best scientist of antiquity to explain motion does not encourage one trying to understand science, which deals primarily with motion.

Chapter two begins with Aristotle and teleologyand quickly moves to a consideration of the mechanists. Quoting A. J. Carlson, inter alia, Clark establishes the position which he deftly demolishes:

What is the method of science? In essence it is this—the rejection in toto of all non-observational and non-experimental authority in the field of experience. . . . When no evidence is produced [in favor of a pronouncement] other than personal dicta, past and present “revelations” in dreams, or the “voice of God,” the scientist can pay no attention whatsoever except to ask, How do they get that way? . . . The scientist tries to rid himself of all faiths and beliefs. He either knows or he does not know. If he knows, there is no room for faith or belief. If he does not know, he has no right to faith or belief.

I shall not take the reader through Clark’s brilliant demolition of the claim of science to discover and possess truth; let the reader, with all honesty and courage, read the arguments for himself.

Clark’s third chapter on twentieth century science neatly completes his attack on science as an epistemological and cognitive enterprise. He points out that all experimentation and the “facts” or “laws” induced therefrom involve the logical fallacy of asserting the consequent. He reminds us of the self-contradictory state of science, e. g., the theories of light. “Only by denying that science is cognitive can one justify the use of contradictory theories.” The famous “warfare” between science and the Bible has ended in a rout: scientific “truths” do not and cannot contradict the Bible because there are no scientific truths; there are only scientific theories. Scientific triumphs are not cognitive, but techno-logical; science is not true, it is useful. Christianity as a coherent system of revealed propositions has nothing to fear from the activities of scientists, for they are ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of truth.

Clark’s book is must reading for anyone who claims to be an intellectual. I recommend it unreservedly. [(Libertarian Review) Ed. note: This review was written in early 1974.]

Friday, May 25, 2012

Mercy, Not Justice!


Mercy, Not Justice

Encouragement and guidance for those
who have been treated unfairly and seek justice
By Jesus, speaking in prophecy

Download Audio (7.36MB)

Forgiveness. Is that one word painful for you to hear and so difficult to imagine? I understand.

I was beaten, tortured, ridiculed, stripped and nailed to a cross to suffer agony in death. I understand that you have no desire to give someone the gift of your forgiveness, when you feel that they are so undeserving, or when you have been denied that gift yourself.

Forgiveness is mercy, not justice. Forgiveness is never deserved, but when you give it to another, even when everything inside of you is screaming that you shouldn’t, only then can I forgive you.1 Forgiveness is choosing to leave things in My hands, to trust that I will bring justice, and to accept that all people do wrong—including you. That’s why I came and suffered and died, so that I could forgive you and redeem you eternally.

What good does forgiving do you? When you forgive someone, it’s no longer about the other person; something happens between you and Me, your Creator. I can then replace the feelings of anger and resentment that eat away at your heart with feelings of forgiveness. When you forgive someone, your heart opens and I can cleanse you and give you peace.

Forgiveness is a chance to do the right thing, regardless of what’s been done to you. A forgiving heart lights and warms you, even in the darkest and coldest of places.

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In this world, it’s natural to like your friends; it’s your obligation to watch out for your family; it’s your honor to protect your home and those who are loyal to you.

But, I tell you to love your enemies. Be kind to those who have mistreated you. Pray for those who have been unfair or set you up.2 For hate is a vengeful master, and will consume you in the end.

This is what I ask—forgiveness—that which is so difficult for your human nature in this world filled with hate. To forgive is My way. I am not of this world and My ways are not of this world.3

It is given to the hateful to be hated, to the vengeful to reap vengeance—and those who do not find it in their hearts to forgive will sadly be faced with the weight and depletion that bitterness brings.

So choose My way and give up the grudges and hatred. Forgive those who have wronged you and commit to Me the injustices that have been committed against you. For I am able to exchange your hatred for peace and give you the relief from pain that you have searched for.

In forgiveness I am able to make you complete. I am able to lift from you the burden of revenge. I want you to be at peace and have the fullness of spirit that only I can give, if you will forgive.

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Do you feel you’ve been mistreated? Do you feel justice passed you by, and that you were a victim of injustice? Whether or not you feel this way, and whether the injustices done to you were big or small, if you learn to trust in My love, you will find that I will give you peace to overcome, to forgive, and to put such experiences into My hands.

I am a just God, and I will make things right. You may not see it now, but believe Me when I say I will right the wrongs. You don’t need to take things into your own hands. If you do this, you are committing a wrong yourself, and two wrongs never make a right.

Even though people may fail, and some may be driven at times by ulterior motives of greed and hate and the lust for power, I am just. I am the Creator of all that is good. I am the Creator of right and justice. I know each person’s heart. I can see the motives. I can see why things were done. All of this is weighed and taken into account.4 And while all wrongs may not be made right immediately, or maybe not even in this life, I can, right now, start to turn everything that has happened to you into something good, something that benefits you, if you will put things into My hands.

Trust in My love, trust in My power, and trust in My justice. I am the Creator of all that is fair and right. By trusting in My love and having faith in Me, you will also come to see My hand in your life and understand the way I work. Even injustices and wrongs done to you can work together for good. If you don’t let hate and bitterness overcome you, you can become a better person through the difficulties and pain you may experience. Wings are often born out of weights.

Originally published 2006. Updated and republished May 2012.
Read by Stephen Larriva. Music by Michael Dooley.


1 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matthew 6:14–15).

2 Matthew 5:44.

3 For My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways My ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts (Isaiah 55:8–9).

4 God is the Judge: He puts down one, and exalts another (Psalm 75:7).

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