Thursday, November 28, 2013
Sometimes Prophetic
There are times when God causes us to say things that turn out to be prophetic, in spite of ourselves. Such it seems was the case when I wrote the post for Nov. 9th, sarcastically lauding the "wonderful" accomplishment of our brilliant new Secretary of State, John Kerry, who had apparently negotiated a new treaty with Iran, that he assured us would stop Iran's advancing enrichment of plutonium into weapons grade material capable of producing sufficient nuclear arms to wipe Israel off the planet. I had heard a news report to this effect in passing, and I'm afraid my outrage got the better of me, and I published my post before I confirmed that the treaty was signed. Subsequently, the treaty is now reality, and Kerry can now rest assured that he will go down in history, along with Churchill's predecessor, Neville Chamberlain, who gave up Hungary, or Chekoslavakia to Hitler's enslavement, in order to ensure continued "world peace". But enslavement is not quite as bad as absolute genocidal holocaust, and Kerry's conscience must now face the possibility of having to answer to God for setting up His people for that risk. Well we know how Chamberlain's treaty worked out, and I'm sure the Israelis are suffering from a bad case of "Deja-Vu-all-over-again" ( to quote that wise old prophet, Yogi Berra). So now I feel a bit like a prophet myself, since God caused my premature sarcasm to eventually be appropriate for now. Only trouble is, I still have to look myself in the mirror, and I guess I don't look much like what I think a prophet should look like. So, I'll just give God all the glory, and try a little harder to verify my stories before posting comments, in the future.
Monday, November 11, 2013
Bibli-econ 101
In reflecting upon a series of posts that I wrote back in early 2009, which I called my "Stupid series" ( not to demean the content, but referring to the political adage, " It's the economy, Stupid..."), I came up with some interesting thoughts that I decided to share. They may seem outlandish based upon our present economic, and political reality, but I believe it should make for interesting discussion if anyone remembers that there is a "comments" button at the bottom of each post. If you make sincere and relevant comments, I will publish them, and perhaps comment back ( provided you are not trying to promote some anti-Christian cult, as happened recently).
These earlier posts were made to try to explain, Biblically, why the chaotic state of the economy would most likely doom the Democratic majority in Congress to wholesale losses in the coming 2010 elections, and also make President Obama's 2012 re-election unlikely, as well. So much for my new career as a political prognosticator! I couldn't fathom the American public being duped to the extent that we would re-elect the Bums who perpetuate this quagmire which has to end in the worst economic tragedy in history, if it is not brought under control soon. I guess my optimistic regard for the political acumen of the average citizen is tragically misplaced. It now seems we will have to depend entirely upon God's infinite capacity to care for, and provide for those who truly repent, in Jesus name, in the future economic disaster that may not be too far off. Thank God He is up to the task, but it's a shame we will have to experience a lot of the financial pain that now seems inevitable to me.
Anyway, in my old posts ( written in my now-defunct previous blog, which I recently cancelled permanently. If you now Google-up "The End-Times News Review" you will get a blank page with the title only on it.), I tried to describe the plan for economic activity that God revealed to the Israelites, the best that I could understand it. It is designed to automatically deflate the economy a little at a time, thereby eliminating the possibility of their economy having to suffer through the painful effects of a hyper-inflationary collapse such as historical evidence suggests the Roman empire may have dealt with as a consequence of Nero's tax-and-spend, and currency-inflating policies, and the record accounts for the similar collapse of the post-World War I German economy of the 1920's.
In my considering this plan, it occurred to me that this economy would not only protect the obedient individual, but it would tend to benefit small businesses who practiced it, while punishing the disobedient profligacy of the ancient equivalent of today's Multi-national Global Corporations. As the economy was designed to gradually deflate, it made it difficult to fund the rapid expansion of the rich ( i.e., corporations), which is generally accomplished through massive borrowed-capital investments ( massive borrowing would have been disastrous in a deflationary system). The rich would have survived, but only after defaulting on their massive debts, which would consequently have forced the liquidation of much of their assets. Eventually, those assets would be for sale at cheap prices, and the more prudent small business owners, and merchants of the day would have been the most likely people to have the funds to purchase them. This would accomplish two things: 1) it would be God's way of blessing the more prudent business practices of those who obediently applied His principles, while they gradually became the rich members of society; and, 2) it served as a painful, but not fatal lesson to the greedy, former rich business people, who thought massive borrowing was the best way to expand their business. If they chose to repent, and return to God's plan they could soon begin to prosper safely, but their previously greedy short-cut practices would continue to create the same result.
Today, we have an economy that runs completely opposite to God's plan. It is based upon massive borrowing ( called "financing") to build most of our businesses, with the result being massive corporate debt leaving our economy hanging by a thread, waiting for the next economic "bubble" to send us crashing into the next recession, with each successive recession probably more painful that the last, as consumer spending would be slower to recover from an attitude of emergiency-need-based-spending-only. But wait! To the rescue comes our "hero", the Fed! They move in with massive foreign-borrowed money to save the Banks that are "too-big-to-fail", which in turn loan money to the Global Corporations that are too indebted to them to allow them to fail, because then the Banks wouldn't get paid, and the Corporations would be forced to sell their valuable assets cheaply to the more frugal small businesses, which would be in the process of becoming the next major corporations through more wise and less greedy business practices ( such as expanding only through self-financing, using money from previous profits to turn back into the business, to create the opportunity for greater future profits. But this would crimp the style of the greedy Corporate C.E.O.'s, Directors, and Managers, who prefer to spend their company's profits on their own lavish lifestyles, and borrow the funds for expansion). But thanks to the Fed, the old, corrupt "Capitalistic" system is preserved, which does not in the least resemble the so-called "Free Enterprise" system that it claims to be. ( Please, spare me the old knee-jerk reaction to call me a "communist", just because I am not enamored with today's concept of "Capitalism".) It is "free" only to the Banks, and Global Corporations that the Fed protects, and it is paid for by the rest of us through suffering the Fed-driven inflation that they institute to pay off the interest to their foreign loans, which they borrowed to prop up the Banks, etc., that probably should have been liquidated into the hands of more responsible owners. True "Free Enterprise" would allow the greedy to fail, so their assets could be re-purchased cheaply by more frugal, smaller business owners, who could be trusted not to become the greedy corporate owners, and managers of the future, for fear that they might suffer the same consequences as their predecessors. But this would take the largest part of the economy out of the hands of the Bankers, who might have to make their living providing a service of protecting the money of their depositors, and making smaller, and safer loans to consumers, who would soon be able to buy houses and other assets more cheaply, because there would not be so much inflationary-borrowed money available to drive up the prices artificially.
Interestingly, it occurred to me that the Fed was created by Congress about the time of the Teddy Roosevelt anti-trust campaign which eventually broke up so many of the old "Robber Barons'" corporations. The likes of J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller saw their vast corporate holdings broken up into smaller companies ( but, they were compensated through the sales prices, so not suffering the financial losses of bankruptcy, they still maintained their wealthy power to influence the economy to their favor; hence the Fed was created to be run by wealthy Bankers, with the Fed's stock being owned by the Banks that were owned by these same "Robber Barons", to the ultimate protection of their Bank, and corporate holdings, at the expense of the average citizen, who was hurt the most by inflation.) What a brilliant plan to corrupt God's natural plan for allowing the economy to cleanse itself from Hyper-Greedy business practices, and steal the average man's desperate attempt to save, and prosper from his labors, in order to perpetuate their greedy ways! In God's economy, the greedy business owner may use greater riches to acquire more property, assets, subsidiary small businesses, and even more efficient competitor's businesses. But these very expansion acquisitions will only increase the profits in good economic times. When hard times hit, they tend to hit the bigger, less efficient businesses hardest. Soon the rich owner tires of paying the expenses of the unprofitable subsidiaries out of his own pocket, so he will seek to divest himself of the financial drag, and whomever buys it will likely run it more efficiently, and profitably. Even more efficient divestiture is through bankruptcy, after the rich guy hangs on too long to his inefficient businesses, and loses his shirt. That's how God would have the fat, inefficient corporations broken up, and sold to more efficient owners, at cheap prices. Not by government edict, when the former owner can sell the subsidiaries at reasonable prices, and maintain his wealthy power to continue his greedy practices once the economy rebounds. Without the automatic punishment of significant loss of wealth, there is no motivation for the greedy owner to change his ways, in the future.
These earlier posts were made to try to explain, Biblically, why the chaotic state of the economy would most likely doom the Democratic majority in Congress to wholesale losses in the coming 2010 elections, and also make President Obama's 2012 re-election unlikely, as well. So much for my new career as a political prognosticator! I couldn't fathom the American public being duped to the extent that we would re-elect the Bums who perpetuate this quagmire which has to end in the worst economic tragedy in history, if it is not brought under control soon. I guess my optimistic regard for the political acumen of the average citizen is tragically misplaced. It now seems we will have to depend entirely upon God's infinite capacity to care for, and provide for those who truly repent, in Jesus name, in the future economic disaster that may not be too far off. Thank God He is up to the task, but it's a shame we will have to experience a lot of the financial pain that now seems inevitable to me.
Anyway, in my old posts ( written in my now-defunct previous blog, which I recently cancelled permanently. If you now Google-up "The End-Times News Review" you will get a blank page with the title only on it.), I tried to describe the plan for economic activity that God revealed to the Israelites, the best that I could understand it. It is designed to automatically deflate the economy a little at a time, thereby eliminating the possibility of their economy having to suffer through the painful effects of a hyper-inflationary collapse such as historical evidence suggests the Roman empire may have dealt with as a consequence of Nero's tax-and-spend, and currency-inflating policies, and the record accounts for the similar collapse of the post-World War I German economy of the 1920's.
In my considering this plan, it occurred to me that this economy would not only protect the obedient individual, but it would tend to benefit small businesses who practiced it, while punishing the disobedient profligacy of the ancient equivalent of today's Multi-national Global Corporations. As the economy was designed to gradually deflate, it made it difficult to fund the rapid expansion of the rich ( i.e., corporations), which is generally accomplished through massive borrowed-capital investments ( massive borrowing would have been disastrous in a deflationary system). The rich would have survived, but only after defaulting on their massive debts, which would consequently have forced the liquidation of much of their assets. Eventually, those assets would be for sale at cheap prices, and the more prudent small business owners, and merchants of the day would have been the most likely people to have the funds to purchase them. This would accomplish two things: 1) it would be God's way of blessing the more prudent business practices of those who obediently applied His principles, while they gradually became the rich members of society; and, 2) it served as a painful, but not fatal lesson to the greedy, former rich business people, who thought massive borrowing was the best way to expand their business. If they chose to repent, and return to God's plan they could soon begin to prosper safely, but their previously greedy short-cut practices would continue to create the same result.
Today, we have an economy that runs completely opposite to God's plan. It is based upon massive borrowing ( called "financing") to build most of our businesses, with the result being massive corporate debt leaving our economy hanging by a thread, waiting for the next economic "bubble" to send us crashing into the next recession, with each successive recession probably more painful that the last, as consumer spending would be slower to recover from an attitude of emergiency-need-based-spending-only. But wait! To the rescue comes our "hero", the Fed! They move in with massive foreign-borrowed money to save the Banks that are "too-big-to-fail", which in turn loan money to the Global Corporations that are too indebted to them to allow them to fail, because then the Banks wouldn't get paid, and the Corporations would be forced to sell their valuable assets cheaply to the more frugal small businesses, which would be in the process of becoming the next major corporations through more wise and less greedy business practices ( such as expanding only through self-financing, using money from previous profits to turn back into the business, to create the opportunity for greater future profits. But this would crimp the style of the greedy Corporate C.E.O.'s, Directors, and Managers, who prefer to spend their company's profits on their own lavish lifestyles, and borrow the funds for expansion). But thanks to the Fed, the old, corrupt "Capitalistic" system is preserved, which does not in the least resemble the so-called "Free Enterprise" system that it claims to be. ( Please, spare me the old knee-jerk reaction to call me a "communist", just because I am not enamored with today's concept of "Capitalism".) It is "free" only to the Banks, and Global Corporations that the Fed protects, and it is paid for by the rest of us through suffering the Fed-driven inflation that they institute to pay off the interest to their foreign loans, which they borrowed to prop up the Banks, etc., that probably should have been liquidated into the hands of more responsible owners. True "Free Enterprise" would allow the greedy to fail, so their assets could be re-purchased cheaply by more frugal, smaller business owners, who could be trusted not to become the greedy corporate owners, and managers of the future, for fear that they might suffer the same consequences as their predecessors. But this would take the largest part of the economy out of the hands of the Bankers, who might have to make their living providing a service of protecting the money of their depositors, and making smaller, and safer loans to consumers, who would soon be able to buy houses and other assets more cheaply, because there would not be so much inflationary-borrowed money available to drive up the prices artificially.
Interestingly, it occurred to me that the Fed was created by Congress about the time of the Teddy Roosevelt anti-trust campaign which eventually broke up so many of the old "Robber Barons'" corporations. The likes of J.P. Morgan, Andrew Carnegie, Vanderbilt, and John D. Rockefeller saw their vast corporate holdings broken up into smaller companies ( but, they were compensated through the sales prices, so not suffering the financial losses of bankruptcy, they still maintained their wealthy power to influence the economy to their favor; hence the Fed was created to be run by wealthy Bankers, with the Fed's stock being owned by the Banks that were owned by these same "Robber Barons", to the ultimate protection of their Bank, and corporate holdings, at the expense of the average citizen, who was hurt the most by inflation.) What a brilliant plan to corrupt God's natural plan for allowing the economy to cleanse itself from Hyper-Greedy business practices, and steal the average man's desperate attempt to save, and prosper from his labors, in order to perpetuate their greedy ways! In God's economy, the greedy business owner may use greater riches to acquire more property, assets, subsidiary small businesses, and even more efficient competitor's businesses. But these very expansion acquisitions will only increase the profits in good economic times. When hard times hit, they tend to hit the bigger, less efficient businesses hardest. Soon the rich owner tires of paying the expenses of the unprofitable subsidiaries out of his own pocket, so he will seek to divest himself of the financial drag, and whomever buys it will likely run it more efficiently, and profitably. Even more efficient divestiture is through bankruptcy, after the rich guy hangs on too long to his inefficient businesses, and loses his shirt. That's how God would have the fat, inefficient corporations broken up, and sold to more efficient owners, at cheap prices. Not by government edict, when the former owner can sell the subsidiaries at reasonable prices, and maintain his wealthy power to continue his greedy practices once the economy rebounds. Without the automatic punishment of significant loss of wealth, there is no motivation for the greedy owner to change his ways, in the future.
Saturday, November 9, 2013
Whoopee!!! Iran Has "Seen The Light"!?! And The World Is Safe!
Ain't it great what International Diplomacy can accomplish!!! After years of worrying over those insane terrorists who run Iran actually developing their Nuclear Missile capacity, we now have the assurance of the international diplomatic corps of America and our N.A.T.O. allies that the years of economic sanctions have finally worn down Iran's intransigence, and they are finally willing to negotiate a treaty. The only catch is that any treaty will not stop Iran from further developing their "peaceful development, and use of nuclear technology for electrical energy production". Of course their definition of this clause does not strictly prohibit the total nuclear annihilation of the entire nation of Israel, but that's okay because they are convinced that God hates Israel, and that all Jews are really descended "from apes and pigs" so they really are of no more significance than making a ham sandwich!
But the sticking point is this terribly unreasonable attitude of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu. I just don't get this guy... right when we are about to settle on a treaty, that will end many of the sanctions for Iran, he has the audacity to denounce the whole process as being, "a really bad deal". I mean what does this guy want? He knows that it is traditional for international diplomacy to settle for compromises when one, or both parties in a heated dispute remain intransigent. That's exactly what would be done here. Iran would "settle" for the lifting of economic sanctions in exchange for agreeing to keep doing exactly what they have been doing, and have fully intended to continue doing all along. In return, one supposes that the international diplomats will "settle" for the minor indiscretion of the total nuclear annihilation of the nation of Israel. And I suppose they will consider the collateral damage of the wiping-out of the Arab populations of the Gaza strip, and the Palestinian territory, and perhaps the nation of Jordan, and other Israeli neighbors as acceptable. I guess nuclear explosions are hard to contain within recognized borders. After all the only thing that matters is that the diplomats can go home and proudly proclaim that the world is now safe, because a treaty has been signed! And I guess it doesn't matter to them that after Iran wipes out Israel, their next goal would certainly be to develop more powerful missiles that would be capable of carrying their nuclear warheads across the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic Ocean in order to wipe out their second most hated enemy, America!!! But that's okay because we will have ourselves a nice new international treaty! Yip, Yip, Yahoo and Hooray!
Thank God for the wisdom of Secretary of State John Kerry, and the State Department diplomats who pulled this off, along with our European allies from N.A.T.O.! What would we ever do without them. I guess they are prepared to spend the next thousand years in some nuclear fallout shelter, in Arkansas, ( or wherever) along with our beloved Muslim President, who figures he can run the whole Muslim world from his underground tomb.
But, who cares! Whoopee, we got ourselves a brand new treaty!!!
[Can anybody sense just a little bit of sarcasm here?]
But the sticking point is this terribly unreasonable attitude of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Natanyahu. I just don't get this guy... right when we are about to settle on a treaty, that will end many of the sanctions for Iran, he has the audacity to denounce the whole process as being, "a really bad deal". I mean what does this guy want? He knows that it is traditional for international diplomacy to settle for compromises when one, or both parties in a heated dispute remain intransigent. That's exactly what would be done here. Iran would "settle" for the lifting of economic sanctions in exchange for agreeing to keep doing exactly what they have been doing, and have fully intended to continue doing all along. In return, one supposes that the international diplomats will "settle" for the minor indiscretion of the total nuclear annihilation of the nation of Israel. And I suppose they will consider the collateral damage of the wiping-out of the Arab populations of the Gaza strip, and the Palestinian territory, and perhaps the nation of Jordan, and other Israeli neighbors as acceptable. I guess nuclear explosions are hard to contain within recognized borders. After all the only thing that matters is that the diplomats can go home and proudly proclaim that the world is now safe, because a treaty has been signed! And I guess it doesn't matter to them that after Iran wipes out Israel, their next goal would certainly be to develop more powerful missiles that would be capable of carrying their nuclear warheads across the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic Ocean in order to wipe out their second most hated enemy, America!!! But that's okay because we will have ourselves a nice new international treaty! Yip, Yip, Yahoo and Hooray!
Thank God for the wisdom of Secretary of State John Kerry, and the State Department diplomats who pulled this off, along with our European allies from N.A.T.O.! What would we ever do without them. I guess they are prepared to spend the next thousand years in some nuclear fallout shelter, in Arkansas, ( or wherever) along with our beloved Muslim President, who figures he can run the whole Muslim world from his underground tomb.
But, who cares! Whoopee, we got ourselves a brand new treaty!!!
[Can anybody sense just a little bit of sarcasm here?]
Wednesday, November 6, 2013
Venting My Spleen, Biblically
This past weekend I experienced a dilemma that I consider to be an intolerable invasion of my editorial rights concerning this Blog. From the beginning of my writing, back in December of 2008, when I began to write the predecessor to this present Blog (called "The End-Times News Review", which is generally listed on the same Google page as this one but a few listings below it), I determined to keep this as my Personal Opinion Blog. I am not an expert in Biblical Eschatology ( the study of Prophecy), I am not the Pastor of a church, I don't even have a degree from a Bible college. Therefor, technically speaking, I have no credibility to even express the opinions that I do, if I am trying to convince my readers of my ultimate authoritative correctness. And so I endeavor not to do so, as I don't wish this Blog to be so much about my personality as it is about the issues I discuss. As the heading suggests, I am depending upon the basic Biblical knowledge of the readers to easily discern my correctness, or not, and to agree or disagree with me as they choose. It is not as important to me to convince the skeptic as it is to simply point out to the believers who read my Blog the various news items that may, or may not serve as minor, or partial revelations from God that He is gradually setting up the conditions in the world today that are necessary for His Prophecies to eventually come to pass. As far as the skeptics are concerned, I'll leave them up to the Holy Spirit to provoke them to jealousy of the faith that I, and presumably the majority of my readers have in the inevitability of all of God's prophecies eventually being fulfilled. I certainly do hope that my reasoning might have some small part in leading the skeptics to faith in Jesus Christ, as their Lord and Savior, but that is not the main purpose of my Blog. There are probably millions of Pastors, and Evangelists out there that can do a much better job of it than I can, so I have determined not to overtly try to do that which I am not qualified to do. But I am concerned that our busy lifestyles might cause some sincere, devout Christians to simply miss some news item that seems of minimal interest to the non-believers, but under careful Biblical examination might reveal some gem of information pointing to the eventual fulfillment of some End-Times prophecy. If this also tends to provoke the Biblical curiosity of the former skeptic, so be it, and praise the Lord! It'll be to His Glory, and not mine!
On the other hand, as this is somewhat a "labor of love" for me, and it is almost an exclusive expression of my personal opinions ( excepting the Bible quotes, which are almost the same thing), I take offense when someone tries to latch onto my expressed opinion in order to promote a lie which I have not, and would not ever endorse. Such was the case this past weekend, and my blood is still boiling over the subtle audacity that obviously was entailed.
As I've said since I am not a qualified, or ordained preacher, I would never consider trying to set up a non-profit ministry in order to raise the funds necessary to live on, in order to make this my full-time occupation, which it is almost anyway ( even without any Funding). First of all I couldn't find any respectable Board members, to serve as my Biblical, business and financial guides, as they couldn't reasonably trust me to not write anything that would reflect badly on their own reputations ( as implicit endorsers of my unqualified preaching, and I'm not about to spend the necessary time to get a degree from a seminary or Bible college so I can get ordained, in order to write the opinions that I already am). That said, I have grown fond of being able to put food on the table, and being able to sleep under a roof at night. So, I have been trying to establish an advertising arrangement with Google Adsense in which they would pay me small fees to run inoffensive ads on my Blog. Frequent readers should already have seen many of the ads that have been running for the last couple of months. Unfortunately, I have been unable to receive any payment as my considerable computer illiteracy has kept me from being able to connect my Adsense "Ad Code" to the proper spot on my Blog, which requires a familiarity with the HTML computer language. This final step in the process has eluded me, in spite of my dogged efforts. Meanwhile Google has been running ads on my Blog, technically without my permission, since the payment procedure is incomplete. I haven't minded, as I considered this to be a temporary situation, though it has dragged on to infuriating lengths. My main concern was that I reserved the right to edit the choice of ads that were shown on my Blog. This was the case when I found ads that I considered to be inappropriate; they always had an "x" in the corner that I could "click" to remove. That is until this past weekend!
To my outrage I discovered an ad was being run on my Blog that said, "Mormons believe in Jesus as Savior". I acknowledge that this may be true with some Mormons, but then by definition they could not truthfully call themselves "Mormons" any more. The most central doctrine of the Mormon faith, as I understand it is that they consider the "Book Of Mormon" to be the most accurate revelation of God's word, supplanting even the Bible in authority whenever there is a contradiction in the stated principles of each, which are considerable, and frequent. This is an inexcusable contradiction in the authority of the Bible for any true Christian believer, and there is no denying that. The Bible expressly forbids anyone from intentionally changing the text that was given by God to His people, complete with an explicit curse the He pronounced upon those who intentionally do so. God said in the last chapter of the book of Revelation that anyone who would, "add unto", or detract from the words of the prophecy of this book ( Revelation), that God would take away their part in the book of life ( meaning their eternal salvation). I know how "judgmental" that sounds, but it is not me that has pronounced the judgment, but God Himself. And God is the only one who has the legitimate right to judge any of us. We can merely accept His standards, or rebel, and I've made my choice! Therefor if I were to allow that ad, with it's blatant lie to continue to be shown on my Blog, I would be indirectly guilty of an implicit endorsement of that lie. I will not do that!!!
Unfortunately, though I've come to suspect lately that it was intentional, I found that this ad was the only one I've seen on my Blog without an "x" in the corner so that it might be rejected if I didn't approve. As I've said, I suspect that whoever placed the ad knew that it would be offensive to Bible-believing Christians, and that I could be expected to try to reject it. Therefor I suppose that they may have specifically requested ( perhaps for an additional fee) that the rejection "x" not be allowed on their ad. This I found to be an intolerable violation of my editorial rights to protect the content of my Blog, for which I have the sole legal copyright authority, not them!!! But lacking the capacity to edit the ad, I was left with the only alternative, which was to cancel the ads altogether ( though they have since been restored).
My intent was to ad an advertising capacity to my Blog in which it was obvious to my readers that I didn't necessarily agree with everything that was promoted thereon, but that I had absolutely no intention of allowing the blatant promotion of anti-Christian doctrine on my blog, nor was I ever going to forfit my editorial rights to any third party to manipulate my expressed opinions to imply something other than what I have said!!! To expect me to do so unwillingly is nothing less than a clear violation of my First Amendment Constitutional rights of Freedom of Expression, and Freedom of Religeon! And in this case at least, that, "shall not be abridged"!
NOTE TO BRIAN:
I chose to edit your comment out not because it was bad, but because it was dead wrong. I'm sorry you have chosen to believe a lie; I'm sure you are sincere, but that doesn't change the facts. If you care to argue the point by further commenting, then you can leave your E-mail address and I will respond further, but I won't use this format to argue the point further. Let me just make a few points from my perspective: 1) Why is it that the heavenly angels mentioned in the Bible have names ending in "el"( a suffix which means "of God" in Hebrew) which He obviously chose to distinguish His angels from those fallen angels of Satan, which we refer to as demons, but in Joseph Smith's case He is supposed to have sent an "angel" named Moroni to deliver the "revelation" of the book of Mormon. That seems rather Moronic to me! There is no one in heaven, or on earth throughout history that is more meticulously consistent than God. Yet He didn't give this angel a name that followed the pattern ( i.e., "Gabriel", and "Michael"); it doesn't fit. Perhaps that "angel" works for the other side? After all, Satan's very name means, "the deceiver", and Jesus said the Satan has the power to appear as an angel of light; 2) The Ummim, and the Thumim were used by the Temple High Priest ( and he alone) to cast as lots before God to determine between two choices that they wished God to use to direct the decision process for the children of Israel. Nowhere does the Bible describe them as being instruments of major divination, such as supposedly in revealing the whole book of Mormon; 3) When Jesus left this earth, in His Ascension, from the mount of Olives, the true angels told His disciples that He would return again the same way. We have record that He will touch down upon His return exactly on the mount of Olives. Nowhere does it say that he will come back first to Utah, and pronounce that the local American Indian tribes are descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel. 4) Nowhere in the Bible does it say that when we go to heaven we will be changed into heavenly angels; in fact the Bible makes it very clear that we are entirely different creations from the angels; our corrupt bodies will be changed into heavenly bodies, but that is different from the angelic beings. Here are just a few inconsistencies with the book of Mormon, versus the Bible, which can not be reconciled without choosing one version over the other. Yet you say that the book of Mormon is not thought to "supplant" the Bible. Perhaps not, but it is considered to supercede the Bible in that when there is an apparent discrepancy the book of Mormon is considered to be more correct than the Bible. This amounts to a changing of the Biblical account, which is cursed of God in Revelation 18, through 21. And if Joseph Smith is guilty of changing the Biblical account, guess where that leaves him? So, your choice is simple: believe in his lies, which puts you in ultimately his same dangerous position; or recognize the truth of the Bible. You can't have it both ways when there is clear contradiction. Choose one way, or the other!
[ On the outside chance that you may be the very person who placed the ad in question on this Blog, let me say that your efforts have been largely dismissed, and the remainder will be soon. Immediately after writing this post I clicked over to my original Blog, which I have referred to above. Surprise, surprise!!! Guess what advertisement appeared on my screen?!! At least it appeared when I merely clicked the Blog. After I signed in as the Publisher, and then went back to my last post, it was discreetly gone without my efforts to remove it yet. That sounds like someone is manipulating it so I won't remove it. Well, since I don't post on that Blog very often any more, I'll let it stay temporarily as I need to do some things before I'm ready to cancel the whole Blog. But your, or whomever's, message will not reach too many pageviewers in the meantime, so the effort is essentially in vain! UPDATE: I have now saved my archive for future reference, and have cancelled my original Blog: "The End-Times News Review". I did this mostly because I was dissatisfied with the Server's quality of service, including running their ads on my Blog for years without asking my permission, or paying me a single penny for the privilege ( Kind of like Adsense has been doing on this blog for the last couple of months. There seems to be no end to the number of people who are dying to take advantage of the computer illiterate, as I am, unfortunately. Anyway, now "Mormons.org" can advertise all they want to on a blank page, and see how many they can get to swallow their deception!]
On the other hand, as this is somewhat a "labor of love" for me, and it is almost an exclusive expression of my personal opinions ( excepting the Bible quotes, which are almost the same thing), I take offense when someone tries to latch onto my expressed opinion in order to promote a lie which I have not, and would not ever endorse. Such was the case this past weekend, and my blood is still boiling over the subtle audacity that obviously was entailed.
As I've said since I am not a qualified, or ordained preacher, I would never consider trying to set up a non-profit ministry in order to raise the funds necessary to live on, in order to make this my full-time occupation, which it is almost anyway ( even without any Funding). First of all I couldn't find any respectable Board members, to serve as my Biblical, business and financial guides, as they couldn't reasonably trust me to not write anything that would reflect badly on their own reputations ( as implicit endorsers of my unqualified preaching, and I'm not about to spend the necessary time to get a degree from a seminary or Bible college so I can get ordained, in order to write the opinions that I already am). That said, I have grown fond of being able to put food on the table, and being able to sleep under a roof at night. So, I have been trying to establish an advertising arrangement with Google Adsense in which they would pay me small fees to run inoffensive ads on my Blog. Frequent readers should already have seen many of the ads that have been running for the last couple of months. Unfortunately, I have been unable to receive any payment as my considerable computer illiteracy has kept me from being able to connect my Adsense "Ad Code" to the proper spot on my Blog, which requires a familiarity with the HTML computer language. This final step in the process has eluded me, in spite of my dogged efforts. Meanwhile Google has been running ads on my Blog, technically without my permission, since the payment procedure is incomplete. I haven't minded, as I considered this to be a temporary situation, though it has dragged on to infuriating lengths. My main concern was that I reserved the right to edit the choice of ads that were shown on my Blog. This was the case when I found ads that I considered to be inappropriate; they always had an "x" in the corner that I could "click" to remove. That is until this past weekend!
To my outrage I discovered an ad was being run on my Blog that said, "Mormons believe in Jesus as Savior". I acknowledge that this may be true with some Mormons, but then by definition they could not truthfully call themselves "Mormons" any more. The most central doctrine of the Mormon faith, as I understand it is that they consider the "Book Of Mormon" to be the most accurate revelation of God's word, supplanting even the Bible in authority whenever there is a contradiction in the stated principles of each, which are considerable, and frequent. This is an inexcusable contradiction in the authority of the Bible for any true Christian believer, and there is no denying that. The Bible expressly forbids anyone from intentionally changing the text that was given by God to His people, complete with an explicit curse the He pronounced upon those who intentionally do so. God said in the last chapter of the book of Revelation that anyone who would, "add unto", or detract from the words of the prophecy of this book ( Revelation), that God would take away their part in the book of life ( meaning their eternal salvation). I know how "judgmental" that sounds, but it is not me that has pronounced the judgment, but God Himself. And God is the only one who has the legitimate right to judge any of us. We can merely accept His standards, or rebel, and I've made my choice! Therefor if I were to allow that ad, with it's blatant lie to continue to be shown on my Blog, I would be indirectly guilty of an implicit endorsement of that lie. I will not do that!!!
Unfortunately, though I've come to suspect lately that it was intentional, I found that this ad was the only one I've seen on my Blog without an "x" in the corner so that it might be rejected if I didn't approve. As I've said, I suspect that whoever placed the ad knew that it would be offensive to Bible-believing Christians, and that I could be expected to try to reject it. Therefor I suppose that they may have specifically requested ( perhaps for an additional fee) that the rejection "x" not be allowed on their ad. This I found to be an intolerable violation of my editorial rights to protect the content of my Blog, for which I have the sole legal copyright authority, not them!!! But lacking the capacity to edit the ad, I was left with the only alternative, which was to cancel the ads altogether ( though they have since been restored).
My intent was to ad an advertising capacity to my Blog in which it was obvious to my readers that I didn't necessarily agree with everything that was promoted thereon, but that I had absolutely no intention of allowing the blatant promotion of anti-Christian doctrine on my blog, nor was I ever going to forfit my editorial rights to any third party to manipulate my expressed opinions to imply something other than what I have said!!! To expect me to do so unwillingly is nothing less than a clear violation of my First Amendment Constitutional rights of Freedom of Expression, and Freedom of Religeon! And in this case at least, that, "shall not be abridged"!
NOTE TO BRIAN:
I chose to edit your comment out not because it was bad, but because it was dead wrong. I'm sorry you have chosen to believe a lie; I'm sure you are sincere, but that doesn't change the facts. If you care to argue the point by further commenting, then you can leave your E-mail address and I will respond further, but I won't use this format to argue the point further. Let me just make a few points from my perspective: 1) Why is it that the heavenly angels mentioned in the Bible have names ending in "el"( a suffix which means "of God" in Hebrew) which He obviously chose to distinguish His angels from those fallen angels of Satan, which we refer to as demons, but in Joseph Smith's case He is supposed to have sent an "angel" named Moroni to deliver the "revelation" of the book of Mormon. That seems rather Moronic to me! There is no one in heaven, or on earth throughout history that is more meticulously consistent than God. Yet He didn't give this angel a name that followed the pattern ( i.e., "Gabriel", and "Michael"); it doesn't fit. Perhaps that "angel" works for the other side? After all, Satan's very name means, "the deceiver", and Jesus said the Satan has the power to appear as an angel of light; 2) The Ummim, and the Thumim were used by the Temple High Priest ( and he alone) to cast as lots before God to determine between two choices that they wished God to use to direct the decision process for the children of Israel. Nowhere does the Bible describe them as being instruments of major divination, such as supposedly in revealing the whole book of Mormon; 3) When Jesus left this earth, in His Ascension, from the mount of Olives, the true angels told His disciples that He would return again the same way. We have record that He will touch down upon His return exactly on the mount of Olives. Nowhere does it say that he will come back first to Utah, and pronounce that the local American Indian tribes are descended from the ten lost tribes of Israel. 4) Nowhere in the Bible does it say that when we go to heaven we will be changed into heavenly angels; in fact the Bible makes it very clear that we are entirely different creations from the angels; our corrupt bodies will be changed into heavenly bodies, but that is different from the angelic beings. Here are just a few inconsistencies with the book of Mormon, versus the Bible, which can not be reconciled without choosing one version over the other. Yet you say that the book of Mormon is not thought to "supplant" the Bible. Perhaps not, but it is considered to supercede the Bible in that when there is an apparent discrepancy the book of Mormon is considered to be more correct than the Bible. This amounts to a changing of the Biblical account, which is cursed of God in Revelation 18, through 21. And if Joseph Smith is guilty of changing the Biblical account, guess where that leaves him? So, your choice is simple: believe in his lies, which puts you in ultimately his same dangerous position; or recognize the truth of the Bible. You can't have it both ways when there is clear contradiction. Choose one way, or the other!
[ On the outside chance that you may be the very person who placed the ad in question on this Blog, let me say that your efforts have been largely dismissed, and the remainder will be soon. Immediately after writing this post I clicked over to my original Blog, which I have referred to above. Surprise, surprise!!! Guess what advertisement appeared on my screen?!! At least it appeared when I merely clicked the Blog. After I signed in as the Publisher, and then went back to my last post, it was discreetly gone without my efforts to remove it yet. That sounds like someone is manipulating it so I won't remove it. Well, since I don't post on that Blog very often any more, I'll let it stay temporarily as I need to do some things before I'm ready to cancel the whole Blog. But your, or whomever's, message will not reach too many pageviewers in the meantime, so the effort is essentially in vain! UPDATE: I have now saved my archive for future reference, and have cancelled my original Blog: "The End-Times News Review". I did this mostly because I was dissatisfied with the Server's quality of service, including running their ads on my Blog for years without asking my permission, or paying me a single penny for the privilege ( Kind of like Adsense has been doing on this blog for the last couple of months. There seems to be no end to the number of people who are dying to take advantage of the computer illiterate, as I am, unfortunately. Anyway, now "Mormons.org" can advertise all they want to on a blank page, and see how many they can get to swallow their deception!]
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