Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Are Facts Truth?

Facts do not speak for themselves.  Truth does not reside in facts as such.  Only fact plus meaning can be the basis for truth.  And the meaning does not arise naturally out of facts.  Rather, meaning is something attributed to facts from the outside.  It is necessary to presuppose a world view or framework within which a fact can have meaning.  Otherwise, one is left with bare, meaningless facticity.  Facts and experience may be the basis for meaning, but the data alone cannot provide what meaning should be given to it.  Unless the "stuff" of experience is structured by a meaning-model, then it is not possible to speak of the meaningfulness or truth of that system of interpretation.  One must indeed presuppose a metaphysical model of the universe before it is even possible to make ultimate truth claims.

Norman L. Geisler, Christian Apologetics, p.127

Monday, June 29, 2015

Skeptical About Reality?

The overall skeptical attempt to suspend all judgment about reality is self-refuting, since it implies a judgment about reality.  How else could on know that suspending all judgment about reality was the wisest choice, unless he knew indeed that reality was unknowable?

Norman L. Geisler, Christian Apologetics, p.22

Sunday, June 28, 2015

Who Controls the Future?

Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.

George Orwell

HT to The Looking Spoon

Friday, June 26, 2015

Entertainment Now Is Moral Authority

Film and [other] visual entertainment are a pervasively important part of our culture, an extremely significant influence on the way our society operates.  People in the film industry don't want to accept the responsibility that they had a hand in the way the world is loused up.  But, for better or worse, the influence of the church, which used to be all-powerful, has been usurped by film.  Films and television tell us the way we conduct our lives, what is right and wrong.  When Burt Reynolds is drunk on beer in Hooper and racing cops in his rocket car, that reinforces the recklessness of the kids who've been drawn to the movie in the first place and are probably sitting in the theater drinking beer.

George Lucas, cited by Ron Rhodes, The Culting of America, p.125

"Transgender" Is A LIE

Obviously Bruce Jenner is still a man, he’s DNA and biologically male, he’s not woman. It doesn’t matter whether you wear a wig or you grow your hair out and you have plastic surgery or you go through some kind of vocal shaving to change the pitch of voice — it doesn’t make any difference!

You’re still the person with which you were born…at birth you’re either male or female. You can’t change that. Although you might change your hairstyle and change your looks: you can change your appearance through surgery, it doesn’t change anything.

Mat Staver, Bruce Jenner Illustrates Sin, Not Change

Thursday, June 25, 2015

Who Raises Your Children?

When a child is passed from one caretaker to another, what kind of emotional bonding does that child experience (or not experience)?

How can values be passed on from parent to child when the dominant influences in a child's life are paid caretakers, television, and Nintendo games?

Since children model behavior from their parents, what kind of parents will the children themselves be when they grow up to adulthood?


Ron Rhodes, The Culting of America, p.56

Wednesday, June 24, 2015

America Is the Greatest Country

What should we tell out children?  We should say that America is the greatest country on earth, but it is not because Americans are brighter, more competent, stronger, or luckier than other people.  No, the credit must go elsewhere.  America is what she is because her founders chose to follow the Word of God.  America is as successful as she is because of the Christian system of values our founders implanted in this land.

Rabbi Daniel Lapin, "America's Real War," p.73


[America is fast throwing away this legacy as we become more and more corrupt with our government -- AND citizens.]

Tuesday, June 23, 2015

The Role of Government

Government was established by God to manifest and preserve His justice on earth.  This is government's central purpose; as such, the state should concentrate on enforcing justice and avoid meddling in other institutions' business.  Generally speaking, the church was ordained to manifest God's grace on earth, and the family to manifest God's community and creativity (including procreativity).  The government, then, as the institution of justice, should prohibit, prevent, prosecute, and punish injustice.  The church, as the institution of grace, should preach the gospel and be the chief vehicle of charitable aid to the needy.  And families should have chief responsibility for bearing, raising, and educating children, and for creating, possessing, and disposing of property.

Each of these institutions is limited by its own definition and by the other two.  Because government is an institution of justice, not of grace or community or creativity, it should not interfere with freedom of religion, attempt to dispense grace through tax-funded handouts, control family size, interfere with raising children (including education), or control the economy and the disposition of property.  Because the church is an institution of grace, not of justice or community or creativity, it should not attempt to control criminal law systems, to garner the support of the state for its work, or to control family size or business.  And because the family is an institution of community and creativity, it should not use government or the church for its own ends.

David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times, p.628

Monday, June 22, 2015

The Corrosion of Evil is Winning

Destructive and irresponsible freedom has been granted boundless space.  Society has turned out to have scarce defense against the abyss of human decadence, for example against the misuse of liberty for moral violence against young people, such as motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror.  This is all considered to be a part of freedom and to be counterbalanced, in theory, by the young people's right not to look and not to accept.  Life organized legalistically has thus shown its inability to defend itself against the corrosion of evil.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, cited by Phillip E. Johnson, The Right Questions: Truth, Meaning & Public Debate, p.162

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Margaret Sanger's Legacy

In her book Women and the New Race, Margaret Sanger asserted that "the most merciful thing a large family can do to one of its infant members is to kill it."  Today, Planned Parenthood's commitment to that philosophy is self-evident.  The organization is the world's number-one abortion provider.  It has aggressively fought the issue through the courts.  It has made killing infant members of large families its highest priority.  Bad seen brings forth bitter harvest.  The legacy continues.

George Grant, "Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood," p.63

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Darwinism Boosted Racism

Racism existed long before Darwin, of course, but Darwinism did radicalize racism in the late nineteenth century, providing scientific justification for racial inequality, racial competition, and even racial extermination.  In harmony with the rising tide of positivism and materialism, Darwinism also helped sweep aside ethical considerations, which had been a restraint on racial extermination (albeit not always very effective.).

Richard Weikart, From Darwin to Hitler, p.203

Friday, June 19, 2015

The Foundation Of Same-Sex Fake Marriage

The original mission of the homosexual-rights movement called for social tolerance.  Now it demands social approval through questioning the state's partiality toward heterosexual monogamy.  The movement bases its arguments on the twin dogmas of personal subjective relativism and absolute autonomy, upon which it seeks to build the foundation for same-sex marriage.

Francis J. Beckwith and Gregory Koukl, “Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air,” p.118

Thursday, June 18, 2015

Origin of Homosexual Feelings

What did the psychoanalysts learn that activists want us to forget?  That in the lives of their homosexual patients there was unusually often an emotional mismatch between the child and same-sex parent (such as a father who subtly or overtly rejects a son who has many "feminine" traits); or an emotional mismatch between the child and the opposite sex parent; or sexual abuse or a child by either the same sex or opposite sex parent; and most often the rejection of a child by same-sex peers.

Jeffrey Satinover, M.D., Homosexuality and the Politics of Truth, p.104

Wednesday, June 17, 2015

Sticks and Stones

Years ago, children used to have a playground chant: "Sticks and stones may break my bones but names'll never hurt me."  They knew the differences between insults and assaults.  But today the Psychology Industry is telling everyone that an angry word hurts like a bullet.  With psychologists' help, everyone can share the experience of victims and by doing so, can come to see themselves as victims.

Dr. Tana Dineen, Manufacturing Victims: What the Psychology Industry is Doing to People, p.62

Tuesday, June 16, 2015

Learn to Discern

Create a critical mass of people who cannot discern meaning and truth from nonsense, and you will have a society ready to fall for the first charismatic leader to come along.

Richard Terrell, Resurrecting the Third Reich, p. 176.  Cited by Erwin W. Lutzer, When A Nation Forgets God, p.82


Monday, June 15, 2015

It's NOT All About You

By concentrating day and night on your feelings, potentials, needs, wants and desires, and by learning to assert them more freely, you do not become a freer, more spontaneous, more creative self; you become a narrower, more self-centered, more isolated one.  You do not grow, you shrink.

Daniel Yankelovich, New Rules: Searching for Self-Fulfillment in a World Turned Upside Down, p.242.  Cited by Robertson McQuilkin, An Introduction to Biblical Ethics, p.271

Sunday, June 14, 2015

"Reproductive Rights"?

"Abortion rights" are not reproductive rights, but child-killing rights.

Randy Alcorn, "ProLife Answers to ProChoice Arguments," p.114

Saturday, June 13, 2015

It Isn't About Marriage

For homosexuals, this debate isn't even about marriage.  As data from countries with same-sex marriage show, approximately 96% of homosexuals don't get married when they are given the opportunity.  And those who do get married break up at a much higher rate than heterosexuals.

Since most homosexuals don't want to get married or stay married, then why are homosexual activists so adamant about government recognition of same-sex marriage?  Because same-sex marriage will win them what they really want -- validation and normalization.  In other words, the activists want same-sex marriage because they understand that government-backed same-sex marriage will validate and normalize homosexuality throughout society.

The key point here is "government-backed."  Homosexuals can already "marry" one another privately.  There is just no government provision for it.  Nothing is stopping homosexuals from pledging themselves to one another in private same-sex marriage ceremonies.  In fact, it is done all the time -- there is an entire cottage industry for gay weddings.

But that's not enough for homosexual activists.  What they want is government endorsement for their relationships.  They know that such endorsement will make homosexuality and their behavior appear just as normal as heterosexuality.  That's why the same-sex marriage movement has more to do with respect than rights.

Frank Turek, Correct, NOT Politically Correct, p. 10-11

Friday, June 12, 2015

Abortionists' Lies

We fed the public a line of deceit, dishonesty, a fabrication of statistics and figures.  We succeeded [in breaking down the laws limiting abortion] because the time was right and the news media cooperated.  We sensationalized the effects of illegal abortions, and fabricated polls which indicated that 85 percent of the public favored unrestricted abortion, when we knew it was only 5 percent.  We unashamedly lied, and yet our statements were quoted [by the media] as though they had been written in law.

Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, from an address to the Winnipeg League for Life, April 25, 1981.  cited by John Powell, S.J.,  Abortion: the Silent Holocaust, p.75

Thursday, June 11, 2015

No Discrimination Against Orientation

If sexual orientation were the only issue, there never would be an issue.  No one discriminates against other people on the basis of the particular sexual attractions a person might privately feel within himself.  It bears repeating:  Unless someone acts upon his orientation, or tells another person about it, there is no way that anyone would ever know.  . . . 

Those who oppose gay-rights legislation are not reacting in outrage to anyone's particular orientation, but only to the insistence that one be given an unlimited moral right to express that orientation sexually.  That's even more than society is willing to give heterosexuals!


F. LaGard Smith, Sodom's Second Coming, p.57

Wednesday, June 10, 2015

Slaves to Psychology

Today, Americans turn to psychological cures as reflexively as they once turned to God.  But our relationship to the psyche appears to have exceeded that of believers and become more like that of cult members.  And almost slavish devotion to psychological health and emotional problems dominates our culture.

Eva S. Moskowitz, In Therapy We Trust.  Cited by David Tyler & Kurt Grady, Deceptive Diagnosis: When SIN is called SICKNESS, p.59

Tuesday, June 9, 2015

Marriage and Family

[T]he purpose of marriage . . .  has always been to make the family secure, not to redefine what constitutes a family.  The family is a more fundamental social reality than a marriage, and so pretending that anything we call a marriage can create a family is misleading. . . .  By family, I mean a lasting, socially enforced obligation between a man and a woman that authorizes sexual congress and the supervision of children. . . .  There is no society where women alone care for each other and their children; there is non where fathers are not obligated to support their children and the mothers to whom they were born.  Not only do men need women, women need men.


James Q. Wilson, The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families, pp.24, 29.  Cited by Glenn T. Stanton and Dr. Bill Maier, Marriage on Trial: The Case Against Same-Sex Marriage and Parenting, p.23

Monday, June 8, 2015

Planned Parenthood's Lack of Ethics

Ninety-five percent of the women surveyed said that their Planned Parenthood counselors gave "little or no biological information about the fetus which the abortion would destroy."  Eighty percent said that their counselors gave "little or no information about the potential health risks which might follow the surgery."  Sixty-eight percent felt that "the procedure was not described with any degree of depth or clarity."  Eighty-nine percent said that their counselor was "strongly biased in favor of the abortion."  That is not exactly the kind of track record you would expect from those who proudly march under the banner of "choice." 

George Grant, Immaculate Deception: The Shifting Agenda of Planned Parenthood, p.57

Sunday, June 7, 2015

Guard Your Mind

I do not believe most Christians make a single willful decision to commit fornication.  Rather, it is a series of smaller decisions which allow for improper thinking to enter in.  Once the mind has been contaminated with impure thoughts and desires, it becomes much easier for us to make wrong decisions.

Josh McDowell and Dick Day, "Why Wait?" p.109

Saturday, June 6, 2015

Toxic Psychiatry

Hyperactivity is the most frequent justification for drugging children.  The difficult-to-control male is certainly not a new phenomenon, but attempts to give him a medical diagnosis are the product of modern psychology and psychiatry.  At first psychiatrists called hyperactivity a brain disease.  When no brain disease could be found, they changed it to "minimal brain disease" (MBD).  When no minimal brain disease could be found, the profession transformed the concept into "minimal brain dysfunction."  When no minimal brain dysfunction could be demonstrated, the label became attention deficit disorder.  Now it's just assumed to be a real disease, regardless of the failure to prove it so.  Biochemical imbalance is the code word, but there's no more evidence for that than there is for actual brain disease.

Peter Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry, p.278, Cited by David M. Tyler, Ph.D and Kurt P. Grady, Pharm.D,  ADHD: Deceptive Diagnosis, p. 82-83


Thursday, June 4, 2015

Ethics Is Obsolete

Ours is an age where ethics has become obsolete.  It is superceded by science, deleted by philosophy and dismissed as emotive by psychology.  It is drowned in compassion, evaporates into aesthetics and retreats before relativism.  The usual moral distinctions between good and bad are simply drowned in a maudlin emotion in which we feel more sympathy for the murderer than for the murdered, for the adulterer than for the betrayed, and in which we have actually begun to believe that the real guilty party, the one who somehow caused it all, is the victim, and not the perpetrator of the crime.

Robert E. Fitch, "The Obsolescence of Ethics," Christianity and Crisis: A Journal of Opinion, 19, no. 19 (November 16, 1959), 163-65. Cited by Ravi Zacharias in "The Real Face of Atheism," p.65-66

Wednesday, June 3, 2015

Marriage Defined

Marriage, N. [Fr. Marriage, from marrier, to marry, from mari, a husband; L. max, mari; Sp. Maridage.]  The act of uniting a man and woman for life; wedlock; the legal union of a man and woman for life.  Marriage is a contract both civil and religious, by which the parties engage to live together in mutual affection and fidelity, till death shall separate them.  Marriage was instituted by God himself for the purpose of preventing the promiscuous intercourse of the sexes, for promoting domestic felicity, and for securing the maintenance and education of children.

Noah Webster, "American Dictionary of the English Language," 1828

Tuesday, June 2, 2015

A Pill Won't Solve Everything

The biblical answers to your heart’s discomforts are not found in a pill.


Elyse Fitzpatrick & Laura Hendrickson, M.D., "Will Medicine Stop the Pain?", p.98

Monday, June 1, 2015

What Are "Gay Rights"?

"Gay rights" implies that homosexual people are suffering a wrong which should be righted.  But what is this oppression, this wrong, this injustice?  If it is that they are being despised and rejected by sections of society on account of their sexual inclination, are in fact victims of homophobia, they indeed they have a grievance which must be addressed.  For God opposes such discrimination and requires us to love and respect all human beings without distinction.  If, on the other hand, the "wrong" or "injustice" complained of is society's refusal to recognize homosexual partnerships as a legitimate alternative to heterosexual marriages, then talk of "justice" in inappropriate, since human beings may not claim as a "right" what God has not given them.

John Stott, Same-Sex Partnerships?: A Christian Perspective, p.56,57